Desk Jockey Jam (13 page)

But once the whistle blew
to signal the start of the bout, all the fun and games were over.  It was war
on wheels.  Toni was in the thick of it, just like the Toni who’d dared him to
brand her with a tennis ball.  She even sat on the Heroine’s jammer, in what
the announcer describes as a booty block that stopped the skater going anywhere
and cleared a path for the Tricks’ feisty little jammer with her helmet with
its two stars looking too big for her head, to score again.  She was the
smallest person on the track, the fastest and the trickiest.  Her roller girl
name was Kitty Caruso. 

Ant sat forward to study
her.  What made a little girl like that want to play in a rough and tough game
like this?  Scott had said earlier that like women’s cricket, roller derby was
code for lesbian.  Scott had been quick to say that was as stupid as suggesting
all male dancers were gay, which made Dan grab Alex and bend her over Scott’s
lap to kiss her stupid.  Alex didn’t seem to mind.  Scott squirmed and
eye-rolled.

Ant watched as Toni sweat
it out in the penalty box and wondered if there was something in it, and why
all of a sudden sexual politics was following him around like a stray dog that
could bite his hand off if he let it get too close.

He slurped his coke and
focussed on Kitty Caruso again.  She flounced into the penalty box, her skirt flipping
up so the words
Bite Me
printed on her pants were visible for a second. 
She passed her star helmet cover to Toni as she was re-entered the track, her
pants flashing
Back Off
.  There wasn’t a shy bone in the bodies of these
girls they were all show, all performance.  They were gladiators as well as being
incredible athletes.

Now the little roller doll
was still he could see she had bruises on her thighs under her fishnets.  She
had her head down on her pink and black skates.  He was fascinated by her.  So
gutsy
.  Come on baby, let me see your face
.  Nope, she kept her head
down as if annoyed with herself for being sin-binned.

When the jam ended, with
the point going to the Heroines, Kitty was back in the game.  Now he couldn’t
take his eyes off her.  She avoided being taken out by another player’s stumble
by going down on her knees and spinning a full three-sixty degrees, she was
back on her feet before he had time to wonder how she’d done it.  Two seconds
later, she’d scored by breezing past all the Heroine’s blockers as if they were
standing still and called the jam off by putting her hands on her hips,
ensuring the Tricks won the point.

As the two teams
reassembled to start a new jam, she skated close by the edge of the track and
looked up into the crowd, and that dog shadowing Ant bit him hard, that
avalanche of water he’d felt above him came crashing down.  Unless he needed
glasses, under the padding and black war paint, Kitty Caruso was Bree Robinson. 
She was bruised because she was a roller derby jammer, and she bolted on him
because like Toni, she liked girls.

12:      Soul Crush

Toni didn’t tell her Ant
and his gang had come to watch again, so when Bree thought she spotted him in
the audience her concentration catapulted out of her brain.  She turned to look
back and check it really was him, and clipped the skate of a Heroine’s player
behind her.  It was a rookie, cherry popper thing no fresh meat graduate
would’ve done.  When she crashed to the track, she came off her knee and her
hip went down so hard she bounced, sprawled on her hands and caromed straight
into a group of Tuck Shop Ladies Arms fans in the suicide seats, knocking
several of them over.

Oh fuck!

She hadn’t had a fall like
that in years and she’d hurt more than her pride.  She lay flat on her stomach
while everyone around her scrambled to their feet.  She didn’t think anything
was broken, but since even her teeth felt sore that wasn’t yet clear.  A hand
came down on her back: a medic asking if she was all right.  He helped her sit,
made her flex all her joints and looked in her eyes to check for concussion. 

“Are you hurt, Kitty?”

She rolled her neck and
rubbed her hip.  She’d be bruised big time by the morning, but she was lucky it
was only bruising and no broken bones.  “Only my reputation.”  She got to her
feet and applause broke out.  The DJ on the sound deck played her personal
theme song, Gin Wigmore’s
Black Sheep
, cutting in at the chorus.  She
skated back onto the track to Gin singing about being a bad woman not here to
please.  She tested her ankles and knees while playing up to the crowd and
making a determined effort not to look towards where she thought she saw Ant.

They reassembled for the
next jam and she tried to centre her thoughts past the sting still in her hip, a
pain in her elbow, and the burning need to know if she’d skittled spectators
for the heck of it, or because he really was there.  It would wait, she could
ask Toni.  It would wait, the whistle, winning the next jam and the bout was
more important.  She glanced to the side not expecting to be able to pick Ant
out, but not being able to help herself looking.

There was a sea of faces
and torsos sitting in the stands and one man standing, arms folded across his
chest, staring her down.  He shook his head at her, mouthed something she
couldn’t pick that had a sweary look to it, and was enough to tell her the jig
was up. 

He knew. 

The whistle went.  She
pushed off her toe and started forward, muscles complaining, heart thumping
harder now than it had when she’d face-planted the track.  When Toni’s hand
came out she took it and was whipped forward.  There was no time to think about
anything but getting through the pack, becoming lead jammer, scoring and
winning the bout.  She blocked the tide of panic squeezing her lungs and
focused on staying on her feet and keeping her head because when Monday rolled
around doing both those things in front of Ant was in a whole new league.

When Monday did roll
around, it was on squeaky wheels with rusty spokes and a stiff chain.  Her body
was thoroughly battered, though fortunately only from knee to shoulder, and she
could cover all the purple and green patches and the waffle weave grid—the
roller girl equivalent of gravel rash—blossoming on her hip, with a pants
suit.  What she couldn’t disguise so easily was the limp.  One knee was so
swollen it went on strike.  She had to lie on the bed and stick her legs in the
air to get her underwear on.  But it wouldn’t be the first time she’d arrived
in the office with more aches than enthusiasm for sitting for hours behind her
desk.  Thankfully she felt better than the time she’d bruised her tailbone and
had to invent excuses for standing up for a week because sitting was too
painful.  That was the first time she’d noticed Ant could be a moody bugger. 
He’d taken it as a slight she’d chosen to stand instead of taking the last seat
around a meeting table next to him. 

