“Ooh,” Pash says with sudden approval, “you are one risk-taking bitch.”
“C’mon,” I prod. “Just try it with me.”
“I’m not sacrificing my GPA,” Pash says firmly, unlocking the car.
Once again I am reminded that my best friend is a pre-premed genius, and all those As that dutifully line up on her report card are no accident. She’s the academic rock star; I’m the academic roadie.
“It won’t be nearly as fun without my Pash,” I say sadly, ending several seconds of silence.
“If you make it,” she says, “I’ll come to every game to cheer your fine ass on.” I feel better already.
We race back to Bodeen to beat the parental clock. Pash swings by Sonic so we can get the football score from the lame but useful late-night tailgaters. It is 1:02 (well within the five-minute grace period) when we stroll through the door singing a school fight song we made up in the car.
“How was the game?” asks Mr. Amini.
“Amazing,” Pash answers. “We won.”
“Fourteen to three,” I add, providing the legitimate detail to our fiction.
When we get to her room, Pash and I can’t shut the door fast enough before erupting with conspiratorial laughter and flopping on her perpetually unmade bed.
Bingo
T
he next morning I colonize Pash’s computer to do a little online derby research, an activity I don’t dare try at home for two reasons. One, the homestead of Earl and Brooke is not exactly a hotbed of modern technology. They are painfully stuck in the dark ages of Internet dialup (literally, you can watch a zit come and go on your face while that sad PC wheezes its way to a Web connection). And two, on the rare occasion you possess the saintlike patience to use the slow-mo computer, there is a 103 percent chance that Brooke will be hovering nearby, eagle-eyeing your every click.
I’d rather not subject myself to such surveillance, thankyouverymuch.
So, while Pash snores her Saturday away, I help myself to a couple (okay, four) of the Pop-Tarts she keeps stashed behind her stereo and settle in to some quality time with the Derby Girls Web site. I learn that the girls are having tryouts for their upcoming season on Tuesday at seven
P.M
.
Tryouts—there’s a terrifying word for ya. Sure, it sounds so innocent and casual, but I’ve never actually tried out for anything in my life. The idea alone makes me so nervous I’m already sweating more than my aunt Brenda at a Fourth of July picnic, and believe me, that woman can sweat.
And yet. Something about watching those Derby Girls and hearing their skates pound on the track—it’s like I got to peek through the window at what life could be like outside of Bodeen. I want more. I need more. Nerves be damned, I have to get back to that window. I want to open it and climb through.
If I could just line up a little transpo. The Pashmobile is no go, but there is this matter of the Bodeen Bingo Bus for Senior Citizens, a chariot that shuttles local old folks to the Bingo Palace in Austin every Tuesday and Thursday so they can get their B-7 and N-65 on. (Note: Bodeen sucks so hard that even our senior citizens have to leave to have a good time.)
Perhaps they won’t mind a stowaway.
The Geritol Jitney
E
ventually I may have to go into my little lab of lies and whip up a long-term alibi to cover my Roller Derby escapades, but for now I tell Brooke I’m at Pash’s working on my
Scarlet Letter
paper.
I dig my abandoned Barbie skates from beneath a graveyard of stuffed animals in the back of my closet, blow off the dust, and wrestle my overgrown foot into one. They don’t exactly fit, but at least I can get them laced. I stuff them in my book bag and lug them around all day at school. The final bell cannot ring fast enough.
When Pash drops me off at the Bodeen Senior Center, a dozen golden oldies have boarded the bus, and they’re already pulling away.
I have to chase it down, waving my arms—“Wait! Wait!” The driver, a hillbilly burnout named Todd, who favors the no-shirt look to set off a thinning ponytail that has clearly seen better days, pulls over and pops the door.
I say “thanks,” hop aboard, and find myself suddenly squaring off against a gang of ornery old folks. These people are very territorial about their bingo shuttle. They’re not about to give up an empty seat to a sixteen-year-old. For a moment, I half expect them to chase me off with their canes and walkers. Note to self: Do not come between a senior citizen and his bingo schedule.
