10. Chapter 7 | Elle
Elle leaned in the doorway and watched Dom adjust her cufflinks in the mirror above the bar.
The suit was tailored to her shoulders, crisp white shirt, thin black tie knotted just so. She looked like she was headed to a business meeting, not a fight that might crack the rest of her ribs.
"You fight in that?" Elle asked.
Dom grinned without turning around. "I change before I get in the ring." She straightened her tie one last time. "But I always show up in a suit. Let these men know how much better I look than them."
"You don't have to come," Dom said, finally turning. "I know I put you on the spot, asking."
"I'm coming."
Dom's smile widened, softened. "Okay then. Let's go."
CJ and Papa Louie had stayed behind — Louie in his chair with a hand of solitaire, CJ upstairs with his sketchbook, neither asking to come along. Dom glanced at Elle, who seemed to notice the notice.
"Neither of them likes to watch me fight," she said, once they were out the door. "I know it's a rough scene. But part of me wishes they'd come sometimes. See me do what I do best."
"Fighting is what you do best?"
"What else?"
Elle didn't answer. She was thinking instead about the rhythm Dom kept the whole bar ticking to without seeming to try — deliveries, kegs — the unguarded joy that came over her whenever CJ got going about CORE or a new sketch, and the way she made the most perfect cup of coffee.
All the things Dom seemed to have no idea she was good at, things Elle had only started cataloguing because she'd been watching closely for weeks.
They walked from Tremé into the Ninth Ward as dusk settled. The streets narrowed. Dom moved through them like she knew every crack in the pavement.
Elle followed close. Dom kept her on the inside of the sidewalk, her body angled slightly toward the street, between Elle and whatever might come off it — nothing said, just done.
Once, where the sidewalk narrowed to single file between a stoop and a parked car, Dom reached back without looking, not quite touching Elle's hand, just checking she was there.
Elle shivered.
The neighborhood changed as they went — quieter, harder, the music fading into shadows and careful glances.
"Almost there." Dom's swagger had dimmed. Muted, like she was bracing for what came next.
Saturn Bar squatted on the corner like it had been there forever — peeling paint, barred windows, a neon sign buzzing in the dark.
The men smoking outside — all white — sneered as Dom and Elle passed, their eyes calling out names their mouths didn't bother to.
Elle's stomach clenched.
"Back entrance," Dom said quietly.
They went around to the alley — a rusted door, overflowing garbage bins, no sign at all. This was where people like them were let in.
It reminded Elle of the sit-ins, in a way — the same practiced knowledge of which door was yours, which entrance wouldn't get you thrown out.
Except the sit-ins were building toward something.
This was just a back door. Just an alley.
No chance of anything changing on the other side of it, whatever happened tonight.
She was glad, at least, that CJ hadn't come.
The hallway reeked of stale beer and sweat. Elle could already hear the crowd, hungry and waiting.
Every face in the crowd was white. Men in work clothes, drinking, betting, talking too loud, eyes tracking Dom and Elle like they were assessing livestock.
So this was Dom's stage. Nothing like Hollywood — but a stage nonetheless.
"There's my girl."
A woman appeared at Dom's side from the crowd, hugging her hello and holding on a beat too long before letting go. Elle watched it happen, a tightness in her chest forming before she could name it.
She was tall, light brown skin, red lipstick smudged a little onto her teeth, moving like she owned the room. In a way, she did. Her circuit. Her fighters. Her money.
She had to be fifteen, maybe twenty, years older than Dom. The age wasn't in her face so much as in the way she moved through the room, entitled to it in a way only decades of deference could buy.
"Elle, this is Claudette." Dom's voice was flat, careful. "My booker."
"More than just your booker by now, aren't I, baby." Claudette's hand slid up Dom's arm and settled on her bicep, easy, like she'd done it a hundred times and never once asked.
Dom shrugged her off.
Claudette smacked her lips. "Don't be like that." She caught Dom's arm again, thumb tracing a slow circle through the jacket fabric before Dom could get clear.
Elle didn't look away. She watched Claudette assess Dom — the muscle, the height, the whole physical fact of her — the way a butcher sizes up a good cut before naming a price.
Thelma Blake would have eaten this woman alive.
She wouldn't have even had to say a word.
Just her posture would have made Claudette the booker feel cheap and tacky.
