They had put her belt in a glass case with a dead man's gloves.
Not the world belt. The regional one, smaller and older, borrowed from the gym for a modest display about local boxing history. Rae had signed the loan form without reading it. Now she stood in the hall of a neighborhood club looking at a description that called her rise meteoric and wondered whether anybody had ever watched a meteor clean its own toilet.
Mick was late. He'd called to say traffic. Rae had told him the traffic had been there yesterday and might be there tomorrow. Then she'd regretted it, because he was bringing three folding easels they had no reason to own except that somebody needed them.
Dorian's people had helped organize the evening. Old photographs, a few local fighters, short interviews, a chance to sell July tickets to an audience already inclined to care. The revived clip of Rae's first title stoppage had done well online. A man near the entrance told her he'd watched it on his lunch break and liked the bit where she explained why people quit.
"You've got to want it," he said.
"Helps," Rae said.
He nodded as if she'd personally approved his life and went to buy a drink.
She wished she'd brought Flo. Then remembered she had asked and her niece said she had plans. Rae hadn't asked what they were. The answer felt like it might hurt.
The hall smelled of furniture polish and hot pastries. A woman with a badge kept moving a stack of programs from one end of the registration table to the other. Rae offered to help. The woman said no too quickly, then asked if she would sign the top one for her father. Rae signed that and five more, settling into the reliable small pleasure of being wanted for a task she could perform sitting down.
She had done perhaps twenty when she heard a voice behind her.
"Still drawing the little star?"
Rae turned.
Alicia Torres wore a green jacket and low shoes, her hair shorter than in the clip. She held a bicycle helmet by the straps. Her face had grown broader without losing its sharpness, and there was a small pale patch on her jaw where a scar had settled. Rae remembered putting a glove there. The memory came with a little unpleasant satisfaction before she could stop it.
"It's a brand," Rae said.
"Thought it was a warning."
They smiled carefully.
Rae stood. Alicia didn't step in for the hug Rae had half prepared, so Rae turned the movement into setting the pen down.
"Didn't know you were coming."
"They asked."
"Good. It's good you're here."
"Is it?"
Alicia looked at the signed programs, then toward the glass case. Rae couldn't read the expression. That annoyed her. In the old film Alicia had been legible: a woman who didn't want any more. Here she looked like somebody deciding whether she'd have time to eat before the buses stopped being convenient.
"Still ride?" Rae asked, looking at the helmet.
"Most days."
"In this city? You're brave."
"I'm cheap. They get confused."
Rae laughed. Alicia's mouth moved but didn't quite join her.
A man came over carrying a camera with a flash attachment bigger than his head. He recognized Alicia, brightened, and asked them to stand together. Rae looked at Alicia first. The older woman shrugged once.
They stood in front of the case. The man wanted them nearer. Rae moved half a step. She kept her hands at her sides.
"Old rivals," he said cheerfully.
"Old something," Alicia said.
The flash went. Rae blinked a white square out of her vision and found Alicia looking at the belt.
"You kept it clean," she said.
"Mick. He keeps everything clean."
Alicia looked away from the case. "Does he."
Before Rae could find the right reply, the woman with the badge asked her to take a seat near the little platform. They were starting the interviews. Alicia went to the back instead, setting her helmet on a chair to keep it. A woman arrived carrying two drinks and sat beside her. They spoke closely, comfortably. Rae was relieved to see Alicia hadn't come alone and irritated that the relief felt necessary.
The first interview was an elderly trainer who had brought a list so he wouldn't forget anybody. He forgot the list, then found it in a different pocket, and the room laughed with an affection Rae envied. He spoke about a ring above a social club, the pipes that knocked when the heat came on, a fighter who came straight from a bakery and left flour on everything he touched. Nobody asked him to turn it into a lesson.
When Rae's turn came, the interviewer began with the world title. Easy ground. Rae could stand in that night without needing to excuse anything. She described the second half of the fight, the adjustment Mick had made, how she hadn't known what to do with the belt afterward and had worn it in the car until it dug into her ribs. People laughed where she expected them to.
Then the interviewer moved backward.
"But of course there was an earlier belt. Alicia's here tonight. Wonderful to have you both."
