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Alicia leaned against the beige cinder block wall a few feet from the locker room entrance. The urgency in Giselle's voice scared her. Whatever she needed to say couldn't be shared in the arena. Alicia clutched her practice stick tight in both hands. Breathe in, breathe out. She rounded the corner and tugged open the door just two-thirds of a smidge. She peered around the corner of the door praying to find at least one other person. No sign of her bags near her locker. Nothing on the bench where she and Sabrina talked before their match. Alicia's match, anyway. I'm so sorry, Sabrina. The Hard Times graduate would visit her alma mater on Monday; Sabrina wouldn't miss a day at the office for anything less than a compound fracture. Even then, it would depend on the bone.
A footfall down the corridor snapped the trembling, exhausted wrestler's attention over her left shoulder. A few seconds later, she heard echoes of some chatter–something about "gobos." Production crew, most likely. Alicia turned her attention back to the locker room. Alicia dollied her head around the door like a boom camera, sweeping the rest of the room through the slit in the door. Thank goodness. Warm bodies. She could breathe. For a moment, she could let her guard down. Into the locker room.
There was her equipment bag against the wall between her locker and the door. No sign of her gym bag–except in her locker. Through the steel mesh, she saw the white and mauve nylon bag sitting inside the bottom of the locker. The rookie turned to the pair of wrestlers sitting on the middle bench across the room. "Hi, I'm just here picking up my stuff. I'm Alicia." She recognized the pair: Kat Cable and Tracy "Trace" Roote, the duo of no-DQ street fight specialists known as I.T. Factor. Tracy looked up with a neutral expression on her face. With an average height and build, no visible tattoos or piercings, and a quiet disposition, the wrestler in the ill-fitting polo shirt and khakis put a great deal of effort into presenting herself as unassuming. One look at her knuckles, though, told the real story. The fair skin peaked and troughed like a topographical map of scar tissue spanning both fists. Kat looked similarly unimpressed. Short, heavy-set, and sturdy, she had been a menace on the rugby field before giving it all up to menace the tech field. She fit right in at QoW.
Unlike her partner, the supervisor of I.T. Factor commanded attention–and it wasn't just the button-down and tie. Bright green streaks popped against a head of straightened black hair that hung a few inches below the shoulder. A full sleeve of tattoos written in some sort of computer code spanned both of Kat's arms, and a face full of piercings stood out against her rich brown complexion, the most outstanding of which was a thick, silvery septum piercing in the shape of the Greek letter omega. "We know you," remarked Kat, staring back. They weren't hired for their people skills.
Silence hung in the air like a fart. "Oh! Great!" sputtered Alicia, trying to light a conversational match with no matchbook. "Hey, did you see anyone touch my stuff?"
"The stuff that's locked in your locker? No, I haven't seen anyone touch it," the supervisor deadpanned back. Alicia really appreciated the sarcasm.
With a quiet nod and a smile, the rookie popped open the combination lock, snatched up her gym and hockey bags, and sped out the door at a walk-run before she accidentally kicked off another blood feud. She maintained a hurried, embarrassing gait through the corridor all the way back to where she could see the star dressing rooms. Around the corner at the other end of the corridor, Alicia thought she heard someone shouting in anger or annoyance, although she couldn't hear anyone responding. The source of the shouting turned the corner. He was tall, thin, and the personification of visual noise: a worryingly pale man with curly, dyed-white hair down to his back. He wore royal blue and silver Lycra bell-bottoms, a white leather jacket with long, dangling tassels on the arms that resembled bird wings, bright yellow shutter shades, a bright red top hat with a flamingo feather in the black brim, not a shirt, and about three too many belts.
He appeared to be shouting into a comically thin blue and silver flip phone clutched tight to his ear, "Wot? Wazzat? 'at's gubbins! Rubbish, mate! Are you 'avin' a laugh? Are you takin' the piss? Wot? Sorry, say 'at again? No, mate, this is 9429. Sorry bruv, I didn't mean it. It was nothing personal. 'Ello? Nerve of these people!" It couldn't be him, but it couldn't be anyone else.
