visited us in California a couple of times before graduating high school a year ahead of me and going off to Duke. A college track and field athlete, she had won a silver medal in the hurdles at the Olympics. She started skating because running on a treadmill during the gloomy winter months was “too damned boring.”
I’d been skeptical about roller derby, but it wasn’t what I’d expected. The women ranged in age from about twenty to almost forty and, like Kyra, were into it for the fun of skating and being part of a competitive team. Some of the women were muscle-bound, some were almost waiflike. Some sported tattoos, some didn’t. As the women whizzed around the track, with the jammers trying to lap the other team, I admired the way they worked together, the way a skater would scramble up if knocked down. There was definitely no crying in roller derby, not even when a nose got bloodied, a finger got jammed, or a hip got bruised in a fall.
I yelled along with the crowd, urging the Vengeance to pulverize the visitors, the Morganville Morgue. The Vengeance won, 147 to 113. Kyra celebrated with her team, then skated over to me and plunked down on the bleacher, gym bag in hand. She was breathing hard and had a smell of clean sweat about her.
“I’m going to be sore tomorrow,” she said, unlacing her skates.
“You say that every time.”
“Yeah, well, it’s true every time. And it gets truer every year. We’re not getting any younger.” She threw a Blue Devils sweatshirt over her tank top, pulled on matching sweatpants, and slipped on flip-flops decorated with beads and yarn wrapped around the straps. She wiggled her strong toes with their purple-polished nails as if glad to be out of the confining skates.
“It’s forty-two degrees out,” I said.
“I know.”
“Where to?”
We made a swing through the deli at the Giant, collecting an eclectic mix of sushi, tortilla soup, curried chicken salad, and mini éclairs, and headed back to my house. One story of brick front with forest green trim in a community that boasted a pool, lush landscaping, and quiet neighbors—my house might not be my parents’ California spread, but it was all mine. I’d bought the small ranch house, part of a planned “village” of similar homes, when I moved here just over a year ago. When the military medically retired me, I didn’t know where I wanted to live, although I knew I didn’t want to return to L.A. and be near my folks. The thought of Mom and Dad trying to coddle me, and my former friends politely not asking about my leg, convinced me I wanted to live as far away as possible. When Grandpa Atherton mentioned that a friend of his was selling the rancher that he’d used as a rental property, I drove out from Walter Reed—the military hospital in D.C. where I was doing my rehab—to view it. My mom had begged me to buy the house and move to Vernonville to “keep an eye on” Grandpa. I suspected she was likewise urging him to keep an eye on me, worried about my knee and my mind-set; being forced out of the military and discovering I couldn’t work as a cop had depressed me for a while.
Being offered the job at Fernglen Galleria sealed the deal. Having Kyra nearby was a huge bonus. I bought the house, even though it was a bit of a fixer-upper. The last renter had done some damage—I suspected he was either a rock star wannabe practicing Keith Richards’s hotel-room-trashing techniques, or had eight children or a pack of wolves. I’m not patient enough to be the do-it-yourself type; the “measure eight times, cut once” philosophy of construction, plus the need to make fourteen trips to the home improvement store in the middle of every project, drive me batty. So, I was hiring the work done as my mall paycheck allowed. The project currently underway was tiling the kitchen floor, since the renter had managed, in some never explained way, to scorch and burn several spots in the linoleum.
“I see progress,”
I’d been skeptical about roller derby, but it wasn’t what I’d expected. The women ranged in age from about twenty to almost forty and, like Kyra, were into it for the fun of skating and being part of a competitive team. Some of the women were muscle-bound, some were almost waiflike. Some sported tattoos, some didn’t. As the women whizzed around the track, with the jammers trying to lap the other team, I admired the way they worked together, the way a skater would scramble up if knocked down. There was definitely no crying in roller derby, not even when a nose got bloodied, a finger got jammed, or a hip got bruised in a fall.
I yelled along with the crowd, urging the Vengeance to pulverize the visitors, the Morganville Morgue. The Vengeance won, 147 to 113. Kyra celebrated with her team, then skated over to me and plunked down on the bleacher, gym bag in hand. She was breathing hard and had a smell of clean sweat about her.
“I’m going to be sore tomorrow,” she said, unlacing her skates.
“You say that every time.”
“Yeah, well, it’s true every time. And it gets truer every year. We’re not getting any younger.” She threw a Blue Devils sweatshirt over her tank top, pulled on matching sweatpants, and slipped on flip-flops decorated with beads and yarn wrapped around the straps. She wiggled her strong toes with their purple-polished nails as if glad to be out of the confining skates.
“It’s forty-two degrees out,” I said.
“I know.”
“Where to?”
We made a swing through the deli at the Giant, collecting an eclectic mix of sushi, tortilla soup, curried chicken salad, and mini éclairs, and headed back to my house. One story of brick front with forest green trim in a community that boasted a pool, lush landscaping, and quiet neighbors—my house might not be my parents’ California spread, but it was all mine. I’d bought the small ranch house, part of a planned “village” of similar homes, when I moved here just over a year ago. When the military medically retired me, I didn’t know where I wanted to live, although I knew I didn’t want to return to L.A. and be near my folks. The thought of Mom and Dad trying to coddle me, and my former friends politely not asking about my leg, convinced me I wanted to live as far away as possible. When Grandpa Atherton mentioned that a friend of his was selling the rancher that he’d used as a rental property, I drove out from Walter Reed—the military hospital in D.C. where I was doing my rehab—to view it. My mom had begged me to buy the house and move to Vernonville to “keep an eye on” Grandpa. I suspected she was likewise urging him to keep an eye on me, worried about my knee and my mind-set; being forced out of the military and discovering I couldn’t work as a cop had depressed me for a while.
Being offered the job at Fernglen Galleria sealed the deal. Having Kyra nearby was a huge bonus. I bought the house, even though it was a bit of a fixer-upper. The last renter had done some damage—I suspected he was either a rock star wannabe practicing Keith Richards’s hotel-room-trashing techniques, or had eight children or a pack of wolves. I’m not patient enough to be the do-it-yourself type; the “measure eight times, cut once” philosophy of construction, plus the need to make fourteen trips to the home improvement store in the middle of every project, drive me batty. So, I was hiring the work done as my mall paycheck allowed. The project currently underway was tiling the kitchen floor, since the renter had managed, in some never explained way, to scorch and burn several spots in the linoleum.
“I see progress,”
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