It takes some on-the-fly wheeling and dealing—and a teeny tiny lie about being on my way to visit “my sick grandma” in Austin—before Helen, a sweet old thing rockin’ a pair of red Keds, steps up on my behalf.
“She’s with me. And if y’all don’t like it, you can go suck an egg,” Helen declares, patting the seat next to her.
“Thanks,” I say, taking her up on her offer. I notice her tightly curled helmet of hair is dyed old-lady blue. “I love your hair color.”
“Thanks. I do it m’self,” she says, handing me a ball of yarn to hold as she knits.
I tune out the rest of my scowling bingo-bound buds with my iPod (that great savior of awkward social situations). An hour later, the van pulls in front of the Bingo Palace, and I hop a bus downtown that drops me off two blocks from the warehouse. I book it down a back alley and make it just in time.
Initiation Nation
A
s soon as I get to the warehouse, aka the Dollhouse, the place falls into an intimidating hush. Forty girls all turn at once and look curiously at me like I’m an invader—at least it feels that way. I’m so used to not giving a crap about what anyone thinks of me, but I’m suddenly hit by a tidal wave of insecurity.
On the cool scale, these girls are a ten. On a good day I’m a two-point-seven. I feel like the sad mathlete awkwardly trying to infiltrate the cheerleader clique at lunch in every bad teen movie you wish you’d never seen (except you have, several times). And we all know these scenarios do not end well. Especially for the mathlete.
Look at them with their casual badassness, decked out in shredded band T-shirts and cut-off Dickies, already comparing derby names.
“I’m gonna be Princess Slaya,” one fierce-looking tall girl says. I haven’t even begun to think of a derby name.
I admit it, I want them to like me. Fuck that, I want them to love me. Damn Pash and her Harvard ambitions, leaving me to venture into the cruel world alone.
What if they ID me and find out I’m only sixteen? I should take my loser ass and run while I can. If I hurry, I can still make the bingo game with Helen.
But a voice shakes me out of my self-loathing daydream. “You made it.” I turn to see Malice heading over with her skates coolly draped over her shoulder. I smile and give a dorky wave.
Malice kindly overlooks my lack of social skills and takes me inside. She hooks me up with elbow pads, wrist guards, knee pads, and a helmet.
When I finally get all geared up, I bravely climb onto the track and—
BAM!
—immediately fall on my newbie ass. The humiliation can barely register before two girls are there to help me up. “Don’t worry about it,” they say. “You’re just starting.”
Yeah. Easy for them to say as they practice jumping over orange traffic cones set up on the track. I stumble around like newborn Bambi learning to walk. Only I fall more than Bambi ever did. The earth revolves around the sun four times before I make it around the track just once. And then a whistle blows marking the end of our warm-up. Let me recap: I skate / fall my way around the track just once, and the warm-up is already over!
All fifteen girls trying out line up on the infield of the track. At a quick glance, I can tell every one of these girls could kick my ass.
Then the six team captains introduce themselves. There’s Juana Beat’n of the Sirens, the bad cops. She’s curvy hot in that J.Lo sex-bomb way—if J.Lo were cool and not the cheesy she-robot that she is. Next is Eva Destruction, a pale Goth, who is head of the Fight Crew. Tinker Hell, a girlie blonde who looks like she’d be more at home on the tennis court, runs the Black Widows, while Joan Threat, a spiky-haired indie rock girl, heads up the Cherry Bombs. Malice is captain of the Hurl Scouts. And last, but certainly not least, is Dinah Might of the “undefeated Holy Rollers.”
I’m so starstruck when Dinah introduces herself, I blurt out, “You’re the reason I’m here!” The room falls to a hush, all heads turn to me, and Dinah says, “Um, yeah, kissing my ass is not going to get you on my team.” Okay, I’ve just offended the coolest girl in the room. Off to a smashing start.
We launch into a series of drills to show our raw skills. The idea is that the teams can teach us Roller Derby. We just have to show them we can skate. Between you and me, I was always an awesome skater as a kid—I lived on those wheels—but there is little lingering evidence of it this evening.
