Going in Circles (18 page)

“Fall what?” I'm back on my feet again, skating with her, but my ankles are wobbly and my back is screaming in pain. I want to get down but don't want to just as much.

“Fall small,” she says, pulling her elbows to her sides, crouching. “Don't flail yourself everywhere when you fall. That makes it harder for you to control yourself, and you end up taking up more space on the ground, so someone's more likely to trip over you, or run over your finger or something. People can get hurt in these pileups. We've had broken ribs, bruised kidneys. One girl got a skate to her nose. That was a lot of blood.”

I can't believe she can say all of this to me while we're skating, while she's wearing a mouth guard. When I talk I sound like Eliza Doolittle, her mouth filled with marbles.

I try another transition, but I fall and end up facing the oncoming skaters. One sees me, panics, and instantly drops
to the ground. This causes the girl behind her to fall. I pull in my limbs and stand up.

Bang-Up is waiting for me on the high side of the track. She rolls back over and continues, as if I hadn't just given her a perfect example of what she was asking me not to do.

“Fall small. You curl up and either spring back onto your feet or roll into the infield as quickly as possible. Just don't be a splat on the track. You're no good to anyone.”

In roller derby, even falling has rules.

“Okay, try another transition.”

I try, but nothing's happening. “I can't lift my feet,” I say. It's true. They feel weighted and numb, like the laces have cut my feet from below the ankle. I'm covered in sweat. It has dripped into one eye, and I'm squinting like a pirate.

Bang-Up screams at me: “Now!”

Terrified, I lift my foot, turn at the hip, and drop it. My other foot drags behind me, and I begin to spin out, falling forward, my hands outstretched in front of me like a toddler going down.

I fall, but I jump right back up, my legs somehow finding their balance.

My secret? This time when I fell, I imagined that girl with the busted nose. I fell, thought
Skate to the face!
, and then jumped right back up. I want to tell all of the other skaters my secret. Just imagine your face destroyed; your legs will do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.

“I fell small!” I cheer, even though the mouth guard makes it so I really said, “I fawll schmell!”

“Good,” Bang-Up says. “That's right, you get right back up. That's good. Keep practicing. Open the door, close the door.”

I fall. I get up. I fall. I get up. I fall. I fall before I even get up. Fear keeps me motivated. I drop to the ground and instantly think
Get up, get up, get up.

And while it's good that I'm getting right back up, there's another part of me that realizes that I'm a girl who has fallen about six times in a row without taking a single step in between.

Bang-Up watches this whole spectacle. I can see her searching for the right words of encouragement, as a trainer, as a skater, and as a human being who doesn't want to mock the feeble. She finally settles on: “Who's a winner?”

I laugh so hard I end up drooling around my mouth guard.

She skates away to help the girl who's got this look on her face that says she's realized she's made the worst decision in her life by entering this track. Her hands are constantly fluttering up by her shoulders, elbows out, her legs stiff straight like she's got stilts under her hips. Looking at her makes me nervous, and I wish there was some way she could wear an extra helmet.

But through her I can see how far I've come in these past few weeks. I feel stronger when I'm here, and the best part about it is the rest of my life goes away. When I'm on the track it's just me and whatever seemingly impossible physical activity I'm trying to master, over and over again. There's no room for anything but the work. My real life is forgotten, inconsequential. I don't even have the mental space to let the voice of John Goodman narrate a few laps. It's me, my skates, and this thing that it turns out I'm not completely horrible at. I do wish my learning curve wasn't so sluggish. But I'm happily no longer the greenest girl of the Training Wheels.

“Look out, Broke-Broke!” I hear next to me. I recognize Trash's voice. “Coming through!” I can hear her skates, and
they're very close. I move. It's only then I see that I turned around. I did it. I made a transition.

I give a shocked huff around my mouth guard, so proud of myself. I look to see if Bang-Up caught it. She did, and gives me a thumbs-up.

“I'm a winner!” I shout. I start to skate off, but another skater falls spectacularly un-small-ly in front of me, and I topple right onto her.

