False Start (Love and Skate) (2 page)

             
“Rex?”

             
I looked up to see Falcon was the only one left in the room, dinner was over. I still sat there as useless as a tit on a boar hog.

             
“Yeah, sorry. I was in space.”

             
“No shit, let’s get you home. You look like hell.”

             
“Thanks for that.”

             
“I’m serious, get some sleep for the love of Pete.”

             
“For the love of Pete? What are you, a nun? I’m on it.”

             
I was so not on it. Sleep was a dream I couldn’t quite capture. As soon as I hit the wall between sleep and wake, I’d hear him calling. It always came with a strange noise, like bass coming from a speaker. It boomed in my ears and cemented me in place.

             
Falcon dropped me off at my apartment. I loathed being there. I was grateful, no doubt. But I hated being there alone with only the company of ghosts. And no matter how hard I tried, my thoughts always drifted towards her. But even the replay of so few images of her was aggravating. I’d only seen her playing derby. I’d never had the pleasure of seeing her outside of the rink, always with her helmet atop her head and the look of a derby demon on her face. But I knew her voice was like a dream. I knew she had one tattoo that I could see, a lace garter belt around her thigh. And I knew that even if I wanted to pursue her I couldn’t. I didn’t even know how. She was out of my league and out of my range.

I didn’t have school on Wednesdays, so I retreated to the library most of the day to study. I sat at the first isolation desk I could find and opened my laptop. My grades were excellent. I didn’t have anything else to do other than work and study, so there was no reason for me not to have good grades. I’d studied for about three hours when I started to doze off, from sleepiness and boredom. Sociology was a real snorer.

I packed up, deciding to go to work. It wasn’t my regular work day, but there was always work to be done.

“Hey, you’re Rex, right?”

I turned around to see a girl, almost taller than myself, blonde hair—she could’ve been a model.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, you are?”

She popped her right hip out and curled one blonde ringlet around her finger, and giggled like I’d really said something funny.

“You’re so funny. I’m Darla. We have Sociology together.”

I’d never remember someone from Sociology class. Number one, it was a stadium course. Everyone sat in the equivalent of a movie theater—there were easily a hundred or more students per class. And number two: it was Sociology. I was doing well just to remain halfway lucid during the whole thing. So long story short, no, I didn’t remember her.

“Oh, yeah, I barely stay awake in there. Sorry. Look, I was just about to leave, so, I’ll see you in class.”

“Aww,” she pouted her lip out and there was a bit of pink lipstick on her bottom teeth. I wanted to reach out and rub it off just so I didn’t have to look at it.

“Yeah, so bye,” I sputtered out and left as soon as my legs would take me.

Oh, I sucked so badly at everything, and especially girls.

Hayes

Remember the Snorks? I do. Those were some bad ass snorkeled sap suckers. And when they talked, bubbles came out of the top. Bad—ass.

              “No.”

             
“You might find the man of your dreams. Come on, it will be fun. That old guy on TV says 90% of their matches end up in marriage.”

             
“Oh yeah? How many end up in knees to the nuts?”

             
“That’s the other 10%, duh.”

             
“No. Don’t make me say it again.”

             
“Damn, you’re so testy about boys.”

             
“Shut up, Vera. You’ve been married since you were legal and practically married two years before that. Just shut it. Can we please talk about something else?”

             
She blew out a breath that fanned her tendrils out around her face. Her hair was all spiral curls and beautifulness. My hair was messy chic. That’s what the lady at the place called it when she chopped off the front part of my hair into what she dubbed chunky bangs. All I knew was that my ‘chunky bangs’ made me look like a fuzzy freak in the humid weather if I forgot to put that gooey stuff on them. And I forgot a lot. Usually I just piled it all on top of my head and stuck a clip in it.

             
“Where are we going?”

             
I thought about the options. I loved a good jazz club late on a Friday night.

             
“Let’s go to The Note. It’s close and we can watch all the stupid drunk people—that includes you.”

             
“Ok, deal. Give me something beatnik to wear.”

             
“Come on, you’re so preppy. How did we ever get to be friends?”

             
“Because Fitz was going to beat you up. You were too cute to get beat up.”

             
We raided my closet until she found the perfect outfit. She grabbed my jeans with holes in the knees and an off the shoulder black shirt. I chose some lace leggings, jean cut-offs, a white tank top and suspenders. I would top it off with black boots with pink ribbon laces. Plus, there was my beret, if you’re going to a jazz club, you had to have a beret.

             
We walked through Jackson Square, past the creepy man in the window frame and the mime who painted himself silver. Vera wanted to stop and get her caricature done but the man was cleaning up his stuff for the night. Friday nights at The Note were open piano nights. Sometimes we’d go in there and it would be an absolute bust. But most of the time there was some decent music. I didn’t drink, but Vera did, so it was always funny to see the evolution in her from sober to sloppy in fewer than five drinks.

             
That night there was a guy, really broody looking, and he consistently played sad songs. His whole body shook as he pounded the keys and once I swore I saw him wipe tears away. He played River Flows In You like he’d written it himself and it brought me to the verge of tears. Even Vera did her slobbery clap where her hands didn’t quite meet and then she’d look at them like they weren’t working properly. She needed to inspect her brain as the culprit instead. After ten, the open piano turned into full fledge jazz and then we decided to walk to the French Market and grab some po-boys while it was still open. I got the catfish po-boy and Vera couldn’t decide, so I got her the same, plus a big order of onion rings. I loved the French Market mostly because I could count on the fact that their bread was fresh and good. I knew, because I made it myself.

             
We got back to my place and she ate while still spouting out made up words to the piano songs. The phrase, ‘Vera is beautiful’ was repeated a lot. Her husband worked on the oil rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico and was gone for weeks at a time. She usually stayed with me on the weekends or when she got lonely. I never minded. I appreciated the company and she was my best friend.

