“Why?”
“You’ll see.” I eyed her dress. “You’ll fit right in.”
Her face was unhappy. “You think I look ridiculous.”
“It’s just not what I expected.”
She turned to stare into the night sliding past the car window. “Sometimes,” she said softly, maybe to me, maybe to herself, “you want to be someone else.”
§
From the outside, the place didn’t look like much. A gravel parking lot clustered with cars, a loopy–lettered red neon sign that simply said “Diana’s,” and a sign on the door, “21 and older only.” Anna trailed me, our footsteps crunching over the gravel.
I wondered if I was making a mistake. I hadn’t shared this part of my life with her before. It didn’t feel right.
But when I glanced over my shoulder, she was a flash of red in the parking lot lights, tall and beautiful.
She held herself differently in that dress, no longer the too–tall slump–shouldered girl everyone assumed played basketball in high school. Now her shoulders were back, and despite her hesitation, anticipation gleamed in her eyes.
I liked this new Anna. She seemed happier.
So I swung open the door, and the music reached out and pulled us in.
§
The bar was named for its owner, Diana. I could tell Anna had never seen anyone like her before.
Diana was short and swarthy, and of indeterminate age. She kept her hair butch short, wore jeans and T–shirts, with a men’s tuxedo jacket over that, sleeves rolled up to mid forearm to expose three silver bangles on her left wrist. She was muscular, broad–shouldered. She was an ex–roller derby queen; she’d skated under the name Morgan le Fleet.
Her lover, Clementine, kept the music playing from a booth towards the back. Most of the light system was homemade or scavenged theater lighting, but one piece shouted the bar’s intent the minute you walked in. Suspended from the metal rafters high above hung a great mirror ball, at least four feet in diameter. It was positioned over the booth, casting a cloud of falling, glittering light around Clementine.
She was dark–haired like Diana, but milk pale. Her hair fell to her shoulders, sleek as a seal’s pelt, framing a narrow face. She was beautiful but intense. She had a way of looking at you as though she expected, maybe even demanded, something. You had the feeling she was on the verge of scorning you for failing to live up to that demand.
When we came in, she was playing Alicia Bridges, demanding that we celebrate the nightlife. The sapphire lights shining on the disco ball drew purple sparkles from Anna’s dress as she stepped up beside me.
I heard her take a breath as it hit her. From the name I’d expected something very different, say, classical Greek to the core, the first time I’d come, with Jeff in a pack of other theater people. Instead, an amazing assemblage of souvenirs of other times, other places covered the walls, things Diana had found or been given. A three–foot tall statue of the Virgin Mary hung over an enormous silver guitar while next to it were a pair of gilded roller skates. A spear–gun was mounted with two bright blue flippers behind it.
There were spotlights, a stuffed giraffe head, pink flamingos, luchador masks, clown faces, and a Civil War–era sword with dusty tassels hanging from its stock. Christmas lights everywhere glittering off the faces of the rhinestone covered ukulele and the matador’s suit and a huge plastic mosquito that Diana joked was from her hometown in Upper Peninsula Michigan, which someone had glued a fake moustache on.
The air was full of cigarette smoke, and underfoot the floor sucked at our steps, sticky with the spills from sugary mixed drinks.
I’d worried unnecessarily. Anna, at least the new Anna, wearing unfamiliar clothing, fit right in. We’ve never done anything harder than the occasional joint or whiffet — or so I thought — but when we got separated, I saw her near the bathroom door, doing a line of coke someone had offered.
There were plenty of people making out on the dance floor or in darker corners, but the Hunt wasn’t about sex. It was about being there, about feeling the thump of the four–on–the–floor beat going through you, shaking you down to your bones, rearranging your atoms.
It was about being part of the glittering crowd, feeling tribe members all around you, caught up by the music, moving any way they could. Mostly men on the dance floor, but the women danced too. Here, everyone was just another body jostling close to yours.
And when Sister Sledge came on, and “We Are Family” began, Anna was there, singing and waving her arms with the rest of us.
I relaxed. She belonged.
It mattered to me because the Hunt was one of the happiest places I knew. A place where you could forget all your troubles, and live in the moment. Where all you had to worry about was keeping time with the music. We knew disco was dying but none of us were going to give it up anytime soon.
§
My happiness that Anna fit in didn’t mean I was thrilled when Diana offered Anna a job there, though. They’d been talking at the bar, which was busy and shorthanded. By the end of the night Anna was there behind it, shoulder to shoulder with Diana, serving drinks.
Diana wasn’t flirting with her, of course. I never saw her have eyes for anyone but Clementine.
I can’t say the same for Clementine. Diana and Clementine were inseparable, but you never got the impression Clementine was particularly happy about it. It was an odd match. She stayed in her booth spinning records. Diana waited on her personally, bringing her drinks throughout the evening.
I never saw Clementine thank her.
When the evening started to die down, I stayed and helped clean up afterward, since Anna had driven. Diana slipped me twenty bucks for my help, which was nice.