The victories here—while hard-earned—are unfortunately quite brief.

C
harlotte!”

I sit up quickly, wiping my mouth. “No, I'm up, I'm up.”

Francesca's brought me a triple-shot latte. “You have a deadline,” she says. “Finish that copy.”

“I know. I know. Damn.” I just need some more sleep to let my muscles and tendons and quite possibly my blood heal. Every time I move I can feel the last few practices up my spine, down my legs, pulsing through my brain. I need a vacation from my flesh. Just for about a week or two, until I no longer look like I just escaped a gang fight.

“This is all your fault,” Jonathan says, wagging his finger in Francesca's face. “You are both too old to be playing these lesbian sports.”

“You should see how good your girlfriend Charlie is out there.”

I'm shaking my head before I even find the words to say, “I'm just trying not to embarrass you, at this point.”

She hops up onto the one clear area on my desk, still knocking over a stack of unread memos in the process. I don't know where she finds all this energy. She's like an overactive
bird, always twitching and moving, bobbing through space like she's got to keep life bouncing in the air around her. She inches the paper cup of coffee closer to my wrist, then points at it. “You're getting so much better so quickly. I can't wait for the Rookie Rumble. We are going to kick ass.”

Rookie Rumble is the yearly event where girls in Training Wheels compete against other girls in Training Wheels like they would if they were placed on a team. It's in front of a crowd, with the lights and music, all the spectacle of a real roller derby bout. I haven't seen an actual bout yet. We're doing that this weekend. Francesca assures me that once I see the real thing, I will get over any hesitation I have about playing in the Rookie Rumble. I think once I see what I'm really in for, I'm going to panic and flee.

“I still don't think I'm good enough for the Rumble,” I tell her.

“Whatever. You're already better than Missy Eater, and she's been skating five months longer than you have. And I saw how you knocked Tara Hymen right on her ass last practice. She's a big girl!”

“Oh, my God!” Jonathan shouts.

Francesca looks over at him with impatience. “What now?”

“All you two ever talk about now is roller derby. Do you even listen to yourselves? ‘Hey, Pastor, did you see Vagina Knees hit Knuckle Sandwich into the rail?' ”

Both Francesca and I fail at our attempts to hide our amusement. I cock my head, jutting out my lower lip. “Aw, Jonathan,” I say. “You said ‘rail.' ”

Francesca laughs, her feet kicking out in front of her. “I know! He's been paying attention!”

“But listen,” I tell him. “I'd never skate with a girl named Knuckle Sandwich.”

“Vagina Knees is really good, though,” Francesca says.

“Man, I know. She's amazing.”

“The girl has vaginas for knees, and she still skates circles around us.”

“She's badass.”

Jonathan attempts to execute a double-fisted, simultaneous paper-wad toss, but he misses both of us.

“Have you checked your email lately?” Francesca asks, leaning close to my monitor.

“No. I'm working on Quit the Internet,” I say. “Your rule, remember?”

“You're never going to do that one. So check it now.”

A quick click and I find I have something from Francesca, something with an attachment. I open it to find a certificate, one made using a Word template with art and cheesy graphics. There's a cartoon dog jumping in celebration, a cheeseburger, some fireworks, and—for some reason—a giraffe wearing a superhero cape.

CERTIFICATE OF MERIT FOR: CHARLOTTE GOODMAN
it says.
FOR THE COMPLETION OF: DO SOMETHING THAT SCARES YOU.

“I love it,” I tell her. “I really do. What's with the cheeseburger?”

“I was hungry when I made it. Now don't forget the rules you haven't done yet. They're important, too.” Francesca points at the untouched cup of coffee. “In the meantime, drink this,” she says. “You've got to get that copy turned in before lunch or Petra's going to shit herself.”

I shake my head, getting rid of the last of the lingering sleepiness. She's right; I am way past deadline. It just doesn't seem to really matter right now. Not much does, other than when I get to skate again.

