Roller Girl

by Vanessa North

  I slump back against the doorjamb and stare at him. “So what are you saying? We’re going under?”

  “I’m saying, get that boy in here, working out and winning competitions where other vain muscle-heads can see our name on his T-shirt.”

  He digs a pile of brochures out of his desk drawer and tosses them on the paper-littered desk. “And see if there’s anything in there he can use.”

  I pick up the brochures, not that they’ll do Jeremy any good if he won’t read them. A sinking, sick feeling twists through my gut.

  The next night, Elvis and I curl up on the couch with my laptop, and I pull up the YouTube videos Joe sent me. Familiar gym-sounds fill the room: squeaks and people moving, and murmurs around whoever was taking the video. Blurring and shaking slightly, it focuses in on the action below.

  A sea of black and yellow helmets and elbows flying. At first, it doesn’t look like much is happening—a group of women shoving at each other, the occasional shout, but mostly a mass of bodies pushing. But then I see it—the breakthrough moment when the woman in black with a star on her helmet grabs the hips of one of her teammates, ducks low, and pulls. She shoots past her teammate and takes off like a shot as the crowd shouts and whistles.

  The video ends.

  That’s what Joe wanted me to see. But why? I watch it again. Watch the struggle, the maneuvering. Now that I know what the end goal was, I can see the subtle shifts and the way the teammates work together to hold back the girls with the stars on their helmets. I pull out my phone.

  The stars?

  I queue up the next video while I wait for an answer.

  Jammers. They score points by lapping members of the other team.

  I watch a few more, enjoying the technique, the fast skating, the way the girls all seem to light up as they fly across the track. Occasionally, I text Joe, clarifying the things I see on the screen, what they mean, why she wanted me to see them.

  The last video shows a bout in full swing, ending in a terrible crash and one girl being led off the track, hobbling, to the applause of the crowd.

  Is this one supposed to show me how seriously I could get hurt?

  I can almost hear her low, sexy laugh.

  Nah, you’re a grown-up, you can figure out that stuff on your own. You see what happened there? The first girl who fell, she sort of sprawled out, and everyone else fell too?

  I watch it again up until that point.

  Yeah.

  I replay the fall, seeing the moment the first of the other girls trips.

  Derby is a team game. You gotta tuck up, fall small. Don’t bring anyone else down. Skating fast and kicking ass is fun, but there’s more to it than that. It’s working together, not falling together.

  I don’t have a lot of experience with team sports. Wakeboarding wasn’t like that. Even with the companionship on the boat, a big part of what made it special was being alone at the end of that rope, demanding the laws of physics lift you up like a god. It was all about the individual glory.

  But in spite of my unfamiliarity with the dynamic, I get the message. She’s sent me a half-dozen videos with one idea in mind: teamwork. Not as a lecture—I barely know her, but I know that isn’t her MO. This is a reminder of what she’s promising—companionship, friendship. Teamwork. Something bigger than individual glory.

  And damn, I want it.

  You really love it, don’t you?

  She doesn’t reply right away, but when she does, it isn’t what I expected.

  You will too. I have a good feeling. Text me your shoe size so I can borrow some skates for you, okay?

  I snuggle a little closer to Elvis and watch the last video.

  I call Jeremy from the parking lot of the Lake Lovelace State University gym.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Tina, from Reed’s. How are you doing?”

  The line is silent for a long moment, then he sighs heavily.

  “I’m sorry, Tina. I shouldn’t have left like I did. I was embarrassed about getting mad, and I panicked a little, I guess.”

  “Are you coming in tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. And I’ll eat first. I promise.”

  “Jeremy, if you need help—”

  “Just forget it. I was stupid. It won’t happen again.” He hangs up, leaving me to stare at my phone. That could have gone better, but I guess it could have been worse too.

  I tuck my phone into my handbag and look around. A few minivans and old SUVs haunt the mostly empty parking lot. Joe’s van is off to one side, so I know I’m in the right place.