But it was even nicer to see Anna happier. Sure, I felt a little jealous. The Hunt had been mine, and here she was taking it over. But that thought made me feel mean and dog in the manger–ish.
I could let her have the Hunt, after all. Maybe she needed it more than I did.
When we left the club, it was close to two in the morning, one of those hot Indiana summer nights, where the air feels like the cicada buzz is stitching the heat to your skin. The parking lot was almost empty.
That is, except for the three women on motorcycles.
They were in the parking lot, watching the bar. They didn’t even really look at us as we went past, which was odd, because everyone at the Hunt was always friendly.
I didn’t think much about it at the time, only noticed them because of the big rumbling Harleys they rode. Their black gas tanks were painted with an odd Celtic knot work design.
As I got into Anna’s car, the leader looked at me. She looked enough like Clementine to be her sister.
§
After that I didn’t go to the Hunt so much. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see Anna. In the process of uncovering her red dress secret, I’d edged a little too close to one of my own.
In 1982, in Indiana, you didn’t talk about certain things. I’d seen the word “homophobia” for the first time in a New York Times article, but I knew what it was already. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Anna. But I’d kept the secret to myself for so long that I didn’t know how to say it anymore.
I kept telling myself that she must know. I’d taken her to a gay bar, for God’s sakes.
She said, on one of our TV nights, “You never come down to see me at work.”
“I’ve been busy,” I said.
She gave me a look that said, plain as day, I know you’re bullshitting me but I won’t push.
I decided to distract her. I edged closer to her on the couch. I said, “Do you know what I’m really in the mood for?”
I regretted it as soon as I said it, but I could already see what she was hoping for in her eyes.
I pulled back, just a touch, and said, “I’m really in the mood to read a really good science fiction book. Will you lend me a couple to take home?”
I felt like such a shit.
&n
bsp; §
So guilt drove me down to the bar, a couple of evenings later. I sat there and chatted with her, listening to “Kung Fu Fighting” and “Do You Think I’m Sexy,” abandoning my stool every once in a while to go dance. She was happy I was there. I could see that in her eyes.
And she seemed to be getting along fine with Diana and Clementine. When I mentioned a new song I’d heard, she got Clementine to play it for me.
Every once in a while I’d see some woman flirt with her. Anna was surprisingly adept at handling that, friendly but professional, without making them feel rejected.
She’d never had good luck with men. I wondered if she was tempted to try something different. She never said anything about it to me.
Of course she wouldn’t.
§
Summer wound down, and we entered heat–mad August, days of sweat and sunshine so hot you didn’t really want to move. When evening started falling and the air cooled off a little, your energy would return.
One way to burn some of that off was to drive up to the Michigan dunes, build a fire, and get drunk on the beach. I went up one evening with Anna, and a bunch of other high school friends. I didn’t particularly like them or want to hang around with them; but Anna made me promise to come.
It was what I had expected: a lot of beer and a couple of bottles of Jaeger getting passed around. We knew a spot that was technically private property, but the owners of the house far above were rarely there to disturb us.
We sat on the soft sand around a fire made from the wood we’d brought and I watched the stars far out over the lake, wondering when I could gracefully excuse myself and slip away.
That was why I was the first person to see something out in the water, coming towards our fire. Several somethings, leaving long dark vees as they swam.
At first I thought they were fish, or seals, or something stranger. Not people. But as the heads came up out of the water, I realized they were human. Women, three of them.
As they came closer yet, I recognized the women who had been on the motorcycles. I would have leaned over to say something to Anna about it, but she was on the other side of the fire.
Late night beach campfires have their own rules. So we just nodded to the women when they came up, moved over to make room for them, passed out beers.
They didn’t introduce themselves to the group, but I saw one talking to Anna.
After it all broke up, I walked with her to the cars. I said, “Who was that woman and what was she talking to you about?”
She laughed. “All sorts of crazy things. We got to talking about fantasy books, and she asked what if all of that was real?”
“What if it was?”
“I wish. That’d be something wonderful. To learn there was actual magic in the world.”
She paused before getting in the car.
“It was nice to spend some time with you,” she said.
“It was,” I agreed, a little too cheerfully.
There was a long moment where she looked at me. I took a step back, waving.
“Catch you around,” I said.
“Sure,” she said. “Sure.”
§
Classes started again. I was in two plays that semester, plus a staged reading, so things got busy and I didn’t see much of Anna in between the demands of work and school. A few times I went down to the bar to talk to her, and she always seemed glad to see me.
Clementine approached me there on a Saturday night.
We’d never really talked before. She was always too busy spinning records and keeping the light show going. That homemade, cobbled–together system had its idiosyncrasies. The light never seemed to reach certain corners. But Clementine knew how to use it, knew how to turn the whole place into a fairyland full of sparkle and madness.
She was taking a break, giving someone else a chance to handle the music. I came up beside her and she looked at me, silently, as always. I never had seen her smile.
She said, “I like your friend Anna.”
