The crowds had calmed down since Princess left, though The Caribou was still doing better business than it ever had before.  Michelle was now the star dancer.  She sold so many private dances she barely needed to go onstage anymore.  Customers followed her and approached her for dances as soon as she stepped out of the dressing room.

Watching now from the bar, sipping club soda, she hoped they would hire each of the top three from amateur night, and not only because she and the other girls needed some of their burdens lightened.

After the voting, Orchid came out on top, a girl named Shane second, and Ariel third.  All three were offered jobs, and they all accepted.  Michelle introduced herself to Orchid in the dressing room as she changed to go home.

“You’re great,” she said.  “Welcome to The Caribou.”

Orchid had a wide, symmetrical smile that should have been on television, in a magazine, anywhere, really, but in a strip joint.  She flashed it as she shook Michelle’s hand.  “Thanks.  I’ve actually never done this before.  I was a little nervous.”

“Don’t worry,” Michelle said.  “I’ll look out for you.  Just be careful.  Some of the girls here can be a bad influence.”

Orchid nodded.  “Yeah, I definitely don’t want that.  I’m not into drugs.  I’m only doing this to pay for college.”

“Are you in college now?”

“No, but I want to apply soon.  I just graduated high school.  I actually just turned eighteen last week.”

Michelle looked around them at the other dancers.  Angel was wobbling, doubled over, having considerable trouble tying her shoe.  “Stay with me,” she said to Orchid.  “I’ll look out for you.”

The next afternoon, she dialed a dusty, familiar number.  She waited, waited, and heard a gravelly “Hello?” that wrapped around her like a linen sheet.

“Hi, Big B.”

“Oh, hey T.D.  How’s life?”

“It’s okay.  How about you?”

“Fine.  Rachel and I are just setting up the house.  You’d never imagine how stressful it is to move in with someone.”

“I guess not.  How was the honeymoon?”

“Great.  Well, it rained a lot.”

“Eh, the weather’s not what a honeymoon’s for anyway, is it?”

“Heh.  Guess not.”

“Well, I’m glad everything is going so well.  I just called to say hi.”

“Hi.”

“Oh, and I wanted to say, I got a new job.”

“Another bar?”

“Sort of.  A dancing gig.”

“Wait – you got a job in a company?”

“Ha!  No way.  I’ve changed my life’s path, Big B.  I’m not into ballet anymore.”

“Huh?  I don’t think I get—”

“Ballet’s dead.  There’s no rhythm in it.  I should have known.  It was the dancing I loved all along.  The rhythm.  Not the leotards and point shoes.  Jesus, the sex of it.  I love dance in its purest form.  Pure movement and energy.”

“Michelle, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m an exotic dancer.  I’m one of those girls you saw at your party that you hated.  Only I’m not on drugs, I’m not depressed.  I’m not even a drunk any more.  It’s taken me past all that.  Dancing’s where I feel like I’m supposed to be, at least for now.  I mean, who knows what the future will bring.  Nothing ever really goes like you plan it, anyway.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

Pause.

“Michelle, I don’t know what to say.”

“Then don’t say anything.  I’m still your sister, right?”

“Of course.”

“And you’re still my brother.  And I’m still always with you, and vice versa.”

“Of course.  I mean, that’s true.  I just… I never expected this.”

“If there’s one thing this year has taught me, it’s that you never, ever know how anything is going to turn out.  All you can do is go with it and try to trust.  Hey, why don’t you go and think about it for awhile?  I have to make another phone call.”

“Oh.  Okay.”

“Tell Rachel I say hi.”

“I will.”

“I love you, Jake.”

“I love you, too, Michelle.”

Click.

Michelle leaned back in her chair and sighed.  She took a sip of hot green tea, then picked up the phone again and dialed her parents’ number.

On the first cool day of the year she took Orchid on her first trip to the Fish Ho.  Afterward they went out dancing and Michelle taught Orchid a few moves.  Of course, Orchid didn’t need as much help as Michelle did when she started, but both were glad to have a friend at The Caribou.  When Michelle turned twenty-four, Orchid bought her a cake and took her out.

In November, Michelle began seeing Princess everywhere.  For World AIDS Day, she was enormous on a billboard, airbrushed to an ideal, Platonic version of the woman she knew from the club, with glamorous makeup and high fashion clothes.  Michelle felt only the slightest twinge of jealousy, or memory of a twinge.  Her heart was filled mostly with love.

Six months to the day after Princess latched trap-like onto her arm in The Caribou dressing room, Julie sat in the clinic waiting for her test results, staring at a framed photograph of a confused infant dressed as a ladybug.  When the doctor returned and said negative, she sighed and said a silent, small thank you to her blood for resisting infection, and that was that.

It had started raining in a light, constant mist.  As she walked out into the grey haze and down the street, she saw Princess, pouting, glammed-out, and fifty feet high.  It was the first time she’d seen her billboard, and she stopped so suddenly a group of teenagers bumped into her, almost throwing her off her feet onto the sidewalk.

“No fucking way,” she muttered.  She stood for a moment as her hair grew damp, shaking her head at the image.  Then she realized she was late getting back to work and hurried down the street, soles of her sneakers squeaking against the wet concrete.

Julie worked at a local women’s shelter.  She answered the crisis line, cooked meals, and spent as much time with the residents as possible.

She made enough money to get by, but not much more.  Every day the dream of owning her own restaurant slipped further and further into the background, and every second, she became more okay with that.  She loved her work at the shelter, and her talent for business allowed her to advance quickly.  Within months, she had found more funds and raised more money for the shelter than it had ever seen, and she helped start new programs for abused women to help them rebuild their lives.  She also started a sex education program for high school girls.  She was very popular among the teenagers.

“But he’ll break up with me if I don’t screw without a condom!” a heavy-set, black haired sixteen-year-old said through a mouth punctured by a homemade lip piercing.  She sat across from Julie in a loose circle of chairs all occupied by girls.

Julie rolled her eyes.  “Listen sweetie, I don’t want to hear this.  Do you know how beautiful you are?”

The girl lowered her eyes.  “Uh…”

“Look, the point is, it doesn’t matter.  If this guy can’t appreciate you enough to respect your boundaries, he obviously is not the one for you.  You don’t want to end up sick or dead, do you?”

She shook her head no.

“Pregnant?”

No again.

“Then that’s that.  You only screw with condoms.  You’ve made the choice because you respect yourself.  So it’s only right that your man should respect you, too.  If he doesn’t, then he doesn’t deserve you, not the other way around.  Change it up on him.  Make him the one that needs to worry about keeping you.  Instead of thinking the way you’re thinking now, how about this for a problem: ‘Julie, if my boyfriend doesn’t want to screw with condoms, I’m going to have to break up with him.’  That’s your real problem.  Turn it around.  You’re just as powerful as he is.  Don’t forget that.”

The girl nodded.  Julie saw her smile.

Michelle was slimmer by the wintertime, and her nocturnal life had blanched her skin to a stunning white.  Her hair was longer, falling to the bottoms of her shoulder blades, and gave off an eerie, golden sheen.

One day, late in January, she woke up in the arms of a young, disillusioned IRS auditor with an illegitimate son halfway across the country and every Johnny Cash song memorized verbatim.  They shared a wordless breakfast and she walked him out.

As she showered and readied herself for work, for the first time in months, her mind drew a loose portrait of Samantha.  She imagined her tan, with lighter hair flying behind her in the wind, and for some reason, on the beach.  Beside her in a bathing suit Gracie sat on a towel, bronze-skinned, hair whipping, smiling behind large sunglasses.  Whenever Michelle pictured this unverified scene, always the same one locked in time, she smiled.  She smiled now.

It looked like it was going to be a cold day, so she put on a sweater and a heavy coat.  As she left her apartment, the dry freezing city air awoke her face and hands with a sudden burst.  She wiped a flake of snow off her nose and began to pad through the thin layer of white on the sidewalk, breathing deep the icy smell of winter.  By the time she reached the club, moisture had frozen on her eyelashes, surrounding her eyes with sparkling flecks of crystal.  She shook her head to toss off errant frost as she passed the doorman and stepped into the warm belly of The Caribou, surrounded by people she loved.

That Friday, after Michelle had just given a two-hundred dollar private dance, Princess found her.  As she approached, a small entourage of customers lingered at a respectful distance, giving the dancers privacy.  Princess hugged Michelle before she spoke.  Michelle had never seen her look so well.  Her skin almost glowed.

What Princess tried to say was this:  “Michelle!  I can’t tell you how happy I am.  I’ve been offered a modeling contract and a contract as a spokesman for AIDS awareness.  I’m going to make enough money to quit here, and for drug rehab and anti-retroviral drugs.  I’m going to live a long time, and I’m going to be famous!  I just wanted to say goodbye.  Tonight’s my last night here.”

Of course, she actually said, “Micheru!  I so happy!  I been offeredo modering conracto an conracto as AIDSu spokusuman!  I gettin nuhf money to quitto here, an for dlug lehab an antiletlobilal dlug.  I goin to rib a rong time, an I goin to be famous!  I jus wan to say goobye.  Tonighto my rast nighto here.”  Again, she hugged Michelle.

“Oh,” Michelle said.  “Congratulations.”  She understood about five words of what came out of Princess’s mouth.*

That night in July, Princess gave her farewell performance.  John made the announcement over the speakers, and the crowd moaned and booed the notion of Princess retiring from exotic dancing.  Her last dance consisted more of people handing her money and shaking her hand than of actual dancing, and when she walked out, kissing the air and waving, a third of the customers walked out with her.

Those left were left disgruntled as they realized their favorite dancer had just quit before their eyes.  A low, mass grumble traveled throughout the club as more people began to gather their things and gesture for their checks.