  I don’t know why I was expecting a roller-skating rink, but I guess it makes sense that they wouldn’t close their doors on a lucrative evening skate time so the roller derby team could have tryouts. Or whatever these are. Joe said they were in the middle of a recruitment cycle.

  The gym smells like sweat, and the sounds of skates and voices echo off the cinder-block walls. My gut wrenches a little with nerves, but then I see her. Back in her beater and cutoffs, Joe is talking to Stella in a corner, making big gestures and laughing. When she spots me, she waves and starts skating over.

  “Hey.” She comes to a neat stop in front of me. “I have skates for you. I borrowed them from Katie’s rink.” She leads me to the bleachers, moving as easily on skates as she does without them. Reaching into a black bag, she pulls out ugly brown rental skates with purple laces. “You’ll want to buy your own if you decide this is your thing, but until then . . . here. I, um—” she looks away, biting her lip “—I put new laces in them, ’cause the laces on rentals are always shitty.”

  I take the skates with a lump in my throat, nodding gratefully, and then I sit down and pull them on. It’s been a long time since I’ve put on a pair of roller skates. Maybe not since high school, when Lisa and I used to actually date. I stand up and give an experimental turn. Yeah, you don’t lose it, do you?

  Joe watches me, a grin on her face. “Been awhile?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you skate backward?”

  I learned how once. How did that work? I bend my knees, look behind me to make sure the way is clear, then push out with first one foot, then the other, propelling myself back a few yards before braking. Hell yeah. I grin up at Joe, who returns my grin.

  “I guess you can. Did you come straight from work? Do you need to warm up?”

  “I did come straight from work, but I do paperwork at the end of the day. Maybe I should take a few laps to loosen my muscles.”

  “Sure, I’ll do them with you, get a feel for your technique.”

  We set off at an easy pace, and she slips into a natural teacher mode that reminds me of Ben. “See those girls over there?” She points to a group gathered around Stella. “They’re learning how to fall safely—minimizing the chances of injury to themselves or others.”

  “Do people get hurt a lot?”

  “We’ve been mostly injury-free so far—Katie sprained an ankle at the beginning of the season and had to sit the rest of it out, but that’s the only one so far. We take safety pretty seriously.”

  As we round the corner into our second lap, she starts to pick up the pace. “Do you have any questions about how the game is played?”

  I’ve been studying. “Let me see if I’ve got this: each team has five players on the track. Three blockers, a jammer—who tries to get past the blockers so she can lap them and score points for each one she passes—and a pivot, who is a blocker but can strategically become the jammer if the star covering the helmet—”

  “The panty,” Joe supplies.

  “—if the panty is successfully passed from the jammer to the pivot.”

  “That’s the gist, yeah.” Joe grins at me. “What else?”

  “The scoring period is called the jam, and it lasts two minutes, but the lead jammer can strategically call it off early by putting her hands on her hips.”

  “That’s right, good. You warmed up yet? Ready to show me what you got?”

  “Hel
l yeah.”

  “Okay, so you see those cones over there?”

  Across the gym, a miniature obstacle course has been set up: orange traffic cones, a few sacks of sand. I nod.

  “Grab a helmet, wrist guards, and pads from the blue bag by Stella—you’ll want to get your own, but we always have a couple extras of the safety gear in case someone forgets something. I want you to build up a little speed, then weave around the cones in figure eights two times. And if you can, I wanna see you jump the sack at the end of the row.”

  Jump the sack? Holy shit. Can I do that? How do you jump in roller skates?

  “Why the jump?”

  “If someone falls in front of you and you can’t get around them, what do you do?” She shrugs. “You could crash into them, but that would suck for both of you.”

  “Got it.” I pull on the unfamiliar safety gear, then push down the flutter of nerves as I skate over to the cones, picking up speed along the way. The weight of the skates is strange on my feet as I go into the first turn, but I push through the unfamiliar feeling and cross one foot over the other, building speed on the cross between turns. After the second figure eight, I skate straight toward the sacks, determined to jump.

  Panic hits me like a freight train.

