Leanne and River share a look that Ella doesn’t quite understand, but it’s not a creepy look.
“We’ll get you vaccinated and give you enough for both of them,” Leanne says.
“But—” River starts.
“We will.” Leanne says it forcefully.
Ella scoops up the last of her soup and looks to the narrow fridge. “Do you have anything to drink?” she asks. “Because I’m pretty dehydrated, and my veins kind of suck. It’ll be better if I’m full.”
River opens the fridge and pulls out a bottled water. “Drink up, kid. I don’t want you passing out.”
“Hey.”
Ella puts down the water and looks over at Leanne, who is leaning forward across the table.
“I’m really glad we ran into you,” she says. Ella gets the idea she’s one of those complete lunatics who just says the truth and talks about emotions all the time. She probably tells the people she loves that she loves them every day. “Everyone is acting so crazy that it’s nice to meet someone who still treats you like a human being.”
“I mean, I tried to engineer your murder…”
Leanne throws back her head and laughs at that. “Perfectly reasonable response. We’re used to it. I just…I appreciate any moment I’m reminded there’s good in the world, you know? I forget that there are still good people out there, sometimes.”
“So what next?” Ella asks.
River grins, and it’s a very maniacal grin.
“I cut you open,” they say.
42.
Harlan had promised his employees a feast to celebrate their opening day. But after the way the first VFR show just went, no one is sure how to act. It was over before it really got started. They got through only two of the five scheduled matches. The crowd ran away before they could applaud. Everything feels so unfinished, so up in the air. Chelsea walks back to the greenroom with Steve and Chris, Harlan following behind them like the stolid sheepdog keeping his dazed flock together. Everyone looks up expectantly.
“What happened?” Sienna asks.
“Somebody in the crowd peppered up, took matters into her own hands. Not with our fighters,” Harlan hurries to assure everyone as they all go on point when pepper is mentioned. “Far as I can tell, an abused woman was looking for a way out with her piece-of-shit husband.” He looks off over their heads, his muscles flexing in his jacket. “Wish I had five minutes in the ring with that coward. Offered to bring her on board, but she went right back to ’im.” He comes back to them, refocuses. “Anyway, we dogpiled her, he ran off, and the crowd followed.”
“So the show’s over?” Amy asks, in full costume and clearly disappointed.
Harlan gives her a gentle smile. “Only for the night. We’ve got some damage control to do online, but the way I see it, we can spin this in our favor. Any PR is good PR, right?”
“Supposedly,” Sienna allows.
“So what do we do?” Amy was supposed to go on next, and Chelsea feels bad for her. She’s all done up like adult Lilo from Lilo & Stitch with a grass skirt, lei, and flower crown, shifting from foot to foot with unused energy.
Harlan looks around the room, collecting everyone’s attention. “We have our dinner, we go to bed, we watch what happens. We sold a shit ton of live feed subscriptions, so the main question is whether they cancel or not. You’ll all get paid, either way. But for now, we pretend it went fine and get ready for our next venue. Everyone who went on tonight did great. I couldn’t be more proud.”
With a bow of his head, he hops down to the concrete beyond the loading dock and saunters off to his RV, parked a bit away. The rest of them just loll around like cattle until Arlene shows up and says, “Dinner’s ready. Under the awning of Sienna’s RV. Just follow your noses.”
“But get undressed first!” Sienna calls. “Remember: Costumes get hung up on your labeled hangers, right-side out. Take off all your makeup or you’ll get acne. If you fought tonight, wipe off any exposed skin with the tea tree wipes for the same reason.”
Chelsea feels odd, dissociated and a little numb, as she joins the other women behind some sheets hung from the ceiling and squeezes out of her costume, careful not to let it touch the dusty metal floor of the semi. She hangs it up on the plastic hanger, noting that it says CHELSEA and not FLORIDA WOMAN, which makes her feel more like herself. She pulls her own clothes back on, a soft V-neck and jean shorts, and scrubs off her heavy stage makeup and sweat with three different wipes. It’s unsettling, how pale she looks afterward, as if she’s wiped off part of her real face. She tucks her hair back in a messy bun and heads for the food. No one is really talking; it feels like a funeral, except there’s no script, no one to console. The VFR has begun to feel like a family, but right now, she feels lost. She got to fight, and it felt great, but then she broke the rules and got involved with an audience member, and…well, things did not go to plan.
The smell of the grill helps bring her back a little. She’s on autopilot, choosing food and a drink, collecting plastic silverware, and finding a lawn chair to settle down in. She realizes only after she’s seated that everyone subtly arranged themselves so that those who fought got to eat first, so it’s her and Steve and Matt and Maryellen in the only four chairs, with TJ gallantly taking a spot on the floor and Joy nowhere to be seen. No one speaks. These four were robbed of a job well done, and four more people were robbed of the chance to do their jobs at all. Everyone else will still have to clean up and pack chairs after this, doing their part offstage. Chelsea doesn’t envy them. Their work feels way too much like what she did back home, a bystander for the big event and the person who always had to clean up alone afterward.
Chelsea’s burger tastes…gray. Just gray. She swallows it, feeling each chunk catch in her throat. She randomly chose a soda, and it just tastes like fizz. She can’t stop thinking about that woman. About the desperation in her eyes, and then the absence of anything there. About the way she came back online, desperate for the news that she’d killed someone and disappointed to find she hadn’t.
Most of all, Chelsea feels carved out by the resigned way that poor woman turned right back to her old life…it was like a punch to the gut. Nauseating. That broken creature went back to a man who’d done her so wrong she wanted him dead, fully understanding that he knew what she’d done and was going to punish her for failing. She was so scared of the unknown that she chose certain abuse.