She remembered from the grocery store checkout that Keven and Giselle had just gotten back together again for the second time. The lead singer and guitarist of The Exploronauts shook his head in indignation as he snapped the mobile phone shut, brought it to his hip, and dropped it on the ground. He looked down and realized his pants didn't have pockets. He turned a full circle in the corridor, bent down, and picked up his mobile without breaking his stride, then continued along on his way. Both guests arrived at Giselle's door almost at once. That sewed up the category of Most Famous Person Ever Met for maybe ever. Alicia had to say something. "Oh. My stars. You're Keven Se7en! I know you!"
The rockstar's cherry-red lips drew up in a smile. "Oi! You're a fan?"
Alicia nodded, eliciting an even broader smile. "Totally. I like all your music."
"You fancy me an' the lads playin'?" He called her bluff. "What's your favorite jam?"
Alicia scrambled for a name. Oh no what have I done. She couldn't think of one off the top of her head, and the other parts of the head weren't much help, either. "Your most recent."
"The one about my nan dyin'?"
"Really moved me." Hurry it up, Giselle. I flew too close to the sun.
Mr. Se7en stood with his arms crossed, fidgeting, clearly not satisfied with the answer. "What parts did you like, exactly?"
A door swung open, bombarding Alicia's field of vision with a salvo of pink. Out stepped Giselle, cradling her plump pink-and-orange Persian cat in her arms. She was dressed for a night on the town, wearing a new pink and yellow Party Girl-branded ensemble and a puffy, pink coat, as well as a shiny, sort of tiny, pink leather backpack. On a thin, pink leather strap dangling from Giselle's shoulder hung a purse a little larger than a pad of sticky notes. Her eyes darted first to her tag partner for the night and then to her re-boyfriend. Giselle threw her arms around the rockstar, smooching the air about three inches from his face. "Kevvie! Mwa! So good to see you. How's the tour going?"
"Oi! There's me cheeky luv. Howya doin', Pickle?" he said, also giving Alicia a little look before embracing Giselle in his arms.
That permanent summer tan in Giselle's cheeks turned a scarlet hue as she shrugged free of his arms. That near-impenetrable Look was tested but didn't crack. "Kevvie! I told you not to call me that! It's not nice," she said, putting a point on the final word. With a warm smile, she closed her eyes, bowed her head down, and nuzzled the bewildered pink-and-orange feline with her cheek, caressing its soft fur. She kissed the animal on its head enough times for Alicia to lose count. "Party Girl has to go now, okay? I wuv you sooooo much! I'm gonna miss you!"
She dumped the confused, chubby little darling into the reluctant arms of the Prince of Synth Punk Fusion (self-proclaimed). "Her ride bailed on her or something, so I'm taking her home. Kev-sev, would you be a sweetie and drop Mr. Cattywampus off at the compound? Oh. This is Alicia," she said, acknowledging her tag partner for the first time.
The moment Mr. Cattywampus changed hands, a switch flipped from "docile" to "hostile." The claws came out and sunk into leather, and then man-flesh–yet another reminder why humans evolved to wear shirts. "Owowowow oi! This li'l furball ain't riding with me!" Giselle completely ignored him as he fumed and stormed off back up the corridor. "I'm 'apposed to be 'avin' a pint an' a bit of the sniff right now wiv me mates an' I'm babysittin' a cat. 'umiliatin'."
He is even more British in person, Alicia marveled.
Giselle maintained that brilliant smile throughout Keven's protestations. "Great! Wampy doesn't like riding in the Pink Lightning. I forgot until we were already like halfway." Giselle turned to face Alicia for the first time and pre-excused the incoming confession with a shrug. "So your seat might smell a little. It's fine. The maids say it washes out." She paused before realizing she hadn't yet asked the most important question, "Where do you live, anyway?"
Alicia suddenly felt hesitant to ask for the favor she was owed. "North part of Stokely. It's a bit of a drive."
With a dismissive little head-shake, Giselle said, "That's alright. Is that near, like, what? Lake View? Gold Coast?"
"I don't live in Chicago. It's like a 30-minute drive from Beaver. Opposite direction." Alicia scrunched her face up remorsefully. "Sorry." Giselle stared at her passenger with a broad smile that never touched her eyes. It was a quiet walk to the car. "Sorry," mumbled Alicia again, hoping maybe that one would work. The car was like nothing she had ever seen. A sleek, hot pink jet engine on wheels that rode low to the ground with a swooshy design filled with pits, and crannies, and aerodynamics that probably made some people very impressed. And it was tiny. The more-than-one-time shopper of the big and tall section felt her knees start cramping up in reflex.
