Content warning, highlight the hidden text between the lines:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
None in this installment
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alicia leaned against the wall by the locker room in the beige cinder block corridor. 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, tugged open the door just two-thirds of a smidge, and peered through the crack, praying to find at least one other person. She couldn't see anyone 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 for anything less than a compound fracture. Even then, it would depend on the bone.
A footfall down the corridor snapped Alicia's attention over her left shoulder. A few seconds later, she heard echoes of some chatter. They were discussing "gobos," whatever those were. Production crew, most likely. Alicia turned her attention back to the locker room. Alicia dollied her head around the crack in the door like a boom camera, surveying the rest of the room through the slit in the door. Warm bodies. Thank goodness. She could breathe. She didn't have to keep guard up. Most importantly, she could get her stuff.
Alicia stepped inside the locker room. There was her equipment bag against the wall, right by the door where she left it. 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. Alicia turned to the pair of wrestlers sitting on the middle bench across the room. She recognized the pair: Kat Cable and Tracy "Trace" Roote, the duo of no-DQ street fight specialists known as I.T. Factor.
"Hi, I'm just here picking up my stuff. I'm Alicia."
Tracy looked up with a neutral expression. With an average height and build, no visible tattoos or piercings, and a quiet disposition, the wrestler in the ill-fitting sky blue polo shirt and khakis put a great deal of effort into presenting herself as unassuming. Her knuckles, though, told a different story. The light pink scar tissue spanning both fists peaked and troughed like a topographical map of the Himalayas.
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 Queens of War. Unlike her partner, Kat commanded attention as the supervisor of I.T. Factor–and not just because of the pressed white button-down and black tie. Bright green streaks popped against a head of straightened black hair that hung a few inches past her shoulder. A full sleeve of tattoos written in some sort of computer code spanned Kat's right arm from shoulder to wrist, and a face full of piercings stood out against her dark brown complexion, the most outstanding of which was a thick, silvery septum piercing shaped like the Greek letter omega.
"We know you," remarked Kat. They hadn't been hired for their people skills.
Silence hung in the air like a fart. "Oh! Great!" sputtered Alicia, trying to light a conversational match without a 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 IT supervisor deadpanned back. Alicia really appreciated the sarcasm.
With a quiet nod and a smile, she popped open the combination lock, snatched 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 gait 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 one doing the shouting turned the corner. Tall. Thin. Visual noise personified: an anemic-looking rail of a 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 looked like bird wings, bright yellow shutter shades, a bright red top hat with a flamingo feather in the black brim, no 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 nuffin' by it. It weren't nuffin' personal. Say sorry to your ol' lady for me. 'Ello? Nerve of these people!"
It couldn't be him, but it couldn't be anyone else. Alicia recalled grocery store checkout lane magazine rack headline that Keven Se7en and Giselle had just gotten back together again for the second time. She couldn't imagine a gossip magazine making something like that up. 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. Upon closer inspection, Keven realized his pants didn't come with pockets. He turned a full circle in the corridor and picked up his mobile without breaking stride and continued down the hallway unperturbed.
Both guests arrived at Giselle's door and knocked 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 thin, magenta lips drew up in a smile. Alicia wondered what shade it was. "Oi! You're a fan?"
Alicia nodded, eliciting an even broader smile. "Totally. I love all your music."
"You fancy me an' the lads playin'?" He called her bluff. "What's your favorite jam?"
Alicia scrambled for a title. Oh no what have I done. "Your most recent." She knocked on the door again, much harder this time.
"The one about my nan dyin'?"
"Really moved me," said Alicia, making eye contact somehow. Hurry up, Giselle. I flew too close to the sun.
It wasn't enough of an answer. Mr. Se7en stood with his arms crossed, fidgeting. "What parts did you like, exactly?"
A door swung open.
The pink maelstrom of Giselle’s dressing room slapped Alicia across the eyeballs hard enough to mentally knock the wind out of her as the fashion icon emerged into the hallway dressed head to toe in a fully pink and yellow Party Girl-branded ensemble. A shiny, sort of tiny, pink leather backpack hung over her shoulders, and a purse slightly larger than a pad of sticky notes dangled from her arm by a spaghetti-thin pink leather strap.
What Alicia found most remarkable about Giselle’s outfit was how she didn’t stand out. While both tag partners walked away from their match wearing a healthy collection of scuffs, scrapes, cuts, and bruises, all of Giselle’s disappeared under a puffy coat and pants with way too many pockets. Somehow, her face somehow remained entirely unblemished. She didn't look like she had been in a fight; she looked ready for a night on the town.
Giselle's eyes darted first to her tag partner for the night and then to her re-boyfriend. She threw her arms around the rock star, smooching the air about three inches from his face. "Kevvie! Mwa! So good to see you. How's the tour going?"
Keven's eyes remained locked on Alicia while embracing Giselle in his arms. "Oi!
There's me cheeky luv. Howya doin', Pickle?"
The tan in Giselle's cheeks turned a scarlet hue as she shrugged free of his arms. That near-impenetrable Look had been tested but it 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.
