False Start

by Rebel Farris

  Seriously, Bridget looked like a pinup model or one of those girls painted on the side of an old warplane. She had tattoos on both shoulders and several more down her arms. There were even some on her thighs that were visible through her fishnets.

  “Go. Do you,” Holly said pushing me toward an open bathroom stall with a smile. “We’ll keep talking.”

  “What’s with the uniforms?” I asked, sitting on the toilet. “Are you waitresses here?”

  “I do bartend, but I’m off tonight.” Ruby’s voice rang out in the tiny bathroom. “We had a heat. The uniforms are from our team.”

  “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about. You ever heard about roller derby?” the one named Bridget asked, I think.

  “Um, no?” I answered.

  “You’d be perfect on our team. You gotta be one tough bitch to hack it on the track,” Holly said.

  Now

  “Have you given any more thought to recording again?” Nate asks, leaning back in his chair.

  Nate’s my business partner. We own the studio and record label fifty-fifty. He runs operations, and I handle the creative development side. The set-up suits us both, and we work well together. He’s eighteen years my senior, but he’s always respected me, and my opinions and ideas.

  We’re sitting in the conference room after our quarterly update meeting. Business is good—real good. He spins his pen that rests on top of his leather notebook and tracks it with his eyes before stopping it and spinning it again. I know what he’s doing. He’s giving me space after asking a question that he thinks I might have a negative reaction to.

  “I’ve given it more thought. I just—I don’t see how I’d have the time, between fostering the bands we’ve signed, scouting for new talent, and my duties at the Mad House…” The rest is implied well enough.

  “It’s a waste of your talent, Maddie. You have more than anyone who’s walked through these doors. And, I get it. I do understand. What happened was difficult, but you’ve made amazing strides and you’re playing again. Not just playing, but you’re writing, too, right?”

  I nod.

  “I think working with those kids may be helping you more than them.” He snorts a laugh. “It’s just a shame to see it wasted. The world needs your music. You don’t have to tour. Maybe we just record and you play a broadcast show for Austin City Limits and that’s it. Just take it one step at a time.”

  “I agree,” Dex says.

  I startle at his voice and look up to find him standing in the open doorway to the conference room.

  “Sorry to interrupt. You should do it. I’ve heard your new stuff; it’s good,” he says, waving his phone in the air. “We’ve got an emergency.”

  I raise my eyebrows as my body tenses.

  “Not life and death,” he assures. “But I’m going to need your help with this one.”

  “Okay?” I say, confused and curious.

  He nods his head out the door. “You coming?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Sure. We’ll continue this conversation later, Nate. I’ve apparently got something to take care of right now.” I look back to Nate, who has an amused grin as I gather my papers and other belongings. “I’ll be back if this doesn’t take too long, but I’ll have Chloe call you if I don’t expect to be back in the office today.”

  “Sounds good,” Nate replies.

  I dart past Dex, who is looming in the doorway, and head back to my office to gather my purse and car keys. Dex’s hand lands on the small of my back, startling me. I nearly toss my papers into the air. I pause for a moment and look up at him.

  “Do you want to tell me about this emergency?”

  “Yeah, the school called,” he says as he continues toward my office. “Audra’s in the nurse’s office, and I need to pick her up.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s not sick. This is—” Dex rubs the bridge of his nose. “It’s a situation that could use a woman’s touch.”

  “Oh,” I say, understanding. I push through the door to my office. “I’ve some stuff here to deal with that.”

  I bend over to rummage through the bottom drawer of my desk, where I keep a small makeup bag filled with feminine hygiene products. I keep quite a bit on hand in case any of the women here in the office are ever without. I pull a file folder out of the drawer and set it on the desk so I can see better. I’m debating on tampons or pads when I hear Dex mumble something about loving his job. I finally locate the bag and stand to pull out both and some extra, just in case.

  “She’s going to need all that?” he asks, scrunching up his face with a look of morbid interest.

