The Beast in Me

Delia grabbed her purse and stood, and Lucia got to her feet a second later. It was, perhaps, the worst idea she'd ever had, which she knew because she was so fond of ranking things.

"Yeah. I think this is it."

"Cool!" Delia replied. She was so pert, and upbeat, and happy, and trusting, and the list of positive characteristics that both applied to Delia and not herself made Lucia want to throw up. How was she supposed to compete with that?

I can't, she thought, bleakly.

Delia helpfully waited for her on the curb, as it took Lucia an extra second to get up the will to step off the bus. Lucia looked back and forth, and shielded her eyes, until she spotted Delia taking a half step to her left. "I'm this way," she said.

"Me too!" Delia beamed. "I mean, technically, this is where Vivian lives. I just... stay here more nights than not."

She squinted as she looked around. It was a nice part of town. Vivian must have been doing well for herself. Lucia said, "I know how that is."

"We haven't really had that talk yet. Not really. She cleared out some space for me, and was definitely hinting that I could move some of my stuff in, but I've been holding back a little."

"You don't seem like the holding back type," Lucia said, surprising herself with her own insight.

Delia laughed and clapped her hands. "What gave it away?"

Lucia went to war with her cheeks as she tried to force a smile, and said, "I must be a mind reader." She gave a pithy little chuckle, and drove the knife in deeper. "So what's making you hesitate?"

For the first time since they'd started talking, Delia seemed to recognize that she was talking to a stranger. She gave Lucia a sideways look, but it dissipated almost as soon as it had appeared. "When we first got together, I... I had this feeling like I was a rebound for her. You know?"

Lucia did know. "Do you still feel that way? Six months later?"

"No," she said, quickly, "no. No. ... Sometimes. I mean, Vivian is great. She's attentive, and caring, and she tips well at restaurants I don't know why I love that so much but I do." Delia laughed, and shook her head. "She says all the right things. My parents like her. My friends like her. Hell, I even think I love her."

"That's good," Lucia said, colorlessly.

The little brunette blinked and laughed. "I love her. Oh my god!"

There was a shift in the way Delia was walking, a slight lean to one side, and without missing a beat Lucia followed Delia around a corner like they'd walked this way together dozens of times.

"Are you gonna tell her?"

"The second I see her," Delia said. "I don't know why I was holding back. God, she's, like, the perfect woman."

Yes, she is, Lucia thought. In the recesses of her brain, the dark places that didn't contribute to her internal narrative, there were parts of her cheering on each bad decision, each lie, because this was what she deserved.

"And she loves me," Delia continued. "I know she does. Oh my god! Thank you!"

She deserved to have it thrown in her face. She deserved to drown in it. She was garbage, and she would always be garbage. Lucia was reduced to completely mechanical movements. Breathing because her brain made her body do it. One foot in front of the other. Head down, eyes on the concrete right in front of her.

"I guess I just needed to talk it out a little!"

"No... no problem."

"Oh! Look!"

Time slowed.

"There she is!"

Lucia turned, following Delia's pointing finger, and there she was. In a green space beside an apartment building. Vivian LeBlanc. Smiling. Vivian LeBlanc was smiling. The last time she'd seen Vivian smiling had been as they went out the door for tacos a lifetime ago.

"Vivian!"

It took a second to register that she was playing soccer with her nieces, Tiffany and Ashley. All three of them turned to look, and a part of Lucia died on the spot.

"Aunt Lucia!" the two girls called. "Yaaay!!"

Everything blurred. The girls ran up and hugged her. They were asking her something, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd been sick. Why were they asking if she was better? It didn't make any sense. Delia had been right next to her, but when Lucia looked up Delia was twenty yards away, standing next to Vivian. Both of them were looking at her with unreadable expressions. Talking about her. Bad things, probably. True things. Things she deserved.

She said something to the girls, something very appropriate. Maybe that she missed them, or that it had been a long time, or that they'd grown. Before she got much more than a sentence out, though, Delia was calling them for dinner, and the two girls waved and ran off.

She saw Vivian coming. There was no running away, no escaping. She turned and sat down on the curb, grabbed her hair in both hands, and rocked forward and back. "I shouldn't have come. This was a mistake. I shouldn't have come."

