Act Your Age

by Eve Dangerfield

  “Well, come keep me company. I need a lookout in case any more of Lorena’s aunts show up and judge my lifestyle.”

  Kate laughed.

  They stood outside in the cold for half an hour, talking without the slightest awkward pause. When Kate got so cold her fingers went numb, she ordered an Uber. To her surprise, Rapunzel insisted they swap numbers so Kate could text her when she was safely home. When she did, Rapunzel replied with ‘Glad to hear it. It was good to see you, Peach. You should come out with us more often.’

  Kate smiled. She was still miserable about Ty, but unless she was mistaken she and the hardest girl on her derby team were kind of becoming friends and that was pretty cool. She only wished it had happened a few months ago. Rapunzel seemed like someone who’d know exactly how to talk you out of embarking on a doomed fling with your boss that left you questioning the very foundations of your life.

  ***

  Ty’s flight back to Melbourne was delayed, first by two hours, then five. He sat in the executive bar getting progressively drunker and more introspective. Airports always did that to him, it was something about the floaty timelessness of a place dictated by non-stop arrivals and departures.

  His delay was inconvenient, but as he sat on his cushy bar stool, being served by a friendly, non-judgmental bartender, he had to admit that no one was expecting him. He would have to be delayed by another twenty hours before it mattered that he was getting drunk in the airport instead of at home.

  He pulled out his notepad with the vague idea of doing some writing and instead found himself sketching big disjointed words: golden boy, bachelor, pervert, alcoholic and Middleton. He circled the last word, then crossed it out. Then he drew it again in wide bubble letters. Middleton.

  “You’re almost forty-six,” Rhys had said. “You can’t be running around with a girl half your age, you’re not DiCaprio.”

  He wasn’t. But he wasn’t like Rhys, either, not married or mortgaged to the hilt. He’d chosen his life for himself and already endured all the slights that came along with it. Family dinners were already painful, would it really be so bad if he and Middleton made a proper go of things? If his brothers and their wives had to accept that, in addition to being a childless weirdo, he was the kind of tacky middle-aged asshole who had a twenty-something girlfriend? Did it matter?

  Not really, he decided. It mattered that he’d left her, ending things without a word, though. It mattered what she was doing now. Ty drained his pint and decided to investigate. He pulled out his laptop, and logged into Kinkworld. His pulse spiked when he saw messages in his inbox, but they turned out to be from some dickhead called ‘@BadBastard1995’ who felt the need to tell him he was a pervert. He deleted the messages and typed Middleton’s pseudonym into the search box.

  She had a new profile picture. She was posing in front of her bathroom mirror in the cherry patterned nightdress she’d worn when they were last together. Unlike her other photos, you could see her face, all wide brown eyes and pink lips. She’d angled herself so that her legs looked a mile long, her body flawless. She looked young and beautiful and so sexy she was almost a stranger.

  “Why would she do this?” Ty muttered. From the way that nightie had smelled when he’d been fucking her, it was new. Why would she take something she bought especially for him and show it to every goddamn perv on this website?

  Because she’s in the market for a Daddy, asshole. Don’t act like you’re surprised.

  “You okay man?” The bartended asked.

  “Fine,” Ty lied. “Makers on the rocks, thanks.”

  As he waited for his drink he scrolled through the comments listed below Middleton’s picture. Again, most of them were moronic, but one by a man called RedRight was irritatingly eloquent. “Very pretty but you look like you need a hug, gorgeous girl. Dinner this Friday? (I just DM’d you.)”

  Ty googled the term and was unimpressed to learn that it meant ‘direct message.’ Had Middleton responded? He clicked on RedRight’s profile and learned the guy was a twenty-nine-year-old property developer. He was irritatingly good looking, heavily muscled, and well-hung, something Ty learned against his will when he accidentally clicked on a video of RedRight doing a woman in the ass. He’d never back-clicked out of something so fast in his life.