“Isadora, could you please make your way to the main stage, please?” John called over the speakers.  “Folks, I know we’re all sad about Princess, but we have another beautiful blonde coming right up for you.  Please say hi to Isadora, and show her some love.”

Michelle danced.  By the time the first song finished, people were crowded three deep around the stage trying to hand her tips.  At the end of the second song, every eye lingered on each of her movements.  The gazes, the energy, it all radiated and pulsed together with the bass line of the music even more intensely than when Samantha would dance.

As she stepped off the stage into the awed crowd, a young man, drunk, approached her.

“Congratulations,” he said.  “You’re my new favorite dancer.”

She noticed a dark-eyed, pretty young woman staring at her, face tilted slightly sideward.  She stood shyly, but her eyes were powerful and still.  The crowd parted for Michelle as she walked over to stand beside her.

Meanwhile, a cop was writing Julie Han a ticket for jaywalking.  His police car had nearly hit her as she crossed the street on her daily walk to work.

“Where are you from, young lady?” the middle-aged, white, mustachioed, balding police officer said.

“Ohio.  Not China.”

The man laughed a wheezing, contrived laugh.  “Now, don’t you go making assumptions about me, miss.  My son married an Oriental girl.  I know you’re not all from China.”  He took out his citation book with a flourish.  “Are you aware that jaywalking is illegal in this city, miss?”

“I am.  It’s illegal in Ohio, too.”

“All right.  And are you aware that you walked directly into oncoming traffic, endangering not only yourself, but other people?”

“I guess so.”

The man rested his hand on his back and looked at Julie with an expression that lingered between contempt and amazement.  “Young lady, did you even look before you crossed the street?”

“I don’t think I did.”

“You on drugs?”

“Nope.  Never touched the stuff.”

The cop shook his head.  “Miss, why the hell did you do that?”

Julie thought for a second about what she said next, deciding that it would really only be funny to her, and certainly wouldn’t gain her any favor with the policeman.  She said it anyway.

“Well, I guess what it comes down to is, I really have no regard for human life.”

As expected, instead of laughing, the cop wrote her a three-hundred dollar citation for jaywalking and reckless endangerment.

The crowd was thinner than the past few nights as she entered The Caribou, ticket crumbled and shoved into the back pocket of her jeans.

“Hey, what’s up?” she asked Lucy.  “Where is everyone?”

Lucy did not stop moving as she answered.  “Princess left.  She got offered a million dollars to be a model or an AIDS poster girl or something.  Lotta the customers left with her.”

“Princess is a model?”

“That’s what I heard.  Don’t ask me, I’m just the server.  Ask Claudia or Michelle, she talked to them.”

Lucy disappeared into the crowd.  Julie stood for a moment among the customers before going to the dressing room to change.  As she dressed, she made no eye contact or conversation.  She barely moved a muscle in her face.

The air that night vibrated with a more violent sexuality than it had for the past week.  Those who had been there for the human aspects of the dancers had left with Princess.  Walking through the crowd, she could tell they were hungry.  Five minutes into her first stage dance, a large bearded man leaned in and whispered, not whispered, growled in hot wet breath to her ear, Show us some pink.  A thick-necked young man with a military haircut leaned back away from her as she approached, shouted, Grow some tits! and laughed.

Afterward as she roamed the crowd, she saw not strangers.  No, she knew these people.  Those she had never seen, she knew.  They were the worst of humanity.  These people who were blessed enough to live in the United States where they had food and shelter, where children went to school for free and everyone could obtain with hard work a house, a car, and a television set, and the people here even more blessed, having the disposable income to pay ten dollars for a cocktail and thirty dollars for three minutes of anticlimactic dry-humping.  They squandered it, these people.  Worse, they used what they had for selfish, destructive purposes.  They were filth, parasites.  She saw it as she passed through them.  To her right, a wife-beater, to her left, a misogynistic cheating husband.  To the front, a heartless, thieving business man, to the back, a man she knew, knew, was a child molester.

She relived silently the phantom-like memory of her first friend in the city beating an animal to death, trying to murder a fellow dancer, all on the stage on which she was now expected to be sexy.

She was on the second stage, smaller and lower to the ground than the main stage, surrounded by sofas and easy chairs.  The second stage was more relaxed, and the tipping was generally less frequent, but more substantial.  Julie usually liked the second stage better.  It reminded her of the dive bars she worked when she was younger.

That night an older white man with silver hair and thick, meaty lips sat forward in one of the easy chairs.  He held out a dollar bill and when she moved to take it, he let it drop to the stage.  He grinned.

Julie squatted to pick up the dollar, and as she did the man reached over and slid his index finger between her thighs, tracing the mouth of her thong-covered vulva.  The touch of his filthy, calloused finger sent a shiver of anger and terror ripping through her entire body.  Her teeth clenched.  Slowly, with total control, she leaned over to the man.

“If you do that again,” she said in her most pragmatically threatening voice, “I will shove my heel through your hand.”

The man’s smile did not fade, the look in his eyes that of a predatory mammal stalking its prey.  A quick bark of a laugh escaped through his sneering mouth.

She danced clockwise around the second stage, spending a few moments with each customer, collecting a dollar here, ten there, until she arrived back at the chair where the silver-haired man sat.  She could see in his eyes – bobcat eyes – that he was waiting for her to come back, waiting to do it again, the intention all but written in the spiral of his iris.

Again, he held out a dollar and dropped it on the stage in front of him.  An instant, a nanosecond passed, Julie frozen, eyes locked with the man’s gleaming, unblinking orbs.  Then she spread her knees wide and crouched deeply in front of him, reaching slowly for the bill.  His hand shot out professionally and traced the same warm nethercleft before returning to the stage.

She smirked, barked her own laugh, but hers was a loud, shameless, aggressive bark.  The bark of a guard dog who has found an intruder and knows she has free reign to attack.  Julie fingered the dollar into her garter belt, stood up, and began to turn away, then picked her foot up high and centered it over the rough, cracked hand.  By the time he felt the pain, Julie had already jammed her heel down as hard as she could, and two of the delicate bones in his hand had snapped.

The man screamed and drew his hand to his chest.  His face was red and shiny as an apple as he shouted at her incoherent threats and swears.  Stupid faggot fag cold bitch cunt net gut fuck! Other customers were laughing around him, a circle of damning, shaming demons pointing, making him aware of his sins in this dark, musty, spotlit hell.  In front of him the head she-demon, the cursed female laughing along with her minions up on her raised platform, cackling in the purple light.

Then she wobbled.  Julie had used all her weight to crush the man’s hand, and as she tried to regain her balance, one foot had searched for a hold off the stage.  For a moment Julie teetered on one foot at the edge, then tumbled spastically onto the floor.

“Ouch,” she said from the dirty carpet.  She felt her knee and knew it was going to bruise, but she was used to bruises now.

The man was still shouting disjointed, schizophrenic insults at her, ugly hole bitch sucker, but the words passed over her white noise.  She stood up and limped past the man to the dressing room.  She put on her jeans, t-shirt and tennis shoes, shoved all her belongings in her bag, and left without closing her locker.  She pushed her way through the crowd and back to Claudia’s office and threw the door open.

Claudia looked up from her screens.  “Julie, what the hell was that?  You should have told a bouncer to kick that man out.”

“Oh,” Julie said,” you saw that?”

One of Claudia’s eyebrows rose as if independent of her will.  “I see everything.”

Julie walked in a few steps and set her bag down on the desk.  “Look, Claudia, don’t worry.  I’m gonna save you the trouble of firing me.”

“I wasn’t going to—”

“I’ve been doing this for seven years.  That’s longer than anyone should ever do it.  Look at me, Claudia.  I’m bruised and beaten.  I’ve got back pain and shin splints from this job.  I hate it.  I’ve never hated anything or anyone as much.”

Claudia crossed her legs and shifted her chair to face the dancer.  Her face was so calm.  “Julie, please don’t leave,” she said.  “You’re one of our best dancers.  Now with Sam and Princess gone, you and Michelle are all we have left.  Frankly, we need you two right now.  If you leave, The Caribou might not survive.”

“You don’t need us.  This place is famous now.”  Julie threw her arm toward the television screens.  “Look at all the people out there!”

Claudia’s eyes moved, her head did not.  She glanced once and glanced back.  “They came to see a girl who no longer works here.  Half our customers walked out when she left.  If this is a problem with Laura, I can fire her.  She doesn’t bring in half the money you do.”

“It’s not Laura.  It’s me.  Claudia, I have a degree.  Strippers don’t have degrees.”

Claudia looked at her with no expression.  For a long moment, Julie waited for her to speak, to rebut, to convince her to stay.  In the end, she said nothing.

“You don’t need me,” Julie said.  “Have another amateur night.  Have ten.  Every day, another stripper turns eighteen.  Every day, another stripper is born.  Shit, go down to the maternity ward and pick out an infant with hot parents.  In eighteen years, she’ll be ripe for a fabulous career in exotic dancing.  It just takes a little patience.”

Julie turned to walk out.  She held the door wide, ready to shut it dramatically for good, to leave without looking back.

Then she stopped and looked back, just once, over her shoulder at Claudia, who sat stoically at her desk.

“Good luck,” the dancer said, then turned and left The Caribou, never to return.

That Monday the girls couldn’t fill all the dance requests.  Around Princess in a swarm sat and stood admirers.  The dancer wore dark pants and a black t-shirt as she spoke.  The crowd nodded at intervals, holding their drinks in limp fingers.

Michelle walked past them, past all of them, and barely glanced.

Then he was there, sitting as always alone, sipping a glass of liquor and glancing around in a stream of interconnected gestures.  Her regular.

His skin seemed even more tired, and his eyes darted around the club.  She knew he was looking for her.  Suddenly she felt tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.

When he saw her, he smiled.  The nervous energy surrounding him slowed, for a moment at least, to a comfortable hum.  As Michelle sat down beside him, background noise faded away, the strange buzz of his movements the only vibration approaching sound.

