Flesh Into Fire Read online

  “The night you flashed him your pussy. Was that the first time you saw him?”

  “The night you did what to who?” I ask. Which seems reasonable.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Maddie says. (I disagree, but there’s clearly other shit at work here, so I will choose to table it for later.) “What’s the deal?” Maddie goes on. “Pete said a bunch of stuff to me about Carlos too. Like he knows him. Knew him, I mean. What’s going on?”

  Raven sighs. It makes the bow and ruffles rise and fall with her breathing chest. And just like the night she approached me in the parking lot of the club, she looks younger and softer somehow. It makes me sad for a reason I can’t quantify.

  “So…” she begins. “Pete had a wife. Carolina.”

  “Is she the one he kept in his office?” I ask.

  “What?” responds Maddie. I shake my head at her. I don’t wanna get off track right now. (Besides, my dear, two can play the “Pete’s Secrets” game…)

  “Yes,” says Raven. “That’s her. She passed away a few years ago. Pete loved her more than… well, hell… more than anything. The club? That was her idea.”

  “Really?” asks Maddie. “Running a strip club was his wife’s idea?”

  “Yep. She was a dancer herself, back in the 70s. And she experienced some pretty rough treatment, I guess. Which is par for the course. But it doesn’t have to be, and she wanted to have a place where girls could work and not be exploited and not be judged and not deal with all the garbage that girls have to deal with. I mean, let’s not over-inflate it. We gotta be real, she was opening a strip joint, not a convent, but still…”

  If you asked me to pick a moment when I decided that I thought Raven was awesome, I might have to put this one high on the list as a contender.

  “OK,” says Maddie. “So what—?”

  “Carolina was Mexican. She lived in Mexico. And that club she was dancing in was owned by a young, Mexican guy who was just starting to make a name for himself in the entertainment, tequila… and drug-running business.”

  “You. Are. Fucking. Kidding me,” says Maddie. Or it might be me who says it. Either way, it’s the right reaction for both of us to have.

  “I am not fucking kidding you,” says Raven. “And more importantly, he kind of fell in love with Carolina, and he tried everything he could to make her love him back and blah, blah, blah. Just a plain old sappy story of unrequited love, honestly.”

  This shit is blowing my mind. “And Pete…?” I ask.

  “Pete was a recently discharged war vet who was down in Mexico doing… whatever guys do when they come back from war.” She tilts her head at me like it’s a secret code or some shit. I just wave my hand at her to continue. “And, y’know, it’s not real complicated after that. Pete and Carolina fell in love, he and Carlos had a lot of bad blood between them, Pete got her the fuck out of Mexico, they settled in Vegas, built a strip club and lived happily ever after.”

  I start to point out what Raven already knows.

  “Yeah,” she says, “That is until Carolina died and then Carlos found you”—she points at Maddie—“totally coincidentally, I suppose, working at the goddamn symbol of his onetime heartbreak and failure, for probably the one guy he ever met in his life who he couldn’t intimidate or bend to his will, and somehow in Carlos’ warped fucking mind, he saw this as a chance to get even somehow, I suppose, and so he tried to fucking win you instead, and when he couldn’t do that, he burned down Pete’s with Pete inside.”

  I hate it when I know I have a dopey, slack-jawed look on my face but can’t stop it.

  “OK, thanks,” Raven says to me. “I was just taking a shot, but you confirmed it for me with the dumbfounded mug you’re wearing there.”

  I snap my mouth shut. Then open it again to ask, “But how—?”

  “Dude, I’ve been around a long time. I’ve seen shit. And all the shit with that fucker, Logan… I knew it was only a matter of time before it all went pear-shaped. Especially after I saw you”—she points at Maddie again—“show back up after he made off in his car with you on Halloween.”

  “What… What do you mean?” asks Maddie.

  “Sweetie, no offense, but if Carlos wanted your money, you dead, or you, he’d have it. He was just fucking with you to torture Pete, is my guess.”

  “But that doesn’t—”

  “What?” Raven asks. “Make sense? Babe, Carlos is a lot of things and one of them is crazy. With a capital kray. You know he won’t get on an airplane, don’t you?” And then she gets solemn suddenly. “But I never thought…” And goes silent. As do we all.