  I laugh. “Well, I’m giving her options, but yeah. It’s a lifetime sentence, you know?”

  “Yeah, I get that. I know how all this works. I’m just—it’s different talking to her about it. I mean, it crossed my mind that it would happen one day, but…” He eats up the ground between us in a few short strides, and suddenly I’m wrapped in his arms. “Thank you. Thank you for doing this.” His voice is muffled by my hair.

  Inside, I’m laughing, and I’m trying my damnedest not to laugh out loud, but the way his shoulders sag in relief when I pat his back is making it hard. I disengage from his embrace and grab the bottle of Midol and toss it into my purse with all the other supplies.

  “All right, I’m ready,” I say, shouldering my bag, but when I do the file folder drops, scattering papers across the floor.

  My heart drops, knowing what it is. I drop my purse in a scrambling attempt to put the thing away. Dex joins me to help but pauses at the first piece of paper he picks up.

  “‘Stateside Front Man Found Dead in Recording Studio’,” he reads.

  It’s a printout of a blog article. The file is from when we were trying to do damage control. I haven’t looked at these in years. They were hidden in that rarely used junk drawer for a reason.

  I close my eyes to stop the tears that threaten. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  He shuffles a stack of the papers together and hands them to me. I place them in the folder. When I look up, Dex is staring out the windows. The joking mood between us is dead. I can’t help but wonder when this all ends. When does it get better?

  “You ready to go?” I ask, much more subdued, placing the file back in the drawer and picking up my purse.

  I stop at Chloe’s desk. “We have a code red. Call the girls and get them ready. I’ll let you know the plan as soon as we’re ready.”

  Chloe nods, picks up the phone, and starts dialing.

  “You girls have codes for this sort of thing? What exactly do you do?” he asks with a look of surprise.

  “Dex, just let me take it from here. The less you know, the better.” I pat his arm and walk toward the front door.

  We just about make it out when Asher comes out of the back hall that leads to the recording studio. I feel dizzy and lose the rhythm of my step, and halt in my tracks. I force a smile and look up at Asher. His eyes dart to Dex and back to me as he smiles, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

  “Where are you running off to in the middle of the day?” Asher asks.

  “Hey, Ash,” I say. “You haven’t met my boyfriend, Dex, have you?”

  “No, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” He reaches out and shakes Dex’s hand. “I did see him around at your birthday party, but we never crossed paths. I didn’t know you guys were serious,” he says to me with a raised eyebrow.

  Dex is studying him, and when Ash turns to face him, they nod, like some sort of rehearsed greeting.

  “It happened kind of fast,” Dex supplies.

  Ash’s eyes dart back to mine, and he pulls me to the side. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Yes, Ash. Dex’s a good guy,” I say. “You should come over for dinner with us sometime this week, get to know him.”

  “I would, but I’m scouting in Atlanta
this week. I’m heading out in a few hours. Maybe when I get back?” He pulls out his phone. “Actually, I hafta jet. I meant to be out of here thirty minutes ago.” He looks back at Dex. “Nice meeting you.” He gives another dead-eyed smile and walks past us back toward the offices.

  “You ready?” I ask Dex.

  “When you are,” he answers.

  Then

  “Shit, this place is cold,” Sloane said, wrapping her arms around herself as we walked through the office-like hallway, following the signs leading to the warehouse space in the back.

  When we pushed through the door, we were greeted by the low hum of wheels on pavement. The girls skated around the short, taped-off track on the polished concrete floor of the open space. An older woman stood in the middle, whistle around her neck. I assumed she was their coach.

  We’d watched for a few minutes before Holly looked over in our direction. She tripped and toppled to the ground. I cringed, somehow feeling responsible as two more girls tripped over her.

  “Pull it in. Fall small, Holly. Fall small,” the woman yelled at her. “You just got a penalty for tripping a player from the other team. Do you think we’re practicing skydiving here?”

  Holly pulled herself up from the concrete, grimacing. She said something to the coach and then headed our way.