“Hi there, young lady.”  He was folding his hands over each other again and again.

“Hi,” she said.  “I haven’t seen you around here for a while.”

“Well, I’ve been busy.  You know, not everyone can be young and carefree.”  A sigh, drawn and deep.  “Once you get old like me, responsibilities, they just keep piling up.”

“So I’ve heard.”

The man stared into his glass for a moment, then sighed.  “How ‘bout you, little lady.  How old are you, twenty-one?  What do you plan on doing with the rest of your life?”

Michelle hesitated.  “Actually.  What I always wanted to be was a ballerina.”

The man nodded.  “That’s lovely.  Are you still planning on becoming one?”

“No, not really.”  The words, coming from her own mouth, should have shocked her, but they did not.  They settled comfortably, and she continued.  “I never really had a chance in that world.”

“I’ve seen you dance.  You’re phenomenal.”

“Thanks.  That’s really nice of you to say.  But I have a new goal now.”

“Which is?”

“To love as many people as possible.  And to grow.”

The man coughed, disguising a blush.  “That’s an ambitious desire.”

“It’s about time I grew some ambition,” she said.  “I don’t think I ever got your name?”

“Morris.”

“Morris, I’m Michelle.”  She put out her hand.  “That’s my real name, not my dancing name.  Would you like to go somewhere with me?”

“Where would that be?”

“I –” she stopped.  Hesitated.  “I don’t know.”

Morris coughed and began to fidget.  “Oh, Michelle.  You’re young enough to be my daughter.”

Michelle’s eyes dropped and she started wringing her own hands.  She looked from side to side, then up.  “I—I’m sorry,” she said.  “That’s not what I meant.  Really.  I just wanted to talk.  And we can even stay here if you want.  I—I just thought it might make you feel better.”

She reached out, hesitated, and touched his arm.  The man shivered, turning a visible shade of pink.

“…Michelle.”

From the touch, Michelle garnered a feeling.  An old, cold desire that lay within Morris.  She tried to concentrate.

“Morris,” she said.  “You’ve been alone since your wife died.”

“That’s right,” he said, breathing slowly.

“You say you’ve never looked at another woman.  That’s true, isn’t it?  But just because you’ve never been with anyone physically, doesn’t mean you want to be lonely.  But you’ve completely shut yourself off for years.”

Morris nodded, took a deep breath and adjusted his tie.  He looked at her and said, “You are beautiful, Michelle.  You truly are.  And a thing of beauty is a joy forever.”  He sighed and cast away his eyes.

“Isn’t that a quote?”

“Keats,” he said.  “My first true love.”

There was a beat during which the interaction could have gone a number of ways.  Morris might have walked out, they might have moved on to safer conversation, they might have taken each other to bed, but instead, Michelle followed a strange, foreign instinct and grasped his hand.  She held it and noticed with detached interest that he grasped back, passionately.  She felt a warm rush flow through her body from the contact point.

She looked at Morris with new eyes; he was suddenly beautiful.  All the pain and sadness in him – sadness stemming at its core from hope and love – came to the surface, and was visible on his face and body.  She saw the relationship between his physical appearance and the sum of his life experience.  The deep crease between his eyebrows from worry during his wife’s illness.  The bags under his eyes from loneliness.  Strong lines around his mouth from long forgotten joy.  Every breath, every movement was an expression of his experience, and never had she seen that connection so clearly.  She saw him, really him, and when you see all of someone, you almost can’t help but love them.

She gained an entire life’s worth of experience in moments.  She felt his pain, his sorrow, his happiness, his failings.  She smiled at his wedding, and cried at the funeral of his wife.  Lines and pages of poetry flowed into her brain.  Keats, Milton, Byron, Blake.  Words flashed through her mind and fixed themselves in her memory.

Morris seemed to grow younger as she watched him.  Lines firmed, his eyes reflected the smoky lights of the club with iridescent clarity, and a ruddy glow found his cheeks.  She knew he was seeing her the same way as she saw him.  She had never felt closer to another human being in her life.

They each let go in the same instant and took deep, exasperated breaths.  Michelle looked at him.

Morris, glowing with new vitality, let a single tear drop down his burning cheek.

“Excess of sorrow brings laughter,” Michelle said.  “Excess of joy brings tears.”

Morris blew his nose, his eyes still red.  “Very true.  You know Blake?”

“I do now.”

They arrived early and sat in silence.  Both drank water with lemon.

Sam fidgeted with her paper napkin and kept glancing at the entrance.  She looked older – fine lines framed her red mouth and onyx eyes.  Her brow was knitted.  After fifteen minutes, the napkin she held was in pieces.

Gracie walked in.  She didn’t see the dancers as she made her way to a quiet table for two and waited.  Sam inhaled a quick gasp.

“Go,” Michelle said.

Sam smiled, teeth pearlescent and gleaming.  Just before she stood up, she winked at the ballerina.

Michelle watched as Sam joined Gracie at the table.  After a moment of nervous body language, a few inaudible words, and an impulsive laugh or two, both were smiling.  As minute flowed into minute, their laughter rang out sporadically over the pounding beats and synthesizers of Annie Lennox’s “Sweet Dreams.”  A smiling Sam pointed to Michelle over her shoulder, and Gracie, grinning, waved to her.

As the two spoke, Samantha’s skin seemed to fill with blood, darkening and dulling, and her face lost its razor sharpness, did not seem so dangerous.  Michelle’s eyes were no longer pulled to her by magnetic force, but rested on her like on any other unremarkably attractive woman.

The two left to a pop-punk cover of “I Saw Her Standing There” blasting mercilessly over numerous speakers.  Hand in hand, with wandering steps, they walked with one another.  As they opened the door to the street, Gracie slid her arm around Sam’s waist, and Sam looked over her shoulder to wave goodbye to Michelle.  She winked again and walked out.

Michelle sighed and took a drink of her water.  After another fifteen minutes, the bartender asked her please to stop loitering.

The next night, customers at The Caribou overflowed into the streets.  Every table, every seat, and most every foot of floor space was filled with a panoply of people of varying ages, classes, and genders.  The ambient chatter was so loud that John had to turn the music up to deafening levels to be heard.  Michelle pushed her way back to the dressing rooms alone.

Most of the girls were on the floor.  Only Julie sat in the dressing room, applying makeup to the bruises which still remained on her body and face.

“Hey,” Michelle said.  “Do you know what’s going on?”

Julie picked up a folded newspaper off a chair.  She opened it to the Lifestyle section and tossed it to Michelle.

“They wrote another story about Princess,” she said.  “The story of her life.  It’s pretty interesting, really.  Crazy shit.  They called her Princess Sakura.  That’s her real name, Sakura.  It’s Japanese for cherry blossom.  All those people came to see her.”  She patted a makeup-dipped sponge lightly on her face.

Michelle changed her clothes.  “How are you?” she asked as she slipped off her underwear.

Julie patted her face, tap tap tap, with the sponge, then dabbed it back into the makeup.  “I’m still negative, if that’s what you mean.  I got checked out two days ago.  Other than that, I’m alive.  I’m surviving.  That’s all anyone can ask for.”

Michelle locked her clothes in her locker.  “Yeah.  I guess.”

Princess sat on a table, legs crossed, her foot resting on a chair.  A small crowd surrounded her on all sides, watching her as if she was the most fascinating thing they had ever seen.  She sat topless in boy-cut bottoms, and was speaking.  Her audience drank every word.

“When I foun ou I was positib, my whore word fer aparto.”  Sighs.  Empathetic nods.

Money and energy surged through the club like electricity through a dynamo.  Girls made three hundred dollars from a single stage dance.  No one went five minutes without a request for a private dance.

“Isadora,” John called over the sound system.  “Please make your way to the stage.  Up next we have the lovely Isadora, folks, put your hands together.”

Michelle took the stage to “Criminal” by Fiona Apple.  As she began to sway, she let herself sing along.  When she felt the beat as her heartbeat, the very rhythm itself coursing through her veins, she began to dance.

The club seemed to stop.  Princess was silent, and those who listened to her turned their heads to watch the girl doing ballet twirls in lingerie.

In Michelle’s mind, she was back on the beach as a little girl.  She was dancing for the first time, the first time music moved her.  She was lying with her brother, quiet and loved.  She was sitting on Samantha’s sofa, letting their worlds meld and mesh into one.

The people in The Caribou had grown still.  Lucy stopped rushing from table to table to stand and watch Michelle dance.  When the second song ended, Michelle looked around at a sea of eyes staring back.  She wiped the sweat off her brow and walked back to the bar.

“Hey, can I get some water?” she asked Mina as she approached the bar.

Mina looked at her oddly and handed her a glass of water with a lemon wedge.  For a moment she looked as if she might say something, but turned and walked to another customer.  Michelle drank her water in seconds.

“Hey,” called a male voice from down the bar.  Michelle looked to see Abe lounging five seats away.  “Michelle!”

“Yup?”

“Come ‘ere Michelle.”

She walked over and sat next to him, still sweating.

He wiped his mouth with his hand and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.  “You’re a real professional, you know that?”

“I know,” she said.  “You told me before.  You gave me a sort of raise.”

Abe stared into space.  “Ah, at’s right, at’s right.”  He hacked a quiet, rattling cough.  “You seen that friend of yours, Samantha?”

“I saw her yesterday.”

“Where is she?  She coming back?”

“I – I don’t think so.  She’s… she’s in love.”

Abe let out a wheezing laugh.  “Love?  She’s in love?”  He shook his head.  “You know, if I didn’t believe in love, I’d think you were lying.  Sam, she was the best dancer we ever had.  Loved her work.  Talk about professional, she was a professional.  Beyond professional.  I figured only love or death could tear her away from here.”

