Chapter 10
CARSON
Violet’s house is a shabby gingerbread Victorian with burnt-orange clapboard siding, green trim, and a wraparound porch. It’s nestled on a quiet street in Bloomington, surrounded by other shabby little rental houses.
Tonight is to be my introduction to the world of roller derby.
But before I climb the porch, I reopen the text I received earlier.
Dan
They’re going to have to rip out the shower to repair the pipe. It’s going to be a few weeks of work between the plumbing, drywall, and tile. I can find some other place to stay if that’s too long.
It’s the first I’ve heard from him since that morning in my kitchen almost a week ago.
It’s not that he’s gone silent. It’s that I haven’t even seen him.
He wakes up every morning before the sun and disappears.
The only evidence that he’s still staying in my house is the sound of my front door shutting every so often, followed quickly by the sound of his bedroom door shutting, leaving me to replay our last conversation over and over.
The one where I thought that maybe, possibly, Dan McBride was flirting with me.
Maybe I imagined it. Or maybe he was flirting, but he regrets it, hence the disappearing act.
He never finished what he was saying, and it appears he doesn’t feel the need to. His absence says everything.
Which sucks, because despite his very clear message that he’s not interested, I cannot get the man out of my head.
As I’m cruising the aisles at the grocery store, I imagine turning a corner in the meat department and finding him there.
I stop at a red light and turn to the car next to me, hoping to see him behind the wheel of his BMW.
I look for him in the stacks at the library, at the bar at the Half Pint, in the next booth at Pete’s Diner.
He’s everywhere in my head and nowhere in my reality.
So when Violet texted Thursday morning and invited me over to learn all about the wonderful world of roller derby, I happily accepted.
With Grace enjoying Decker’s retirement and Wyatt practically living with Owen, my summer break has been the biggest snooze on the planet.
I was damn near ready to try Hinge again when I got the text from Violet.
“Carson!” The green front door flies open, and Violet waves me in like she’s trying to direct a jet in for a landing. “Get in here!”
Violet’s house is bursting with mismatched furniture, and the walls are adorned with a wild and vivid assortment of art.
It’s cramped and cluttered, walking the line between chic maximalism and hoarder.
It’s obviously a college town rental, and yet it feels more like a home than my own house. And I grew up there.
I love it immediately.
Violet leads me to a green couch printed with yellow cabbage roses. Her laptop is open on a dinged-up coffee table that screams Someone found me on the side of the road!
“You want a drink? We’ve got water, Coke Zero, and KO’s kombucha.”
A woman with a bright red wolf cut and a septum ring walks into the living room, a rainbow mug in her hand. “It’s apple hibiscus,” she says. “I made it myself. The mother is three years old!”
“This is Knockout, KO for short,” Violet says. “I’d offer you alcohol, but KO is sober, so we don’t drink in the house.”
“I actually brought a water bottle,” I say, holding up my ever-present Owala. “I’m still recovering from the flask.”
Violet winces. “I’m so sorry about that. I’m usually such a mother hen when I’m drinking with friends. I hope the morning after wasn’t too bad.”
I’m mid-sip when I have a vivid flashback of the car ride home that night, which now takes up so much of my mental real estate that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to think normal thoughts. The water shoots down my throat, and I launch into a coughing fit.
Violet gives me a wide grin. “Oh my god, spill!”
“What?” I gasp.
“There’s clearly a story there. I mean, I saw that man.
KO, you should have seen him. He looks like he’s special forces, all tall and built with a buzz cut.
And he was driving the fanciest BMW I’ve ever seen!
I bet that thing cost more than my student loans, and I have two master’s degrees.
Is he military? CIA? He looks like he knows seven ways to kill a man and eight ways to dispose of the body. ”
“He works in finance,” I say.
“Ugh, a capitalist,” KO groans.
“We’re all capitalists, KO,” Violet says.
“Is he directly responsible for this nation’s income inequality, or is he simply covering his eyes to prevent him from feeling guilt about the downfall of society?” KO deadpans.
“I think he does something with investment banking?”
Violet glares at KO, who is silent for a long beat before shrugging. “As long as it’s not private equity. If you were in love with a guy in private equity, I definitely wouldn’t share my kombucha with you.”
“I’m not in love with him!” I cry.
“KO, leave her alone,” Violet says, then narrows her eyes at me. “But you definitely have a crush, right? You’re blushing like you’re picturing him naked right now.”
“I’m not!” I say, which was true until this very moment, though I am now absolutely picturing him naked. That corner of his tattoo lives rent-free in my mind. I keep hearing his gravelly voice rumble a few and then picturing all manner of ink beneath his clothes.
“Girl, you could start a fire with the heat in those cheeks. Tell the story!”
Oh god, what part of the story can I even tell? Certainly not all of it. Given how cagey Dan is with his family, I’m certainly not going to discuss his secrets with strangers. And I don’t even know what the bigger secrets are.
“He’s my best friend’s older brother, and a pipe burst in his apartment, so he’s crashing with me until it gets fixed,” I say, the simplest version of the truth. Lies of omission abound, obviously, but this is not entirely my story to tell.
“And?” KO says.
“And that’s all,” I say firmly.
“Dubious,” KO snorts.
“Doubtful for sure,” Violet says, then shrugs. “But if you need to believe that fiction, we’ll support you.”
“Solidarity, sister,” KO adds, raising a fist.
“But for the record, he’s a smoke show. Treat yo’ self,” Violet says.
It feels good to be encouraged, which is easy for them to do because they don’t really know me. Or him. There’s no history or context.