Heads turned. Alicia raised a hand from the back. Rae saw the woman beside her lean forward, watching.
"That night must have changed everything," the man said.
"It helped," Rae said.
"And the ending. We were just watching it. You're ready to go out again, then suddenly it's over."
On the screen behind the interviewer Rae was sitting on her stool, young and wet-haired, waiting. The next shot would be Alicia. Rae knew it so well she could have closed her eyes and named the frames.
"You never know what someone has left," she said.
"You said in that clip—"
"I say a lot in clips."
The audience laughed. The interviewer smiled, not yet certain whether he'd been diverted or invited to continue.
"About the stool being her best weight."
There it was, bigger for being quoted by someone else. Rae looked toward the back. Alicia wasn't smiling. She wasn't looking angry either. Her expression was attentive in a way Rae couldn't bear to mistake for waiting to be entertained.
"I was young," Rae said.
"Well, you gave us a memorable night."
The interviewer moved on to July, Celia, student and teacher. Rae gave him usable answers without saying she'd made anybody. She could hear herself behaving better and disliked how much effort it took.
Mick slipped in along the side wall carrying the easels while she was still answering. He held up a hand in apology. Alicia saw him. Rae watched her look and then look away.
Afterward people wanted photographs. Rae did them. Mick took some with their phones, finding the right button, teasing a man who had accidentally set his to video. He brought her water and one of the pastries, broke it in half because she was keeping her weight steady for camp, ate the other half himself without making it a sacrifice.
"Good?" he asked.
"Fine."
"Saw Alicia."
"She's here."
"Looks well."
Rae wanted to ask what he meant by well. Healthy, prosperous, not visibly ruined by an old loss? Instead she said, "Did you talk to her?"
"Not yet."
He turned to the next person needing a photograph.
Alicia was by the exit, fastening her jacket. The woman she'd sat with had gone to get the bicycles. Rae crossed the room before she could talk herself into letting it wait for another six years.
"You going?"
"Yes."
"Good to see you."
"You said."
Rae put her water bottle into her jacket pocket. It made the pocket sag, giving her something stupid to adjust. "The clip. If it's annoying—"
"Annoying."
"I don't know what word you want."
Alicia looked at her. Up close she had fine lines around her eyes that moved before the rest of her face. "You could ask instead of picking one."
Rae held still.
"All right. How is it?"
"I went to work Tuesday. Somebody showed it to me on his phone. Said he didn't know I'd been on television. Then he showed me the bit where you explained what kind of person I am."
Rae looked toward the room. Nobody was paying them attention. She had wanted privacy and now wanted an interruption.
"It's an old line."
"I know how old it is."
"It wasn't about who you are now."
"Was it about who I was then?"
The question was simple. Rae could have said yes and let Alicia become unreasonable about losing a fight. She could also hear something beneath it that didn't fit the old footage.
"What are you saying?"
Alicia put the helmet on the registration table. She looked past Rae toward Mick. He was laughing with the elderly trainer, one arm around his shoulders, bending so the man could hear.
"You ever ask why I stayed on the stool?"
"You were hurt."
"Was I?"
Rae felt the familiar heat behind her ears. "That's what a stoppage is."
"Not always."
Someone called Alicia from the door. The woman had both bicycles and was holding the outer door open with a foot. Alicia lifted one finger to say a minute.
"I'm not doing it here," she said.
"Doing what?"
"If you want to know, come see me. Monday. After four."
"You could tell me now."
"I could."
Alicia waited. She had spent years in a story Rae told. Rae put the bottle down.
She took out her phone. Alicia gave her the address and watched her type it. No promise about what she would hear. No demand that Rae believe her.
At the door Alicia paused to let two people carrying a display board pass. Then she put on the helmet and went out. Rae watched her mount the bicycle, check the road, and ride away beside her companion. She didn't look like a woman leaving a reckoning. She looked like a woman going home.
Mick came to stand beside Rae.
"Everything all right?"
She could feel the old invitation in his voice: tell me the problem and I'll make it manageable.
"What happened that night?" Rae asked.
"What night?"
She turned to him. He was still holding the other half of the pastry in a paper napkin. He'd saved it after all.
"With Alicia."