Giselle closed her eyes and nuzzled the bewildered pink-and-orange feline in her arms. The Look melted into an actual smile as Giselle caressed her cheek against its soft fur and kissed its head more times than Alicia could count. "Party Girl haffa go now, okay? I wuv you sooooo much! I'm gonna miss you!"
"Her ride bailed on her or something, so I'm taking her home. Kev-se7, would you be a sweetie and take Mr. Cattywampus to the compound and make sure you feed him? Oh. This is Alicia," said Giselle, verbally acknowledging her tag partner for the first time. She turned and dumped the confused, chubby little darling into the reluctant arms of the Prince of Synth Punk Fusion (self-proclaimed).
The moment Mr. Cattywampus changed hands, the switch flipped from "docile" to "hostile," and the claws came out, sinking first into leather and then man-flesh, illustrating why humans evolved to wear shirts.
"Owowowow oi! This li'l furball ain't riding with me!" Keven protested.
"You two have fun, alright?" Giselle maintained that brilliant smile throughout Keven's protestations. She turned to face Alicia for the first time and pre-excused the incoming confession with a shrug. "Wampy doesn't like riding in the Pink Lightning. I forgot until we were already like halfway, so your seat might smell a little. It's fine. The maids say it eventually washes out."
Keven fumed back up the corridor he came from as Giselle ignored him. "I'm 'apposed ta be 'avin' a pint an' a bit of the sniff right now wiv me mates an' I'm babysittin' a cat. 'umiliatin'."
Wow, Alicia marveled. He's even more British in person.
Giselle turned and started towards the VIP parking garage before realizing she still hadn't asked an important question, "Where do you live, anyway?"
Alicia suddenly felt hesitant to ask for the favor she was promised. "North part of Stokely. It's a bit of a drive."
Giselle waved it off with a dismissive little head-shake. "It's cool. What's that near? Like, what? Lake View? Gold Coast?"
"I don't live in Chicago. It's like a 40-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 looked like nothing Alisha had ever seen - at least not in person. It wasn't a car. It was a hot pink jet engine on wheels. The kind with a swooshy, sleek design filled with pits, and crannies, and aerodynamics that probably made some people very impressed. And it was tiny. Having shopped the big and tall section enough times to have a preferred label, just looking at the thing made her knees cramp. Giselle produced a heart-shaped pink and yellow Party Girl keychain remote from her purse and twirled it around her finger. 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 weightlifter and professional wrestler tumbled into a bucket seat that somehow felt lower than the ground. Alicia scrunched with her knees to her chest, smothered under the weight of her luggage.
"Sorry, can you buckle me?" Click.
Giselle checked her mirrors, then looked behind her, then checked her mirrors, paused, then checked her mirrors. "Okay," said Giselle, checking her mirrors. It was the most tense Alicia had ever felt sitting in a stationary vehicle. "Right, okay." She checked the mirrors again.
"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 it wasn't bad compared to the rest of the drive. The pins and needles had already started in Alicia's right arm by the time they hit the on-ramp. "You know, I didn't just want to talk about… her," said Giselle. Alicia glanced over 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 the best together?"
Alicia blinked as she tried to process the statement. She breathed a sigh of relief she didn’t know she had been holding as she nodded back.
"Right?! Like, I go well with everyone, but nobody goes well with me! But you and I? We've had one match together, and I promise you, we could easily beat 90% of the teams in this company! Minimum. We're like peanut butter and jellies: we're perfect together." A smile crept across Giselle's face like she had a secret to spill. "You know what I have in my backpack?" Alicia shook her head. "Guess!"
"A hat?"
Giselle's nose scrunched up in disgust. "Ew. Are you Amish? No. The Queen's Decree! As soon as your hand's healed, we wait for the right time–like right after the champions have a really hard match or something–I sign the Decree, and we take our shot against them on the next show! That can be our path to the titles! Doesn't that sound awesome? I have a great feeling about us!"
"Uh," Alicia interjected.
Giselle glanced at her passenger, seemingly confused by the silence. "What? Oh, right. What do you think about the idea?"
Alicia’s shock gave way to a smile. The numbness in her arms had been worth it. "If you're serious, then yes. My answer is yes. Let's do it! Let's win some gold!"
"And call me Party Girl. When we're together, let's do the brand."
"What do you mean?" Alicia asked, raising an eyebrow.
Party Girl spoke in a clinical tone, "You know. Be the gimmick. So let's start calling each other by our ring names all the time, even when we're off-camera. That'll make it seem more natural and 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 pretend like we're friends! I just need to know you're committed."
Alicia nodded. "Of course I am."
Party Girl smiled. "Thanks, The Goon. I knew you were my perfect partner! Now we just need a name. How about Party Girl and the Party Girls?"
"No. What? There's just one of me," Alicia objected.
Party Girl tried again. "What about Party Girl and the Party Girlz, with a zed?"
"You mean a Z?" asked Alicia.
"A zed. That's what Kevin calls it," Party Girl explained. "He's soooo British or Australian. It's great publicity when we're a couple."
"That's nice, Party Girl. And no, I don't like it with a zed, either."