He paused, coughed again, spoke again.  “Take Claudia and me.  I wanted to open my club in Canada, and she wanted to be a social worker here.  Well, neither of us got exactly what we wanted.  I ain’t in Canada.  She ain’t a social worker.  Well, she ain’t a traditional social worker.  But we’re happy, ma belle.  We’re happy.”

A thin, twitchy young man approached and asked Michelle for a private dance.  She looked back at Abe.

“S’alright,” he said, waving his hand.  “Go make your money.  You deserve it.”

Madman attacks dancer in city club

Dog fends off attempted murder in gentleman’s club

Giant sociopath runs amok in Caribou

Service dog saves woman’s life at expense of own

Superhuman schizo strangles stripper

And, in one publication,

Pit bull attacks!  Is no one safe from this deadly breed?

The following night, business was normal.  A few customers asked about the previous evening’s occurrences, but the hours passed uneventfully.

The next night, the club was busier than usual.  At the door, every other customer asked if they had found the place where the Hulk attacked the Playboy bunny.

The girls could barely fill the demand for dances, and Princess had a line at least six deep all night.  Most of the customers who requested her dances were first-timers at The Caribou, and treated her with respect.  Even the few patrons she recognized spoke to her differently, and not one expected anything of her but a dance and a few moments conversation.  No one laughed at her accent.  Instead, they asked her life story and how she came to be a dancer in America with such an exotic background.

Most of the newspapers and stations had run her picture, a pouting blonde headshot, alongside the story of her attempted murder.  In most publications she was quoted, regarding Leon, as saying, “I wish I could have saved his life.”

The next day, Michelle took off work.  She stood in a stuffy hallway smelling smells of molded books.  She followed a hall down to room 404, which was not a proper office, but a large converted classroom with several partitioned desks belonging to different graduate students.  At the last desk, under florescent light, Gracie Solomon sat talking to a dull undergraduate.  Michelle stood just outside of the door and waited for the student to leave.  After a few minutes, she heard a “thank you,” and the young man brushed past her without acknowledgement.  She took a breath and walked in.

Gracie was less attractive than she looked in the blurry photo.  In Michelle’s opinion, her features were too sharp, her teeth too yellow.  Her body seemed angular in her slimly cut trousers and blouse.

“Can I help you?” she said.  “Are you in my class?”

“Um, no,” Michelle said.  She walked into the room and sat down in an uneven, wooden chair next to the woman.  “My name is Michelle.”

Gracie crossed her arms.  “All right.  I’m Grace Solomon.”

Michelle pulled her shoulders back like in ballet, filled her chest with air, and spoke.  “Hi, Grace.  I’m here for a friend.  Her name is Samantha Feranutos, and I know about your history with her.  I know what she said to you the last time you spoke, and I know the impression she gave.  Before you say anything, know that she is a good friend of mine, and I think I know her pretty well.  Let me tell you, she’s heartbroken.  She’s quit dancing, and I think you know how much she loved that.  She stays in her apartment all day and won’t see anyone.  She’s gotten pale and thin – well, paler and thinner, and she’s just… off.  I can’t really explain it in words.”  Her chest empty now of air, she refilled it.  “She – she knows she’s made a mistake.  She wants you.  Without you, nothing matters to her.”

Gracie’s face was calm as stone.  She nodded and said, “I figured you were one of her friends when you walked in the door.  You’re like her.  You have that… something.  Understanding eyes.”  She lowered hers and sighed.

“It’s very nice of you to come here,” she continued.  “Sam’s very lucky to have you.  But I don’t think it would work.  I don’t think she’d be happy tied down to me.  I think she needs that connection she has with everyone at the club, or in her bedroom.”

A static pause filled the room.

“It’s possible,” Michelle said.  “But Sam said no one else, not ever, has come back to her after being with her once.  Out of so many – so many – no one has ever wanted more.  You came back.  You wanted more.  Even after… even after you got what you got out of it.  And…” she hesitated, “and you still want more now, don’t you?”

Gracie’s expression changed.  She stared over Michelle’s shoulder and nodded slightly.  “I do,” she said.

“I mean, don’t you see?  You’re something different, and with you, she becomes something different.  She’s tired of her solitary life.  She’s tired of belonging to the world.  She wants to belong to herself.  She wants to belong to you.”

The woman bit her lower lip, and after a moment or two, she shook her head.  “I’m thankful to Sam for what she’s done to help me, but I know she’s done it for many others.  It was foolish of me to think our relationship would be different.  It was just a romantic dream.”

“Okay.  But does romance equal invalidity?”

“I suppose not.  Not always, or else why all the literature classes studying romantic poetry?  Why do people still read it?  Why does it still move people?  There must be some truth there.”

“Truth is beauty,” Michelle said involuntarily.  She didn’t know where the words had come from.

“Brilliant,” Gracie said.  “That’s Keats, isn’t it?  Very true.  You’re well-read, aren’t you?”

“No.  Not at all.”

The woman, growing somehow more attractive every moment, drew her finger to her chin.  “I suppose I can meet her, if she still wants to.  I suppose there’s no harm in that.  Even if we can only be friends.”

That night, The Caribou was even more crowded than the day before.  Princess had a steady line of a dozen people.  One woman paid for twenty solid minutes of conversation, in which Princess told of her heritage, her upbringing, her prostitution, and even her disease.  As the woman left, she handed Princess her card.  She was a journalist for one of the city’s leading newspapers, and she wanted to write an editorial on the dancer for its weekly feature, Our City’s Most Interesting People.  Princess’s story would take up a full page of the paper, and her picture would be enormous on everybody’s doorstep.  Princess shook the woman’s hand, tears welling in her eyes.

Abe sat king-like at a high stool at the bar overseeing The Caribou.  Every seat was filled.  Every hand held a drink or a dollar bill.  Every eye was focused on a dancer.  Somewhere inside of him, a little boy smiled.

Michelle sat in Samantha’s living room drinking tea.  Lily rubbed against her leg and purred, then dug her nails with popping snaps into the carpet.

“I have her phone number, and she said she’d meet with you.”

Sam sat behind a hot cup of tea, almost as thin and translucent as the bending wafts of steam that rose in front of her.  Her face was tired.

“Where and when?”

“Anywhere you want.  Just not during the day on weekdays.”

Sam moved to take a sip of her tea.  As soon as it touched her lips, she pulled it away.  A few drops fell onto the sofa.  “Ow,” she said.  “Too hot.”  She wiped her mouth with her hand and set the cup down.  “I won’t meet her at The Caribou.  That would be bad.”

“Yeah.  That’s a good idea.”

“But it shouldn’t be here.  It should be somewhere neutral.”

“Like a bar?”

“Maybe.”

“How about that place you took me?  Maybe during the early evening.  It wouldn’t be so crowded then.”

Sam paused.  “I guess it’s as good as anything.  That’s a fine idea.  I’m not so good at making decisions lately.”  She drew her teacup to her lips again and blew gently.

“When?” asked Michelle.

“Hmmph.”  Sam finally took a successful sip of tea.  “Soon.  I’d like to see her soon.  My schedule is open.  Whatever time is good for her is good for me.”

“Do you want me to call her and arrange something?”

“That would probably be the easiest.”

“Okay.”

Michelle took a long drink from the cooling cup of Darjeeling resting between her knees.  “Sam, can you do that to me?”

Sam smiled.  “Do that?”

“That thing you do.  The sitting.  I mean, if you’re not going to do it anymore, I’d like to see what it’s like.  Maybe it would, I dunno, help.”

Sam leaned back and studied Michelle like a mother looking at her daughter on graduation day.  “Maybe,” she said at length.

Before she knew what was happening, Samantha’s fingertips were touching Michelle’s forehead.  They felt soft and weightless like flower petals.  Her breath stopped.

Michelle could have sworn the hair on her neck was standing on end.  It was as if a charge was conducted through their skin.  She felt suddenly wide awake, and she opened her eyes wide to see that Samantha was doing the same, and she stared into the dark irises.  A small world opened in an instant succession of ineffable images that ran through her mind as the two were connected.

Michelle reached up and touched Sam’s face.  Her skin was parched and cold, but as the seconds passed, she felt warmth return to her cheek.  When they finally pulled back from each other, Michelle sat quietly for a moment.  Slowly she fell into herself, feeling the dry air of the apartment, the warmth rising from the tea on the table.

Sam was staring at her.  Her face, no longer chalk-like, seemed to glow faintly golden, in her cheeks the pink hint of a flush.

“Well,” Sam said, nearly gasping, “did it?”

Michelle reached up and felt her own cheeks, burning and covered in cold sweat.  “Yeah,” she said.  “I think it did.”

“That’s not a very specific description, Ma’am,” the man said, his voice nasal and peevish.  Michelle ground her teeth and did not scream.

“Look, sir, I do know this woman.  I told you, I met her once, and I didn’t get her last name.  I know she’s a graduate student in Philosophy of Science, and I know her name is Gracie.  She’s tall, about twenty-seven, pale, and thin.  I just need to talk to her.  I don’t even need her home address.”

“And you’re sure she’s a student here?”

“Yes.”  She found that people were more cooperative when she sounded authoritative, even when the things she said were unmitigated lies.

She heard the man mutter, then the sound of tapping on a keyboard.

“Could you hurry it up?” Michelle said.  “I haven’t got all day.”

A pause and a few keyboard taps later, the man said, “Oh, yes, here she is.  Gracie Jones.  Right there.”

Michelle’s breath caught.  “Oh, Jones,” she said.  “Yeah, that was it.  Of course.”

The secretary paused, then with relish he said, “Actually, there is no Gracie Jones here.  Not only are their no graduate students by the name of Grace or Gracie, but there are no students or professors in our entire department with that particular handle.  You’re obviously a liar, Ma’am, and should be ashamed of yourself for wasting my time.  I don’t feel you have any more business on this line.  I trust you won’t call back.”

