“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 rumblea fewand 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’sveryhigh-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 arefewer 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 ofthosesports. As opposed to all the other sports, which I’ve never learned by doingorwatching. 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 markerdoodles 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.