  This is a lot to take in. Even with all the surreal shit that calls itself life swirling around me lately, this is a bridge farther than I could imagine having to walk. Carlos was using Maddie to torture Pete? Because of a girl? From, like, over forty years ago?

  Know what? When I stop to think about losing Maddie to some other asshole, it doesn’t seem so nuts. The way I feel about her, I’d spend the rest of my life trying to make that other guy suffer. He’s not even real, he’s just a figment of my very immediate imagination, and I’m already thinking of ways to make his life miserable. So, in that regard, I get it.

  “What are you gonna do?” Maddie asks Raven, thoughtfully.

  “Me? Oh, I mean… I’ll, y’know, rebuild.”

  “Rebuild what? Pete’s?” Maddie asks.

  “Of course. What else am I gonna do?” She smiles. “But there’s not gonna be a place for you, I’m afraid.”

  Maddie smiles back. “Good.”

  “You know why I busted your balls so hard, don’t you?” Raven asks her.

  “Yeah,” says Maddie. “I do now.”

  “Good,” Raven says and they take each other’s hands.

  I don’t know. I honestly have no idea what the fuck is going on. This is some straight-up girl shit happening, but fine. Not my place to ask. Is it fucked up that seeing them both dressed in black and holding hands gets me hot? Again. Rhetorical. Of course it is.

  Then Maddie asks, “Raven? How did you come to—?”

  Raven shushes her. “That’s a whole other story for a whole other time,” she says.

  Maddie sniffs and laughs. “OK,” she says. “But,” she goes on, “can I ask you one thing though? For real?”

  “Sure,” says Raven.

  “What’s your real name?”

  The question hits me in the gut. I don’t even know if she’s aware of it, but that’s the exact question she asked me in my kitchen on Halloween. The night we found out who we are. Both to each other and to ourselves. The night she went off and got into a car with Carlos Castillo. The night that everything irrevocably changed forever. In both wonderful and terrible ways.

  An unsettling smile unfurls slowly along Raven’s lips. She regards Maddie, looks over at me, and then looks back at Maddie again. And it reminds me of the last time we saw Pete in his office, and how he did the same thing. The weird déjà vu I feel at this concurrence of events is both bittersweet and ominous. I’ve got a sinking feeling that she’s going to say, “Carolina Flanagan,” or something equally unnerving and disquieting that pastes yet another layer of complexity onto this already far too complicated story that keeps unfolding for us. Shit, she might just say, “My name’s Tyler Morgan,” and send me spiraling off into The Twilight Zone for good. Never to return.

  I brace for who the hell knows what, and after a few, profound, filled beats, her grin grows even wider and she says…

  “It’s just Raven.”

  Chapter Two - Maddie

  After story time is over, we mingle a little. Raven moves quietly into, and between, the small groups of people talking in hushed voices. She touches them all—a gentle hand on the arm or shoulder, a small smile.

  She brushes a piece of hair away from Raquel’s face and it drags a tear along her cheek, which smudges her makeup and leaves a trail of evidence. Raquel cries softly, her uncertain eyes darting anywhere, everywhere, but directly at R
aven. Like she’s embarrassed.

  Raven comforts her. Refuses to walk away until they are face to face, and Raquel is nodding her head, and looking her in the eyes, and using the tissue handed to her to dab at her cheeks.

  They hold hands the ways girls hold hands. All ten fingertips fitting into other fingertips like a puzzle. And for some reason it reminds me of Girl Scouts. When you made a pledge to your troop buddy. You held her hands that way, and you swung your arms a little, like it was a game, and chanted something simple and pretty about promises and friendship to her.

  I watch from across the room. Mesmerized.

  I know every woman here. Which is… surprising, I guess. But not.

  Kinda like everything else about this day.

  I mean, I was the morning manager at Pete’s. Only for a few weeks, but basically, Pete’s was my life. Was really the only thing I had. Yeah, Tyler was there, but he was something to be avoided and Pete’s was where I went to avoid him. Where I went to avoid the past. And the present. And probably the future, too, if I’m being honest.

