If she was honest, the wanting had been there all along, but the hope started after his divorce. Hope was the dangerous thing. She didn’t think Pavel had met anyone since, although thanks to his notoriously private nature she couldn’t be sure. Regardless, one thing was clear: Nothing changed in his treatment of her. He saw Bonnie as his young protégée, nothing else. She may not have had a wealth of romantic experience, but she was woman enough to know when a man wanted her. Pavel simply did not. She was sure she could have lived with it, this ache of longing at the center of her life, this inner hollow in the shape of him—could even convince herself that it was good for her boxing, after all a satisfied boxer was a soft boxer—if she had never hoped, and he had never betrayed her.
—
At nine p.m. she walked over to Peachy’s on Windward Avenue. Despite its proximity to the Venice boardwalk, the bar had successfully eschewed becoming a tourist destination thanks to a rigorous door policy established and upheld by Peachy himself. Peachy was the unofficial mayor of Venice who, in his own words, knew everyone worth knowing, had befriended everyone worth befriending, and fucked everyone worth fucking on the Westside.
A British expat, Peachy was the son of a Congolese mother and white English father who had sent him to Eton at the age of eleven, then promptly divorced each other never to speak again. He had the desperate charm of a child who has had to make a family of his friends and a handsome, boyish face, despite being well into middle age. During the day, he could often be spotted cruising around the neighborhood in his vintage sky-blue pickup truck, his beloved pit bull seated by his side, sipping iced coffee, puffing on a Camel Gold, and chatting to anyone who flagged him down.
He’d lived in Venice for decades and started Peachy’s a few years back to create a place where his friends could drink and dance for cheap without having to drive to the Eastside. His door policy was notoriously mercurial; artists, surfers, models, bikers, musicians, and anyone, of any gender, who Peachy might like to sleep with were let in. Tourists, suits, most media types, and all Hollywood scumbags were turned away on sight. Famous actors who, priding themselves on their authenticity, made the trip from Malibu or the Hollywood Hills were let in but without ceremony or special treatment. Regulars and old friends of Peachy’s were treated as VIPs, regardless of their worldly standing, and were always invited to cut the line and go right on in.
Of course, such a door policy required muscle to back it up, which was where Bonnie came in. Peachy worked side by side with Fuzz, a thick-necked former weight lifter from Jamaica, who had been manning the door since the bar’s inception, breaking up fights, ensuring only the best-looking underage girls got in, and generally making sure peace reigned under Peachy’s stern but benevolent rule. Peachy proudly claimed Fuzz got his name because the two of them were as close as fuzz on a peach, but Fuzz quickly set Bonnie straight that his mom had given him the nickname at birth after he came out with a full head of hair. Bonnie had shown up looking for a job a little less than a year ago and been hired on sight. Peachy, a boxing fan, recognized her as the promising female fighter who had mysteriously quit after just a few professional bouts. Blue-eyed, blond-haired, and, most importantly, female, Bonnie was not exactly typical bouncer material. But Peachy loved the optics of it, not to mention the fact Bonnie was strong enough to take on ninety-nine percent of the men she encountered without raising her heart rate. And, for the other one percent, there was Fuzz.
When Bonnie arrived at the bar for her shift that night, fireworks for the Fourth were already booming overhead. Peachy was standing outside with a cigarette dangling from his lip as he looked thoughtfully at a large, freshly painted mural on the opposite wall. It depicted two smiling pit bulls on either side of what appeared to be a screaming child with the words Pitbull Love emblazoned in cursive above the trio.
“I love it, I love it, I do,” he was saying. “It’s just, does the kid appear to be a bit…I don’t know, terrified?”
He was talking to Stella, a local artist known for her surrealist animal murals, which could be spotted on walls from Mar Vista to Santa Monica. In fact, Bonnie walked past two of her pieces—a panther crying rainbow tears and a unicorn smoking a pipe—each evening on her way to the bar. Stella was usually in the midst of either kicking or, as she called it, “recommitting” to a crystal meth habit, a substance she extolled as a powerful artistic conduit or condemned as the bane of her existence depending on where in this cycle you happened to catch her. Today, judging by her twitchy demeanor and roving, wide-eyed stare, Bonnie guessed she was back in a recommittal.
“No, no, no, no, man,” Stella said, practically vibrating beside him. “That kiddo’s excited. These two pups want to play with him. They’re his family now, you know?”
Peachy nodded, frowning.
“But would he be screaming?” he asked. “If they’re just trying to play with him?”
“Nah, man, he laughing! He got a pit for a mom and a pit for a pop and they’re going to look after him, like, forever. That’s what I was trying to artistically convey.”
“Right,” said Peachy slowly. “It’s just, well, I wanted the mural to communicate that pit bulls are lovable and safe, you know, since they get such a bad rap. But I’m not trying to say that they’re a replacement for parents. They’re still definitely pets. Albeit wonderful, highly intelligent ones. But pets nonetheless.”
“Totally, man, totally.” Stella hopped from one foot to the other and scratched her stomach with both hands. “How’s this? I paint the dogs’ eyes red, like love hearts, you know, that way it’s superclear they have only love for the kid, you know, and mean him—” Stella gulped seriously. “Not one ounce of harm.”
“Right, right, paint the eyes red,” repeated Peachy. “Could that look, I don’t know, a little demonic?”
Stella threw her head back and cackled. Above her, firework sparks streaked down the face of the night sky like tears.