Giselle reached into the pink purse that seemed to shrink every time Alicia looked at it. A heart-shaped pink and yellow Party Girl keychain remote twirled around the pink and yellow chauffeur's outstretched index finger before she popped the trunk, slipped off her backpack, and crushed it into a storage compartment that looked more like a rear glove box.
The six-foot-three, 193-pound pro wrestler tumbled into a bucket seat that somehow felt like it sat lower than the ground. Alicia sat with her knees to her chest, smothered under the weight of her bags. "Sorry, can you buckle me?" Click.
Giselle checked her mirrors, then looked behind her, then checked her mirrors. Paused. Checked her mirrors. "Okay," said Giselle. It was the most tense Alicia had ever felt sitting in a stationary vehicle. "Right, okay."
"Everything alright?" asked Alicia.
Giselle remained in park, still watching her mirrors like they were trying to escape. "Yeah. Just- okay, here we go."
Climbing into the supercar was painful and awkward, but not compared to the rest of the drive. The pins and needles had already started in her left arm by the time they hit the onramp. "You know, I didn't just offer you a ride to talk about… her." Alicia glanced over her left shoulder to find a pair of ice blue eyes looking back. "So let's save that for now, because first I wanted to talk about tonight! Weren't we just the best together?" Alicia blinked as she tried to process the statement. A second later, she nodded back. Biggest smile. "Right?! Like, I go so well with everyone, but I could never find anyone who goes with me! We had one match together and I promise you, we could beat 90% of the teams in this company! Minimum. We're like peanut butter and jellies: we're perfect together." Giselle continued, her smile had grown just as broad. It was the smile of someone with a secret they couldn't wait to spill. "You know what I have in my backpack?" Alicia shook her head. "Guess!"
"A hat?"
Giselle scrunched her nose up in disgust. "Ew. Are you Amish? No. The Queen's Decree! As soon as your hand's at 100%, we wait for the right time - like right after the champions have a grueling match or something - I sign my name on it, and we get our shot against the champions the very next show! That can be our easy way to the titles! Doesn't that sound awesome? I have a great feeling about us!"
"Uh."
Giselle glanced at her passenger, seemingly confused by the silence. "What? Oh. What do you think about the idea?"
The shocked look on Alicia's face lifted into a smile that lit up the car brighter than Giselle's. "If you're serious, then yes. My answer is yes. Let's do it! Let's win the titles!" Alicia felt a weight lift from her shoulders she hadn't known she was carrying. She had a partner again. The numbness in her arms was all worth it.
"And call me Party Girl. When we're together, let's do the brand."
"What do you mean?"
Party Girl continued in a clinical tone, "You know. Be the gimmick. Let's keep it up for the cameras, but it's got to be natural, so let's start calling each other by our ring names all the time. That way, it'll feel authentic when we're live! People should think we hang out. I don't know how, but people can tell if we don't. I learned that in my first public breakup with Keven. You seem really nice, so it should be easy for us to act like we're real friends! I just need to know you're committed."
Alicia nodded. "Of course I am."
Party Girl smiled. "Thanks, The Goon. I knew we'd go great together! Now we just need a name. What about Party Girl and the Party Girls?"
"No. What? There's just one of me."
Alicia's new tag partner tried again. "What about Party Girl and the Party Girlz, with a zed?"
"You mean a Z?" asked Alicia.
"That's what Kevin calls it," explained Party Girl. "He's soooo British or Australian. The cameras love me when we're a couple."
"That's nice, Party Girl. And no, I don't like it with a zed, either."
"This is impossible! We'll never come up with a name!" Party Girl didn't seem bothered as she reached for the CD player and pressed play, flooding the car with a deafening synth-punk fusion ballad. "Did you ever hear my single with Kevvie?" Then she started singing.
Yeah, that's right I'm the Party Girl
My boyfriend's Keven, I'm the Party Girl
You know you're jealous of Party Girl
Don't get jealous, be like Party Girl
Get like me, get like Party Girl
For 21 minutes, Alicia knew what death felt like. In its dark embrace, she learned the number of times "Party Girl" could be rhymed with "Party Girl," in the span of two minutes and thirty-seven seconds, and the number chilled her. Mercifully, they had exited the highway and gone all the way up Cherry Blvd past Nothin' But Fish. They were about to head into the maze. The music could finally relent.
