Meritocracy, Ch. 2|
By Leila

My name is Leila. I returned to Miami from my trip to New York City with David the week before Finals week started at the U. The fatigue, the wreckage from my fight with Danielle, was deep inside me, and I slept the entire day after I had gotten back. That evening, a call from my friend Amanda woke me up. She threw questions at me about my mystery date and where I had been. I stumbled out of bed, knocking over a lamp, and spat out what answers I could. The trip had been so busy I forgot to text her, and her rushed speech told me that she had been worried and jealous in equal parts. She knew that David was rich and that he was in finance in New York, but she did not know the specifics of our relationship. She did know about my work at Bad Sports and that I had been a regular in the ring they had—mud, oil, cartoonish boxing, pudding, a one-time experiment in Vaseline that did not go as planned—but she did not know that I enjoyed it.

I put her off until the next night and lay in bed most of the day. I had been in plenty of matches at Bad Sports and a few outside of it, but never under circumstances like those of my catfight with Danielle. Being watched by the man I was still in some way on a date with. Against a woman who felt rage at my existence and who I was. In my mind I replayed the fight, savoring the fear at the beginning and the tension in the middle and the release at the end. My hands in her hair and on her chest and face. And seeing her being forced by her man to congratulate me on beating her. With a plate of chicken and rice I sat on the couch with my Linear Algebra textbook, tracing a bruise on my thigh with my pinky finger. It was like a plum smashed against stained hardwood. I found myself standing by my bedroom window late that night, wearing only panties, no lights on, running my hand over my stomach and watching the red crawl of the street.

I met Amanda at a nightclub downtown. She was going to be a Senior at the U of Miami too, a Communications major. She was a brunette, short and just a bit curvy, and pretty in an expected, undergraduate way. I was wearing a black wraparound and she was in white pants and a purple blouse. We eased past the doorman with smiles and some hair tossing. I was taller and leaner than her, and we made nice counterpoints to each other. The music was thumping deep inside, in time to the bruises I had earned in New York. We were standing at the bar when Edward appeared out of the crowd. He was the owner of Bederson’s Construction, the firm at which I had an internship that started after Finals week. I grabbed him on the arm as he went by, and when he recognized me he smiled and gave me a hug.

“Good to see you,” he shouted over the music. “You ready to work this summer?”

“Yes, sir,” I shouted back. “I didn’t expect to see you at a place like this.”

“I was supposed to meet a friend here. But work,” he said, pointing to his phone. “Gotta run.”

Amanda and I lingered in the crowd. A few guys approached us, and we let them buy us drinks and then let them go away. They were boring, typical guys talking about shirts and steroids. The cutest of them I gave a fake phone number. And then I saw a blonde leaning against the bar, her overwhelming cleavage pouring out of her dress. Her hair was long and in loose curls, and she had a condescending beauty to her face. She saw me looking at her and she looked back, and we stared at each other until she asked me what I was looking at.

“I guess I’m looking at a real bitch,” I answered.

She came off the bar and threw herself at me. I met her rush and we fell to the ground together, pulling hair. She was very strong and my scalp burned. She ripped open the front of my dress. I rolled her onto her back and hit her in the stomach and then the chest. That put her down on the ground so that I could get over her. I hit her across the face. She grunted but then threw me off in a rush of strength. We had fallen onto the dance floor. The tiles were strangely cold under me. I saw her blonde hair swing and I told myself I had to move. As I got up she punched me in the chest and I fell to the ground again. As she took hold of my hair and yanked back, exposing my face, the bouncers reached us and pulled us apart. They had to pull her fingers out of my hair one by one. I refused to scream for her.