But Elle was not Thelma Blake, so she looked down at the filthy floor and let the woman believe she had won.
"There's been a small change." Claudette pulled a flyer from her purse with her free hand, set it on a nearby table, didn't let go of Dom's arm.
"You'll be fighting a different opponent than we originally planned.
" She said it fast, breezy, already moving past it.
"But the purse got bigger too. Fifty just turned into a hundred. " A grin. "I always get my girl paid."
Elle caught the rush in her voice even if Dom didn't.
Dom's expression brightened, something real breaking through for just a second, then it was gone, replaced by the same careful blank she always wore.
"Who am I fighting for a hundred dollars?"
Claudette's smile didn't move. "Lewis Jordan."
All Dom's swagger drained at once.
"No."
"Dom—"
"No." She stepped back, finally shaking the hand off. "Absolutely not."
"I thought you'd want the opportunity. That kind of money doesn't come around often. I know you two have history—"
"You knew." Dom's voice shook. "You knew it was him and you brought me here anyway."
"It's good money. You need it. I know you do."
Elle grabbed her arm. "What's going on? Who is Lewis Jordan?"
Dom wouldn't look at her, her jaw working as she searched for words.
"Who is he?" Elle kept her voice steady, though she felt anything but.
"CJ's father." Dom's voice was a near whisper.
Elle flinched.
"The man who hit him with a willow switch for cutting his hair," Dom said, faster now. "Who tried to beat the boy out of him."
"Two years ago I fought Jordan in a place like this. Broke his nose. Made him look like a fool in front of everyone." Her jaw tightened. "Then I took his kid home. I didn't just beat him. I embarrassed him."
"And now he wants payback," Claudette said, still smiling.
Elle rounded on her. "You knew this and you set it up anyway?"
"I knew Dom needed money, and Lewis wanted a rematch. A hundred instead of fifty. Good business for everyone."
"Good business? She has broken ribs—"
"She'll be fine."
The dismissal made Elle want to hit her.
Dom was already turning for the door. "I'm not doing this."
"Dom, wait—" Claudette reached for her.
"Don't touch me."
They'd made it halfway to the exit when a voice boomed across the room.
"That's right! Run away, dyke!"
Lewis Jordan stood by the ring — six-two, built like a man who worked with his body, a mean drunk's face, the kind of man who enjoyed hurting people. He played it to the crowd.
Thelma Blake would have never let him get away with this.
She would have crossed the room slow, looked him up and down like he was a used car she wasn't buying, and said, "Honey, I've seen more man in a glass of milk.
" She'd have let the laugh build before she finished him off: "Whatever you're compensating for, sugar, it's not working — you're still the size of a mistake. "
But Elle was no longer Thelma Blake.
Elle kept her hand where it was, on Dom's arm, and said nothing at all.
"Knew you didn't have the balls! Oh wait — you don't have balls! That's the whole problem!"
The crowd roared. Money was already changing hands.
Dom froze. Every muscle in her went taut.
"Dom," Elle said quietly. "We can leave. Right now."
Dom said nothing, staring at Lewis. At the crowd. At the money in the air.
"A hundred dollars," she said finally.
Elle waited.
"That's new shoes for CJ. Art supplies." Her voice had gone distant, calculating. "Fixes Papa Louie's water heater before it dies for good. Pays for someone to actually look at his hands." A pause. "Covers bail if anyone gets picked up at the sit-ins."
"Or it could get you killed."
Dom looked at her at last. "If I walk out now, they stop calling me. Claudette moves on to somebody else. This is all I've got."
"That's not true—"
"It is." Her voice cracked. "I'm too masculine for women's work, and they'll never let me do men's work in peace. So this is what's left." She gestured at the room, the leering men, the whole ugly machine of it. "I fight, or I starve. CJ starves. Papa Louie loses the bar."
Elle wanted to tell her she was worth more than this — more than the money, more than the room, more than any of it. She wanted to say it plain enough that Dom would have no choice but to believe her. Instead, her hand found Dom's.
Lewis still worked the crowd. "Stole my kid! Turned her into god-knows-what! Time somebody taught this bitch what it means to live in a man's world!"
Dom's hands fisted.
"Besides," Dom's voice dropped, "I really want to hit him."
Dom walked toward the changing room. Elle followed.
