I set the glass down abruptly. I was starting to feel like a big sister to Lupe. From my purse I extracted the folded flier that said Revolución de Guatemala. I smoothed it out. No address, no phone number. I pulled the phone directory from the bottom drawer of the desk. Where to look? Under Justice? Under Political Associations—radical? There were no listings under the letter G. I called information. They didn’t have any listing, either. I folded the flier back up and put it in my purse again along with the photos of Cathy Vega. Then I took out my map book and looked for Pete Manzo’s street in East LA. I guessed he might be working, so I decided not to head over there until around five and to go to the gym to work off some of my excess energy instead. Although I looked out the window many times for Lupe, she never appeared. I wondered if her brother had found her.

It was my upper-body day. I spent some time stretching. I didn’t see Rodney, and when I asked at the front desk for him, they told me I’d missed him by about half an hour. I decided to work on my triceps and biceps. I took a set of ten-pound weights for dumbbell kickbacks. It’s a good idea to do a couple of sets using the lighter weight. I bent over a black vinyl bench with one hand on the bench to steady myself and watched myself in the mirror as I brought the weight up behind me to parallel with the ground.

I glanced over at the guy next to me working his biceps. He was black and only about five foot seven but around two fifteen of solid mass. Twenty-two inch arms. I watched to see what he was doing.

It seemed to be working for him. I finished my set and got up to do what he was doing. He took a seventy pound weight. I took a fifteen. He leaned over an incline, placing his arm against the upright bench. I noticed he was wearing a pair of blue-and-black zebra-stripe tights. Animal prints are very big at this gym.

I lifted my weight carefully, focusing on the weight as it moved up and down. It was never my intention to either imitate or compete with men. Nothing could interest me less.

I braced my elbow against my inner thigh. He was gone when I looked up. In the locker room I stripped off my sweaty clothes and examined myself in the full length mirror. Tits small but firm, abdomen flatter than a couple months ago, not much meat on my rib cage, the beginning of an indentation in my thigh just above my knee. Biceps small but no flab. I flexed my biceps and struck a pose. Evolution is not a myth, and women have a greater tolerance for pain than men.