She expected a blow to the back of the head, or to be kicked in front of an oncoming car. She expected screaming, and hatred, and everything she earned with her appalling behavior. She expected to be walked away from and ignored. She didn't expect Vivian to sit down.

"I'd heard you were back in town," Vivian said. She wrapped her arms around her knees, and pulled them tight against her chest, or leaned forward until her chest was against her knees. Lucia couldn't tell the difference, and ultimately it didn't matter.

"I shouldn't have come. I'm sorry. Fuck."

"This wasn't a coincidence, Luc. What are you doing here?"

A fearless moral inventory. "I've been to your shows."

Vivian drew a long, slow breath in through her nostrils. "You've seen Delia come up on stage."

"She just started talking to me on the bus," Lucia said, voice picking up speed. "I didn't see her get on. I didn't know... but I..."

When she looked up, Vivian was giving her a very direct, very intense look.

"I recognized her. I knew who she was, and I knew what I was doing when I... when I got off the bus." Deep breath. "When I followed her."

"Mmhm."

"I pretended not to know. Lied and told her my name was Lucy. Made myself listen while she talked about how she feels about you, and what's going on with you two."

"What the fuck, Luc!"

"I know," Lucia said, sadly. "I know!"

Vivian's pocket erupted with sound, and she got to her feet with extreme prejudice. Lucia turned just enough to watch her ex move a few feet away, pull out her phone, and say, "You okay? ... Good, are you ... What'd you tell them? ... Yeah, I know. ... She... Yeah. That's what she said." Vivian turned back slightly, and looked at Lucia over her shoulder. "Mhm. Babe, I don't... Mhm." After this, she was quiet for a minute, just listening. Standing very still.

Lucia shrank in on herself a little more with every passing second.

"You do?"

The knife twisted, wrenched with pitiless strength. She was hearing Vivian's new girlfriend tell Vivian that she loved her. Lucia was present for that moment. She didn't know why she was crying; she'd brought all this on herself, willingly.

"Is it okay if I say it when I get upstairs?"

"Fuck," Lucia groaned.

At that moment, she realized that her hands were empty, and she spun around. Her guitar case was lying on its side five yards back, probably where she'd dropped it, and she jumped when Vivian sat back down beside her, looking down with a very serious expression.

Vivian said, "Delia said..."—She paused to clear her throat—"She thinks I need to talk to you."

"You do?"

The black-haired woman glared sideways at her. "She said she didn't think you were doing anything malicious, and that you gave her some good advice."

"I did?"

This time, Vivian stared at her with just short of open hostility, but it softened after a few seconds. "This is fucked up, Luc. What are you doing here? Why are you coming to my shows? What the... Why didn't you tell me you were back in town?"

Lucia swallowed hard. "I... wanted to surprise you. Came to one of your shows. At Afterlife, months ago. Was waiting backstage. Had flowers. Practiced my apology in front of the mirror. Practiced it a lot. Wanted to make it right. And then..."

Vivian sniffed loudly, and Lucia whipped her head around. Vivian was crying. Wiping her nose.

"I'm sorry," Lucia said. "For today. For leaving. For—"

Vivian held up a hand, and that was enough to silence her.

"I Can't Do This Right Now," Vivian said, hoarsely. "I-I-I... Fuck!"

"I should go," Lucia said, dusting off her knees needlessly and pulling down on the bottoms of her pant legs.

"Can We..." Vivian drove her palms into her eyes, and made a sound like something was being ripped out of her. "Are you free on Friday?"

Lucia sniffled and nodded.

"Somewhere we can drink. I'm gonna need a drink."

"Russell's," Lucia said, quickly, and Vivian turned to stare at her through slitted eyes. "Over on, um—"

"I know where Russell's is," Vivian said, coldly. "I just played there."

"I know." Lucia followed this up by averting her eyes, and nodding emphatically.

"Are you living over there now? Is that... convenient for you?"

Lucia shook her head. "No, but—"

Again, Vivian cut her off with a curt hand gesture. "I gotta go. Do you know how to get back to the bus? Or... do you have someone you can call?"

Stan, her sponsor, was probably sitting down to dinner, she realized. His daughter, who was nearly her own age, came over a lot to check on him. If Lucia called, he'd answer, and he'd come, but she didn't want to take him away from that. "Yeah," she said. "I have someone I can call."

