Such a Pretty Face (15 page)

Portland, Oregon

T
he women clearly didn’t care if they killed each other.

I had never seen such aggression, such flat-out, blatant, rip-roaring competition in my life. And all from women who were wearing fishnet tights and roller skates. This was the fifth roller derby bout I’d watched, and I know this: Women’s roller derby competitions are not for the faint of heart.

Zena belonged to Portland’s Break Your Neck Booties roller derby team. Her derby name was Badass Z Woman, and she was constantly trying to get me to join. “I know there’s a she-devil in you, a knee breaker, a bottom booter, a savage Roller-blading demon.”

I sucked in my breath.
I couldn’t join the Break Your Neck Booties.
No way. They’re all women, aged twenty-two to fifty. With the fishnets they wear short black skirts, red satin shirts, helmets, elbow pads, and kneepads. Their ferocious battles fried any preconceived notion that women are naturally gentle. These women played to win. They are rough. They are tough. They are deadly. They are Alpha Women.

I am only an Alpha Woman in my daydreams, but I secretly, in my wildest dreams and fantasies, want to belong to that group. But I can’t. Too scared. Too out of shape. And I’m not vicious enough.

“Oh, my goodness, those women would mush me. Mush me,” I said. Off the track the team consists of two doctors, one a brain surgeon no less, a prosecuting attorney, a defense attorney, two full-time mothers with seven kids between them, a makeup artist, a tow truck driver, a minister, and Zena. “None of them would even be interested in viewing the mush I became.”

“Then toughen up, you wimp!” Zena shouted, her arms in the air. I had caught her lurking outside the pillars of our office again last week. She had insisted on wearing the oversized red sweater I was wearing. The red sweater came almost to her knees. She pulled a rope—a rope—out of her desk and tied it around her waist three times and kept her black cowboy boots on. She was so chic that Caroline and the other male attorneys probably got boners.

“You can do this, Stevie,” she pleaded.

“Oh, I can’t. Didn’t you break someone’s arm last week?”

Zena smiled, proud. “Not intentionally. She was in my way. She scratched me later. See that?” I dutifully admired her very long scratch.

“You’re an Amazon woman, Zena. A warrior.”

She pleaded, I declined, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t watch the roller derby bouts and cheer my head off.

When Zena stepped off the track after a particularly bad crash with a competitor who was wearing a blue silky half top, a jean skirt, and red tights, she spit blood out of her mouth, checked her teeth with her fingers, wiped the blood off, and went speeding back onto the track with a roar—no kidding, she actually roared.

I wanted to be a Break Your Neck Booties gal.

I did.

I couldn’t, though.

Could I?

I called cafés, coffee shops, restaurants, and asked if they had received my application.

Yes, they had.

One restaurant had 200 applications for a hostess position. “Ma’am, I have people with doctorates applying for this position,” the manager told me.

A café had 122 applications for two jobs as baristas. “We’ll give you a call.” He coughed. “Maybe.” Coughed again. “Don’t hold your breath.”

A copy shop, a garage door repair service, and an automotive shop all had advertised for help. “I’m buried in résumés,” one man said. “Buried.”

I needed a second job.

I sure as heck wasn’t going to take the chicken job.

On Monday morning I went for a walk through a light drizzle starting at six o’clock.

When I heard footsteps behind me, I whirled around quick. It was still dark and quiet.

“Hi, Stevie, it’s me.”

It was Jake, the he-man neighbor who put a flutter in my breast.
Don’t think of him naked!

“Hi.” I thought of the pasta-dumping incident. “I want you to know that I don’t usually do that, it was an aberration, with the pasta. I don’t usually dump pasta on men, but you see my friend, Zena, set me up on that date, she put me on this Date Me Web site, I didn’t even know I was up there, and then I went, and I didn’t want to go, but the guy was so disgusting, and he made my skin crawl, and all I could see was that pasta and that ice water….”

“So he wasn’t your boyfriend?”

“Uh, no. That would be a no. I do not have a boyfriend. Do you?”

“No. I have never had a boyfriend,” he said in all seriousness.

“I didn’t mean to say that….” My face got hot.

“It’s okay, we’ll just clear the air right from the start.” He chuckled again. “Can I walk with you?”

I nodded, almost jiggled I was so pleased despite the naked thoughts. We made small talk for a while—the weather, Oregon in general, our neighborhood—and I was able to utter words in an appropriate, and not deranged, fashion.

“Stevie, I bought my house about seven months ago.”

I nodded. I knew that. I knew the day he moved in because me and Nancy had gawked at him as he and some buddies moved furniture and technology stuff into his home that one would find in accordance with the male species.

“And I’ve waved at you, tried to chat with you, and…well, I think”—he paused delicately—“I think you’re avoiding me.”

I closed my eyes, then opened them again, lest I trip over a sidewalk crack, splat straight down on my face, and break my nose.

“Are you avoiding me?” He stopped walking. “Stevie, I sure would like to get to know you, but I don’t want to push here, either. You have this beautiful, beautiful smile….”

I did?

“And that dimple in your cheek…”

My dimple!

“And I like…I don’t know how to say this, but I like how you live. I like the way your home is painted, and how you drive that truck that makes so much noise, how you walk all the time, and know how to use a saw. I’ve heard the sound from your garage. I think you’re a kind person, and I thought it was hilarious when you dumped pasta in that guy’s lap, but, well…” He brushed his blondish hair back with a hand, and it fell right back to where it was. “Have you been avoiding me, and if so, just say it, and I won’t keep trying to say hello, or visit with you at all. I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable or uneasy around me….”