The bouncers led her out the front door and me the back. The back door opened into an alley full of trash, cockroaches, and cigarettes. A homeless man was pissing at the far end. I tried to get around the bouncer, but he forced me to wait until the other girl was away from the club. I asked him why I had to stand in an alley that smelled like dead cats and he responded by holding his hands far out in front of his chest and smiling. I stamped my bare foot and splashed rain water all over myself—at least I hoped it was rain water. The bouncer smirked and asked if I was ready to earn my way back into the club. He did, however, go inside to get my shoes for me after I begged and leaned against him. While he was gone I texted Amanda to get the other girl’s phone number if she was still there, but no luck. My dress slid down my shoulders from where she had torn it open, and I constantly pushed it back up as I worked my phone. Amanda wrote that the blonde girl had been taken out the front door by the manager, who apologized to her profusely as he got a good look at her exposed skin. I read my message as the bouncer returned with my shoes, and I hit him with them and called him a dickbag and found my way around to the front of the club.

I got to the entrance in time to meet the manager as he returned from the parking garage. He was in his forties, with a thick extra chin and thin hair, a tall man who seemed worn down by his surroundings. When he saw me, he veered toward the convenience store on the corner but I cut him off. Looking down at the sidewalk, he mumbled an apology about my distress and the abuse of my clothing. I told him that I didn’t care about any of that; I wanted the bitch’s number and I knew he had gotten it. He insisted that he had not, and I to believed him enough that I stopped pressing him for it. Then I told him he had to contact me when she returned the nightclub, as I knew that she would. She wanted to be seen by everyone, and what had happened tonight made it more likely for her to return, not less. I did not tell the idiot this, of course. I did offer him a sizeable cash donation if he would do as I asked. At first he pretended not to understand, and then he said that he wasn’t the kind of man who did things like that. I told him he certainly was the kind of man who took money in exchange for helping two women debase themselves. In the end, a bouncer escorted me to an ATM, at which I withdrew 2000 dollars and received a promise someone would contact me when the blonde returned to the club.

My first final was Monday morning, “Slavery in the Americas.” The lecture hall was still, and there were several students I had never seen before. The overweight boy sitting next to me smiled a lot and tried talking to me, and he admitted that he was a History major here, taking the final for his neighbor, who was evidently hot, or at least hot to him. I was wearing a pair of Bulgari sunglasses to hide the remains of my black eye that the blonde had given me, and I thought about the fat boy’s image reflected back onto himself from my face. When the TA handed me the exam he frowned, but I frowned, tapped my head, and mouthed “hungover” and he nodded and moved on to the cheater. I finished in half the allotted time. While I was writing I was thinking about Saturday night and then yesterday, lying in bed with my laptop and a bag of ice on the bruise on my thigh and a headache from the tequila I had drunk when I got home. Leaving the lecture hall and stepping outside into the thick air was like being slathered in mud. I stood still and let the feeling of the wet and the heat drape over me, covering my bruises and my scratches and also my looks and my clothes.

At home Claudia was waiting for me, parked in her Mercedes in front of my condo building. She was using her phone and her laptop with the car running for the A/C. So obviously not used to money, I thought as I crossed the street and walked toward her. With her blouse showing just the right amount of cleavage and her coffee in hand, she was so composed and overworking herself that it was painful to watch. I tapped on her window, and she held up her hand for me to wait. Rather than drag her out of the car or wait, I went toward my building. But she yelled at me to stop and said that we had plenty of things to talk about. Leaning across her passenger seat, she suggested that I invite her up for something to drink so that we could talk in private. Again I had the urge to pull her out of the car by her hair. An old man walking by stared at her body straining against the seat belt. Miami was just like home sometimes. And that made me think of the two of us, both Latina although from different regions and speaking different languages. I turned my back on her and waved for her to follow me inside.

We sat in the living room. She crossed her legs slowly, her skirt sliding up to expose a powerful sweep of her thigh. I remembered having those legs around me, tight, cutting off my air, and I remembered pulling the hair she tucked behind her ear. The flesh around my eye burned with the thought of our fight, and with some pride I took off my sunglasses.

“Looks like you have been up to some excitement.”

“It’s been an eventful week. I’ve visited an exotic land, met new people, and fought them.”