"God! This is impossible! We'll never come up with a name." Party Girl got over it the moment the last syllable exited her lips. 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 experienced death with a pulse. In its 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. Far too many. An unacceptable amount.
Mercifully, they had exited the highway and gone all the way up Cherry Blvd past Nothin' But Fish. The roof of knit-together branches swallowed the moonlight, lending an eerie darkness to the sudden silence as Party Girl mercy-killed the music.
"Okay, Gis- Party Girl, you really need to pay close attention driving through here or I promise you will get lost going out," Alicia warned. "I'm not kidding. The first time I tried to get out after dark, I got lost for half an hour and wound up back at the house.
"I'm fine. I just naturally have a really good sense of direction!" Party Girl bragged.
Alicia mentally rolled her eyes. She would not be held responsible when the authorities sent out a search party 48 hours from now. Buried among the overgrown trees flanking the roads and smothering out the street lights, there she stood: Castle Winthrop.
"We're here," Alicia announced with an elegant sweep of her hand.
"This is your place?" Party Girl asked flatly.
"The basement is," answered Alicia.
Her new tag partner hesitated, daunted by the enormity of her next question. "Can I use your bathroom?"
That one caught Alicia off-guard. "Sure. I'm sure it's a bit smaller than what you're used to," Alicia chuckled while nudging the car door open with her head. "Watch your step. It can get pretty-" Gopher hole again. "Yeah."
Something sat wrong in Alicia's stomach. She couldn't place it until she saw it: an unusual brightness up the road behind them, a little over a block-and-a-half away. Headlights.
Headlights that went dark when she noticed them. Party Girl and Alicia shuffled side-by-side in the pale glow of dim, distant street lights beneath a thatched roof of bare branches.
"Sorry, it gets pretty-" Alicia postponed her apology until her eyes finished adjusting. Party Girl reached into her purse for 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?"
"You don't have to get me anything. Thank you. You don't need to do that. Please don't do that. Please. Okay?" she pleaded. They had arrived. Alicia pointed toward the dread foliage portal. "Through there."
Thankfully, it was winter, which meant the spiders in the bushes had all migrated to their winter home home which was also hers. Party Girl looked at her host, confused. Alicia clambered into the cave of branches and peeled back as many branches as 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. She pointed up the staircase. "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 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 a knowing smile. "Mm-hm. Through this door, you said?"
Alicia 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 anyone. Who would even care?" Then Party Girl turned on a lamp. "I want all the lights 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..." Party Girl couldn't quite bring herself to say the name. "... Her."
Alicia shrugged. "Pretty much nothing. I know you had a match against her last year that you-" Party Girl shot her a look. "-did well in. I don't remember seeing her after that."
"What do you remember about her before that?"
"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 don't know if you can believe this, but 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 out I had it, she wouldn't leave 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. I'd go back to my dressing room 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 didn't have my equipment bag for the match. Black Violet was in there. I knew she was, so I ran out."
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.
"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." Alicia walked ponderously to the bed, staring at the maroon nylon. She shook her head and her voice quivered. "It was in my locker."
Alicia 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. Or a page from tonight's event program.
Alicia fumbled the plastic cap open and gently extracted the page promoting that night's tag match with Iron Maiden against the Two-Woman Army. A hole was torn out where Alicia's throat should've been. 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 shot Alicia a more-bad-news look. "She wasn't done with me until I fought her." She pointed to each region as she described the extent of the damage. "Concussion, three broken ribs, sprained wrist, dislocated elbow, 14 stitches. 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 mobile phone and flipped it open. "Hold on, text message."
Alicia sat on her bed, staring at the mangled page in silence as her guest pecked away at her cellular phone.
Don't get jealous, be like Party Girl
Get like me, get like Party Girl
"Yeah, I've got to go," said Party Girl, standing up from her chair and putting the phone away. "There's a thing downtown." Alicia walked her new partner to the door, nausea boiling in her stomach. "Hey, cheer up. We're a team now! Do you lock your door?" asked Party Girl as she stepped outside.
"Yeah," answered Alicia.
"Just not this time?"
Alicia paused. "It's a bad habit."
Party Girl looked back at her meaningfully. "You might want to fix that."
Alicia escorted Party Girl back through the hall of branches to her car. She waved goodbye to Party Girl as the star U-turned and headed two blocks down and remembered to turn right. The car she saw before was no longer parked by the side of the road.
Alicia returned to her bedroom to inspect the empty H-Twenty bottle, but her eyes went to the gym bag she found it in. It felt like an invasion–not just of Alicia's privacy but of something personal. The thought of Black Violet’s clammy hands rifling through Alicia’s belongings and peering into her life turned her blood ice-cold.
At least the room looked normal. She checked again, searching the major features and landmarks for anything out of place. Alicia glanced up at the egress window; something looked off. Alicia took a step forward, and then another. She climbed up onto the bed for a closer look and nearly fell backwards as she whimpered out a quiet scream. In the thick, caked-on dust of the unwashed window, she saw the unmistakable smudge of a human hand.
No comments:
Post a Comment