  Surely Middleton wouldn’t be interested in dating someone who put their homemade porn on the internet? Surely? The question did nothing to help Ty’s growing unease. He went back to Middleton’s profile and looked at her posing in her cherry night dress. She looked gorgeous, but as RedRight had pointed out, there was something sad about the look in her eyes. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine why. Yet Ty knew better than he’d ever known it before that she’d find someone else, eventually. Maybe not a handsome buttfucker with sex tapes plastered all over the internet, but someone. She was too precious for another man like him not to want to keep her.

  Ty closed his laptop and considered the glass of Makers the bartender had left at his elbow. Another drink would have gone down like water, but it wasn’t going to help him make the decision he knew he needed to make. He gave the drink to the bored looking guy next to him, paid his tab and wandered over to the food court. He ordered a custard tart and ate it, savouring the sweetness he normally detested. He’d always made his own choices, regardless of what other people thought. Maybe it was time to man up and make another one.

  Chapter 16

  “We’re. Dying out here. Ladies.” Maria was breathing so hard her words were coming out in bursts. “If we don’t. Catch up. We’re going. To lose.”

  Kate and the rest of the team moaned their agreement, sinking on their designated seats. It was only halftime, but the stench of failure permeated their bench. The A-Bombs had a ten point lead, and if the Barbie Trolls didn’t earn it back early in the next half, they’d lose and lose hard.

  The crowd was in high spirits, browsing at the mini market that had sprung up on the other side of the stadium, filling their bellies with crepes, fairy floss, burritos, and craft beer. Derby wasn’t huge in Australia, but there were enough interested hipsters, goths, indie rockers and pervs that the finals always drew a decent audience. Kate wished she was among them now, nodding her head to the pop-rock that was blaring through the sound system and eating jam doughnuts. She rubbed her spasming thigh, trying to keep the muscles from locking up. Thunderbox, The A-Bombs largest defender, seemed to have taken a particular disliking to her. Kate had no idea why, but she’d still been knocked to the ground a dozen or so times. She was going to have bruises tomorrow and not fun butt ones. Ugly limb ones.

  Maria finished emptying a small bottle of water into her mouth and rounded on her teammates once more. “Where are your heads tonight, girls?”

  “Getting mashed into the track.” Tam shot The A-Bombs sitting on the opposite side of the track a filthy look. “Those molls are playing dirty, even by their usual bullshit standards.”

  “Don’t blame them for the fact we’re losing—”

  “She’s not,” Casey interrupted. “Look at this!” She lifted her ice-pack to reveal a swollen eyelid. “This wasn’t even the worst one. Daisy twisted her ankle when number forty-four pushed her over and that big bitch has it in for Macca—”

  Maria scoffed. “She hasn’t ‘got it in for Katie.’ She’s just being unfocused and sloppy.”

  Kate felt her cheeks burn and was glad she was wearing so much novelty makeup. It wasn’t like Maria to call her out in front of the rest of the team, but then again, it was a final. Tensions were understandably high.

  “Hey.” Tam nudged Kate’s side. “Don’t worry about it. You’re doing great.”

  “You don’t have to lie.”

  “Well, you’re not skating any worse than the rest of us. Besides, there’s no need for Maria to be so pissy. We can still win this back.”

  “I hope so.” Something across the track caught Kate’s eye. Thunderbox, her purple Mohawk freshly spiked into st
egosaurus spines, was giving her the finger.

  “Oh geez,” she muttered.

  “What?” Tam spotted Thunderbox. “Wow, you’ve made yourself a friend, haven’t you, Mac? Go on then, bird her back.”

  Kate gave Thunderbox a half-hearted finger. The larger woman flashed her a grin that could only be described as ‘ominous’ and slashed a finger across her throat.

  “God, that’s a bit full on.” Tam patted Kate on the shoulder. “Just ignore her, Mac.”

  Kate tried, but in her mind the big defender was dragging her to the ground and taking a bite out of her face. She wished she hadn’t given her the bird. She’d never been any good at on-track razzing. She had a fundemental fear of confrontation, particularly toward people who looked like they might curb-stomp her.

