Excerpt: echoes down the street

It was on her way to return a pair of DVDs when she came across an odd sight.
A few houses down, the young woman Anastaise had seen giving a man Hell from her window was out on the lawn, with a golf club, striking a duffel bag. Anastaise stopped on the sidewalk and watched.
“Hellooooo!” trilled the other woman, flashing Anastaise a brilliant smile. The golf club came down. It hit the bag with a dull, muffled thunk.
“Hi,” Anastaise greeted. She continued to watch curiously.
The club whistled through the air a few more times before it stilled. The woman looked at Anastaise with a little bit of recognition. She had stylish, jaggedly cut black hair, and was curvy in a way Anastaise often wished she herself was. What a set of hips, Anastaise thought, eyeing them enviously for a moment.
“Oh,” the woman said. She dropped the club and wiped her palms on the front of her Ramones shirt. “You’re the poor bystander who saw me ‘n’ Jonathon having that blowout, weren’t you.”
Anastaise nodded. She didn’t know what to say to that, so she pointed dumbly back down the street. “I just live over there,” she said. “Was he your boyfriend?”
“Yes, was,” the woman replied cheerfully. She bent to pick up the club again. “Correct past tense and all. Sorry, what was your name?”
“Anastaise,” she said. She shook her neighbour’s hand as she came nearer, club slung over her shoulder.
“Bathilde,” she said, and grimaced. “Please, though, call me Hil. You’re new in town?”
“I moved here about last week,” Anastaise said, carefully.
“Well, I’m sorry you had to see the fight,” Hil said. “Though I must say it was spectacular. I was chock full of godly wrath, it was fierce.”
“What happened?”
“Jonathon and I had a little disagreement,” Hil said, heading back for the duffel bag. She prodded it, experimentally, as if it might be a live thing that would perhaps regain consciousness. Then she raised the club and whacked it again.
“What kind?” Anastaise asked. She was a very conversational person, when her interest was piqued.
“Oh, you know,” Hil said, again between blows. “I finally, finally scraped up the courage to tell the man that I was gay. Had been for a long time. Ages. He didn’t like that one bit, started accusing me of making it all up, that maybe I was cheating on him and was trying to cover it up. I guess he means well but he just pisses me off. You know?”
“Not really.”
“’Course you don’t. Have you ever had to come out of the closet to your scary redneck boyfriend? Well, maybe. You don’t have to answer that, it’s kind of personal. But yeah. I thought he might have killed me. Or maybe I’d have killed him if the roommates hadn’t forced him out of the house. Christ. These are some of his clothes,” she added, finally solving the riddle Anastaise had been puzzling over. “I thought I’d pile them in this bag and give ‘em a few good whacks. My roomie Tara read some psychology self-help book last week while she was trying to get over some complex she has about taking baths. She only got three chapters in but she read something that suggested I do something symbolic which will help me through my rage. I think she’s a bit of an airhead and it’s weird she won’t take baths, but at least she showers, and it sounded kinda viable.”
Anastaise asked politely, “Is the therapy working?”
“Umm,” Hil said, breathing a little shortly, and slammed the club down again. “Well. No. Not really. I’m still pretty pissed off. Want to come in for a cup of coffee?”
“Sure,” Anastaise said, feeling pleased at being invited.