“Only one way to find out, man!”
“Mmm, why don’t we put a pin in this for now,” murmured Peachy. “But great work, great work. You go on inside and get yourself a drink.”
“Oh, I’m not drinking no more,” said Stella. “It’s just the crank for me now. Figure that’s safer.”
“Absolutely,” said Peachy soothingly. “Just the crank for you. You run along.”
She scurried inside as Peachy turned to spot Bonnie, his handsome face splitting into a grin.
“If it isn’t the baddest bitch of Venice Beach. Ready for a big night tonight?”
Bonnie smiled and bumped Peachy’s fist with her own. Thursday was usually a busy night for the bar, especially in the summer, but tonight was guaranteed to be slammed for the holiday. They were in the middle of the first real heat wave of the season and the evening was unusually warm for Venice, which stayed cool at night even through the hotter months. It was a sensual heat, laced with a tangy breeze from the sea, and a feeling of expectation and possibility hung in the air.
“Owee!” Peachy exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “We’re gonna help some people get laid tonight! I can feel it!”
Bonnie took up her position to the left of the door. Soon, Fuzz came and joined them. He was dressed, as he was every night, in a tight black T-shirt that stretched across his veined biceps and loose black jeans. Around his neck hung a puka shell necklace, a gift, he’d told her, made for him by one of his daughters. Fuzz was kind to Bonnie, but he had warned her against taking this job.
“A lot of people think being a bouncer is like being a customer,” he’d explained during her first night on the door. “Only the bar pays you instead of the other way around.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “It’s not. Being a bouncer is the lowest job in the joint. You will be hit. You will be spat on. You will get far more puke and blood and urine on you than you thought possible outside of a career in hospice care.”
A reel of Bonnie’s time training in the ring had flickered before her eyes. Sweat streaming, spit flying, blood leaking, head spinning, nausea rising, gut churning, light fading…
“I can handle it,” she said.
And she could. Good boxing required such clear and rapid analytical thought that a cool head was mandatory. A fight could be driven by passion, but never led by it, an attitude Bonnie maintained in everything she did. So she was stoic at the door, present but impenetrable. She could pin a guy’s wrists behind his back in one swift movement or quiet a rowdy regular with a look. Bonnie wasn’t exactly a household name, but every now and then a boxing fan would recognize her. She acknowledged these fans with a nod but didn’t engage. Mostly, they were complimentary. Some tried to prove their manhood by asking her to arm-wrestle. She dismissed them with the same patient impassivity of a mule swatting flies away with its tail. Yet she often marveled inwardly at the hubris of these men, weak-limbed, soft-bellied, half drunk, who earnestly believed that they could equal, in fact overcome, a world-class female athlete purely on the basis of their sex. Because that’s what Bonnie had been: world-class.
First, she had been an amateur, but her style had always leaned toward the professional. Still, there were real hurdles to her turning pro. Most fighters attempting the transition quit after only one or two bouts. The rules were not dissimilar, but they were different worlds. For starters, there was no protective headguard. Less padding in the gloves meant you felt the punches more, both when you hit and got hit. It was not just speed that counted on the scorecard, but power. And, of course, you weren’t fighting three rounds anymore; you were in it for ten.
But Bonnie had done it. She won her first professional fight by knockout in the first round. She stopped her next opponent in the third round, baffling her with blinding combinations and a fluid in-and-out movement Pavel had himself been known for and was now becoming Bonnie’s signature. The following year, she won the lightweight world title by unanimous decision after pulverizing the previous titleholder, a Colombian three-weight world champion previously considered unbeatable. She was gaining a reputation as the new star of women’s boxing when, while preparing for a title defense fight against an up-and-coming South African fighter that was widely considered to be a shoo-in victory for her, Bonnie’s life fell apart.
Bonnie’s home gym was Golden Ring in the city, but in the eight weeks before this fight she and Pavel moved her training camp to a gym in New Jersey, where she ate, slept, and trained on the property, thinking about nothing but the upcoming fight. Her waking hours were filled with shadowboxing; hand mitts with Pavel; work on the heavy bag, double end bag, and speed bag; jump rope and body conditioning, as well as sparring sessions three times a week. In the evenings, she and Pavel watched videos of her opponent’s former fights, designing a game plan that capitalized on her bad habits and used Bonnie’s style to her advantage. She went to bed early and woke up before sunrise to run five miles wearing a weighted vest. Camp was grueling, there was no doubt about that, but there was also a freedom in having her life narrowed to one singular purpose. It was the greatest level of devotion possible outside of religion.
She was a week out from the fight when Nicky called her unexpectedly. Bonnie was in her room, a spartan dormitory with a low single bed, lacing up her boxing boots for the afternoon training session. Upon seeing Nicky’s name on her screen, she dropped the laces immediately and answered. Her sisters knew not to bother her in the week before a fight; whatever it was must be important.
You okay, Nicks? she asked.
I’m good. I’m fine! I’m great! You good? said Nicky, sounding uncharacteristically flustered.
All good, said Bonnie. What’s going on?
I…It’s nothing really. I seem to have misplaced my pain meds and I’m getting my period. I think I left them at a friend’s house or something.
She was straining to sound casual, but Bonnie could hear the effort behind her words. The thought flashed instinctively across her mind that she was lying, but she pushed it away. Nicky had no reason to lie to her.
You can’t get more from the doctor? she asked.