  As she listened to Maria’s proposed plays, Kate wondered, not for the first time, if she’d made the right choice joining the team. She loved skating, but she was one of the weaker members of the Barbie Trolls, and everyone knew it. Bigger players could knock her down with the effort it took to extinguish a birthday candle. She’d joined to make friends, but the only friend she really had was Maria and Maria was pissed off with her more often than she wasn’t. Come to think of it, she was probably depriving a much cooler girl of her rightful place on the team. Maybe when the sign-on forms for next year were passed around, she’d forget to add her name, let her insurance run out, and sell her six-hundred dollar skates on Gumtree. Maybe she should stop pretending she belonged in the ultra-cool derby world and adopt a cat and join a poetry reading circle. Embrace the void.

  Maria dismissed her team for the rest of the break. Kate was skating back and forth, trying to stretch out her hamstrings when Rapunzel came skidding up to her side. “Hey, Peach.”

  “Hey,” Kate said, her new nickname making her feel slightly better. “Where have you been?”

  “Around. You’re having a rough game, eh?”

  “I…yeah.”

  Rapunzel patted her on the back. “Don’t stress. I’ve got something that’ll make you feel better.”

  Her shifty expression reminded Kate that her income was propped up by selling substances of dubious legality. “I can’t take anything, I’m already on Ritalin. Besides, isn’t that like, sports doping?”

  “That only counts in the AFL and when you do it to greyhounds and stuff. Hang on, why are you on Ritalin?”

  Kate found she didn’t have the energy to lie. “I have ADHD.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I was diagnosed when I was seventeen.”

  Rapunzel eyed her up and down as though looking for some physical demonstration of her behavioural disorder. “Well, there you go. You know there’s decent money in Ritalin. If you’ve got a scrip, I could—”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Fine. Well, setting the topic of prescription medication aside, I’ve got a non-pharmaceutical gift for you.”

  “What is it?” Kate asked nervously. It would be like Rapunzel to yell ‘refreshment!’ and dump Powerade on her head.

  “Oh, nothing.” Rapunzel polished her fingernails on the front of her pink and white t-shirt.

  “But you just said it was something.”

  “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t…”

  “Rapunzel,” Kate said desperately. “What are you doing?”

  “Okay, okay. I was skating through the crowd when I came across a tall blond gentleman who seems genuinely incapable of smiling.”

  Kate blinked at her. Clearly, there was some kind of punchline coming, but Rapunzel didn’t say anything, just grinned and blew on her unvarnished fingernails. “Impressed?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I spotted a tall, blond gentleman in the crowd,” Rapunzel explained. “Are you surprised, Peach? A little turned on, perhaps?”

  “Please don’t tease me,” Kate begged. “I’m already skating like crap, if I have another half like the last one, Maria’s going to kill me.”

  “I’m not fucking with you!” Rapunzel grabbed her shoulders and steered her around so she was facing the entrance. “Cast your eyes to the Pepsi machine yonder. You’ll see.”

  Kate did what she was told, though she was sure Rapunzel was wrong. She and Ty were over, and even if they weren’t, he’d made it clear he’d rather self-immolate than go to a roller derby game. She located the bright blue and black Pepsi machine, and began scanning for Ty’s doppelganger. She spotted a tall blond man who definitely wasn’t—

  All the air rushed out of Kate’s lungs. “What the…? It’s him!”

  “Pretty cool, ay?” Rapunzel said happily. “Thought it must have been.”

  Surrounded by goths, hipsters, and weirdos, Ty looked completely out of place in his suit and beautiful checked coat. He looked like a visiting prince prepared to witness, if not join in, with the natives’ reverie. His expression was tense.

  “He’s been skulking around the back of the stadium all game,” Rapunzel said. “I spotted him when we were lining up for the first play.”

  “How did you know he was the guy I was seeing?”

  “I didn’t but he kept staring at your arse. He wasn’t even pretending not to. It was like, single-minded perving. I thought we might have a Dexter situation on our hands.”

  Kate stopped staring at Ty and turned to look at Rapunzel. “What?”

  “Dexter. You know, the serial killer? Kind of looks like old mate.”

  “I don’t think Ty looks like Dexter.”

