Whip It (5 page)

“I’m so sick of all my clothes,” I say, fishing in the backseat for options I haven’t yet explored. Pash slaps my hand and shouts over the “Tunes for a Roller Derby Road Trip” mix I made especially for the momentous occasion.

“No more changes!” she yells. “You look smokin’ in that dress, so stop bein’ such an insecure girlie-girl. You’re about to make me wreck the Pashmobile.”

“Don’t you think the dress has too many safety pins?” I ask.

“There’s no such thing as too many safety pins! Besides,” she adds, completely contradicting the confidence she just displayed, “
I’m
the one with a fashion fatality here.”

Pash lifts her freshly dyed, bright-red hair to reveal the Manic Panic residue that makes an impromptu necklace along the back of her neck.

“I warned you about solo dying,” I say. “Not for beginners.”

“I know, but I was crazy bored and needed a break from studying my French. It was either that or I was gonna eat half a chocolate cake. I chose to dye my hair.”

“See, that’s what you get from too much studying,” I say, “bad beauty judgment and no dessert.”

Pash shrugs and frowns at the road.

“Actually, your hair looks fab,” I say. “Just wear it down, and nobody will notice the spillage.”

“You think?”

“I think.”

“What about when I’m makin’ out with a guy and—”

“Makin’ out with a guy? My, my, someone has big plans for tonight.”

“Always.”

“Well, if he asks, just tell him it’s a tattoo. Of a giant red amoeba.”

She laughs and turns up the music. That’s my Pash.

Our People

W
e finally make it to Austin but get so tragically lost trying to locate the elusive warehouse district (thanks for
nothing,
Internet directions!), we nearly miss the whole freakin’ thing. Literally, we’re like the last two people they let in before tickets sell out.

But one step inside and I know my little nag-a-thon has paid off. Big time. In Bodeen, a “hot Friday night” consists of a bunch of hick teenagers circling the Sonic Drive-In with their parent-issued pickup trucks. But this, this is the real thing—high school alternateens seamlessly mingling with cool college folks. You have to understand that in my deprived-of-interesting-people state, just being around several hundred cool people is more than a little overwhelming. It’s a goddamn miracle.

Am I even allowed to be in a place this cool? Surely something will disrupt it. The World Order for Fun will put an emergency call in to Brooke and she’ll show up and cart me away.
That was a close one—you almost had fun, there. Back to the sticks with you.

Pash, thankfully, is not given to such paranoid brain spasms. She tilts her head back, opens her arms, and declares happily, “These . . . are our people.”

“Totally,” I say before laying eyes on a troll-lookin’ dude gracelessly chugging a can of Lone Star beer. “Except for him. He is not our people.”

“Ew, yeah, not him—everyone but him.”

Troll aside, the derby fan base offers up lustworthy lads as far as the eye can see (and the eye can see pretty darn far).

So, while we’re waiting for the Derby Girls to do their skating thing, Pash and I engage in some primo cute boy crowd scanning (CBCS).

“Okay,” Pash whispers, “what about him, tall boy in the Buddy Holly glasses?”

“Yum. But ohmygod—check out cigarette-behind-the-ear boy over here.” I motion subtly to my right.

“Ooh! Just looking at him makes me want to smoke.” She sighs.

“No doubt.”

“Let’s go bum a cigarette from him,” she declares, linking her arm in mine and dragging me in his direction.

“No!” I say, putting on the brakes.

“Okay, Ms. I’ll Wear a Sexy Little Minidress but I’m Too Afraid to Talk to a Boy. You are such a wuss.”

“I’m not a wuss,” I protest. “I’m just . . . flirtation impaired.”

“Wait! Him! Look, look—my future husband over there,” Pash squeals, flicking her head wildly to the right like an epileptic. A really cute epileptic.

“Jesus, what is it with you and Mohawk boys?” I ask.

“What
isn’t
it with me and Mohawk boys!” Pash declares.