  Pete’s gave me direction. Pete’s gave me purpose. Pete’s was a place I could count on.

  And now there’s no place for me there. Words straight out of Raven’s mouth.

  I’m not sad about retiring as a stripper. That would be dumb.

  But I lost something more than I can quantify in that fire. More than a sense of purpose.

  I lost… I dunno. Something akin to family, but not. Because family is just something you have, or don’t. And the people at Pete’s are… friends.

  I had Annie. But I never put a lot of effort into Annie. Same for Caroline and Diane. They were just there. I never felt needed by them. I paid my rent, we sometimes ate and drank together. We tanned out by the pool and pretended we were living the dream.

  But that wasn’t real. This, these people, these women who take off their clothes every night and pretend to love their jobs for the sake of their sanity—this is reality.

  Cold. Hard. Truth.

  I love them all in some weird way I’ve never felt before.

  Which is curious. That this room, filled with dozens of women just as messed up as I am, is what really matters to me these days. Their daycare bills, their boyfriend problems, the past they’re all running from. It matters to me.

  And I wonder if I’ll be letting them down when I’m not in their life anymore. Will they miss me the way I’ll miss them? Who will settle shoe disputes? Who will put them on the schedule? Who will listen with a sympathetic ear when they have to beg for more stage time so they can make the rent?

  Clearly, there will be someone.

  Right?

  Raven will be there.

  Maybe I’m just worried that they won’t miss me. They don’t need me. Never did need me. I’m just another person in their life with a little bit of power to make it easier and none of it was about family, or friendship, or…

  “Mads,” Tyler says, placing his hand on my elbow to direct me over to the kitchen island where there’s drinks and food laid out. “You should eat something. Want some crackers?”

  I look up at him through a blurry haze and realize I’m crying. And even though there’s a lot of reasons to cry right now, I don’t even know why I’m crying. Is it Pete? Sure. It’s Pete. Is it Carolina? Yeah, I think so. Is it Raven, who isn’t the person I thought she was? That too.

  It’s all of it.

  It’s Carlos, and Logan, and Ricky, and the Mexican compound, and the debt, and the drone, and my parents, and Scotty, and Jeff, and the funeral, and the wake, and how the past is so fucked up and the present looks pretty bad too. And the future? Jesus fucking Christ, what future?

  “Here,” Tyler says, handing me a cracker. There’s some fancy topping on it. Chopped-up cucumbers and mayonnaise with sprinkles of paprika. I eat it, because that’s just what you do with a cracker. And it’s delicious. Did I ever doubt Raven would serve anything but delicious finger food at Pete’s wake?

  “Mads,” Tyler says, bending down a little to look me in the eyes. “Are you OK?”

  I nod my head, sniffling as I wipe away the tears. No fucks to give about the makeup I just smeared across my cheeks. But in my head I say, No. I’m not OK. Not yet. But I will be.

  I’m not entirely sure what I mean by that. I have an idea. But it’s vague. It involves a lot of anger, and hate, and violence.

  “Maddie,” Tyler says, trying again. Because clearly I am not OK. And that stupid nod wasn’t enough to convince him. Can’t get anything past Tyler Morgan. “Should we leave?”

  “Leave?” I almost laugh. “I don’t ever want to leave. I want to stay here forever.”

  He nods back at me. Slowly, like a hostage negotiator dealing with unreasonable demands. He opens his mouth to say something back, but he’s interrupted by silverware clanging on crystal.

  We redirect our attention from each other to Raven, who is standing in front of her fireplace, glass and spoon in hand, like she’s gonna give a speech.

  Which she does. And soon, every woman in the room is crying. Because Pete was one of the good ones and we all knew it. Felt it, at least. And now he’s gone, and our lives have been upturned, sure, but we’re not lamenting the loss of our jobs, not really. Because Pete’s was more than a job. And we all knew that too.

  Raven doesn’t elaborate on her plans for rebuilding. Or talk about Carlos or Logan or anything like that. It’s just the good stuff.

  Everyone takes a turn telling a story about Pete. We collectively stop crying and start smiling. Some of the stories even make us laugh. Leave it to Raven to fix an entire room of lost women in under ten minutes.

