you. âBrenda and I are going to the match tomorrow night to cheer her on. Itâs about an hour out of town, but Brenda has a car. Want to tag along?â
âI guess so,â you say. âIâve never actually seen women wrestle before.â
âWhat? Then you have to come. You have to!â
Betsy swings by the booth to ask you if you want some pie. What you really want is to go back to your room and fall into bed, but Peggy begs you not to go just yet, the coconut cream is to die for. The possibility of friendship is too appealing to say no, so you stay for another half hour, growing dizzy with sleepiness and sugar.
When you finally wish them good-night, you walk back to your dank little square of a room and open your trunk. There it is: the gift from your father, a little Philco Bakelite AM/FM radio. Heâd given it to you just the night before, mumbling something about your mother and music and summer nights. You pull it out from its nest of sweaters and set it on the nightstand, but you donât plug it in. Instead, you lie on your bed, head spinning, listening to the frogs and crickets, absorbing the weird world into which you have just leaped.
â¢Â    â¢Â    â¢
The next day, Betsy waves you into Joeâs office, and you walk in, holding your bathing suit in a sweaty hand. Joe tosses it in a bag, explaining that his wife will need to do some work to it before you can use it in the ring, and pulls out a contract. He reiterates his original offer: salary and expenses for the first month and, if you change your mind, a train ticket home. If you decide to stay after that, youâll have to pay your own way, including travel. He has a hard and fast rule against advances, and heâs heard every sob story out there, so donât bother. Finally, his booking fee will be forty percent of your purses.
âStandard,â he assures you, and hands you the pen.
Had you been listening, you might have found this gasp-worthy, but your attention has moved to the area behind his desk, which has been wallpapered with wrestling pinups that flap with each periodic blast of the oscillating fan. This morning, waking up to your depressing new home, your only connection to your father and your former life a radio you had yet to turn on, you felt homesick and once again plagued by doubt. But here, surrounded by these confident, hard-thighed women, your sense of opportunity returns. Many of these images are the same ones that lured you here; now, they seem to beckon you into their ranks. You take the pen and sign on the dotted line.
Once youâre done, Joe whisks the contract away and deposits it in his desk. âGood,â he says. âNow that youâre officially one of us, we can discuss the rest.â
â¢Â    â¢Â    â¢
The rest can be boiled down to these two syllables: KAY-fabe. The origins of the word are sketchy at best, part carny slang, part pig Latin. Kayfabe. Be fake.
Thatâs right, Leonie. Itâs fake. Itâs not sport, itâs story. The rivalries are manufactured, the outcomes predetermined. The athleticism is realâyouâve seen this with your own eyesâbut the rest is scripted. From this moment on, your primary responsibility will be to protect wrestlingâs first and only tenet: never, ever break character. After all, thatâs what youâve been admiring up there on the wall. Not women, characters. There are âfaces,â the heroes, and âheels,â the villains. Thatâs it. Women are too messy, too complicated, Joe explains. Characters are simple. And now, youâre on your way to becoming one, too.
â¢Â    â¢Â    â¢
Last but not least, Joe lays out his strict code of conduct. The women he manages are, first and foremost, ladies, by which he means both âclassyâ and âfeminine.â That means gloves, heels,
âI guess so,â you say. âIâve never actually seen women wrestle before.â
âWhat? Then you have to come. You have to!â
Betsy swings by the booth to ask you if you want some pie. What you really want is to go back to your room and fall into bed, but Peggy begs you not to go just yet, the coconut cream is to die for. The possibility of friendship is too appealing to say no, so you stay for another half hour, growing dizzy with sleepiness and sugar.
When you finally wish them good-night, you walk back to your dank little square of a room and open your trunk. There it is: the gift from your father, a little Philco Bakelite AM/FM radio. Heâd given it to you just the night before, mumbling something about your mother and music and summer nights. You pull it out from its nest of sweaters and set it on the nightstand, but you donât plug it in. Instead, you lie on your bed, head spinning, listening to the frogs and crickets, absorbing the weird world into which you have just leaped.
â¢Â    â¢Â    â¢
The next day, Betsy waves you into Joeâs office, and you walk in, holding your bathing suit in a sweaty hand. Joe tosses it in a bag, explaining that his wife will need to do some work to it before you can use it in the ring, and pulls out a contract. He reiterates his original offer: salary and expenses for the first month and, if you change your mind, a train ticket home. If you decide to stay after that, youâll have to pay your own way, including travel. He has a hard and fast rule against advances, and heâs heard every sob story out there, so donât bother. Finally, his booking fee will be forty percent of your purses.
âStandard,â he assures you, and hands you the pen.
Had you been listening, you might have found this gasp-worthy, but your attention has moved to the area behind his desk, which has been wallpapered with wrestling pinups that flap with each periodic blast of the oscillating fan. This morning, waking up to your depressing new home, your only connection to your father and your former life a radio you had yet to turn on, you felt homesick and once again plagued by doubt. But here, surrounded by these confident, hard-thighed women, your sense of opportunity returns. Many of these images are the same ones that lured you here; now, they seem to beckon you into their ranks. You take the pen and sign on the dotted line.
Once youâre done, Joe whisks the contract away and deposits it in his desk. âGood,â he says. âNow that youâre officially one of us, we can discuss the rest.â
â¢Â    â¢Â    â¢
The rest can be boiled down to these two syllables: KAY-fabe. The origins of the word are sketchy at best, part carny slang, part pig Latin. Kayfabe. Be fake.
Thatâs right, Leonie. Itâs fake. Itâs not sport, itâs story. The rivalries are manufactured, the outcomes predetermined. The athleticism is realâyouâve seen this with your own eyesâbut the rest is scripted. From this moment on, your primary responsibility will be to protect wrestlingâs first and only tenet: never, ever break character. After all, thatâs what youâve been admiring up there on the wall. Not women, characters. There are âfaces,â the heroes, and âheels,â the villains. Thatâs it. Women are too messy, too complicated, Joe explains. Characters are simple. And now, youâre on your way to becoming one, too.
â¢Â    â¢Â    â¢
Last but not least, Joe lays out his strict code of conduct. The women he manages are, first and foremost, ladies, by which he means both âclassyâ and âfeminine.â That means gloves, heels,
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