Michelle had already hung up by the time he finished, making his precisely timed slam of the receiver back onto the cradle an anticlimax.

She sighed.  She crossed another college off the list and began to dial the number of another, but three loud bangs echoed from her door and she stopped.

When she opened it she saw Sam, haggard and smiling, slouching into her thin frame with her arms wrapped around her torso.

“Hiya, sweetheart,” she said.  “How’s the hunt going?”

“It’s coming along.  I think I’ve got a few leads.”

“You got any lemon?”

“Just bottled lemon juice.”

“Hey.  It’ll work.”

Michelle retrieved the lemon juice from the fridge while Sam stood in the doorway.

“How’re things at work?” Sam asked.

“Good,” Michelle said.  She paused.  “I mean, actually, pretty shitty.  Princess has HIV and Julie got the shit kicked out of her by Laura and the others.  The club’s all full of tension.  You can feel it.  It’s awful.”

Sam took the bottle of lemon juice.  “Well, when it rains, it pours.”

“That’s what Abe said.”

“Well, Abe’s a man who knows the power of a good cliché.  Nine times out of ten, they became clichés for a reason.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“I should be,” Sam said.  “I’ve been around.”

Sam returned to her apartment and Michelle made two more futile calls before going to work.  The afternoon sun was summer hungry through the still air and sweat beaded on her forehead as she arrived at The Caribou.

In the almost-empty club Michelle saw Beth sitting drinking a cocktail that resembled a Shirley Temple, boy-short blond hair held off her forehead with a headband, eyes surrounded with thick, dark makeup, in a boy’s undershirt and a short black skirt.  When she approached, Leon greeted her with wet kisses on the backs of her hands.

“Hey, Beth.  Haven’t seen you here in a while.”

“Yeah.  Well, you know Viv and I broke up.”  She lit a cigarette and took a drag, holding it limply between two fingers as she exhaled.

“Yeah, I heard.”

“Well, she was on cocaine and shit.  Meth even, I think.  What was I supposed to do?”

“I – don’t know.”

Beth pulled an effortless puff and let the smoke seep out her mouth and nose as she spoke.  “Anyway, she said she’s stopped.  She’s quitting.  It hasn’t been long, but she says she’s serious.  I came here to talk to her, but the girls backstage say she doesn’t show up for another half-hour, so I guess I’m waiting.”

“I’m glad you’re working things out.”

Beth looked at her, squinting her black-enveloped eyes.  “Michelle, right?  You don’t do drugs, do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.  I mean, I think I have a drinking problem, but I’ve never done anything stronger than pot.”

Beth nodded.  “Do you know if she’s stopping?  Have you noticed?”

“I think so.  It seems so.”

“Good,” Beth said.  “It was just too hard watching her hurt herself.  I couldn’t do it, you know?  But I also couldn’t teach her something she had to learn herself.”

Michelle went “Hmmn.”

“I tried to stay away, because I didn’t think she would come back.  I didn’t think she could change.  But then she called me and said she was giving up drugs for me, and I just couldn’t hang up.”  Beth’s mouth released a cloud of smoke.  “I meant to stay away longer, to give her more time and make sure she was sure, but to be honest, I just couldn’t live without her.  I drank too much.  I was a surly bitch.  I wasn’t myself.”  Her eyes glistened but she did not cry, and instead looked at Michelle and tried to laugh.

“You probably think I’m a young, romantic fool, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, maybe I am young and romantic,” Beth said.  “But I don’t think I’m a fool.  I don’t think I could feel this way if there weren’t something real between Viv and me.  Why does romance have to equal invalidity?”

Michelle was stroking Leon’s head slowly, listening to Beth.  “Do you think maybe you’re over thinking this?” she asked.

Beth sighed and slumped.  “All the goddamned time.”

To Michelle’s left in the distance, the giant, hulking form of Willy lumbered slowly into a seat.  Michelle noted his presence with the mild detached interest of anyone spying a familiar they haven’t seen in a while.

“Hey, Beth, can I ask you a question?”

Beth was watching Princess dancing on the main stage.  She straightened some and raised her eyebrows.  “What?”

“Well, um, I.”  Michelle fumbled in her purse for the grainy photograph of Gracie.  “You know, I don’t like to stereotype, and I would never ask you think if I didn’t know people like you, I mean, lesbians before who said that sometimes you guys – you girls – know each other more than maybe normal people, I mean other people.  I mean straight people.  I mean that I heard there’s like a network.  I mean, a lesbian told me that.  Not that that means anything.  But anyway, I’m really desperate to find this girl and I know it’s a long shot but I just have to ask you in case you know her even though I’m sure you probably don’t.”  Michelle took a deep breath, blushed in red of five shades, and thrust the photograph into Beth’s hand.

Beth looked at the ballerina and then at the picture.  She chuckled to herself quietly.  “You mean, not to say I look like a raging bull-dyke, but you thought I had connections in the lezzy underground.”

Michelle blushed in red of seven shades.  Then eight.

Beth smiled.  “That’s Gracie Solomon.  She’s a PhD student at my university.  She teaches Intro to Philosophy of Science.  I know people who’ve had her.  In class, I mean.”

“Wow, really?  Do you know how I can contact her?”

At the far end of The Caribou, Julie Han walked out of the dressing room.  Deep bruises and scrapes still showed through thick makeup, her bikini displaying every contusion.  Willy saw her immediately.

When it rains, it storms.

When Julie saw Willy, the muscles in her body tensed and locked.  She lowered her face and tried to slink past him unseen.

At the last moment, she turned her head to look at him.  It was too late, he had seen her, and in his eyes rage boiled, his teeth clenched and bared.

For all his beast-like lurching, high voice, speech and breathing impediments, and clumsy, cumbersome frame, the most terrifying thing about Willy was his ability, when he wanted, to move swiftly and deftly as a tiger.  He jumped out of his seat and flew across the room toward Julie, who stood up straight, her left eye flinching slightly as he approached and grabbed her arm, wrapping it in his mammoth hand.

“What the fuck is this!” he screamed, otherworldly falsetto rising above the stereo and the din.  “What the fuck is this?”

Julie’s voice was a low, soothing monotone.  “Calm down, Willy, this is nothing.  I was on a trip to the woods this weekend and fell out of my canoe.  Pretty stupid, huh?  It banged me up real bad, but I’m tough, you know.  Back to work already.”

Willy used the thick pad of his thumb to wipe away the makeup that concealed her black eye.

“A wock didn’t do this!” he shouted.  “A wock couldn’t do this.  Who did this?  Who hurt my Julie?”

His tearful, bloodshot eyes scanned The Caribou.  He was squeezing her arm so hard that she began to wince.

“Willy, calm down.  You’re overreacting.  Please let go of my arm.”

He turned back to her.  “No one hurts my Julie.  It was one of those bitches.  Tell me!  It was, wasn’t it?  It was that whore, Pwincess.  She did this ‘cause she’s jealous of you.”

The few patrons in the club looked at them uncomfortably.  Soon, two bouncers approached and attempted to hook their arms around Willy’s.  He threw them off, his mouth snarling.

In the same motion, he swung around and glared at the stage.  Julie’s nemesis, Princess, danced there carelessly, watching nothing.

“Don’t, Willy!” Julie shouted.

It all seemed to occur outside time.  Michelle and Beth saw Willy dash toward the main stage, throwing security guards off like dolls.  It was both very slow and extremely fast, the movement.  From all directions, screams rose as Willy leapt onto the stage.  Even Princess screamed, and though Michelle already knew the girl wasn’t mute, her voice shocked her.

Then time started again, a whirlwind of action shrinking to a point.  The sounds of screaming stopped and everyone saw the horrific scene.  Willy was on top of Princess gripping her around the neck.  She tried to kick him off, but his strength was too great and the pressure on her neck was already making her lightheaded.

Princess knew she was being strangled to death, and she didn’t know why.  More surprising, however, was the realization of how much she wanted not to be killed, to survive this moment, even though a certain voice in her head reminded her a quick death like this one would be easier than the one waiting for her if she avoided it.  She dug her nails deep into the backs of his hands, but they did not loosen.

A bouncer was beating Willy on the spine with a broken-off table leg, but he seemed not to notice.  Someone (a waitress or a patron – maybe a dancer) called the police.  Half of the people in the club were screaming.  Princess’s field of vision grew dark and began to fade.

Michelle stood up on the rungs of her stool to get a better view.  Then she heard Beth’s voice.

“Leon!” Beth shouted, but the dog was already on the stage.

Teeth bared, Leon jumped onto Willy and clamped his wide mouth over the fleshy pit of his elbow.  The giant froze for a moment, staring at the dog’s grip on his arm as if he was confused by the sensation of pain.  Then he bared his own teeth and screamed.

Willy let go of Princess and began shaking his arm furiously.  Leon held on, moving with the man, digging his teeth even deeper into the skin.

Beth now stood at the edge of the stage shouting desperate commands at Leon, Michelle lingering beside her, torn between watching the battle between the giant and the animal or the bouncers surrounding Princess.  One picked her up and carried her off the stage.

Princess blinked and shook her head, her arms wrapped around the bouncer’s neck.  As her vision returned, she could see Willy flailing, beating Leon with his free arm, throwing the animal’s body repeatedly against the floor of the stage.

“Yamete!” she screamed, twisting, trying to wring her way free of the bouncer’s arms, but they were already moving out the doors and into the parking lot.

Beth was crying and covering her eyes.  Michelle watched silently, her body still, arms wrapped around her torso, clutching herself.

Willy swung the sixty-pound body through the air, thrusting it into the stage, following with a pounding fist.

Everyone stared at the violent dance.  The man and dog twirled in some syncopated, hypnotic time signature.  Leon was so bloodied and broken it seemed impossible for him to be fighting still, but his jaws remained fastened as he growled at the man.