  “Hey!” She smiled brightly as she rolled up to us. “You came.”

  “I brought my roommate, too. If that’s okay?”

  “Fuck, yeah,” Holly replied.

  “This’s Sloane.” I gestured to my roommate. “Sloane, meet Holly.”

  Bridget and Ruby rolled up behind her and introduced themselves.

  “I guess we’ll just hang out and watch.” I smiled.

  “Oh, I’m going to sit with you and explain the game,” Holly said as she rolled over on to the carpet of the visitors’ area, “while the team runs drills. We told Bonnie you’d be by, so she’s cool with it.”

  She sat on a bench facing the team as Bridget and Ruby rejoined them, and they went back to practice. She patted the bench next to her, and Sloane and I sat.

  “Sorry about distracting you,” I offered. “That looked like a nasty fall.”

  “Shit, that’s nothin’. I needed the practice.” She smiled. “Fallin’, that is. I need to practice the crash and burn. I fuckin’ suck at thinkin’ when I do it.”

  I smiled back and leaned against the wall behind us, watching the girls circle the track.

  “Each team is allowed to have fourteen bitches, but we lost some girls recently, so we’re down to ten,” Holly explained. “When we play a bout, which is a full game, it’s divided into jams. Each jam lasts two minutes, and we put five girls on the track. See Bridge has a star on her helmet?” She pointed over to Bridget.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “That marks her as the jammer. She’s the one who can score points. The offensive player. The rest of us are on defense. See Ruby’s helmet has a stripe?”

  I nodded.

  “She’s the pivot. The opposing team’s pivot is the one the jammer has to pass to score the point. The rest are the pack, and their job is to stop the other team’s jammer from passing our team’s pivot. Make sense?”

  “Perfect.” I smiled. “What’s to stop you from just grabbing a girl and throwing her off the track?”

  “Rules, bitch.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Rules. Normally, I’m all for breaking the rules, but this wouldn’t be much of a sport without them.”

  “Oh, my God, we have to do this,” Sloane said, gripping my forearm and almost tugging it out of socket in her excitement. “These are my people, my tribe.”

  I snorted a laugh. She did seem to fit right in. But then we both did because there was no one look to a derby girl outside of her team uniform. At that moment, in practice, they were all in different dress, some with tiny shorts, some with full-legged spandex. Some had loud, colorful hair and tattoos, while others looked like normal chicks. All were different shapes and sizes, but all of them looked fierce.

  I listened to them chatter away, but I knew I was going to love this sport. I was so in.

  Now

  “Those pants you picked up are fire,” Holly says to Audra, taking a lick of her ice-cream cone.

  I’m still nibbling on the crust leftover from my pizza as we sit in the food court at the mall.

  “I know,” Audra gushes. “You guys are so awesome. Thank you for the new pants, Miss D.”

  I smile softly at her. “Not a problem. We do this—have done this—for all of us at least once or twice.”

  “Definitely,” Chloe says with a smile. “Whether it’s stained pants, a broken heart, or whatever ya need consoling over, these ladies are masters at making ya feel better. Ya should stick with us. We’ll always have your back.”

  Holly winks at Audra with a smile.

  “You guys are so lucky,” Audra says with a sigh to Cora and Cat. “You have an awesome mom who has awesome friends.”

  “What about your mom?” Holly asks.

  I kick at her under the table and miss. She smirks at me.

  Audra fidgets with her napkin. “My mom blows. That’s why I ran away and found my dad.”

  “You ran away?” I ask, instantly curious.

  “Yeah, he’s from Vegas,” Audra explains, tearing her napkin into little chunks. “I didn’t see him much growing up. My mom was always taking him to court to keep me away from him. And, you know, get more money and stuff. They weren’t ever together, but if I had to guess, she probably had me just to try and trap him in a relationship. She wasn’t ever interested in being a mother. She’s always been more into how to land a new boyfriend.” Her eyes take on a faraway look like she’s getting lost in the past.