I can’t remember the last time I got to exist out of context. One of the many hazards of small towns, I guess.
“As fun as it is to grill you about your capitalist fuckboy, let’s get down to business.
” Violet wakes up her laptop and taps a few buttons.
The television screen fills with an image of skaters lined up on an oval concrete track.
“Okay, here’s the quick and dirty explanation.
First of all, this is a real sport. It’s not professional wrestling, it’s not a soap opera, and there’s no fighting.
That’s all male-gaze fantasy nonsense. This is a sport, and the players are athletes.
Also there’s no ball. For some reason, everyone thinks there’s a ball, but there’s no ball. ”
“Got it,” I say, my eyes glued to the screen, where nothing is happening yet. But the women on skates in matching jerseys look fierce as hell. Intimidating. So very unlike me. But if Violet thinks I could be one of them, I’m willing to fake it.
“Four skaters from each team line up. They’re blockers.
They make up the pack. One skater from each team lines up behind them.
They each have a helmet cover with a star on it.
They’re the jammers, and they are the point scorers.
They get one point for every member of the opposite team who they pass—”
“While staying in bounds,” KO adds.
Violet nods and points at the neon tape on the floor marking the track’s boundaries. “Right. So the blockers are simultaneously trying to help their jammer through the pack and trying stop the opposing jammer from getting through.”
“So blockers are playing offense and defense at the same time,” KO says. “It’s a very cerebral sport.”
“Exactly,” Violet says with a wolfish grin. “The jammers go round and round scoring points for up to two minutes. Then the ref blows the whistle, the lineups change, and a new jam begins. This happens over and over for two thirty-minute halves. Got it?”
Maybe? I nod anyway.
“There are tons of rules and penalties, which I’ll explain as we watch.
This is a recording of world champs from last season, so it’s New York vs.
Portland. It’s very high-level derby, so don’t be intimidated.
I just think bouts like this are easier to use as teaching tools because the skaters are less sloppy and there are fewer penalties.
Ask all the questions you want, but don’t feel overwhelmed.
Derby is one of those sports you really learn by doing. ”
Ah, yes, one of those sports. As opposed to all the other sports, which I’ve never learned by doing or watching. Even though I’ve spent my whole life in Indiana, the home of basketball, I couldn’t tell you the basic rules of the game. Ball in hoop? Beyond that, I’m out.
My parents have always been more bookish, and they passed that nerdery down to me.
And I certainly wasn’t going to pick up an inclination toward sports on the street.
Growing up, I didn’t have the athletic look.
My mother called me pudgy, but the kids at school called me fat.
And nobody invites a fat kid to play sports.
If you’re a boy, you might get recruited to be a football player, but a fat girl?
She’s not getting pulled onto the soccer team or asked to play softball.
Looking back, I can’t tell if my lack of athletic ability was because I didn’t want to join in or because no one ever encouraged me to.
But as I watch the video with Violet and KO, who chatter about penalties and strategy and player lore, I notice a buzzy feeling just beneath the surface of my skin.
An itch to get out there. To try it. And when I see a blocker fly across the track like a sniper, connecting with a speeding jammer with enough force to send her flying into the trackside seating, I feel a little fear, yes, but also a glowing ember of excitement.
Suddenly I’m wondering if my inability to play sports was imposed on me—less nature, more nurture. Roller derby looks hard and scary and exhausting, but I want out there.
Because that blocker? The sniper?
She looks just like me.
It’s closing in on midnight when I finally leave Violet and KO. I head out with an enormous green duffel covered in black marker doodles and a few patches. It’s stuffed with a full set of gear for my first fresh meat practice on Saturday.
Because that’s what I am.
Fresh meat.
“I like you, Carson, so I’m giving you first dibs on the community gear,” Violet said as she pulled four large plastic storage bins out of the hall closet. “You’re lucky, because some of this shit smells like a corpse. You don’t want to get stuck with Betty Spaghetti’s old wrist guards, trust me.”
She loaned me her old skates, which are half a size too big, the toes held together with what I think used to be hot-pink duct tape but is scraped all to hell.
Violet told me search eBay for a better secondhand pair, but these will get me through my first couple of practices.
She shoved the skates, knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, and a helmet into an old army duffel, instructed me to pick up a mouth guard at the nearest sporting goods store, and sent me on my way.
The bag is unwieldy and bangs into my thigh as I walk, but already I love it.
I drive the forty minutes back to Cardinal Springs with the bag—which, despite promises that it contains gear that’s on the newer side, smells musty—on my passenger seat like precious cargo.
I turn my music up loud, singing along and whizzing down the dark rural highway, imagining myself throwing my hips into skaters, sprinting with my head down and my heart pounding.
When I pull into my driveway, I haul the bag out of the car and relish the feel of its weight on my shoulder.
I’m half tempted to gear up right here on the front stoop and skate up and down my darkened street.
But just as I’m about to unzip the bag, a yawn overtakes me, and I remember that it’s nearly one in the morning.
It’s only the beginning of summer, and my body is still hanging on to teacher time—bed by ten, up by six.
Hopefully this late night will be the catalyst I need to break that cycle for the next couple of months so I can have a fun summer break.
I grip the bag and grin, my heart still fluttering with anticipation even as my body tries to remind me that it’s time for bed.
And when I unlock the front door, I use my hip to shove it open, imagining what it’ll feel like when I’m on skates, hitting an actual body.
Never in my life have I considered hitting another person, but suddenly it’s all I can think about.
That flyer Violet gave me asked if I was interested in hitting a bitch, and I’m shocked to find out that the answer is an unequivocal yes.
And I’ll start with this damn front door.