If that could put him in a
snit, what would the aftermath of rejecting his kisses and throwing her secret
in his face bring out in him?  She was going to find out, and sooner than she’d
expected.  She wasn’t the first person in the office.  He was waiting for her. 
As she walked to her workstation, she tried to slow her gait so her waddle was
less noticeable.  He was across the room before she had a chance to put her bag
down.

“Jesus, Bree, are you all
right?  Should you be here?”  He wore a frown which was probably concern, but
could as easily have been irritation.  He was hovering like a mother hen and
she didn’t know what to do about him.

“I’m fine.  It’s just
swelling and bruising.  It’s nothing.  It’s been seen to.  You don’t need to
worry.”

“You could’ve broken your
neck.”  He was definitely irritated; she could hear it in the crackling tinfoil
quality of his voice.

She shook her head as much
to demonstrate her neck still worked as to warn him off.  “No.  It wasn’t that
bad a fall.”

“You should’ve told me.”

“Why did I need to tell
you?”  Why did she feel like she wanted to?  That maybe behind his irritation
was a more caring intention.

“Because I was genuinely
concerned someone was hurting you and you were hiding it.”

And there he went again,
ruining things with his ‘I know better’ routine.  “So my word counted for
nothing.  I told you I was fine.”

“Bree, that’s what people
who are being hurt say.”  He said that so softly it was almost a caress.  “Anyway,
I get it now.”

“The bruises?”

“Yeah, and I think I get
what happened Friday night.”

“What happened was...”  How
to tell him what happened was wonderful and terrible and not to be repeated,
because he was a player and she was happy being alone, a rival who’d continue
to compete with her, and a colleague she was meant to lead.  Because despite
what he said about understanding equal opportunity, he was still full of
resentment and distrust.  It was all too horribly complicated, like being soul
crushed on the track.

“Wait.”  Ant held a hand
up and looked over his shoulder towards the main door.  The lift let out a
bunch of folk and they weren’t alone any more.  He said, “Copier room,” and
stalked off without checking to see if she’d follow. 

She watched him go;
attitude and expectation in a charcoal wool suit.  He took the cool scent of
the sea with him and her body screamed a new set of messages on top of the pain. 
Stay, go, stop, start, right, wrong.  
Want
.  She stood at her desk while
colleagues filtered through the room to their workstations, exchanging casual
comments about their weekends.  She longed to be at ease enough with Ant to
laugh about Kitty Caruso, to know he’d keep her secret.  If she followed him, there’d
be nothing easy about the exchange, but if she didn’t he was a wild card draw,
she had no idea what he’d do next.

He’d disappeared inside
the copier room before she started across the office.  When she cleared the
doorway, he shut the door and backed up against it.

“What are you doing?” 

It was a small room with
just the massive printer come copier and storage for paper and stationery. 
There wasn’t a lot of room for two people to manoeuvre, but she had no intention
of being a prisoner.

“Making sure we have this
conversation.”

“Get away from the door. 
I know how to hurt you if you don’t.”

He didn’t flinch, but
judging by the way he settled his shoulders he was considering it.  “I reckon
you do.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Standoff.  Why didn’t he
just send an email this time?  It would’ve been simpler.  “What happened on
Friday, I can’t...”  She still didn’t have the clarity to know what to say, but
he saved her the effort.

“Of course, I understand.”

Some of the tension in her
chest released.  He didn’t intend to make this hard for her after all.  Harder
than watching him stand there looking suddenly more wounded than warrior.  “I’m
sorry.”

His brows shot up in
surprise and his shoulders lowered.  He looked miserable.  “Nothing for you to
be sorry about.  I came on too strong.  I guess I read your signals all wrong. 
I’m the one who’s sorry.  My radar really is off lately.  You’d think I’d have
worked out—ah never mind—I’m sorry.  That’s what I wanted to say.”

“Ant, you didn’t do anything
wrong.”  There was no good reason not to be adult about this, to be truthful. 
It’d be more mature than hiding half her life.  “I think I started it.”  Ant’s
expression said confused, she clarified before she could stop herself.  “I know
I wanted it.”

He squinted at her, then
his lips narrowed.  “Well, that’s a first for me.  Was I some kind of
experiment?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know a walk on the
wildside.”

She dropped her eyes,
embarrassed by remembering how far they’d gone in a public place, and how far
she’d wanted to let it go.  “I wouldn’t normally do something like that, and no
and it’s not because we’re colleagues.”  She shrugged.  “We wouldn’t be the
first to decide to hide an office romance.”

He pushed a hand through
his thick hair.  “I just wish I’d known.”

“Known what?  About
derby?  You have to get why I don’t want that to get out.  Underwear that says
Bite
Me
is hardly compatible with my day job.”

He grinned at that.  “I
get it, though I think you’re wrong to keep it secret.  It’s no different from
one of us boys playing football.  I don’t get why you’re so sensitive about
it.  It’s another demonstration of what a fierce competitor you are, how gutsy.” 
He sighed and did the thing with the hair again.  She knew how thick and soft
it was, her own hand twitched to follow his.  “I just wish I’d known your
sexual preference.”

She balled her fist.  “My what?”

“I guess I should’ve
realised roller derby attracted a lot of lesbian women.”

“What, hold on a minute? 
You think I’m a lesbian?”

“It explains...”

She cut him off.  “You
think it explains why I stopped us on Friday night?”