  I can see myself sprawled on the ground, bones broken. Hell no. At the last minute, I swerve around it. I put my hands on my hips and try to shake it off. I look up at Joe, expecting to see disappointment on her face, but she’s grinning and clapping her wrist guards together.

  “That was awesome. You nailed those figure eights, and you were fast. Really great work, T.”

  Stella skates over and points at the sack. “You want some tips on how to jump that?”

  “Maybe? I panicked. I think I can do it. I mean, it’s like doing an ollie on water, right?”

  She cocks her head to one side, studying me.

  “I’ve never done an ollie on water, but yeah, I imagine so.” She turns toward the cones and does her own set of figure eights, coming straight at me—no, the sacks—out of the final turn. I watch her approach them, watch how she gets her butt low and then picks up her feet and soars over the sacks. Feet down, she turns and hauls ass back into the figure eights.

  Holy shit, the girl can skate. But Joe had led me to believe the team wasn’t very good? How on earth does she expect me to keep up?

  Another girl approaches me, not as smoothly as Stella or Joe, but with a confidence I don’t have yet. “Hi, I’m Lauren.”

  “Tina.”

  “You fresh meat too?”

  I wince. “Yeah.”

  “You were really fast. Where’d you learn to skate like that? I feel like I’m always going to be stuck on the basics.”

  “I always liked to move fast. Back when I was a pro wakeboarder, we’d get the speed way up on the boat so we could fly behind it.”

  “Damn. So you get the balance stuff too. Lucky you. I sometimes wonder if I only wanted to do this for an excuse to wear fishnets.”

  I glance down at her legs. Sure enough, she’s wearing ripped-up black fishnets. She’s cute and curvy, round all over, but she’s tugging self-consciously at the hem of her shorts. Maybe she isn’t totally comfortable with the look.

  “They suit you.”

  She blushes. “Thanks. Okay. Gonna go through the obstacle course myself now.”

  I watch as she moves through the pattern, doing all the right stuff with her feet, but not committing to the speed. Her eyes widen every time she crosses one foot over the other, like she’s just impressed herself at her ability to do that.

  “Butt down, Lou,” Stella calls out to her, and Lauren squats a little lower, but wobbles, and one of her skates scoots forward. I wince as she goes down hard on her butt. I don’t think that’s what Stella meant.

  “You okay?” I skate over and help her up.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Plenty of padding.” She pats her backside for emphasis. “I’m not the most coordinated. I don’t know why I thought derby would be a good idea. Chase laughed when I told him I was going to try out. God, this is stupid. But I’m not going to let him be right about it.”

  Her face settles in determination.

  “Who’s Chase?”

  “My husband.” She swallows. “I’m not going to make excuses for him—he’s usually a sweetheart, but he’s being a dick about this. He doesn’t think I can do it because I’m fat. I can’t help being a big girl—”

  What the hell? What kind of asshole makes his wife feel bad about her weight and about exercising?

  “He gives you shit about your weight? And about playing a sport?”

  Shrugging, she adjusts her helmet. “It’s complicated. He likes my body fine, if you know what I mean. I think he’s more pissed about me leaving the kids with him so I can skate, and he’s lashing out at a sore spot for both of us.”

  When I don’t say anything, she explains, “He used to be a football player in high school, so there’s a jealousy thing. Meanwhile I grew up thinking sports were just for skinny girls. But this is something I can do—and maybe do well. I don’t know.”

  The determined set of her jaw and the steel behind her eyes make me believe she’s not only going to do it, but she’s going to kick ass too.

  “Good for you.”

  “All right, ladies.” Joe claps her hands a few times over her head, skating into the middle of the gym. She keeps her voice down, but everyone quiets to listen to her. “I think everyone is here now, so we’re going to get started with assessments—tryouts, for the fresh meat. Let’s start with 27/5. The goal is to do twenty-seven laps in five minutes or under. Some pointers—get low, build speed in the straightaways, and stay to the inside of the corners. Tina, I want you to participate even though this is your first time. It’ll give you a good idea where you stand.”