“And from what I have heard, those people took quite a liking to you,” Claudia answered. “I know all about your trip to New York. They were very impressed with you, and not just on your fight with Danielle. She’s not exactly an up-and-comer, as you saw.”

“Not like I am?”

“Not like you could be. What they liked was the way that you could fit yourself into their crowd. You are their type of people. You’re hot, obviously, but you grew up with money. You’re from one of the most influential families in one of the largest cities in the world. You know how to shop in the right stores and eat in the right restaurants. Why do you think he took you up there? To seduce you?”

“Because he’s a pervert.”

Claudia half-nodded, half-shook her head, again brushing her long black hair out of her face. “Sort of, he is. But it’s more complicated than just a one-note fetish.”

“It’s being the person who has the lifestyle that he has.”

“That’s why I need you,” she said, brightening up and even reaching toward me with her hand. “You get it. You don’t know how hard it’s been to find a girl with the background and talents to match your … more tangible attributes.”

“You’re beautiful too,” I told her. We both knew that I was saying this because it was expected of me. That expectation was what I enjoyed most about it. “You’re so pretty, and you have a great body, and you already know all of those people so well.”

“If you knew how hard I have to work out to keep my body like this. Fucking genetics, right? But then, I guess you do know how hard I have to work out,” she added. Both of our faces lit themselves as she said this.

“I know that it can be hard for Mexican women to keep their figures.”

“Yes, but as you can see, where the struggle is the most fierce the rewards are the most enticing.”

“Enticing for some. It would seem that others feel differently.”

“And how do you think Kim would feel about it?” Claudia asked.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“You’re close friends with her, right? I know that there had to have been something between you. You’ve fought with her, you have to know her.”

“I wasn’t looking to be friends with her, though, and I don’t want to know what kind of woman’s body she likes. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Oh, good,” Claudia said with a smirk. “Going to say something catty now about my hair? Don’t like the shape of my hips? Think my stomach is starting to bulge?”

“Sounds to me like you’re the one who already thinks those things.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“So the question becomes why you need my saying it,” I continued. “Why you would come here and ask me these dumb questions? Why do you need to know about Kim?” I enjoyed seeing her face tighten. “You’re at least ten years older than I am, and yet here you are. You come to my house, seeking advice or recognition or stimulation. I honestly can’t tell. But I can smell the desperation. It’s on you like Wal-Mart perfume.”

I expected her to come at me, but she only stared. And then she smiled and picked up her bag and stood. “Thank you for a most illuminating conversation. You have revealed a lot about yourself. It isn’t your house, it’s your family’s. I came here because I found you interesting, but you are still a little girl playing pretend.”

“You came here because David finds me interesting.”

“Pretend house, pretend style, pretend education. Do you expect to go back to Sao Paulo and become the CEO of your family’s construction company? A great businesswoman? Are you so stupid you think that those men at home will allow a pretty little girl to run their lives?” She paused and the quiet hung between us. “You are, aren’t you? That’s so pathetic.”

Soon after Claudia left a Miami downpour started. As it rained, I drank a glass of wine and sat on the couch. The water thudded heavily against the roof and the skylight. When the rain was over I went for a walk. The air smelled of the afternoon. The new buildings were metal and grey and all of the same pseudo-modern design. The old buildings were from pre-boom Florida, when the city was small and Southern. Houses with wrap-around porches and large yards overhung by oaks. I walked the streets thinking about the old Southern families who had in the city’s past lived in those old Southern houses. They were genteel families ruled by genteel women, traditionalists whose sense of style and honor was defined by their vision of an orderly society in which brown people were not allowed to attend a private university and women were not allowed to lead companies. Holdovers from a previous era here in my adopted country.