When the police arrived a few minutes later, Willy was beating Leon’s lifeless body.  After the dog’s back snapped, most of the occupants had run out into the parking lot.  Michelle knelt beside Beth as she sobbed into her knees sitting against the building.

Julie remained in The Caribou watching as the police pulled Willy away from the dead dog.  She gave a report of the evening’s events, as well as a history of Willy’s mental problems to the best of her knowledge.  As they led him past her in handcuffs, the two made tragic eye-contact.  Julie shook her head.

The cop touched her arm, brushed her bruises.  “Did he do this to you?” he asked.

“No,” she said.  “I’m a self-mutilator.”

The cop nodded uncomfortably and proceeded.

The police had evacuated The Caribou completely by the time Vivian arrived.  Beth sat against the wall crying with Michelle still hovering beside her.

Michelle told Vivian the story as Beth shook against the wall with sobs.  Vivian eyes began to stream tears as she knelt to take Michelle’s place beside Beth.  “He was a good dog,” one of them said, but Michelle couldn’t tell which, “he was such a good dog.”

Abe and Claudia stood together off to the side, two silhouettes watching as the police let the dancers and customers back in to claim their possessions.  The club would close for the night – the second night in two weeks.

“This is going to hurt our reputation,” Claudia said.

“Have a little faith, my darling,” Abe said.  “We still got a lot of fine girls.”

“Samantha’s gone.  Who knows how many will leave after this.”

Abe cocked his head toward her.  He smiled and grabbed her around the waist.  “Babe, a little faith goes a long way.”  Claudia rolled her eyes.  “Besides,” Abe added, kissing her ear, “what do I always say?”

“A new stripper turns eighteen every day.”

Abe nodded and turned to look at The Caribou.  “That’s right.  That’s right.”

The next day, Vivian came in early to quit and to tell Claudia thank you for the opportunity.  After leaving the office she sat at the bar and waited in a short skirt and white blouse.  When Michelle walked in, she ran up and hugged her.

“Hey, thanks, girl,” said Vivian, throwing her arms around Michelle’s neck.

“Uh, sure,” said Michelle.  “For what?”

Vivian let go.  “For talking to me.  And, like, listening.  For your advice.  I think if you hadn’t been here, I might have like gone crazy.  I think I’d be one of those girls like Angel, and I don’t think I’d have gotten a chance at getting Beth back.”

“Have you – gotten her back?”

Vivian smiled.  “I’m back at her dorm now.  We’re on a trial period or whatever, but I’m doing my part.  I’m not doing any more drugs and not stripping anymore.  I’m just not strong enough to hold onto myself and strip.  I mean, I guess some girls can, and that’s great, but I just can’t.  I’m gonna live with Beth for now and try to go to college.  I saved a lot of money, and there’re scholarships and stuff, but if it takes me a little longer to find a way to get to college, that’s just the way it’s gonna have to be.”

Michelle nodded.  “That’s really great, Vivian.  I mean, I’m really happy for you.”

Vivian smiled, then her face fell.  “We buried Leon’s ashes this morning in the park where he liked to walk,” she said.  “He was a really good dog.”

“Yeah, he was.  He saved Princess’s life.”

“Beth’s getting another service dog.  It’s not safe for her to be without one, but it won’t be the same.  She’ll miss him a lot.”  Vivian stared for a moment at the ground, then looked up.  “But we’ll get through it.  Don’t worry.”  She reached up and gave Michelle another hug.

“You’re beautiful,” Vivian said, letting her go.  “Don’t ever change, girl.”

The teenage girl walked out of The Caribou and did not look back, her skirt swooping along her thighs from side to side in rhythm with her gate.  Michelle watched and remained.  She would never see her again.

“Hello?  Department of Philosophy.”

“Um, hi.  I was looking for Philosophy of Science.”

“It’s a subset.  I can help you.”

“Hi, um, my name is Michelle Browne, and I’m looking for someone.”

“…Alright.  Is it a student?”

“Yes.  Well, a graduate student.”

“Okay, what’s his name?”

“Her.  Well, I don’t know her last name.”

“…Okay.  May I ask what this is regarding?”

“I, I met this woman, and I know she’s a graduate student in Philosophy of Science, and I know her first name, but that’s all.”

“And she goes here?”

“I… don’t know.”

Pause.

“Ma’am, we’re not supposed to disclose personal information about our students to strangers.”

“I’m not a stranger!”

“But you don’t know her last name?”

“No.”

Pause.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you, Ma’am.  This sounds a little suspicious.”

“But I’m not a stalker or anything.”

“…Right.  Goodbye.”

Click.

“Fuck.”

She showed up to work late that evening.  Bunny Lu and a few other girls wore on their faces evil smirks.

Vivian in the dressing room was not smirking, but smiling wide.

“What’s going on?” Michelle asked her.

“Beth called me this morning.”  The smile widened.

“No, no.  I mean, good.  That’s good.  But I meant what’s going on with Bunny and them.  Where’s Julie?”

“Oh that.”  She glanced over her shoulder.  “I don’t know for sure, but I think they did something to her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dunno.  I heard them talking.  I think they like, hurt her or something.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my God.”

Vivian shrugged.  “Eh, she’s kind of a bitch.”

“Yeah, but, jeez.  I mean, after all she’s been through.”

Vivian shrugged again.  “We’ve all been through shit.  Come on, we’re strippers.  You think we pick this job because we had some like, ideal childhood?  Have you even talked to most of these people?  Laura got gang raped and beaten and left for dead on the side of the road when she was eleven.  Angela was raped by her father since she was six.  I got kicked out of my parent’s house the day I turned eighteen ‘cause of something that was totally out of my control.  You?  Well, I dunno, but I’m sure something shitty has happened to you.  But you’re not a bitch, and neither am I.  It’s not my fault if Julie can’t handle what life gives her.  I’m not gonna feel bad for someone who actually got what they deserved when so many of us got handed shit for no reason at all.”

Michelle swallowed, said nothing.

“Anyway, Beth might be coming to the club in the next few days.  I think we’re gonna work it out.”

“Good.  I’m glad.  She’s really nice.”

“She brilliant, too.  I swear she’s gonna be a professor someday.”

“That’s cool.  I bet she will.  And you gave up the drugs?”

“Yup.  I mean, I’m still giving them up.  It was really fucking stupid of me to get into it in the first place.  But in a way, I’m kinda glad it happened.  I think I’m a lot wiser because of it.  I learned a lot about myself.  I think in the end, it’ll make me an even better girlfriend.”

“Good,” Michelle said.  “That’s good.”

Julie came in late that night.  On her face and body hid blue bruises, scrapes, and scratches concealed ineffectively with makeup.  A black eye showed through, and her bottom lip was swollen and purple, but she walked in tall, proud, with eyes straight ahead unshaking.

In the dressing room she heard snickers and whispers.  They hit her like droplets of water, breaking apart, cold and harmless.  I am calm.  I am powerful.  Their words do not, cannot hurt me.  I know now that I’m invincible even against sticks and stones.  Yes, I am battered.  Yes, I am beaten.  But I will dance like always.  If I dance and they look away in disgust from my bruised body, it will not harm me.  I am strong.  I am great.

The night was over quickly.  She made a little money and walked out without fear.  She could hear Bunny and the others shouting after her as she walked down the street the same way she always had, at the same unhurried pace.

Let them come.  Let them beat me again.  Let them end me.  I don’t care.  Or let me fight back and destroy every one of them, and let me go on to destroy everyone in the godforsaken place, all the dancers, all the customers, everyone.  I don’t care.  I don’t care.

No one followed.  She had won.

Michelle spent the next afternoon calling colleges in the city, finding no leads.  When she arrived at The Caribou, Abe Jackson was sitting at a table by the bar.

“Good morning, my Michelle!” he called.  The voice in the otherwise empty club startled her.  She jerked her head and saw him sitting there slumped comfortably with knees wide apart.

“Hi there,” she said.  “I haven’t seen you around here lately.”

“Well, ma belle,” he said, draping an arm over the back of his chair.  “Ole Abe’s been on a vacation.”

“Oh yeah?  A vacation to where?”

“Canada.  Lovely country, Canada.  I get to parlay voo my francais.  Have a seat.”

Michelle pulled up a chair next to Abe.

“You,” he said.  “I seen you dance last night when I came in.  Something’s changed about you.  You look different on the stage, you know what I mean?  Like a professional.”

“Well, thanks.  I don’t know what’s changed.  I think I’m just more confident.”

“No, now don’t you make Abe out to be a fool.  You know what I mean.  You a pretty girl, you always been a pretty girl, but before, your dancing was nothing better than amateur quality.  Now you own it.  The customers, they can’t take their eyes off you.  You’re our best dancer, I think.  You want a raise?  Bigger percentage of your tips?”

“Um, do you do that?”

“We do now, ma belly-belle.  And you got it.”

During the long pause that followed, Abe stared in the general direction of the stage.  The blonde on stage twirled and thrust in approximate time with the music, and as Michelle noticed the tattoo on the girl’s lower back she experienced déjà vu.

Dumb belle.  False mute who spoke jagged English.  Disease carrier.  Beauty queen.  No, not queen—Princess.  Princess Sakura dancing on the stage like a dervish, spinning wildly, releasing her anger and sorrow in the turns.

“When it rains, it pours,” Abe said, absently watching the prodigal dancer as she turned and turned.

“You can say that again,” Michelle whispered.

“When it rains, it pours,” Abe said.  He turned to the ballerina and smiled.  Michelle looked at him blankly.