  “Anyways, I stole money from a new boyfriend’s wallet one night and snuck out to the bus station. I had to pay a guy to buy me a ticket, and then I got on a bus to Vegas. The bus made stops on the way there, and I called Dad from a gas station. Told him I was on the way, so he was there to pick me up. After I told him about what was happening, he fought for me.” She smiled. “He had to transfer down here to Texas because my mom blocked him from keeping me out of state. This year I get to decide, so I don’t have to go see her anymore.”

  “That’s pretty cool of him,” I say. “He seems like a good father.”

  “Would you marry him?” she asks, her guileless emerald eyes hopeful.

  I choke on a sip of coke. My brain rushes around in circles trying to grasp at anything to give her as an answer. I gasp for breath in between coughs. Holly slaps my back with a little too much force and a devious smirk.

  “I know he hasn’t asked or anything.” She shrugs. “You just started dating. I just think it’d be cool, you know? If you were my mom.”

  “Excuse me, miss?” A strange voice accompanies the tap on my shoulder.

  I find a boy, about ten years old, standing next to me.

  “Yes?” I ask.

  “A man gave me ten dollars to give this to you.” He tosses a red calla lily with a note tied to it on to the table and then turns and bolts into the crowd before I even register what happened.

  I signal the Tweedles, and they get up from their post two tables away.

  “One of you see if you can track down that boy,” I say, pointing to the direction he ran off in. “We need to see if we can get a description. I’m calling Detective Martinez.”

  They nod, and one takes off in the direction of the boy, and the other stands next to our table turning a slow circle, scanning the crowded food court.

  “Chloe, call Evan and tell him to come get the girls and take them home,” I tell her.

  “I get it now,” Audra says, tilting her head. “Why Dad likes you.” She shrugs, picking at her food. “Most people would be freaking out right now. I’m kinda freaking out and it’s not even my stalker. But you. You’re very… take-charge. It’s kind of badass.”

  I g
ive her my best forced smile because inside I’m just dying to tell her that she knows nothing. There are so many times I haven’t handled things well, so many times I’ve fucked-up. But, I just keep it to myself and smile.

  Then

  I was home for the weekend, lying on the couch. We’d had the girls’ birthday party yesterday, and I was completely drained of energy. The twin four-year-olds were playing with their new My Little Pony dolls and watching the cartoon of the same name. I was beat. Burning the candle at both ends was starting to take its toll.

  The doorbell rang, and Cat darted from the floor to the door with almost inhuman speed. Or maybe my mind was just working at a snail’s pace, so normal movement happened to appear faster.

  “Got it!” Cat yelled.

  “Cat! Don’t you open that door without checking to see who it is first.”

  “It’s Lord Master!” Cora squealed.

  I heard the door open and a familiar male voice. “Hey, Kit Kat, Snickers. How are my minions today?”

  “We playin with our birthday toys, Lord Master.”

  Footsteps trailed from the foyer to the kitchen behind the couch I lay on.

  “Really?” Evan gasped. “Which ones are your favorite? You got a lot of toys yesterday.”

  “We did! We’re playing ponies right now!” Cat exclaimed. “Comesee we make them do what they do on TV.”

  “You do? That sounds super fun!” A suction noise sounded as the refrigerator door opened. “Where’s Mommy?”

  “In the living room,” Cora said.

  The footsteps moved toward me, and Evan’s face appeared over the back of the couch.

  “I haven’t seen you in how long? And this is how you greet me?”

  “I’m fucking exhausted,” I groaned, throwing my arm over my eyes. “I’m an introvert living an extrovert’s life. It’s draining the life from my very bones.”

  “Care to be a little more dramatic?”

  “Why, Evan!” I fanned myself, doing my Southern belle impression. “If you don’t rescue me from this undignified existence, I might just very well shrivel up and die.”

  “Fine, smart-ass. Keep your lazy butt on the couch.”