When I Kill You by Michelle Wan Page B

gotta get more fit.”
    â€œHey, I jog.”
    â€œWhen you feel like it. And you eat lousy.”
    â€œI want the rematch, Jimbo.” I was in no mood for lectures. “Next week. I’ll swamp that hairpulling hippo.”
    Right then Al showed up to bawl at Jimmy that folks were lining up for drinks and was he going to take all night?
    â€œKeep your pants on,” muttered Jimmy. He hurried away.
    By now you know my dimensions and my stage name, Lady Lava. What you don’t know is that I’m otherwise Gina Lopez, twenty-six, brown eyes, blond hair that only needs a touch-up now and then. Like Al said, I’m a local girl, born and raised in Franks. A postal worker during the week and a mud wrestler on weekends. Right now I wrestle in Al’s pit for the experience, racking up smalltime wins and, yeah, the occasional loss. I want to build my name and hit the action south of the border. Vegas is my dream. I certainly don’t wrestle for the glory or the money. The purse, as Al calls it, is a lousy fifty bucks a match. He’s never short on takers though. You may not believe it, but there are always chicks who think it looks like fun. Or who do it to please their boyfriends. Or to attract a guy. Al is ever ready to oblige. Any female who’s willing can wrestle.
    â€œListen, girls,” Al says to us. “I’m a big promoter of the sport, which is why I run the pit. If I was a businessman, I wouldn’t do it. I’m not getting rich here.”
    He’s lying, of course. We women pull in the crowd for him. Semi-pros like me and Wanda, and wannabes out to try their luck. He pockets the profit. We get to supply our own shampoo and towels.
    There’s something else you need to know about me. I’m also a recent widow. I buried my husband Chico exactly thirty days ago. To be honest, I was more down about my loss to Wanda tonight than I was about Chico.
    First, because I hate being beaten. Second, I hate being beaten by a dirty fighter like Wanda. Third, Chico wasn’t worth grieving over. Not after what he did to me. Or tried to do.
    I was just entering the Ladies when someone called my name. I turned. It was a woman, fiftyish, faded hair locked in a hard perm, a discontented face. She was small and kind of doughy. Her flesh bagged around her ankles and her expandable watchband cut into her pudgy wrists. She wore a frilly blouse, a print cotton skirt, canvas flats and carried a straw handbag. She didn’t look like one of Al’s regulars. In fact, she’d have been more at home at a church picnic.
    â€œAre you Gina Lopez?” Her voice had a hoity-toity lift to it.
    â€œLady Lava to you,” I said. “Look, I’m not signing autographs right now. If you don’t mind.” I pushed through and headed to the shower.
    She followed me in and shut the door behind her. “I don’t want your autograph. I want to talk to you.”
    Oh cripes , I thought. Not another one who wants to tell me mud wrestling is un-Christian or degrading to women . I keyed open the locker where my stuff was stowed. There were two of them—battered metal high school gym rejects—for the wrestlers. The only thing, other than mud and water, Al supplied.
    â€œCan’t it wait?” I peeled off my wrestling suit. She looked away, like seeing me in the raw was improper. I stepped into the stall and turned the water on full bore.
    But she wasn’t going to be put off. She went on talking at me while I showered. I could see her mouth working through the gap in the curtain even though I couldn’t hear her. I took my time soaping off and followed with a good long rinse.
    â€œHand me my towel, will you,” I said when I had finished. I pointed to my stuff in the open locker.
    She didn’t oblige. Instead she got pushy. “I said , in case you didn’t hear me, I saw what you did.”
    â€œWell, it wasn’t my best performance,”