Julie saw Princess as soon as she walked in.  No rage came, no disgust.  Princess was just another enemy, just another compatriot in the bizarre sweeping intricate perfect narrative of her life, and the feeling she’d had in her dream, in her time dancing at the pub in Ireland, washed over her and filled out every capillary until her fingertips tingled with it.  Her hatred fused, became intermingled with her love for the girl, misunderstood and dying, and instead of accosting or forgiving her, Julie ignored her, averting her eyes whenever she passed.

Princess, noticing Julie’s deliberate behavior, reacted as best she knew how and ignored Julie in return.  Full of fear and loathing, it was one less thing she had to deal with as she navigated her newly terrifying life.

Princess closed her eyes and tried to stop thinking.  In the darkness and the lights she danced in silence inside the music.

Michelle was pounding on the door of apartment 118C.  She heard movement behind the door.  She knocked louder.

“Come on, Sam!  It’s Michelle.  It’s me!”

Slowly, the door opened.

Sam looked tired, sick.  Her white skin was almost translucent, and Michelle could see faint snaking rivers of blue veins in her forehead.

“Hey, sorry,” Sam said.  “I was sleeping.”

“Oh, sorry.  I was just wondering if I could ask you a question.”

Sam leaned against the door frame.  “I’m an open book.”

“Um, do you know the name of that girl?  The one you told me about?”

“Why do you want it?”

“I just thought… I just thought maybe I could help you find her.”

Sam looked at Michelle for a moment, then closed her eyes and laughed.

“Well, look who’s become a selfless hero.”  Her voice carried amusement, but no trace of resentment.

Michelle kicked the floor.  “Yeah, I guess.”

“Michelle, it’s a very nice gesture, but if I wanted to find her, I’m sure I could.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“It’s over,” Sam said.  “I had my chance.  I blew it.  It’s like Paul McCartney said.  ‘This bird has flown.’”

“That’s John Lennon.”

“What?”

“Norwegian Wood.  It’s Lennon off Rubber Soul.”

Sam thought for a moment, then shook her head.  “Yes, of course.  You’re right.  John Lennon.  I must have been thinking of another song.  That other bird one.”

“Blackbird?”

Sam nodded.  “That’s right.  Yes, that’s right.”  She looked at Michelle.  “You know your Beatles.”

Michelle shrugged.  “Music got me through high school.”  She reached into her purse and drew out the photo.  “Look, I have this picture of her.  If you can tell me her name, maybe I could find her and you could have a second chance.”

Sam bit her lip.  “A second chance.”

“Yeah.  It’ll be just like starting over!”

The pale woman smiled.  “I get it.  More Lennon.  But I don’t know if it’d work.”

“Why not?  It’s worth a try.  Nothing’s ever over.  What if she’s your soul mate?  Your Yoko?”

Sam leaned against the doorframe, her head lolling to the side and her eyes closed.  After some time, she said, “She drew him away from the band, from his childhood friends, from what he always dreamed of as a teenager.”

They both paused, the only movement Michelle’s eyes dropping down to the left and blinking.

“But in the end, all that didn’t make him happy, did it?” Sam said.  She opened her eyes.  “I mean, listen to his songs.  He was a sad man, and all the power and fame and money didn’t change that.  Sometimes things don’t turn out the way you plan them.  If something isn’t good for you, you move on, even if you once loved that something.  Sometimes, everyone has to move on.”  Her sunken eyes were brightening, growing wide, whites shining.

“Yeah,” Michelle added.  “All you need is love!”

“Let’s not get sentimental,” the pale woman said.

“Sorry.”

Sam stepped back from the door.  Her thin hand gripped the knob and she stopped.  “Her name is Gracie,” she said.  “I never got her last name.  She’s a PhD student somewhere, studying Philosophy of Science.  It’s not much, but it might help if you’re serious.”

“I am.” Michelle said as Sam closed the door.

On her way to work, she stopped at an internet café.  She searched under the name “Grace” and the words “PhD philosophy of science,” then she tried “Gracie” and “graduate philosophy science.”  Nothing.

She walked through the front door of The Caribou and back to the dressing rooms with her eyes on the floor.  When she looked up she saw, sitting knees together and toes pointed into the floor on a man’s lap, Julie Han.

“Julie!” she called.  Julie looked at her obliquely, narrowing her eyes.  “Uh, Annie May.”

“What’s up?”  Julie wasn’t using her fake accent.

“How are you feeling?” Michelle asked.

Julie hung off the man’s neck, leaning backwards playfully.  The man smiled strangely and strained.

“I’m fine,” Julie said.  “I told you I know myself.  I woke up today feeling great.”

“That’s great!”

The man’s smile dropped.  “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” he said.  “What’s wrong with you?”

Julie looked at him.  “Nothing serious,” she said.  “I just have really bad cold sores.”  She leaned in and kissed him on the lips.  He sputtered and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as Julie stood up.

“He was an ass anyway,” she said to Michelle as the two dancers walked to the bar.

“I feel good,” Julie said.  She waved to Mina.  “Can I get a club soda?”

“Me too,” Michelle called.  The bartender looked at her, raising an arched eyebrow.  “I’m trying to cut down on drinking.  Alcohol.”

Mina slid the sodas over the bar and winked at the ballerina.  “It’s a miracle,” she said.  “Somebody finally listened to me.”

The dancers sipped their sodas.

“Hey,” Julie said, eyes on her glass.  “Thanks for coming with me to the hospital.  It was nice to have someone there.”

“Sure,” Michelle said.

Julie pulled the rest of her soda through her straw.  “See ya.”  She stood and started to walk toward a table of older men, then stopped.  “Oh fuck,” she said.  “The bitch is back.”

Michelle turned.  “Princess?”

“No, Bunny.”

Bunny Lu’s shrill laugh carried from across the room.  She sat shirtless at a table with an attractive twenty-something man.  Her pink mouth gaped as she cackled at some unheard joke and touched the man’s shoulder lightly with her fingertips.

Very little is as repulsive as the sight of someone you hate laughing.

Julie lowered her head as she walked onto the floor with intention and speed.  Bunny spotted her anyway.

She felt a hand on her shoulder before she heard the voice.  Julie turned around to Bunny Lu’s cavernous maw as it voiced the words, “Bitch, I think you owe me an apology.”

“For what?”

“For what?” Bunny mocked.  “You know what.  You said Mr. Fontana was gonna like, sell me into the slave trade or some shit.  He didn’t.  I’m here.  We had a nice trip and he paid me what he said and was a perfect gentleman.  You stupid cunt.  You’re just jealous ‘cause no one wants to take an ugly Chinese bitch like you anywhere.”

Julie focused on her breath and tried to remember the feeling she’d had in the pub in Ireland, the one she’d had in her dream.  She looked at Bunny Lu and imagined herself reflected back in her.  Scared, confused, complex, deserving only of pity and compassion.  Julie sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Bunny said, one hand flying to her hip.  “Did that fall you took make you mute?  That’s just what we need.  Two fake-ass mute girls going fucking insane.  Why don’t you just—”

Bunny’s animate jaw was interrupted by Julie’s fist.

Bunny stopped, gaped, drew her hand to her mouth.  Blood trickled in a thin stream from her lip.

“You.  Fucking. BITCH!” she screamed and swung her arm to slap Julie across the face.  Julie ducked just in time for Bunny’s hand to whip her hair faintly and whoosh past overhead.

The whole club was staring at them.  Bunny saw the eyes and felt her dripping lip.  She muttered something inaudible and ran back to the dressing room covering her mouth.

Julie laughed to herself as she danced that night.  God it’s good sometimes to be alive.  Someone must want me here after all because who has two brushes with death in twenty-four hours and just comes back to work and dances?  Julie, Julie Han.  Yes maybe I’m lucky to be alive, but I’m alive goddammit.  Fucking bite on my arm is nothing.  Isn’t anything.  Probably more chance of contracting AIDS through a mosquito bite.  And anyway, I don’t feel sick.  I know I’d know somehow.  I’m healthy, I’m staying, I’m gonna be around a long time and I’ve got a fucking degree now.  As soon as I make enough, I’m gonna open that restaurant and live in a quiet town away from all this, this dirt and these lights, and I’ll tell them my name and they won’t call me Annie May.  I’ll wear collars and pants every day.  Boots.  As soon as I make enough.

As she changed into her street clothes and loaded up her bag after the club closed, she noticed Bunny eyeing her and pointing her out to a few other girls.  Usual catty gossip amongst the burnout ho crowd.

Julie walked the same route home every day.  The streets were narrow, but well-lit and relatively busy.  She had never encountered an assailant, and had no reason to think tonight would be different.

But a few blocks away from The Caribou, she felt someone following her.  She spun around, but before she saw anything she was hit over the head with something hard and flat.

She smacked the pavement, rolling, scraping the skin on her arm and stopping flat on her back.  When she looked up, she saw Bunny Lu holding a stiff, black handbag and Angel, Gabrielle, and two other dancers standing behind her.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Julie said, standing up quickly.

“What the fuck does it look like?” Bunny said, her wide mouth a mocking sneer.

“Nobody treats Laura like that,” Angel said.  “You got no right to hit someone in the face.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, bitch,” Julie said.

“You can make this easy, or hard,” Bunny said in an irritating impersonation of melodrama.  “I’d make it easy if I were you, since it’s only gonna be hard on you.”

Julie scanned the faces of the other dancers.  They were cold, unreadable.

“What did I ever do to you?” she asked, making eye-contact with Gabrielle who stood slightly behind the other girls.

Gabrielle looked to the side.  “I… you… you hit Bunny for no reason…”

“Come on, girl,” Julie said.  “You know I never did anything to you.  Why are you here?”

“You made us lose a whole day!” shouted a tall, black girl with a lip ring whose name Julie did not know.  “Claudia shut the whole club down on Monday after you fell.  We all got fucked ‘cause of you.”

Julie looked behind her and knew she had no chance of outrunning them down the long unbending street.  She saw nowhere she could duck in and hide, and no sign of a cop or noble layperson to help her.