             
The other bakers in the bakery had the early shift on Saturdays, so I made sure to turn off the two a.m. alarm. Not that I wouldn’t wake up anyway, I would. I’d lay there awake, analyzing and re-analyzing some sin I’d committed when I was twelve. I’d replay the entire event in my head. Then, I would turn over, look at the clock, seriously consider calling my mom to repent, come to the conclusion she’d be angrier for me calling at that hour in the morning, and halfway forgive myself and then move on to the next event. After scrolling through all of my major offenses, I’d begin to fantasize about a life I didn’t have, may never have. Sometime later those fantasies would turn a little obscure and then I’d let myself go back to sleep only to wake later feeling like shit on a stick.

             
I’m so awesome.

             
Really, there’s no words for how cool I am.

             
Somebody stab me.

              The next morning I woke a little after ten, crawled out of bed and wished I’d gotten more sleep. I would have to work a noon to six shift and then rush to the bout. After dragging Vera from her bed and donning my regular white uniform, I took all my frustrations out on the dough—it deserved it for being all white and yummy smelling. It was just annoying.

             
“Look what I have for you. Skatin’ fuel.”

             
Vera shoved a muffuletta in front of me and I nearly fainted from just the smell. It was our own bread stuffed with deli meats of all kinds and slathered with an olive salad. It was my favorite and she knew it.

             
“Thank God, I’m starving. But share with me, this is too big.”

             
“Deal,” she said as she pulled out a knife to cut it in half.

             
We ate like queens and then three cakes later, it was time to go. I drove Vera and me to Skate Heaven—and we were late after fighting the kooks in New Orleans traffic. I grabbed my bag and bolted for the changing room, still in my whites. I threw on my tiny black skirt, my holiest fishnets and my team shirt, skillfully turned into a tank top thanks to Pinterest. I wrapped my hair into makeshift pigtails, slapped on my helmet and skates and barely made the part before the bout where they introduced all the players. I barely had time to pull on my wristbands—they were non-negotiable. I was volunteered, not so gently, by Nellie to participate in the mock bout, showing the audience what would happen.

             
I wasn’t the best derby player by a long shot. In fact, I hadn’t been playing since junior league like most of the other girls. I started at the age of twenty needing to feel a little like Wonder Woman. But Wonder Woman couldn’t rock rink rash half as well as I could.

             
So, I spent a good deal of time on the bench, which was fine with me. But I did enjoy blocking girls from passing, hearing the frustration in their breaths as they tried to break through the pack—scoring points they had no business scoring.

             
Sitting on the bench during the first half was when I saw him. He stood off to the side of the infamous Black family—near enough to know he was with them, but far enough away to make me question his status. Standoffish, that was the word I would’ve used to describe his demeanor. As if he wanted to be close enough to talk to them, but not close enough to become attached to anything they had to say. But Scout Black, the red haired beauty that belonged to Nixon, our ref, wasn’t having his off-putting for one second. She was tugging on his pant leg, blabbering on endlessly about something. And then I saw it, he tried to deny it, tried to brush her off, but one look downwards and he was a goner. She lifted her arms up and he bent down at once to lift her up and push one of her curls behind her ear. Then she threw her arms around his neck and the ice melted. Everything about him changed with just one embrace. The creases across his brow relaxed, the frown lines vanished—replaced with a caring smile, and the stiffness in his shoulders was now a bobbing motion, laughing at something the tike had to say. And it was then, enthralled with the metamorphosis of emotion, that he stilled me with one look. Frozen in place, all I could do was stare and let it happen. He looked at me like I was alien to him—like he’d never been stared at before. I knew that couldn’t be true, his caring eyes alone were enough to make any girl melt. Scout reached out and turned his face so that she completely held his attention, but his eyes were firmly fixed on me.

             
This wasn’t my typical guy pick, by far. He was the perfect mix of business and pleasure and I wasn’t talking about a mullet. His face was scruffy and it looked like he couldn’t decide if he was at work or at play. And just for the record, I’d never seen a guy younger than sixty wearing a pair of suspenders, but damn, it was a shame.

             
Suddenly, the whole family was looking at me and I wondered what I’d done. Then I heard it, my derby name being called over the loud speakers but it still took a second to register in my head.

             
“I Kilda Girl, please stop ogling those fine ass Black family boys and get your ass to the rink.”

             
Nothing like getting called out—in public—in front of the guy you were ogling—on skates.

             
I looked around to see several shopping carts on the rink with fans in them and apparently I’d been recruited to push one of said shopping carts around like an idiot version of a Knight’s Tale while the fans battled it out in passing with swimming pool noodles. I loved derby, no mistake, but the halftime shows were just not my thing. And I was not, ever, skating around in a fur coat to the beat of any Macklemore song. I didn’t care how much it entertained them.

             
So after playing through the halftime show and pretending not to absolutely hate it, I went back to the bench and only played one more jam and then it was all over but the crying. We didn’t win but we always celebrated like we did. I’d known of some rivalry among teams but this team was from Baton Rouge and we were all like sisters. So even though we lost, we would act like we didn’t give a damn.

             
We went to a pizza place/bar near the rink and settled in for tons of post-game carbs. Vera sat down at a place while I was still chatting up a girl from the other team, because her tattoo was the same as mine, but on the other leg, when Vera pulled my skirt hard, causing me to sit in the first chair available. I shrugged and continued to talk to the girl who was originally from North Carolina and had the best accent.

             
But when the toast was made before everyone dug in, I figured out exactly why Vera had been so adamant about having me sit there. Because across from me was Suspenders in all his glory—and damn what a glory it was.