I was surprised. These were perhaps the first words she’d ever spoken directly to me. I glanced over at her. She was watching Anna behind the bar.
I did see her smile then, for the first time, a small, secretive smile.
§
A few days later, Anna called because her car had broken down and she wanted me to drive her to work at the bar. We always did favors for each other. I said, “So when should I come pick you up?”
“Oh, you don’t need to. I have a friend picking me up.”
There was something odd about the way she said it. I didn’t know quite what to make of it. Usually we analyzed her dates and relationships at length.
So, it was a little bit snoopy of me, to come in later that night and stay till closing time. Something wasn’t right.
When she left, I trailed out the door after her, unobtrusively. I stood out in the smokers’ corner, pretending to have a last cigarette before going home.
I watched her get on the motorcycle behind the woman who looked so much like Clementine.
Was that who Anna was sleeping with?
§
I couldn’t help but ask the next day when I ran into her at lunch.
I said, “Hey, so you’ve gotten to know that woman from the beach?” as I set down my tray beside hers on the table.
She said, popping her yogurt open, “She has a lot of interesting things to say.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “About?”
“Magic,” she said, and blushed.
“Is she teaching you magic?” I teased.
But her face was serious as she shook her head. “No. Her kind of magic can’t be taught.”
“You’re serious?” I knew Anna was crazy for this sort of thing: dragons and unicorns and wizards. Not enough to believe in any of it.
“There is more,” she said. “Have you ever seen Diana doing anything odd?”
“Odd how?” There was still incredulity in my voice.
Her lips firmed and she shook her head. “Never mind.”
“Look,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but don’t let that woman scam you.”
Familiar Anna looked at me with something new in her eyes.
She said, “Do you think Diana is a good person?”
That made me blink. “Why would you ask that?”
“I heard some things.”
“Like what?”
“Do you think she would do something really bad?”
I leaned forward, exasperated. “What are you trying to get at?”
But instead of explaining, she said, “Do you know that there have been seals sighted in Lake Michigan?”
I scoffed. “Right. And some whales too.”
“I looked it up,” she said. “No photos, but three or four sightings, all in the upper peninsula. Do you know what a selkie is?”
At my head shake, she explained. “They’re people who can turn into seals. According to lore, when they change into a human, it’s a matter of stepping out of their sealskin, which they have to hide somewhere. What if I told you that Clementine is one, and that the only reason that she stays with Diana is because she has to, because Diana has her skin hidden somewhere in the Hunt?”
“I’d think you were working on a book.”
“But I’m not.”
“All right. So let’s posit that Diana has somehow gotten Clementine’s skin...”
“Melissandra says Diana’s a sorceress, she stole it away by magic. Someone has to make her give it back. But she can’t be killed, Melissandra says, unless it’s with an object that Diana owns. It’s a geas or something.”
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes, I swear I couldn’t.
Anna’s face closed. Her eyes went down to the table. “I need to get to class.”
§
The next day I went down to the Hunt, on one of Anna’s days off. I wanted to watch Diana, to see if there was something behind all of this, or if it was all just Anna’s fevered im
agination.
I ordered a drink from Diana. She said, “Haven’t seen you much lately.”
I shrugged. “How’s Anna working out?”
“I know she’s your friend, but she’s...” Diana hesitated. “There’s something off about her.”
I wanted to say, More off than believing you’re a sorceress who’s stolen a selkie’s skin? But I didn’t need to tell her that. Anna was harmless, even with weird ideas stuffed in her head.
“I think she stole some things,” Diana said. “Tell her to bring them back and all’s forgiven.”
Had Anna been rummaging around in an insane search for a mythical seal skin? But I just nodded, and settled back to observe the bar.
I’d never really watched Diana before. The only time she had any expression was when she was watching Clementine.
Doting and fond and desperate, all at once.
Who was the woman pursuing Anna and what was her connection to Clementine?
I finally realized what that expression was on Diana’s face. I’d seen it before, when Anna was looking at me, too tired or unaware to hide it.
That was when Anna came in with the spear gun.
§
I don’t know that people would have noticed so quickly without Clementine. She must have been watching, knowing Anna was coming. The moment the door swung open, the Pointer Sisters stopped telling us how excited they were, the lights swiveled in two directions, picking out Anna at the door and across the room, Diana at the bar.
They stared at each other long enough for me to take a breath.
Anna stepped forward, wearing the red dress. Its light leaped up to meet that of the mirror ball. Bits of bloody light skated over the faces of the crowd and glinted on the spear, with its wicked, sharp vanes.
She said to Diana, “You had no right to enslave Clementine.”
Diana’s face worked. She cast a look at her lover, who stood in the booth, her face impassive and blank as the mirror’s absence, reflecting nothing.
Anna took three more steps. “You need to let her go.”
“I can’t,” Diana said.
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
Dian’s expression hardened. “Won’t.”
I was standing halfway between them. I started towards Anna.
She waved me back with the spear gun. “Don’t interfere, Arturo.”
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