After one quick resigned sigh, she caught her breath and screamed as loud as she could.  She ran at Bunny with all her strength and leapt on her, knocking her off her feet and onto the street.  Julie fell on top of her and managed a few good punches before she was ripped off by the other girls.

She tried to fight back at first, hitting one, kneeing another, but eventually the barrage of fists became almost rhythmic, and the constant feeling of being punched, kicked, and scratched lulled her into a quiet acceptance of fate.

A group of young men walked by.  They wore t-shirts too large for them and baseball caps.

“Yeah!  Rip her shirt!” one shouted as they walked past.

“Are we on the Playboy channel?” another said.  He raised his hand to colliding high fives by two of his friends.

Then Bunny’s shoe hit her face and she wasn’t aware of much until the group slowed collectively and dissipated, leaving her in a heap in the center as they circled and dispersed.

Bunny and another one was laughing, but Julie’s vision was too blurry to make out which.  They said something to her, but she didn’t care enough to hear it.  When the last of their footsteps were gone she drew herself up and walked slowly and deliberately home.

When she saw him with his surly smirk sneering in all his freedom and agility and youth, the first thing Michelle thought was, You don’t remember Nirvana, and the second thing she thought was, Shouldn’t you be in school or something?

Then, No, of course, it’s summer.  There’s no school in the summer.  Duh.  Then another thought, this one starting not as words, but as a point, a tiny glow that pulsed and grew steadily until it filled her skull, her throat, her chest.  It pulsed and glowed until she felt herself pulsing and glowing, her chest, her neck, her skull vibrating and emanating this radiant realization, this new knowledge.  A realization she had kept buried for months, for years, suddenly surfacing and blooming into an undiscountable neon flower.

She wasn’t a child anymore.  She was an adult.  She was accountable and responsible for every choice she made, every action.

She could do whatever she wanted.

She blinked.  The colors she saw seemed suddenly brighter, the buildings and sidewalks not grey now, but silver, the skyscraper-sliced slivers of sky deep and brilliant sapphire.  The city air was clean, and she breathed it in uninhibited.  Yes!  I am an adult!  Yes!  I have all the power that anyone else has!  I control my destiny as much as anyone else!  As much as I want to!  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!

Forgetting about the grocery store and her bare cupboard, she walked quickly home and readied herself for work hours early.  She nearly ran down the streets to The Caribou, arriving just as the doors were opening.

“Hey, what’s up,” Jordan said as he placed the tray into the cash register and tossed it shut with the necessary violence.  “How’s Annie May?  You went with her, right?  Shit, that fall looked fucking harsh.”

“She’s fine as far as I know.  She went home late last night and seemed okay.”

Michelle walked in as Jordan was still talking.  “Shit man.  I mean, half the girls here swore she was dead.  They said she was puking blood or some shit.  Fuck, you guys didn’t realize you had such a hazardous job, I bet.  Did you?  Huh?”  Michelle walked straight through the club and back to the office.  She knocked.

“Come in,” Claudia said.  Michelle opened the door.

Claudia was alone in the office.  She sat behind the computer, watching the television screens in the corner.  There were only a few customers in the club, and no one was using the private dance rooms.  When Michelle walked in, Claudia looked up.

“Yes?” she said, darting her eyes quickly back to the motionless screens.

“Hi,” Michelle said.  “I just wanted to let you know that Julie’s okay, but she probably won’t be in today.  She was in the hospital all night last night.”

Claudia nodded.  “Glad to hear she’s all right.  Poor girl.  That fall looked like it could have killed a person.”  She took a sip from the coffee mug that sat next to her computer.  “You can tell her, if you see her, that whenever she’s ready, she can come back.  There’s no hurry.  We got plenty of girls.”

“Even with Sam and Princess gone?”

Claudia looked at her, raised her brow.  “We got plenty of girls.”

Michelle nodded and started to walk out, but stopped.  “Hey, do you have those surveillance videos all over, or just in the private rooms?”

Claudia had gone back to gazing at the TV screens.  “We got a few on the floor.  Not a lot, but a few.  Why?”

“Do you keep the tapes?  I mean, do you tape over them?”

“We usually keep the footage for a couple months in case we need it for legal reasons.  Why do you ask?”

Michelle clutched her bag.  “I’m looking for somebody.”

“Who?”

“A woman.”

“A dancer?”

“No, a customer.  Do you have tapes from the main floor, around?  Could I look at them?”

Claudia looked at her.  “What exactly is this regarding, honey?”

“It’s, uh, it’s about Sam,” Michelle said.

Michelle spent the time before her shift watching video of The Caribou main floor on the computer.  She had an idea of the date – it would be right before Sam’s disappearance, but after two hours of looking, she began to doubt her method.

Finally, she raised her eyebrows and drew her face close to the screen.  A tall, scholarly-looking woman sat alone in the back of the club, sipping a pink martini through a straw.  Something about this woman caught Michelle’s attention.  She seemed somehow different, somehow more vibrant than the other people caught on the grainy video.

Then the image of Samantha ran to her.  The woman stood up and they embraced.  Michelle’s heart thumped rapidly.  She had found Mademoiselle X.

“Claudia!” she called.  Claudia had been sitting near the stack of TV screens, watching with intensity a lap dance going on in one of the rooms.  She jumped when Michelle spoke.

“Huh?  What?”

“I found her!  That’s her!”  Michelle pointed to the woman.  “Can you print this out?”

Claudia zoomed in on the woman’s face.  The picture was grainy, but the woman’s basic features could be made out.

“I sorta thought she’d be prettier,” Michelle said as Claudia printed out the image.

“Well, honey, you know what they say,” Claudia commented, pulling the picture out of the printer.  “Love is blind.”

Michelle shrugged and took out the picture.  It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

“Thanks,” she said.

“No problem, baby,” Claudia said as she went back to her TV screens.  “It’s nice to see someone doing something nice for someone else.  So, what you gonna do now?”

Michelle looked at the picture.  “I really don’t know,” she said, and walked out.

She walked into the dressing room studying the printout.  When she glanced up, she almost dropped it.

Bunny Lu sat, tanned and fabulous, sitting on the makeup counter surrounded by the other dancers.

“No, I was like totally down with the natives,” she was saying to Angel, the other girls watching in awe.  “I mean, they were like poor and stuff, but you should have seen how cheap things were there!  Everyone was really nice.  I guess the American dollar really is the universal language!  Ha.  You know what I mean?”

“You look great,” Vivian said, gazing at Bunny in her oversized sunglasses and undersized top.

“Thanks, honey,” she said.  One of the girls handed Bunny a mirror with three lines of coke on it and a straw.

“I leave for three weeks and you all forget how to do this?” she said.  Bunny reached into her purse and pulled out a hundred dollar bill.  “This is how we did it in the Dominican Republic.”  She rolled the bill expertly and did a line.  “Shit, I gotta introduce you guys to some real coke,” she said, and handed the mirror and the bill to Vivian.

Vivian took the mirror and the hundred and looked at it.  She passed it on to the next girl.

“Where the fuck’s Julie?” Bunny demanded.  “That bitch owes me an apology.”

A few of the dancers muttered to each other.  Bunny Lu looked around.

“What, she get fired?” she asked with a smirk.

“We think she broke her neck,” Gabrielle said.

“Yeah, she fell off the pole,” another girl added.

“She didn’t break anything,” Michelle said.  Everyone looked at her.  She swallowed.  “She’s okay.  She should be back soon.”  The other girls still stared at her.  She paused, then held out the grainy picture and drew near to them.  “Hey, none of you guys know this girl, do you?”

They all shook their heads.

“Why, should we?” Angel asked, who seemed to be attempting to focus on the picture, but who’s eyes kept falling off to the left before she could jerk them back forward.

“No,” Michelle said.  “Guess not.”

For a few moments in the dressing room, there was silence.  Michelle used it to walk to her locker.  She placed the picture inside reverently.

“Well, when that Oriental bitch comes back, she’s gonna have some shit to answer for,” Bunny said.  Michelle started to get dressed.  From behind her, a voice.

“Hey, so, Julie’s okay?”  Michelle turned around and saw Vivian.

Now many of the girls were through dressing, were leaving the dressing room to go work the floor.  The room grew much quieter.  “She should be fine,” Michelle said.

Vivian watched the ground.  “I mean, I was thinking.  I was saying I wanted to die yesterday, but I don’t want to die.  When I saw her folded up on the stage like that, I thought she was dead, and it got me thinking about like, being dead.  I mean like, actually being dead, and like duh I don’t want to actually die.  I mean, I was just mad, you know?  But I don’t want to run away from my problems.  I got to face them and make them better.”

Michelle slid out of her bra and put on a pink polka-dotted bikini top.  “Um, that’s good.  I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“It’s not just that,” Vivian said.  “I mean, I don’t know if I feel better.  I’m still sad, but I talked to Beth this morning.  I don’t know if she’ll take me back, but I’m gonna try to make myself better.  I’m trying to work through my shit, because like I look at Angela and Laura and those girls, and maybe they seem like glamorous kind of in a way, but I mean, I really wanted to go to college.  Like really.  And I’m smart.  And I don’t want to end up like that in five years when I’m all old and stuff.  I was thinking I’m not gonna do drugs anymore, I decided.  And I’m not gonna hang around those girls.”

“Oh, that’s great,” Michelle said.  She didn’t believe Vivian, but she wanted to.

That night when Michelle danced, eyes lay on her as they used to on Samantha, or on Princess.  Her movements were electric, as if she had just needed time to grow into her sensuality, her rhythm.  Her regular was there.  She said hello to him and listened to a story from before she was born, but in her mind she wandered away from him and The Caribou and began already to search for Samantha’s mystery woman, pouring through mental directories, following tenuous connections, turning over invisible stones.