  “Yeah, but how often do you get good looking guys in suits coming to derby games by themselves? I figured it was worth checking him out and when I got closer, I realised he was probably your man having a bit of a regret-lurk on a Thursday night.”

  Kate’s heart raced. “He came,” she said to herself. “Wait, what do you mean, ‘when I got closer?’”

  “I went over and asked him what he was doing, staring at my friend’s arse with the laser-like focus of that laser that almost slices off James Bond’s dick,” Rapunzel said matter-of-factly.

  “You…what did he say?”

  “Well, first of all, the guy’s got a glare on him that could straight-up peel paint. I’m not convinced he’d smile if he was getting sucked off in a money tornado.”

  Kate winced. “Sorry.”

  “What are you apologising for?”

  “I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

  Rapunzel gave her a look.

  “Sorry.” Kate clapped her hands over her mouth. “Sorry.”

  “Okay, you’re clearly stuck in a loop.” Rapunzel yanked her hands off her mouth. “Listen to me. I went over to Dexter and said ‘kind of you to show up, but Kate’s new boyfriend won’t be happy you’re here.’”

  Kate’s hands flew back to her mouth.

  “I know.” Rapunzel said, with a smug smile. “It was ingenious shit. Your man straight up turned maroon. Jealous doesn’t even begin to cover it. He was glancing around, all angry, saying ‘Who is he? Point him out’ like he was going to initiate some kind of duel for your pussy and I was all, ‘new boyfriend doesn’t exist, but fair warning, Peach is a sexy girl, and if you don’t want someone else tapping her, stop being such a shitheel.’”

  Kate shoved a knuckle between her lips and bit down so hard she tasted blood. “Are you serious?”

  “Oh yeah. And then Dexter glared at me and asked if I could send you over to talk to him, which pretty much brings us to now.” For the second time, Rapunzel reached up and pulled Kate’s hands out of her mouth. “Stop it, you’ll fuck ya teeth. Now, do you want to see him or not?”

  Kate glanced over at Ty who appeared to be buying himself a doughnut from a nearby vendor. After weeks of misery and confusion, he’d come back and she was wearing a blonde wig, roller skates and enough makeup to paint a deck. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll go tell him to piss off, shall I?”

  For a brief moment, Kate con
sidered it. There would be something satisfying in blowing Ty off without even seeing him, making him feel powerless the way he had when he’d told her he was leaving for Queensland minutes after they had sex.

  “Righto,” Rapunzel said. “I’ll tell him to fuck off. You want me to say anything in particular? Like, maybe he should bring some fucking flowers next time instead of showing up empty-handed like a slack piece of shit?”

  Kate grabbed Rapunzel’s arm. “No, um, I think I should go talk to him. He came here for me. I shouldn’t be a coward.”

  Rapunzel looked a little disappointed. “Fair enough. Get over there quick, though, only seven minutes until half time’s over.”

  “I’ll be fast. Thanks so much.”

  “Anytime, Peach. Hope it goes down the way you want it to.”

  So did she, though she had no idea what that would look like.

  As Kate made her way toward Ty, the crowd parted around her like the proverbial red sea. At first she had no idea why, then she remembered she was in a skimpy uniform and skates with crazy makeup all over her face. She wished she was wearing something else but she needed to speak to him now or she’d go insane waiting for the game to finish. Why the hell had he come here? Surely it couldn’t be a coincidence, although knowing her luck…

  As she drew closer, Ty turned toward her, balling up his brown paper doughnut bag and sucking cinnamon sugar from his fingers.

  “Ty?”

  He looked at her and when their gaze met, everything went very slow and soft. It was tacky to feel this way about someone who’d hurt her so badly, but Kate felt warm with relief. It had been sixteen days, sixteen miserable days but now her handsome, blue-eyed Daddy was back.

  “Hi, Middleton,” he said in his deep, rough voice. “Come over here?”

  Funny how his orders never failed to provoke the same reaction in her, a weakening in the back of the knees, as though he were a king and she was literally about to genuflect to him. Kate was aware of all the women staring at them, no doubt trying to weigh up her relationship to this beautiful, well-dressed man.