And just as we’re discussing this, Mohawk Boy turns toward us. Not missing a beat, Pash throws him a finely calibrated low-key smile. He answers with a sly what’s-up? nod.

I feel the sudden urge to get out of the line of flirtation fire so Pash and MB can do their thing.

I turn my gaze to the floor, trying to disappear. Looking at the sea of shoes, it occurs to me that practically everyone here is wearing Converse low-tops. (
Converse here, Converse there, Converse, Converse everywhere!
) Thank God that Pash let me borrow her go-go boots tonight, because as much as I love my classic Chucks, it’s abundantly clear they are on the fast track to becoming a cliché. Just like skulls. One has to get out of Bodeen to observe such dynamic shifts in indie fashion.

Among the mass of too-cool-for-school canvas sneakers, I spot a pair of scuffed-up wingtips covered in paint splatters. Could these be the shoes of an interesting artist boy? I am immediately intrigued. My eyes follow the paint-stained brogues up to a pair of weathered jeans, a threadbare T-shirt, and last but definitely not least, a shock of messy ink-black hair. If he looks this good from the back . . .

. . . And then he turns. The entire place becomes a blur as this smoldering lad comes into sharp focus. His messy hair (I’m a total sucker for bed-head) is even better from the front, half of it sliding into his emerald eyes. I repeat,
emerald eyes.
Not to mention the lanky, rocker-boy bod and pasty complexion that suggests too much time spent indoors listening to records. In short, per-fec-tion.

And even though Señor Smolder is so obviously a winner in nature’s oddball beauty lottery, he looks like he spends exactly .0002 seconds thinking about it—which only makes him hotter. It is halfway through this thought that I suddenly realize SS is looking my direction—
right at me.
My stomach erupts into a mess of flip-flops and untamed butterflies. And then, everything goes black.

Okay, please tell me that I did not just pass out over some guy I have never met. Please, please, please let me take comfort in knowing that even I am not that lame.

And then I hear a wall of cheers rise up around me and I realize I’m still standing. It’s the lights that went out, not me. Disaster dodged. Whew—that was close.

Pash grabs my hand as the crush of derby humanity carries us to the track where the derby madness is about to begin. I look back, but Señor Smolder has vanished in the dark.

Roller Derby Baptism

T
he anticipation of the derby-hungry crowd builds to such a fevered pitch, I begin to think the roof of the warehouse might just blow off and fly away. But then—
fwoom!
—spotlights rain down on the track and the show comes hurtling at us at a hundred miles an hour. As good as the guy watching is, these girls quickly serve up their own brand of irresistible entertainment.

First, the Fight Crew skates out onto the track. They’re a team of surly flight attendants, decked out in killer kitschy ’60s-style stewardess dresses (I have mod fashion envy from their uniforms alone). Not to mention, they all have amazing names like Holly Go-Fightly, Eva Destruction, and Kami Kazzi. A couple of them throw drinks and bags of peanuts from a beverage cart into the crowd.

Then come the Holy Rollers, a busload of bad-ass Catholic schoolgirls. Their uniforms consist of—you guessed it—plaid miniskirts, set off by torn fishnet tights and lots of tattoos (more fashion envy). They too have cool monikers like Annie Social, Helena Handbasket, and Dinah Might, the girl from the poster.

But the team intros are just an appetizer for the fourcourse meal that follows—the skating.

Honestly, I’m still not even sure what the rules of Roller Derby are, but from the first whistle to the last the night becomes a blur of high-speed skating and breathtaking stunts. It’s hands-down the most awe-inspiring thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Girls dive on the track, leap over one another, pile on the infield for brawls, fly over the rails into the crowd (more than once!), and basically tear one another apart . . . and yet, you can tell they are having the time of their lives. It’s ’70s B-movie heaven.

And Dinah Might of the Holy Rollers—oh, my God! She’s tiny, with fragile features, but her skating is “pure TNT,” as they say. I love her the way boys love Superman. I want to be her.