Vivian slapped herself on both thighs, grunted, and stood up. "Okay."

"Okay," she repeated. "Friday. What, um..."

"Seven."

Vivian turned and walked away, and when she was too far to hear, Lucia softly replied, "I'll be there." Then she turned around, picked up her guitar, and started back toward the bus. She was going to end up being very early for her NA meeting later that night, but that was probably a good thing.

***

By the following day, Lucia had reached something approximating calm. It wasn't peaceful inside her head, by any means, but she'd managed to push it all down and at least present as calm. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about Vivian. She was distracted during her lessons, and the bus rides she took flew by while she retreated into her head. She almost missed her changeover twice.

For as long as they had been friends, bandmates, and whatever else they might have been, Lucia had almost universally preferred to play Vivian's songs, at least in part because she'd had enough of a hand in the arrangement of them to feel a sense of ownership. A taste of it. They were still Vivian's songs, but they were hers too. Kevin had been opposed to cover songs on principle, and it had taken significant cajoling and, as she recalled, anal sex to convince him to allow her to record Bikini Kill's Rebel Girl for their third album, which she sang on.

It was the only song on any of their albums where she sang. She did not think of herself as a singer and did not possess a particularly appealing singing voice, thinking herself far too raspy and a little nasal, but Kevin had refused to participate at all. She'd had to record the guitar parts herself, which wasn't new; she had often re-recorded Kevin's guitar parts without him knowing. Kevin was much better live than in the studio. As far as she knew, no one had ever noticed.

Insanity Hall had never performed Rebel Girl live, despite some chants from the crowds during the subsequent tour in support of that album, but that was okay with Lucia. She had never wanted the spotlight. She didn't want to be front and center, and it would have been wrong to let Kevin sing it even if he'd wanted to. Which he didn't.

She did wish, though, that she could have played it. It was anthemic. Driving. Powerful. It would have been awesome to play. Maybe the best song ever, as far as she was concerned.

As she stood in the back, behind rows of spectators who'd brought lawn chairs, watching her first derby jam, Lucia found herself absently drumming Rebel Girl on her thighs, and humming it in her head over and over and over. The energy there was the perfect mix of raw, chaotic, and vicious. Watching those women compete was like watching her abuela play the acoustic guitar for the first time in some way that she couldn't explain but was maybe something like fate. It was like being where she was supposed to be.

Helen played in about every third jam, and Lucia watched her and cheered her on with particular fervor. She wasn't the biggest, the fastest, or the strongest. She might have even been completely stealth. It was hard to tell. At one point, in her second jam, she got knocked hard on her ass, and Lucia was right in her line of sight when she popped back up. As soon as she saw Lucia, she got the biggest grin, which was cool, and every time she came flying around that turn and there wasn't a jammer trying to scoot past her, Helen's eyes found hers.

It appeared that Helen's team, the Guerrillaz, all wore short shorts and calf socks as part of their uniform, and as far as Lucia was concerned nobody wore them better than Helen.

After a particularly nasty spill, from which Helen had gotten up bloody, Lucia started moving. The match was being played on a flat track, with little bits of masking tape on the hardwood rink floor delineating the lanes and different spaces, and it seemed like the 'player sideline' and 'spectator area' were more 'suggestion' than 'uncrossable border'.

"You came!" Helen said, sounding stuffed up. She tried to wipe the blood from her nose but just ended up smearing it across her cheek, which was, frankly, awesome. "It's great, right?"

"Are you okay?" Lucia said, reaching up and trying to peer inside Helen's nose. Helen was a few inches taller than Lucia, but in roller skates the difference was so pronounced that she really just needed to stand next to her and look up to get a good view; there was nothing to see beyond shadow and blood.

"I don't think it's broken. Just gave it a good bang."

"Giggidy," Lucia said.

"Don't make me laugh," Helen snorted, her face contorted in hysterical pain. "Ahhh!"

Two of her teammates came over to check on her and so Lucia took a few steps back, but she liked the way Helen kept glancing at her out of the corner of her eye. She also couldn't help but notice that a few of Helen's teammates were following Helen's gaze too. It didn't look like any of them recognized her, which she was thankful for, but it also made her feel like Helen probably didn't bring guests very often.

