Desk Jockey Jam (5 page)

Dan said, “It’s amazing.  Both
teams play offence and defence at the same time.  They have to block the other
team’s jammer, ooh!”  He winced as a single skater took down four others.  “And
stop the other team blocking theirs, while they help their own jammer through.”

“What do the ones with the
stripe on their helmets do?  It looks like they can score too?” said Alex.

“They’re called pivots,”
said Scott.  “They act like pace setters for the pack.  They can score if they take
the jammer’s star helmet cover.”

Dan put one hand to his
chest and the other mid thigh, but his eyes never left the track.  “They can
only make contact on the body between here and here and they can’t deliberately
elbow, push, ram or trip.”

Alex tapped Ant’s arm. 
“Which one is Toni?”

“That’s her in the penalty
box.  Detonator, number 696.  She did something the ref didn’t like.”

“How do you know her?”

“Old family friend.”  And
incredibly gracious reacquainted friend he hoped.  He watched Toni skate out of
the penalty box and join her pack.  He’d had to steel himself to call her and
apologise for being such a dickhead.  Waiting in the office till it was
deserted and there was no chance of being over heard making the call.  He’d
almost turned her invitation down, but now they were all here, he was glad
she’d insisted.  He felt a little less puce.

All week he’d been having
flashbacks of Toni.  She’d been the best maker of mud pies, always game to be
branded with a tennis ball, the never fail inventor of excuses to his Dad about
the trampled tomato plant, the daring sharer of nicked cigarettes.  She’d been
a feature in his life until suddenly she wasn’t and he’d all but forgotten
about her, until he’d all but totally lost his head over her.  How could he not
have paid enough attention to know something so critical about the girl he’d
practised kissing with when they were ten?  All week he’d been re-examining his
life in the light of it.  Wondering what else, who else, he hadn’t noticed, and
paid proper attention to, given due respect to. 

Arabella was wrong.  Right
now Dad would not be proud.

He watched Big Swinging
Tricks’ feisty little jammer feint left, then right, then sail through two
Roman Scandal blockers to score again with her arms raised in victory.  On his
left, Mitch was taking the time to thoroughly examine Belinda’s tonsils with
his tongue.  On his right, Dan’s thumb traced small circles on Alex’s thigh. 

Ant jumped when she
spoke.  “We’re all making you sick aren’t we?”

“Nah, Teach.  It’s good to
see my boys happy.”

Dan said, “Then we’re not
trying hard enough.”  He took Alex’s chin, turned her face to him and kissed
her with such hunger and possessiveness, Ant couldn’t help watching.  Maybe he
could convince Scott to hit Son of a Beach Bar with him after this.  He knew
the others would beg off and he felt the need to cruise.  Some random female action
would remind him he liked being unattached, liked flying solo, and wasn’t still
mortified about hitting on Toni as though he was God’s greatest gift to women.

A resounding groan from
the audience pulled his attention back to the bout.  Three Tricks player were
down and not getting up, including Toni.  If this had been nearly any other
sport there’d be a big screen action replay, but not here.  “What happened?” 
There was a medic on the track now.  A bunch of players in a heap, arms and
legs, skates and helmets tangled like a handful of toy soldiers.

“Spectacular stack,” said Fluke. 
“They were all skating backwards a second ago to block a jammer trying to get
back on the track from the penalty box.  The announcer called it a soul crush. 
If nothing’s broken it’ll be a miracle.”

Spectacular stack.  Soul
crush.  That’s exactly what Ant felt his life was like at the moment.  He’d
been travelling along just fine, he was happy for God’s sake, then suddenly his
expectations got reset and both times by women.  Bree bitch Robinson took his
career expectation and dumped it on its head and Toni Detonator Pagano took his
love life fantasy and made him see he didn’t have a clue about what was
important about the people around him. 
Shit
. 

Out on the track, Toni and
the other girls knocked flying were getting to their feet to wild cheers from
the audience and Selena Gomez singing
Falling Down
on the loud speaker. 
The tiny Tricks’ jammer, one of the only members of the team left standing played
it up, bowing as she skated backwards, and within seconds the whistle went and
a new bout started.