  “Oh, man. I thought we weren’t doing this until next week.” Lauren bites at her lip, her eyes a little glassy. “I’m not ready.”

  “Ready? It’s just straight-up skating, right?” I bump her shoulder with my own. “You can do that.”

  “Yeah, but it’s skating fast. I’ve been working on skating better. I passed everything else already, but the 27/5 is—” she shakes her head “—it’s the last thing I need to pass to make the team.”

  Oh. I’ve seen this before, this nervousness. I used to see it with other riders on the wake boat. Performance anxiety. “Hey, if you’ve been working on technique, won’t speed come along with that?”

  She wipes at her eyes, then looks over at me. “Maybe. I just didn’t think it was going to be today. I thought I’d have more time, and I just— I want Chase and the kids to get to see me skate in a bout.”

  “Okay, so let’s focus on that. Imagine you’re skating in your first bout. You’re about to skate as clean and as fast as you can. Chase and the kids are there to watch. What are their names?”

  “Kaylee and Braden.”

  “Okay, Chase and Kaylee and Braden are all there to watch. Little Kaylee is going to see her mom kick butt. Braden is wide-eyed with excitement. And Chase is so proud of you, he could burst. That’s what I want you to think about when you go out there and skate. And seriously, what’s the worst that could happen? You fall down? So the fuck what? People fall down.”

  Lauren shakes her head and smiles at me. “You’re really good at this pep-talking stuff.”

  Of all the things I’ve been good at in my life—wakeboarding, weight lifting—that might be the one I’m proudest of. “You’ll do great.”

  And she does. She’s not the fastest skater, but I can see in her eyes how bad she wants this, and while it takes her precious seconds to build up speed, a sort of calm settles over her, and she flies out of the final turn with a fierce determination on her face.

  When Joe calls out Lauren’s time, I expect her to cheer or shout for joy, but she surprises me by bursting into tears and clinging to me, both arms around my waist. Yeah, I’ve seen this before too. At marathon finish lines
and double-up contests, when someone wants their body to do something so bad, they don’t let themselves believe it can. When they finally nail it, something like a storm of grief hits them. Whether for their old doubts, or for the belief they never let themselves have, I don’t know.

  I hold her and make some shushing noises while she cries out her relief and joy, and everything Joe said about teamwork and companionship hits home so hard, I start tearing up too. And I just freaking met this girl.

  Joe skates over to us and joins in the hug, sandwiching Lauren between us. “You did it, Lauren! I’m so fucking proud of you. Time to pick out your derby name, baby.” She meets my gaze over Lauren’s shoulder. “You ready?”

  A grin spreads across my face. “Let’s do it.”

  I don’t make the team.

  I didn’t expect to—it’s only my first day. But I still feel a twinge of sadness as I watch the others celebrating with Lauren, a longing to be a part of their celebration. A handful of other girls didn’t pass the assessments either. My downfall was the jump, which is pretty fucking humiliating for a wakeboarder, but I chickened out. Falling on a hard gym floor, no matter what I said to Lauren, is a lot scarier than falling on water.

  “You did really well.” Joe appears at my side as I unbuckle my borrowed helmet and grimace. How many other sweaty heads have been in there?

  “Thanks.” I glance over at her, and I can’t help but think that she looks pretty with her cheeks flushed and her hair damp with sweat. Stop fantasizing about the coach, T.

  “I mean it. I bet you could pass all the assessments with a few weeks’ hard work. I mean, if that’s what you want. I guess this was a trial for us too.” She bites her lip and peers up at me. “Did we pass?”

  A laugh bubbles up in my chest, and I nod. “Yeah. I had a great time.”

  “Awesome.” She hugs me then, a quick, self-conscious thing. Is she remembering our gropey kiss in the parking lot the other night? “Listen, it’s sort of a tradition. When new girls make the team and pick out their derby names, we all go to Blue’s and have a few drinks to celebrate. You’re totally welcome to come. We’re meeting over there in about an hour to give folks time to go home and shower if they want.”