That made her feel special.

The longer the match went on, the more Helen's team started to fall behind. It had been close before Helen got injured, but afterward her team seemed to collectively wear down. As near as she could tell, the two weren't related. What she found interesting was that the competitiveness between the teams didn't conflict with the camaraderie. As the seconds ticked down in the last jam, both teams were applauding each other, or holding each other's arms up and encouraging the crowd to cheer for everyone. The other team didn't run up the score once it was in hand. All of this appealed to her DIY work ethic, and the way she herself had always tried to use some time at the end of every show to get the crowd into the other bands she shared a stage with.

As the audience started to thin out, Lucia found herself staring at the skate rental counter, and was surprised to see someone standing behind it, actively renting skates even though it was well after nine. A bunch of younger girls were renting skates, and going out around what remained of the taped-off track, which Lucia thought was amazing, and before she knew it she was in line to rent some too.

Helen was surprised to see her come rolling up, as she stood conversing with a few of the women from the other team, and laughed at Lucia's feeble attempts to stop herself.

"My last pair had a heel brake, not a toe brake!" Lucia cried. "Jaaane!"

Helen helpfully hooked her arm out, latched onto Lucia as she went past, and altered the direction of her momentum from a straight line into a circle. "You can skate?"

"I was always better at going fast than I was at stopping," she said, thoughtfully. "Kind of true about a lot of things, now that I think about it."

Helen nodded, grinned, and followed her as Lucia started skating in a wide arc around the outermost part of the rink. "So what'd you think?"

"I think that was the coolest thing I've seen in a long time," Lucia said, through gritted teeth as she tried to remember how to do a crossover turn. "You guys were awesome!"

"Well, most of us were," Helen said, frowning briefly. She made keeping up look incredibly trivial, which was both unfair and incredibly hot. "How long has it been since you last laced up?"

"Ten years? Maybe fifteen?"

The redhead took a few jumping steps, and then spun around in front of her. Skating backwards like it was no big thing.

"Show off," Lucia grumbled.

"Don't think about your feet," she said, laughing. "It's all about shifting your weight. Back and forth, back and forth. Keep your head up."

When she stopped trying to think about how to do it, Lucia found the whole ordeal easier. She just needed to get her brain out of the way and let her legs remember on their own, and the more she kept her head up the more she liked watching Helen move.

It was easy to see how Helen had gotten her thighs.

As they rounded a corner, heading toward heavier traffic, Helen used some kind of sorcery to flip around and face forward again. It took exactly one second for Lucia to lose all her focus, staring at Helen's ass up close, before she felt her weight shifting too far forward and tipped. Face plant. Even before she'd stopped rolling, she was laughing. It hurt like a beer-battered bitch, on her elbows and knees where she'd come down hardest, but that was as bad as it got. What was there left to fear?

Helen circled her, staring down at her quizzically as Lucia lay on her back and continued to laugh. It felt like being a kid again.

"You okay down there?"

"Yeah," she said. "I might never be able to get back on my feet, but I'm okay."

Helen crouched, smiled, and held out her hand.

"You know," Helen said, some time later, as they took slow laps. Almost everyone else had gone, and none of the derby girls were left besides Helen. "We lost one of our jammers a couple days ago. She broke her ankle. She's gonna be out for a while."

Lucia was panting, breathing hard to keep up, but it felt amazing. She said, "The jammers... that's the... with the stars?" and she pointed to her head.

The redhead nodded. "They're the ones that go fast, and zip around. We might have won tonight if we'd had all three of ours."

"I think I could... do that."

"I think you could too, if you kept at it. Some of the best jammers I've ever seen were real squirrely and elusive."

When Lucia looked over she was getting that eyebrow, and it felt really good.

"I'm gonna be in pain tomorrow... aren't I?"

"Oh yeah," Helen said, laughing. "Good luck standing up." Then, just to show off, Helen dropped down into a deep squat and took off.

Lucia had spent most of her adult life drumming, and drumming did involve some leg work. She'd never really gone for double bass drumming, and she'd almost never played anything that required it, but she could do it. Kick drumming, through, worked the calves, and Lucia had some calves. She couldn't get as low as Helen did, but she could use her calves to launch herself off her toes. It was almost like running with heavy shoes on, but she could go fast, quick.