#86

Le’Thal was found by a nun in old Havana.  A tiny babe under the statue of Jose Marti, she was suckled by the raindrops dripping from his marble cape during the rainy season.  Her tiny hands grasped a crumpled note that read "es mejor morir de pie que vivir en rodillas”.  No one knew who her parents were, so the nuns took her in.
 
Thrown out of the orphanage for stealing the collection plate, she roamed the back alleys on a pair of roller skates swiped from tourists at the Hotel Nacional.  Cohibas smoking between her lips and her swirling skirts revealing her thighs, she never waited in the ration lines.  She danced all night, drinking daiquiris and tantalizing the men.  She shone on the dingy streets, her sparkling eyes ripping through the throngs of people surging to see Fidel at the Plaza de la Revolucion.  Leigh Thality was not to be overlooked.  Their eyes locked and she saw his ambition.  Her lips curled in a savage sneer.  He could have his island…she wanted something bigger.
 
Running contraband, she made her way up to Varadero.  On a bet she made one evening after a wild night in the Copa, she jumped off the rocky shore and started swimming north, her skates between her teeth.  The last thing she heard was, “¡Demonio de mujer!  ¡De cierto te ahogarás!”  Twenty hours later she was pulled out of the Gulf by a gun runner heading toward the Keys.  He took her to Miami while he regaled her with stories of his derby girls in Dallas.  Le’Thal knew what needed to be done: she must find this Dallas and her long-lost sisters. 
 
And now, she is home…forever skating towards victory.