“Sam!  Are you all right?”

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.

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