Jonathan moans. “Seriously, you guys. Just admit you're
completely in love with each other. Then you can both be happy. Francesca can toss her cell phone in the ocean, and Charlotte can finally be with someone just as crazy as she is.”

“You aren't funny,” Francesca says, suddenly yanking her phone from her pocket to check the screen again. She frowns.

“Let me guess. He's not calling again?” Jonathan asks her.

She shakes her head. We don't talk about how Jacob's been absent lately; Francesca says she doesn't want to make a big deal of it.

Jonathan leans back and clutches his chest. He groans with a terrible accent, “
Amor de lejos, amor de pendejos.
”

I find the wad of paper Jonathan threw at me earlier and flick it back toward his head. It lands perfectly, with a very satisfying
swip!

“Stop trying to impress us with the Spanish you learn from your housekeeper,” I tell him.

“She's a very wise woman,” Jonathan intones. “Look it up, Francesca. It'll give you something to do before you break up with that
pendejo.
”

“I don't want to break up with the
pendejo,
” she says. “I hate when Jacob does this, but I'm trying to not be crazy.”

Jonathan snorts. “Right. I bet that comes easy to you.”

She jams her phone into her pocket. “I would rather he not tell me he was going to call me and surprise me with a phone call than say he's going to call me and then never call. It's like holding my breath for forever.”

“Which is why you should dump him and make out with Charlotte,” Jonathan says. “This guy sucks. I've been telling you this for weeks.”

Francesca carefully tucks her hair behind her ears and gets quiet. “He doesn't. He's just busy.”

“You're busy. I'm busy. We're all busy. We still make time
for each other, if we care about each other. He used to really be into you, but now it doesn't seem like he is. This guy's not worth your time. Dump him and move on.”

Sometimes the dude in the room breaks it down to something too simple to ignore, but too hard to accept.

I take a long gulp from my coffee and try to change the subject. “Thanks for this, Francesca.”

“Just being a good derby wife,” she says, brightening.

“A what?” I ask, having to compete over the sound of Jonathan clapping.

“This gets even better!” he cheers.

“You're my derby wife,” Francesca says, crossing her arms like this is the end of the discussion. “You know, you're my best friend on the track. Everybody has one. We keep each other motivated. We're a team. You're my wife. My derby wife!”

“I will be your best friend, but I will not be your derby wife.”

“Oh, come on! Everybody else has one. They all were married off before I got there.”

“Married?”

Jonathan is laughing so hard he's no longer making sounds. He has resorted to rapidly patting his knees like he's trying to make a drumroll. I grab my entire arsenal of paper wads and toss them at him. He doesn't even flinch as he's showered in crumpled scraps.

Francesca's insistent. “Not
married,
married. Obviously. You're already married. Kind of. Technically.”

“And you see how well that's going,” I say. “I've been separated in my marriage longer than I was married.”

“Whatever, you're my derby wife.”

“No, I'm not.”

Jonathan has found his voice, but it's still trembling from trying to hold in his laughter. “I will be the bigger man here,” he says, adding, “No offense, Francesca. I know you're probably the guy in this relationship.” He stands and takes a bow, one arm dramatically waved in front of him. “So I offer up this office for any hot girl-on-girl action. Feel free to start immediately. And although I cannot leave, because my work is important to me, I promise I won't make any noise while I'm watching you.”

I turn back to my monitor and continue to work, ignoring both of them.

Francesca pouts. “Look. I embarrassed her, and now she's mad at me.”

“Don't take it personally,” Jonathan replies. “She hates everyone she's married to. She's a complicated woman, our Charlotte.”

M
y therapist is wearing pink socks today. I cannot stop staring at them.

They are vibrantly pink. One is practically yelling at me from beneath the gray of his pant leg. “
CHARLOTTE! I AM A PINK SOCK! NICE TO MEET YOU!
”

The clock on the wall behind me hums, the only sound in the room until Dr. Hemphill asks, “So, what's been going on?”