They were tough these
roller derby girls.  They were strategists and risk takers and they knew how to
take a knock and get back in the game.  He admired that.  He was glad he’d
accepted Toni’s invitation.  Glad she’d given him the chance to fix what he
broke with her.  Tonight he’d drag Scott out and find someone to help him bury
the remainder of his humiliation over her and Monday he’d see what he could do
about taking the bitch out of his feelings for Bree Robinson, because maybe,
just maybe she was brave and righteous like a roller derby girl and deserved
her place as the leader of the team.

5:        Warmer

God, it was hot.  One of
those days where the air had the weight of oceans and whales in it, and soaked
its way into your very bones.  Glorious.  If only she was on the beach, feet in
the sea, instead of standing on a patch of cream marble off the entryway of the
office, in her second favourite shoes: royal purple, slight platform, six inch
dusty silver heels.  Perfect with her gray pinstripe pants suit and the purple
silk of her camisole top that showed above the top button of her jacket.

Bree tipped her face to
the warmth and sipped her mango smoothy.  She had ten minutes of her lunch
break left and she intended to spend them soaking up the vitamin D.  She took
the jacket off and slung it over a railing.  She let the sun work its magic on
the bruised skin of her arms and her sore shoulder muscles as she watched
people come out of the building foyer, recoiling in surprise as the heat hit
them, or go in and look instantly grateful for the crisp air-conditioning. 
She’d be one of those soon, but not yet she needed to stand, sip, think.  And
maybe the sun would burn away the strangeness of the phone call she’d just
had. 

Tom.  Two years of Tom. 
Then ten months of no Tom.  Followed by twelve minutes of Tom on the phone. 
Bree didn’t know what to make of it.  She wasn’t sure what she felt more of: surprise,
exasperation or the rising edge of something that felt weirdly like
satisfaction.

Two years of Tom had been
good.  There’d been common friends, shared interests and Vietnamese restaurants
in Ho Chi Minh city.  There’d been the hot air balloon ride birthday
surprise—hers.  The V8 race car drive around the Bathurst track—his.  There’d
been breakfasts in bed and Sunday coast walks.  There’d been kindness and friendship. 
And then the ultimatum, and the no Tom period began.

And now after one phone
call, she was supposed to forgive Tom for getting all furious over her work
hours, over her commitment to her career.  Tom, who worked a forty hour week as
an air traffic controller and got so annoyed when she wouldn’t dump work,
derby, sleep, to fit in with his shift breaks he’d tried to traffic control
her.  He’d slapped down the ultimatum.  Quit the traineeship or lose the
relationship.

He had no idea how easy
he’d made it to choose.  What surprised Bree was how quickly she forgot about
him.  He was in her life one minute and then he wasn’t and after a few weeks of
feeling angry and betrayed she simply got on with things and didn’t think about
him again. 

Tom on the other hand had
just said he’d done nothing but think about Bree for last two hundred and eighty
days.  He had a funny way of showing it.  By which he clearly meant ‘treat ‘em
mean, keep ‘em keen’.  No call, no letter, no email, no text, no flowers, no
showing up.  So not surprisingly, Bree had not a teaspoon of keen.

It’d taken her two minutes
to tell him so.  It could’ve taken less time, but she’d made the mistake of
letting him try to defend himself.  The whole discussion could’ve taken much
less time if she’d just said, “Tom who?”

What a jerk
.

Had he been a jerk when
she was seeing him too and she’d never noticed?  No, he’d been a good guy.  She
didn’t go out with jerks or losers or insecure boys.  He was generous and happy
and spontaneous and loud and funny and loved to laugh.  He was fun to be with
and um, yeah he liked a good laugh, and...

Well, that’s probably what
he’d excelled at—being fun to be with, until he’d had his sudden conversation
to insecurity and jerkdom right around the time she entered the traineeship and
her work hours increased and her play time got compromised.  And then he wasn’t
fun to be with.  He was sullen and grumpy and expert at ladling out the guilt.

He’d said, “You’re not
giving us enough time.”

She’d said, “You know this
is what I’ve been working for.  It won’t always be like this.”