In my hometown, favelas stretched out to the horizon, run by gangs and raided by thugs in police uniforms. Above them, the rich numbed themselves to their splendor with cocaine and gossip and stupidity. My family had become wealthy building that segregation, the same impulse that drove my mother away from me and separated me. And now here I was, freely walking the streets they had once controlled, with money to buy their houses and the beauty to control them. I was a beautiful woman who was of the world of money and exploitation on my father’s side and the world of aesthetics and the body on my mother’s side. My being both of those things gave me the freedom to move beyond them, to be a new person. Miami, the city seen as the North of the South, with a deeper conservative streak, could be my new home and here I could run freely as a I pleased. And in New York City I could do the same, there and wherever else I chosen to go. There, in my family’s hometown, here in my new hometown, and in the other cities I would visit, I could be myself. I could be the woman I wanted to be, by my own merits because of what I had inherited and what I desired.

I took two more finals that week and then another on Saturday, Modern Physics. After the final in Physics, I bought a salad and a coffee and sat with my feet dangling in the lake in the center of campus. A group of guys were throwing a Frisbee. Two girls were lying in the grass, playing with their phones. Despite the heat, it was a nice day to be on campus. Most of the students were gone, drinking, or asleep. I finished the salad and coffee and walked aimlessly across the campus. The day at the end of term, the end of education and professional development, and all that remained were the buildings, the athletic department, the donors. I was browsing the Union Bookstore when I received a text from a number I didn’t know saying to come to the top story of one of the parking garages. I replied asking who wanted to, and got a response that it would be worth my while.

The only car on the top floor of the parking garage was a red Nissan coupe. Standing next to the coupe was the blonde from the club. She was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and she was leaning on the car with her phone in her hand. Her breasts made me think of rocks, soft curved rocks worn smooth, and the shirt and the bra the outline of which I could see was like water running over them. Her arms and legs looked as strong as I remembered them, taut, her hips wide. Her face was like a hawk’s, sharp and focused and staring right through the screen of the phone and then me as she looked up. I dropped my bag next to the wall and walked toward her with the same look on my own face directed at her. She stood up straight and smiled at me.

“So you showed up,” she said. She spoke with a noticeable Southern accent, her vowels too long and lazy.

“You piqued my interest,” I replied. “Mysterious text message, meeting in a deserted, out of the way place. Chance to beat on that great ass of yours.”

“Optimistic talk considering how things went for you at the club.”

“We’ll see.”

“No, we won’t. I’m going to yank all of your hair out and spank your skinny boy’s ass, and there isn’t going to be anything you can do about it.”

“You’re welcome to come try,” I answered her.

“In a minute. I like your knowing how helpless you are. We’re going to fight, and I’m going to win, and no one is here to break us up.”

My heart was beating in my chest, my fists and legs ready for her. I wanted to rip her apart, split her open from the inside and expose to the world her bile and her stupidity, the ugliness that lay just under her beauty.

“I’m glad to see that you’re wearing old clothes today,” she said. “I was worried that you would be wearing something nice and it would be ruined.”

I glanced down at my body, a v-neck shirt and short shorts that put my dancer’s legs on display. “Ruined, like your face?”

“Is that the best you can do?”

“Sorry if I can’t trash talk to your expectations. I bet Florida white trash gets a lot of practice at it. You have money, but you’re still a redneck bitch. Let me guess, Tallahassee?”

“Now we’re getting someplace.” She added, “You skinny maid.”

I walked toward her with my fists up. She circled away from her car, out into the open space. The sun was hot above us and dark storm clouds had formed while we were talking, and the first drops of rain fell on us. They fell on our hair, our skin, our clothes. She lunged forward and grabbed for my hair, and I popped her in the face. That surprised her. She came in more carefully the next time. She flicked her arm toward me but when I grabbed at it she slugged me in the stomach. The punch knocked me against the wall, and she hit me in the breast and then slapped me across the face. I stumbled off the wall and backed away from her. She rushed at me, too fast, and I hit her in the face and kicked her in the leg as I backed up. She came in again, but slower, and I missed with my hand as I backpedaled. I was still breathing hard, but I squared up with her.

“Nowhere to run, you brown bitch.”

“Who’s running, white trash?”