It smelled like old sweat and blood. Elle helped her out of the suit, holding the jacket carefully over one arm and folding the trousers so they wouldn't wrinkle — some small, useless part of her praying Dom would come out the other side of this in good enough shape to want to look sharp again on the walk home.
Dom changed fast into men's trousers and a white tank top, then offered her hands.
Elle wrapped them, winding the cloth around her knuckles the way she thought she remembered boxers doing it in an old picture, guessing at the rest. Her own fingers trembled by the time she reached the left one. She noticed, and wound it tighter, as if to force herself steady by will alone.
"You don't have to watch," Dom said, not looking up.
"Yes, I do."
Dom's hands grew still. She looked at Elle — truly looked.
"If this goes bad—"
"It won't."
"If it does," she went on, voice steady now, "tell CJ I'm sorry. Tell Papa Louie I tried."
Elle's throat closed. "You're going to be fine."
Dom nodded, though she didn't look like she believed it.
The crowd noise built through the walls — chanting, jeering, ready for blood.
Dom stood, rolled her shoulders once, and let the swagger come back over her like armor.
Then she walked out into the noise.
Elle had never seen anything like it. The crowd shouted, shoved, money waving over their heads for last bets. In the middle of it, Lewis Jordan was already in the ring, flexing, playing to the room.
When Dom climbed through the ropes, the noise turned uglier.
"Look at that bulldagger!"
"Think she's a man!"
Dom's face was blank. Professional. She found her corner, rolled her neck, shook out her hands.
The referee called them to center ring.
Lewis leaned in. "Gonna break you like I should've broken that girl of mine."
Dom's gaze went cold. "Try."
The bell rang.
Lewis came out swinging — wild, telegraphed, the kind of overplayed haymaker a director would've cut for looking fake.
Except nothing here was blocked to miss.
Dom slipped it, let him swing at air, answered with a short combination to the body — tight, precise, like footwork she'd rehearsed a hundred times.
Lewis lunged in and wrapped his arms around her, trying to pin her arms down so she couldn't swing.
Dom pushed off, circled right, kept making him miss — reading him the way Elle used to read a scene partner who telegraphed every beat before he played it.
Different stage. Same transaction. Except there was no one behind a camera to call cut.
A sour taste climbed up Elle's throat.
Lewis landed a wild hook to Dom's ribs. Her face twisted, a sharp breath through her teeth, arm coming up to protect her left side.
Lewis saw it and grinned, came forward with purpose, drove his elbow into the same spot — nothing staged about it now. Dom made a low sound and tried to clinch. He shoved her off and caught her with an uppercut that snapped her head back.
Blood burst from her nose. The crowd roared like it was the ending they'd paid for.
Elle's nails dug into her own palms.
Lewis pressed the ribs again and again. Dom's guard dropped.
Her arms had gone heavy — everything had gone heavy — and her legs buckled.
She went down on one knee, blood sheeting from her nose and mouth into the sweat.
Elle had watched actors fake exactly this, the careful stumble, the collapse hit right on its mark.
This wasn't that. Nobody had blocked this fall.
Lewis leaned over her, grinning with blood in his teeth. "Should've beaten the boy out of her years ago. Before freaks like you put ideas in her head—"
Then Dom's face changed — Elle couldn't have named it, but it was unmistakable.
Her head came up, focus finding through the blood. Lewis's grin faltered as she stood — not the slow rise of a stunt double waiting on a cue, nothing rehearsed in it at all. Resolute. Five-ten of her, blood-covered and furious.
He actually took a step back.
Dom didn't say a word. She just looked at him with a promise in her eyes, and came forward.
Lewis met her, overconfident, guard dropping.
Dom stepped inside the punch and threw a combination so clean it looked, for a disorienting second, choreographed — a left hook to the body, an uppercut under the chin, a straight right through his nose, delivered almost lazily, like she had all the time in the world.
Elle knew better. Nothing about it had been rehearsed.
The crack carried over the crowd noise.
Blood sprayed across his face. He stumbled two steps back and went down.
The referee counted to ten.
Dom stood in the neutral corner, swaying, blood running down her face, as her arm went up.
Then Dom's legs gave out.
Elle was already moving—through the ropes, on her knees beside Dom, reaching for her.
Elle cupped Dom's face in both hands, a steadying presence.