The whole thing is such a blur of humiliation. Here are the highlights: (a) I spend more time on my ass than on my skates. (b) At one point, I feel Dinah looking at my pink Barbie skates. Her look of disapproval makes me fall. (c) When we all have to skate around in a “pack,” bumping each other to show we’re not afraid to take or give a hit, I hover a good six feet behind, too afraid to engage.
We take a water break, and I can feel the collective pity vibe. I’m the girl other girls feel sorry for. It’s a good thing I’m sweating so much—it hides the tears I can feel coming on.
A whistle blows, signaling the end of the water break. We line up for time trials. All we have to do is skate around the track five times as fast as we can. As we get back on the track, Malice grabs my arm.
“Hey,” she says, “quit judging yourself. Just try to have fun, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, touched, but not knowing what the hell I’m going to do with that advice.
One by one, derby hopefuls run through their time trials. A couple of girls fall but get back up and keep going; others ease their way around the track. Most show some basic understanding of “skating the track,” but no one’s breaking any speed records, that’s for damn sure.
All I have to do is get around the track five times. I can do this.
I line up, the whistle blows, and I immediately stumble as I take off. I keep skating, fighting my wobbles, and get around the track one time with relative ease (yes!). But then something clicks on the second lap. I lean low into the track, push as hard as I can, and—bingo—I go flying out of the turn at speeds the other girls haven’t even touched. For a second, it feels like I might not be able to control the speed, but I bend my knees lower and manage to go even faster. From there on, the track is mine. I attack it with all I have.
When I finish my fifth lap, Tinker Hell looks up from her stopwatch and shouts, “Twenty-two-point-four seconds!” (Half the time the other girls clocked.)
Not knowing how to stop, I slam into the rail and fall on the track. Everyone applauds, and I lie there, panting, feeling proud but a little stunned. I didn’t know I had that in me. I suddenly wonder what else I have in me that’s been stunted by too many years of pageant participation.
I have to sprint back to the bus stop to make it to the bingo shuttle in time, which I do. Barely.
The seniors are whining about the “fixed game” they just experienced, while Helen counts her winnings in the corner. That crafty minx.
Me and Helen, we’re both winners tonight.
Tough Cookie
S
o, the next day at school I limp up to Pash, and she gives me this tragic look.
“What happened to you? You look like you got your ass kicked.”
“Oh, I totally did.” I smile. “But guess what. I made it! I’m a Hurl Scout!” Yep, Malice, who I have officially adopted as my derby fairy godmother, drafted me for her team.
“Congratulations!” Pash says. “I’m so proud of you!”
“I know,” I say. “Now, all I have to do is get a real pair of skates, change my work schedule, and—” Pash goes white and gives me the patented serious-best-friend face.
“What? No! The only reason that godforsaken job doesn’t drive me to a murderous rampage is because we have the same schedule. You
can’t
change it, Bliss.” Now, as much as I heart and adore Pash, there’s no way I’m not doing Roller Derby. Life outside of Bodeen starts with derby.
“We’ll always have Fridays,” I say, putting my arm around her.
“I hate you,” she says, putting her arm around me.
After much consideration and rehearsal in front of my bedroom mirror, I explain to the ’rents that my new Tuesday / Thursday absence from home is because I have joined a study group to prep for my SATs.
Brooke looks up from pinning a costume on Sweet Pea. “You know, Bliss, that’s not a bad idea,” she says, her tiara-hunting wheels spinning. “Smart girls are all the rage in pageants these days, and you can bet your biscuit the Miss Bluebonnet judges will be impressed by that.”
Do you see what I have to deal with here? My own mother doesn’t want me to be smart for the sake of being smart, or for the sake of, oh, I dunno,
going to college
—she wants me smart for a beauty pageant. Could someone (anyone) please tell her this is the twenty-first century?
The Anti–High School
I
’m early for my first official Hurl Scouts practice. I already have my gear on when the other girls start filing in the door.