We stepped toward each other. She pulled my hair with both hands, and I went to work hitting her in the stomach, ribs, breasts. Her torso was firm and strong and even with my hitting her she flung me to the ground. Through my shirt, the concrete rubbed and scratched my back. She was on top of me, sitting on my stomach, still pulling my hair. I kept hitting her, and then I got my leg in front of her face and pushed her back off of me. We rolled together and I got on top, in side control with one leg wrapped around hers and the other bracing against her attempts to roll free. The rain was falling hard now, and we were lying in a warm puddle. I got her in a headlock, pulling her face toward me, and I hit her in the face and with uppercuts into her side. She moaned and tried to cover her face with her free hand. I grabbed her breast through her shirt, eliciting a squeal from her, and then I pulled the shirt down and then the bra and pinched the hard female flesh. She started calling me names again, muffled with her mouth against my collarbone. And then she bit me and yanked my head backwards by the hair at the same time. Now it was my turn to squeal. I let go of the headlock and we both got free of each other.

I pushed myself up from the ground. The afternoon storm was at its peak. My wet black hair was hanging in front of my face, and my clothes had been hung loosely from my body. The blonde leaned against the wall and pulled her shirt back up over her tit. She then pulled her hair back out of her face with a gesture of fatigued dedication. The rain was hitting her in her face, and her shirt was now transparent. And then we engaged yet again. She threw a wild hook that I ducked, but as I came up ready to counterpunch she hit me from the other side and then rushed me. We crashed against her car, both of us thudding into the trunk side by side. I pushed her head down on the glass and hit her in the back until she elbowed me in the face. The blow dazed me, and I tottered and held my forehead. The next I knew she kicked me in the thigh and hit me in the side of the head, and then as I covered up she dragged me by my hair to the car. She pushed me face first down onto the hood, holding my face against the metal. Then she spun me around and held me by the front of my shirt. She pulled me forward and then slapped me across the face, a forehand and then a backhand. The backhand ripped my shirt open in her grip and sent me flopping back onto the hood.

I lifted my head up. She was standing in front of me, a piece of my shirt in her hand. Water splashed in my eyes and on my exposed chest. “Your little brown titties are getting wet,” she said as she tossed the piece of shirt aside.

In answer I kicked her in the stomach. Her breathing stopped and she doubled over, holding her guts. I rolled off the hood of the car and grabbing her by the hair flung her into the car door. She hit with her shoulder and then slid to the ground. To my surprise, she started to get to her feet. I bent her over and pulled her shirt up her back and around her head. Then I started punching her in the back, sides, her breasts, with one hand while I held her by the hair with my other hand. She couldn’t get herself free, but she shoved me around even as I punched her. It was like catfighting with a bull. I gave up on the punches and kicked her in the stomach, and that put her down. I pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it aside. Then I leapt on top of her, pinning her down in a puddle of rainwater, oil, cigarette butts. She yanked on my hair and squirmed under me, but I punched her in the belly. Then I pulled down her bra and grabbed her breasts. I sank my fingers in and squeezed. They were as firm as they looked, surprising with their size. Her eyes went wide with fear, and I knew that she was done and that she knew it. She tried to pull my hands off, and then she slapped at my own breasts and pulled my hair. But I kept squeezing. And then when she got my hands off I screamed at her and slapped her viciously. I hit her back and forth, the sound of each blow wet and hard. Her blonde hair spun with the force. And then I backhanded her as hard as I could and she was done.

I was sitting on her, and she covered up with her hands and stopped fighting back. I pinched her nipple and asked if she was ready to give up. Then I smacked her boob one last time and pushed myself up. All the strength went out of me. I could barely stand. I took off my own shirt and put on hers. Then I patted down her jeans and took her keys from her pocket. I picked her head up by the hair and forced her to watch as I dragged her keys along the door of her Nissan coupe. “This is what happens to trashy bitches who come to the city and try to run with the big girls,” I told her. “Metaphorically big girls, that is.” And then I dropped her back into the rainwater, took up my bag, and staggered down the stairs and out of the garage.