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Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, child death, gender discrimination, bullying, and sexual content.

The chapter begins with a comparison between hand-clapping games and boxing. Although there are no strict winners in hand-clapping, the girls who play are often competitive in terms of endurance, seeing which of them will last longer as the accompanying chants loop over and over. The last fight of the semifinal round feels this way—an example of the loop that constitutes the tournament.

Tanya Maw was fond of hand-clapping games as a child, but is growing out of them at 17 years old. She is reminded of the way her favorite games felt illicit when she sees her opponent, Rose Mueller, clench her teeth down on her mouth guard.

The judges are non-professional arbiters whom Bob called in to play the part required as a favor. Tanya and Rose’s coaches are old friends who plan to go out to the casinos and get free drinks after the fight is done. As night falls over Reno, hundreds of people follow the same plan, drawn to the casinos by alcoholic slurpees. The walkway along the Truckee River is littered with men who slip passersby calling cards for sex workers.

Rose Mueller came to Reno from Dallas, Texas. Like Tanya, she grew up playing hand-clapping games. In principle, girls learn hand-clapping games from their older sisters or the older sisters of their friends. New games are infectious among girls. In some games, players try to catch one another at the end of the beat, eliminating players until one girl is declared the winner and gets to decide when the next game is played. This is not the case with the Daughters of America Cup, which is planned as soon as the last tournament ends on a two year-cycle.

Rose and Tanya both win one round each. Their precision as fighters makes their movements look exacting to the spectators, as though they are part of one creature. Rose pictures herself as a bush of flowers as she lands a blow on Tanya’s face.

Tanya will become an actor, exercising the intimate art of staring into someone else’s eyes and fitting her face into the lives of her characters. As an elderly person, she will be typecast as a grandmother. Playing grandmothers will suit Tanya because she is brutally honest by nature. One of her most memorable roles will be a comedy in which she will play an old widow who plots to kill her husband.

Rose will die years before Tanya’s acting career takes off. Her life will be defined by her struggle with her suburban Catholic identity. Rose doesn’t oppose the idea of God per se, but feels at odds with religious conformity that causes people to adopt hateful morals. Rose sees a contrast between religion and boxing; in the latter, she is never told what she must do. Tanya wins the third round.

Tanya was taught how to braid her hair by her older sister, who isn’t present at the tournament. They grew up on a ranch in Albuquerque, New Mexico, experiencing several major family events while sitting on the house’s circular kilim rug. One such event was Tanya learning to braid her hair. Another event was her mother’s abandonment of their family. Tanya sees the rug as the first stage of her life, where she learned to “fit her face into the faces of others” (127). The memory of her mother’s disappearance continues to haunt Tanya at the tournament the same way the drowned child haunts Andi. Tanya often thinks about the fact that her mother consciously chose to abandon her and her sister.

Sometime after her older sister left home, Tanya was invited to try boxing, which she saw as a preferable alternative to being home alone with her father. Tanya has come to the tournament on her own, though she wishes that her father had come with her.

Tanya will decide to become an actor a year after the tournament, but she will not break out until she starts getting typecast as a grandmother. At some point during her career, Tanya will be recommended for a role by one of her acting teachers. After being cast, she will learn that she will be playing a mother who decides to abandon her daughters. Unable to refuse the role without losing face, she will wrestle with channeling her mother into the performance, which will destroy her emotionally as she wonders how much of her mother she contains. She will seek emotional support from her sister, who will reassure her that her trauma is in the past. It will be the worst performance of her career. When Tanya dies, she will remember the kilim rug.

At another point during Tanya’s career, an audience member will compliment her on communicating the loss of her sister so well through her performance. Tanya will not correct her, but will thank her for seeing it.

Tanya wins the fourth round and gets an early lead in the fifth. Rachel assesses that Rose’s hits are stronger than Tanya’s, which makes Tanya’s lead confusing. Rose wins the fifth round by landing a leaping left hook on Tanya. In her adult years, Rose will start a weight-loss gym with her husband. While experiencing obesity, she will use the gym to maximize her body’s functionality as she enters middle age. One day, wondering if she can still perform her signature move, Rose will execute the leaping left hook on a gym body bag and surprise herself.

Because of its repetition, the rosary reminds Rose of hand-clapping games. As an adult, Rose will go to mass nearly every day but will remain skeptical of the people around her. She will inexplicably find solace in the familiar chants of the sacrament. In between the rounds of the match, Rose recites rosary prayers and hand-clapping games. During the sixth round, she uses her skill for looking away to misdirect Tanya. Rose wins the round, evening the score. The seventh round also ends in Rose’s favor after she hits Tanya in the ribs and on the head.

Rose was extremely tall for her age when she was in third grade. She was the target of many bullies, though it was unclear to her if it was because of her height or because of her reserved nature. On one occasion, she was locked in a sports equipment shed and waited half a day for someone to free her. Rose loves boxing because it is the only time someone can be with her without having to really know her. She loves Tanya for fighting her.

Before she will open the gym with her husband, Rose will work as an accountant. She will then theorize that children who have been bullied become telepathic as adults. She will subscribe to this theory from personal experience. During her fight with Tanya, she can tell that Tanya’s mind is elsewhere. As the eighth round begins, Tanya is distracted by a vision of her older sister sitting on the rug in the corner of the gym. She can see that something within Rose is fragile.

Rose is at the tournament with her father, who made time from his work as a contractor to attend. Rose’s father is proud of her, considering the challenges she went through in the school where she was bullied. He is as sure of his love as he is sure of his faith. Although he transferred Rose into public school after the shed incident, he continued to bring his family to the same parish where the shed was located for Sunday mass.

Rose wins the last round and the match overall. Tanya thinks she can hear clapping until she shakes Rose’s hand. Everything becomes silent. Everyone leaves the gym for the night.