“Joy did an exposé. Overnight. She sold us out. On Medium. It clearly hasn’t been fact-checked. She went on and on about how everything is fake and Harlan plays favorites, and…”
“And no one cares.”
It’s Arlene, smiling her knowing smile. “But I hope they paid Joy well, because she’ll never get a dollar out of us now. And she’s going to wish she’d kept her mouth shut.”
The mood is still sort of off as Harlan finishes playing Santa Claus, but then Matt throws his head back and…howls. Like a wolf. And it would be really weird, but then Harlan joins in, and so do Arlene and Chris and Sienna and Indigo, and then everyone is howling at the dull-gray sky on a warm Florida day, clutching dirty wads of cash and maybe seeing a ray of hope for the first time in months.
After that, the dreary spell is broken, and they’re laughing and chatting. Harlan goes over their schedule and tells them he’ll be changing the roster for their next match. Their job today is to pack up the rest of the gear, stow it in the semi, and get on the road. Tomorrow they fight, and a week later, they’re sold out at a fairground near Tallahassee.
“If things keep looking up, I’ll hire a crew to pack in and out,” Harlan says, flipping through his clipboard. “But until then, consider it part of your strength training.”
It’s a hard day, but Chelsea doesn’t mind the work. She’s starting to realize that despite doing a couple of free yoga classes online and reading books about how to meditate and be happier, she’s pretty much been ignoring her body for years. Sure, she’s washed it and dressed it and moved it around, and she feels pain and hates menstrual cramps, but most of the time it’s like her head is a balloon floating a few feet above her body, this thing it’s tethered to. As if because it felt like it belonged to David, she abandoned it. She hasn’t done any kind of real physical work in years beyond dishes and laundry, and the exercise she did when she was barricaded in her bedroom was almost like self-punishment. But the VFR has brought new clarity, forced her to consider what it’s like to inhabit her own particular body.
It’s funny how her life is actually pretty uncomfortable now, but she enjoys it more.
That night, they get dinner on the road, Harlan’s treat, and eat their fried chicken and biscuits scattered around the bus. It’s nice, curling up in her bunk, fed and tired, as the motor purrs and the bus gently sways. She’s never really been able to nap, but she almost does, dozing comfortably to the hum of voices and Arlene’s softly playing classical music. When they finally stop, it’s not too late, and everyone who’s still awake totters off the bus to see their new digs. It’s another fairground, another baked parking lot and dried brown fields, some ancient wooden stands off to one side suggesting a weekly flea market. Nothing special, but not much in Central Florida is. She asks to stop by a store to pick up the phone card and other necessities, but Arlene says she can’t make that happen for a few days, which is annoying but part of life in a collective.
Their bus is parked in the usual square with the guys’ bus and the RVs, forming a sort of courtyard. The night outside is utterly silent and empty aside from the backdrop of frogs and bugs buzzing and humming. The stars are out and bright, the moon a clear sliver. They left the clouds behind in Deland, apparently. Chelsea has spent most of her life in Tampa, and it’s odd to learn that things just smell different in other places, even if they look pretty much the same and are only a few hours away. The cities where they’ve vacationed have never been the sort of places where she’s stood outside in the middle of the night surrounded by nothing. Vast, empty silences don’t do well for men like David, when they’re forced to spend time with the people they hold under their thumbs.
Harlan shows up carrying a cooler the size of a hippo, which he sets down with the wet rattle of drinks and ice.
“Don’t go too crazy,” he warns them with his trademark grin. “Just a little crazy. You go on tomorrow whether you’re hungover or not, and those spotlights ain’t kind.” He raises his own beer, salutes them, and drinks.
Matt’s the first one in the cooler, and everyone else lines up. Chelsea and Amy hang back, but Steve brings them each two of the little wine bottles they like. Steve and Amy will fight tomorrow, while Chelsea is going up against TJ. He’s going to win, but that’s fine. No one can win faked matches all the time, and he’s bigger, stronger, and far more lethal than her in every sense. Fighting Steve, she didn’t feel like they were even fighting—it was more like improv, and it was viciously fun.
“Have you guys been following the VFR online?” Steve asks.
Chelsea feels like an idiot as she shakes her head. “No phone.”
Steve grimaces. “Sorry. I forgot. Want to borrow mine? I cleared all the porn off the browser.”
Her fake grimace matches his. “Do I need to sanitize it first, then?” But when he holds it out, she takes it—the newest iPhone. Of course.
“If you go to VFR.com, you can read your bio and click through to your fan club page.”
Chelsea’s head whips around. “My what?”
He takes the phone, pokes at it, and hands it back as Amy murmurs, “Holy crap. That’s new.”
There’s an actual webpage devoted to Chelsea—www.FloridaWomanPosse.com. She’s not super fond of how close posse is to pussy, but no one asked her. There’s one of the promo shots TJ took in front of a screen covered with the VFR logo—and it’s not one of the pretty ones. She’s screaming into the camera, red lips stretched out, blue eyes wide, hair all over the place, holding a two-by-four spiked with nails, very Harley Quinn. It’s got her stats, her motto, her backstory—found trying to ride an alligator bare-ass naked through the Disney World gates with a shotgun strapped to her back. There’s even a T-shirt with her on it, listed as sold out.
“Holy crap is right. What’s yours?”
Leaning in, Steve backs up to the previous page and clicks on his own pic, which is far more urbane and cool. He straight-up looks like an asshole stockbroker. His webpage is www.ClubNissen.com, as his fans are less a posse and more of a country club. Chelsea briefly considers that her mom would adore Steve’s wrestling persona, probably ask Chelsea why she didn’t marry a guy like that.
“Harlan’s been busy,” Amy breathes.