When it’s all said and done, the Holy Rollers beat the Fight Attendants with a score of 72 to 44, but that is
so
beside the point!

If punk rock were a sport run by surly chicks on roller skates, the result would be Roller Derby. Every one of the Derby Girls is completely gorgeous in her own way: There are skinny girls, chubby girls, tall girls, short girls, girls with big butts, girls with big boobs, girls with no boobs, girls with tattoos, girls without—and the crowd adores them all. In short, it’s the most Bliss-friendly activity I’ve ever seen, so refreshingly antipageant. I’m a total convert.

When the derby action wraps up, the warehouse becomes a giant party with the Derby Girls mingling with the crowd. But before I can actually meet one of my new heroes, Pash waves her Hello Kitty Timex in my face.

“It’s 12:07,” she says. “We gotta book.”

“But I’m not done having fun.”

“If I don’t have time to hook up with a hot guy, you don’t have time to play Roller Derby groupie,” she barks, prodding me to the exit like best-friend cattle. The girl does not mess around with the curfew gods.

And just as we’re leaving, we pass the merch table, where the Derby Girls sell everything from T-shirts to trading cards. They have their own trading cards! As if pulled by derby gravity, I break away from Pash to get a closer look.

I find myself face-to-face with a fierce platinum blonde sporting blue streaks that I hate to admit look better on her than they ever did on me. Not to mention the killer mermaid tattoo covering her left arm. She furrows her cool brow and gives me a look that suggests she’s deciding whether or not to kick my ass.

Before I can censor myself, the following falls out of my mouth: “Y’all are my new heroes! I wanna be you!” I gush, like some thirteen-year-old at her first boy band concert at Six Flags.

“Then get your ass on the track and make it happen,” she says, with friendly encouragement. “As much fun as Roller Derby is to watch, it’s even more fun to play.”

“Oh, I could never,” I say. “I mean, I haven’t even touched my Barbie roller skates since, like, fifth grade.”

“Whatever,” she says. “It all comes back. We’re having tryouts on Tuesday. You should check it out.”

Come to think of it, my elementary school years included a pretty intense roller-skating phase. Bikes and Razor scooters may have been the method of transport for my peers, but skates were my thing. And just like that—an idea that five minutes ago would have seemed utterly insane now seems completely logical.

“I’m so in!” I suddenly snort, taking my dorkiness to new heights. For the record, I have never snorted in my life, but here I am expressing myself through pig noises. So lame.

“You just have to be eighteen—you’re eighteen, right?” I feel Pash walk up and give me the silent stare of death, which I ignore.

“Uh, yeah, I just had my birthday,” I lie.

“Cool. I’m Malice,” she says, “Malice in Wonderland.”

“Awesome. I’m Bliss—” She gives me a look that says,
You have got to be kidding me with that name.
“But I can totally change that.”

“You’ll need to,” Malice says, with a cool smile.

“We’re going now,” Pash suddenly says, kiboshing the convo and dragging me out by the sleeve.

On the way to the Pashmobile, I can barely contain myself, skipping all the way. Pash turns sharply to me.

“Okay, what the hell was that?” she asks.

“What the hell was what?”

“You can’t play Roller Derby!” she practically shouts.

“Let’s try out together,” I say, in between skips. “It will be so fun!”

“Um, excuse me, getting pummeled by a bunch of badass chicks on skates is not my idea of fun. For the record, I didn’t have a Barbie roller-skating phase, okay? I had a ‘fat kid sits inside and reads a book’ phase. Unlike
some
people,” she adds, “I know my limits.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Those girls are seriously tough. And, Bliss, you”—she grabs my unsuspecting arm and twists it into an Indian sunburn so brutal I yelp out loud—“are not tough.”

“Well, not yet,” I say meekly. “But maybe I could be.”

“Whatever. Your mom’s gonna fuh-reak.”

“No she won’t. She’ll never know,” I say. As if I would ever tell Brooke I’m taking up Roller Derby.