He’d said, “You’re putting
your career and that idiot derby league before me.”

And she hadn’t known what
to say about that, because she was.  So the ultimatum had been convenient in
its way.  Insulting and hurtful, but a no come-back, get-out free clause.

Until just now, when Tom
had tried to re-negotiate it.

But what was really
confusing about this wasn’t the guy’s gall in assuming she was pining for him
after all this time, not his stunning confidence that she’d consider getting
back together after his lack of consideration, or even his failure to ask how
work was going. 
Stupid jerk
.  What was really confusing about all this
was that she hadn’t even stopped for two seconds to consider it.  There was the
big fat hovering presence of the word ‘no’ in her mouth almost from the moment
Tom said, “Jesus, it’s good to hear your voice, Bree.  I’ve missed you so
much.”

Which told her something
she’d known deep inside, but not articulated.  She was happy being alone.  She
was happy putting her career, for all its stresses, worries and heavy time commitment
before a relationship with Tom or anyone else for that matter. 

Bree could see the skin on
her arms pinking slightly.  She should put her jacket back on, she should go
inside, but she was stuck in the heat wondering what that said about her.  She hadn’t
bothered dating since she’d shown Tom she preferred office and track time to
Tom time.  And she wasn’t the least bit concerned about that.  It was smart to
focus on the work.  It was healthy to be self sufficient.  It was making
something of her life to have goals and chase them.  It was everything she
wanted.

And the best thing—since
she was so smart, so healthy and so ambitious, she didn’t have time to feel
lonely.  And the barely two second pause before she told Tom to take his offer
of renewed association and permanently shove it where the sun didn’t shine, was
the proof.

She picked up her jacket
and draped it over her shoulder.  She walked out to the kerb and dumped the
empty smooth cup in a street bin.  She didn’t feel rattled about the call with
Tom, if anything now that it was all over she was amused.  He’d actually used
the line, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ as his reason for not being in
contact, when absence —hers, had been the whole reason for the ultimatum in the
first place.  It was a toss-up as to whether that was so lame it was legless or
so dumb it was without a voice box.

“What’s got you smiling?”

Bree pulled her jacket on
quickly and turned to find Anthony standing there.  He had his suit coat off
and slung over his shoulder and the cuffs of his white shirt turned back and
rolled up so she could see tanned forearms.  There were little beads of
moisture on his forehead.  He looked hot and bothered by it.

Hopefully he hadn’t
noticed how bruised her shoulder was.   “The weather.”

He nodded.  The top button
of his shirt was undone and his tie was pulled out from his collar.  It was
maddeningly inconvenient that he was so delicious to look at.  Not even Bree’s
suspicion and general wariness about him was enough to wean her off how much
she appreciated his whole physical package.

He smiled.  “It’s the kind
of heat that feels dirty, unless there’s a sea breeze behind it.” 

Good God
. 
He’d said the words heat and dirty in the same sentence.  They flew across the
melting pavement between them and invaded her body like little lust missiles.  He’d
said the word breeze and she’d felt a whisper soft caress.  And he smiled at
her.  She was half tempted to look around to see if he was talking to someone
else.  She tucked her head down and looked at her shoes.  There was no reason
to respond.  She had no response.  Her tongue had melted.  How was it possible
for a man she distrusted so much to be able to do that to her?  She needed to
shut that down, right now.  Hard.

She’d been so worried Monday
morning after G-man and his crew were at the track she’d watched him like he
was highly flammable.  Because if he’d twigged, it would make things very hot
for her.  She had a strategy.  If he mentioned it:  deny it, laugh it off, tell
him he needed an eye check-up.  As strategies go, it might as well have been
designed by Tom.  It was lame, dumb, but it was all she had.  Because there was
no way she trusted him to keep the secret like Chris did.  No matter what Toni
said, Anthony was the ultimate competitor, he’d use whatever he could to get
ahead and if that meant making her secret common knowledge she didn’t think
he’d hesitate for a second to send leading comments her way until the curiosity
of the whole team, heck the whole office would be focussed her way.  And not
with the kind of attention she needed.