"Okay, Gis- Party Girl, you really need to pay attention driving through here or I promise you will get lost going out."
"I'm fine. I just naturally have a really good sense of direction!" Alicia mentally rolled her eyes. She would not be held responsible when the authorities sent out a search party 48 hours from now.
The juxtaposition of Party Girl's custom ride with the houses they drove by dating back 50, 60 years felt a bit surreal. Among the overgrown trees flanking the roads and smothering out the street lights, there it was: Castle Winthrop. "We're here," said Alicia.
"This is your place?" asked Party Girl.
"The basement is," answered Alicia.
Her guest hesitated, daunted by the enormity of the next question. "Can I use your bathroom?"
That one caught Alicia off-guard. "Sure. I'm sure it's not as big as yours," she said with a chuckle as she nudged the door open with the side of her head. "Watch your step. It can get pretty-" There was that gopher hole again. "Yeah, like that." Something sat wrong in Alicia's stomach. She couldn't place it. Then she noticed the abnormal brightness. To her right, up the road a little over a block-and-a-half away, there were headlights. Headlights that went dark when she noticed them. The two shuffled side-by-side in the pale glow of dim, distant street lights through a thatching of branches in the trees. "Sorry, it gets pretty-" Party Girl reached into her purse and withdrew her cellular phone and flipped it open. It wasn't much, but it was light. "Thanks! I bet that comes in handy."
"I'll get you one," Party Girl replied. "Where are we going?"
Alicia stepped over her guest's words. "You don't have to get me anything. Thank you. You don't need to do that." She pointed ahead, indicating the dread foliage portal. "Through there." Thankfully, it was winter, which meant Alicia didn't have to contend with spiders in the bushes. They had all migrated to their winter home which was hers. Party Girl looked at Alicia, confused. The gracious host clambered into the bushes and peeled them back as best she could to allow Party Girl a mostly unimpeded path through the overgrowth. Six steps down, keys, door, Jenetti the Yeti. Then she turned on a lamp.
Alicia slipped off her shoes and dropped her bags in the entryway, then pointed up the staircase on the left. "Up the stairs and to the right. I'll take you." Then she turned on a lamp. Up the steps. Then she turned on a lamp. And another. Two more halfway down the hall. "Through that door."
A perplexed smile seeped across Party Girl's lips. "Why do you have so many lamps?"
With a nod toward the ceiling, Alicia replied. "Oh. There aren't any lights. See?"
"No, I get that. This is, like, a lot of lamps." That perplexed smile turned to realization. Oh no. Party Girl gasped. "Are you afraid of the dark?!"
Alicia froze. "No."
"Oh my God you are! That's so-" Party Girl's eyes went wide as she cupped both hands over her mouth. "That is so cute." Alicia's cheeks burned molten.
"I'm really not. Giselle. Party Girl. I'm not."
Those beach-tanned cheeks turned up in an irrepressible smile. "Mm-hm. Through this door, you said?"
The regretful host nodded. "Yeah. I'll be downstairs."
At the bottom of the steps, Alicia pretended to do something besides stew in embarrassment. Hefting her bags once again, she headed down the hallway to the right towards her room. Then she- no. Not this time, she didn't. At the end of the hall, she kicked open the door and walked into her room. She didn't need the lamp by the door either. The dresser? The one on the dresser, yes. The soles of her feet tingled as she pattered nervously across the hardwood and flipped the light on. She shot a look over her shoulder, back to the darkened entrance of the bedroom. Then to the egress window above the bed. The coast was clear. I live here. Why am I scared? Alicia slung her equipment bag against the wall and tossed the red, nylon gym bag onto the bed, then hurried back out of her bedroom. She turned the corner. A figure bathed in shadow stood an arm's length away. Tall. Lanky. Long hair. "AAAA- Party Girl, hi!" And pink.
"You can turn on the lights," said Alicia's celebrity guest. "I'm not gonna tell anybody. It's fine. Nobody cares." Party Girl turned on a lamp. "I'm gonna need them on when we start talking, anyway." Alicia gestured for her to come into the bedroom and pulled out the desk chair for her guest, then sat down on the bed. "First, tell me what you know about..." She couldn't quite bring herself to say the name, "... her," prompted Party Girl.