  I think that might be her superpower.

  Soon, everyone has told a story but me. And even though they all know I didn’t tell one, they don’t look at me expectantly. There’s no uncomfortable silence. It’s like… it’s like they understand I can’t do it right now. Even though every single one of them managed, I’m not able to manage.

  The crowd breaks up after that. A few people leave. Tyler and I stand there, silent. So many things to say, unable to say them. And finally he takes my arm at the elbow again and says, “Let’s say goodbye,” as he leads me over to Raven.

  I hug her tighter than I probably should, unable to say what I want to say, but the squeezing makes her understand. She pulls away and smiles. It’s the smile of a champion, I realize. A winner. Someone who knows things, has been through things, understands things. “Call me, OK? You’ve got my number?”

  I nod, dumbly. I didn’t, before the fire, I mean. But I do now. Because she’s been texting me the past few days. Checking up on me, maybe?

  Which makes me start to cry again.

  “It’s OK,” she says, wiping that tear from my face. “It’s gonna be OK.”

  Tyler says a few words to her. Thank yous and stuff like that. And then he leads me out of her house and down the street to where we parked. He opens my door, waits for me to get in, then closes it softly and walks around to the driver’s side.

  In those few moments, something changes. The Devil pops up on my shoulder and I think it’s just… his presence. Knowing he’s still with me. I think that’s what changes.

  We good? he asks.

  Yup. We good.

  The driver’s side door closing makes Devil disappear and I take a deep, deep breath as Tyler starts the engine.

  “So,” Tyler says, pulling away from the curb.

  “So this is how it’s gonna go,” I say.

  “What?” Tyler glances at me as he turns right onto a main street.

  “We’re gonna kill that motherfucker.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, he deserves so much worse than death, but I’m just not sure I have it in me to torture a man. But if that moment comes, you know, when we’ve got him? And he’s begging for his life? I might. Yeah,” I say, almost talking to myself. “I might be able to like… pull his fingernails off with a pair of needle-nose pliers, ya know
? So we won’t rule it out.”

  “Maddie, we’re not killing Carlos.” Tyler says this like it’s normal to consider it. Which I take as a good sign.

  “Not Carlos, Ty. Logan. Carlos… I haven’t decided what I want to do with him yet. I mean, there’s so many options. And the devil has my back, so I’m pretty sure he’s gonna come up with something pretty cool.”

  Tyler huffs out something that might be a laugh, but might not. Might be one of those noises one makes when the person riding in the car next to them has gone off the edge and they have no good comeback for the insanity she’s spewing.

  But I don’t mind. Or take it personally. Because Tyler hasn’t really seen me yet. I’m sure on some level he still thinks I’m that innocent teenager he left behind when he went off to war. He still thinks I’m good, and pure, and sweet. Even though he should know better.

  Because I’m not. I haven’t been that girl for a very long time. Even though I’ve been holding onto that image of myself for years, it’s gone. In fact, I’m not sure I was ever the girl next door. I was never the angel.

  But it’s not his fault he doesn’t know. I’ve come to understand that I hide it well, ya know? I’m just really good at that.

  His moment of reflective silence gives me an opportunity to elaborate. “Look,” I say, turning in the seat to see him better. My tears are gone. I’m sure I look a mess, but the sadness stayed behind at Raven’s house. I’m a different person right now. “I’m not gonna say something stupid like this is all my fault. It’s not. And I’m not gonna try to sell you on the idea that this is just about Pete, either. Or Jeff. Or Scotty.”

  Tyler raises one eyebrow at me.

  “It’s not. This is called payback, Tyler.” I kinda seethe the word. It comes off angry because it is.

  Tyler sighs. “No. This was about Pete and Carlos, Maddie. Not you.”

  “Bullshit,” I say. “Carlos found me online. How?”

  “Whattayou mean? He has a computer? He knows how to use Google?”

  “No,” I say, louder than I should. “No. Look, Raven’s story about the bad blood between Pete and Carlos… That’s the whole point. Carlos found me, Tyler. First. I didn’t take the job at Pete’s until after the wedding stuff went sideways.”