Alicia shrugged. "Pretty much nothing. I know you had a match against her last year that you-" Party Girl shot her a look, and not with a capital-L. "-did well in. I don't remember seeing her after that."
"What about before?"
"Didn't watch," Alicia responded.
"You didn't watch QoW before you joined?" asked Party Girl in shock, which settled into a smile. "Me either. Wrestling's stupid." Alicia squinted as she tried to recall how the conversation got here. "I know what it's like not to have a lot of friends in the back. She started coming after me because someone planted her belt in my backpack. I don't know how they got it, but when she found I had it, she never left me alone. It didn't matter she got it back. She's crazy. She's fucking crazy. She-" A croak caught in the star's throat. "She got into my dressing room. She left things. I'd find these… these fishhooks. Everywhere." The trembling survivor looked away from Alicia. "I'd come back after a match and I could tell she had been there. She'd follow me around the arena. I knew she was following me, but I couldn't see her."
"She did that to me! Before the match! That's why I ran out of the locker room and left my equipment bag lying around. Black Violet was in there. I know she was."
Party Girl stared at Alicia. "Did you check your stuff?" Alicia stared back. She rushed across the room, ripped open the equipment bag, and dumped out the contents. She examined every pocket, zipper, and pouch. Nothing. "Wait, what about that one?" asked Party Girl, pointing to the gym bag on Alicia's bed.
"It was in my locker." Silence. Alicia's eyes went wide. "No, Giselle, it was in my locker." Ponderously, she walked to the bed, staring at the red nylon. Her voice quivered, and she shook her head. "It was in my locker." She pinched the zipper and drew the bag open. Work clothes. Her purse and wallet, water bottle, lunch bag, and a bottle of H-Twenty. She reached for the bottle. Goosebumps and a spiderlike tingle raced up her arm as her fingers closed around it. She could tell from the weight it was empty. Unfortunately, she was wrong. Something had been crumpled up and left inside. It wasn't paper–maybe a magazine ad. No. It was a page from a program for the QoW event. With shallow, hurried breaths, she unscrewed the lid and gently extracted the page promoting that night's tag match with Iron Maiden against the Two-Woman Army. Alicia's throat had been torn out of the page. At the bottom of the bottle, there was one more gift: a single, rusted fishhook. She showed the bottle to Party Girl. "My wallet was in that bag. My driver's license! Oh gosh. Oh my gosh. What do I do?"
Party Girl looked at her partner sadly and said, "She wasn't done with me until I fought her." Alicia shook her head. Party Girl pointed to each region as she described the extent of the damage. "Concussion, three broken ribs, sprained wrist, dislocated elbow, 14 stitches." She looked at her terrified partner staring in disbelief at the plastic bottle. "I'm sorry."
Don't get jealous, be like Party Girl
Get like me, get like Party Girl
"One second," said Party Girl, reaching into her purse and withdrawing a pink and yellow mobile phone and flipped it open. "Hold on, text message." Alicia sat on her bed, staring at the mangled page in horrified silence as her guest tapped away in reply.
Don't get jealous, be like Party Girl
Get like me, get like Party Girl
"Yeah, I've got to go. There's a thing downtown," said Party Girl, standing up from her chair and putting the phone away. Alicia walked her new partner to the door, a sick feeling boiling in her stomach. "Hey, cheer up. We're a team now! Do you lock your door?" asked Party Girl as she opened the door.
"Yeah," answered Alicia.
"Just not this time?"
Alicia paused. "It's a bad habit."
Party Girl looked at her meaningfully as she explained, "You might want to fix that."
Shoes on, door open, up the stairs, through the bushes, to the car. She stood by the side of the road and waved goodbye to Party Girl as the star U-turned and headed two blocks down and remembered to turn right. The car Alicia saw before was no longer parked at the side of the road. A freezing breeze picked up that sent a shiver through Alicia's whole body. She headed inside and back to her bedroom. She took a look at the bottle in her hand. She looked up at the egress window. Something looked off about it. She took a step forward, and then another. Then she stood up on her bed for a closer look and nearly fell backwards as she whimpered a quiet scream. In the thick, caked-on dust of the unwashed window, she saw the unmistakable smudge of a human hand.
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