I could lie. I could twist things, say I’d been busy, and so on, but so much of my life had already been a lie. Who I was, my own name, who my parents were, what had happened to me and Sunshine…

“Yes,” I said, and my voice squeaked. “I have been avoiding you.”

He wasn’t smiling, and those green eyes were suddenly sad. “Can I ask why?”

I bent my head for a minute, juggling a hundred thoughts, trying to put them into some cohesive order. “I…”

“It has been somewhat amusing to watch you leap over hedges, dart into alleys, and hide behind recycling bins, but I think it would be best if we could alleviate some of your troubles and calisthenics. The other day I thought you landed pretty hard.”

I dared to stare up into those eyes—sad, but laughing now, too, and I laughed.

“I have been rather kamikaze-ish with my escape moves, haven’t I?” Oh, what to say, I was so embarrassed. “Jake, I’m sorry. I…” Say something, brain. “I have, uhhh…” Come on, mouth, be articulate. “I, uhhh…” All failed me. “I am still trying, uh, to find myself.”

I peered up at him, waited for him to laugh, but he did not.

“I am not quite me yet, and I know that sounds truly insane, but there have been a few, uh, slight changes in my life the last few years, well, maybe there were herculean-sized changes and, well, I’m not altogether yet, and you…”

“And me?”

“Well, you seem altogether, like you know yourself, and you get yourself, you get Jake, if that makes the remotest amount of sense at all, and I am still trying to figure out who I am, who Stevie is. I know…I know I want to have a vegetable garden, with carrots, and I know that I like furniture with personality, colored glass, and walking, and I know I don’t like a couple of people in my life, or my nightmares or a messy house, but me, who I am, I’m not sure of that yet and you—”

“Back to me?”

“Yes, well, you are…” I gazed at him head to toe and tried not to think: Naked Jake. “You are…well, very, handsome…” Why did I use that word? “And you seem very…man-like.” Oh, dear. “And you are tall and broad up there on your shoulders.” I am an idiot. “And you have a great smile and you seem so confident in your man-like attitude and it’s…” I breathed in—oh, cease, my pounding heart. “And you’re too much to take, I don’t know what to say to you, I don’t know why you even want to talk to me, I’m working on myself but I’m not quite there yet. You think I’m the strangest person you’ve ever met, don’t you?”

We stood in the drizzly rain and didn’t say anything for a while, but his eyes never left mine, although mine skittered from his.

“You are not the strangest person I have ever met, but quite possibly the most endearing. I don’t know what to say about my man-like attitude—I’m stuck with it—but I do appreciate you telling me I’m handsome. Haven’t heard that word in a while, but it’s a pleasure to hear it—and I have an idea.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Let’s you and I, as friends, find out who you are.”

“I don’t think you want to do that. I am complex and odd and have many troubling issues you probably don’t need in your life. I think we should go back to my jumping into alleys.”

“Please, let’s not. The next time I see you do that, I’m going to follow you in.”

Now that sounded almost romantic, and I smiled and blushed. I knew he saw that blush.

His smile, warm and honest, came right back at me like a golden, flashing light. “How about if we find out who you are by going out to dinner soon?”

“You’re kidding. You want to have dinner with me?”

“Yes, I do, Stevie, yes, I do.”

I love rainy days in Oregon.

I darn near clicked my rain boots.

Mr. and Mrs. Leod were due at one o’clock.

This time Cherie asked me to sit at the conference table with them.

“For wrestling purposes,” Cherie told me, and winked. “Holding Mrs. Leod last time took the two of us, and I got my nails done yesterday. It would be a shame if they chipped—aren’t they pretty?”

I laughed. I had become a legal assistant after putting myself through two years of college. I broke three chairs in college classes, was beyond humiliated, had terrible health problems, and dropped out. I wished I’d finished college, but I do love working for Cherie even when I have to wrestle.

Today Cherie was wearing a black leather skirt, a black leather vest, and a purple lace top. She was also wearing boots to her knees. Not your typical attorney.

Scott Bills came in with Mr. Leod, who seemed slightly more subdued today, but nervous, antsy, his hands diving in and out of his pockets.

“Hello, Cherie.” Scott shook Cherie’s hand, then mine, military firm. “Hello, Stevie. Recovered from our last meeting?”

I laughed again. “Absolutely. And I’ve already warmed up my muscles for this match.” I flexed.

At the exact moment that Mr. Leod settled in his seat, Mrs. Leod stormed through the foyer of our offices. She was wearing an elegantly cut charcoal brown suit with a lacy scarf tucked in, her hair and makeup magazine perfect.

It was the stormy expression on her face that gave us our first clue, and the fact that she had already used the F word twice. She screeched it, then attached Mr. Leod’s name to it. The second clue was the box she was carrying in her hands.

“Here we go,” Cherie said. “The tornado has arrived.”

“Prepare for impact,” Scott said.

“Shiiiitttt,” Mr. Leod said.

I held my breath as Mrs. Leod charged into the conference room. I said, “Good morning, Mrs. Leod.”

“To hell with your good morning,” she shrieked. Then, before we could stop her, she leaped up on the conference table—she’s a nimble thing—and held the box high up over her head. “Say good morning to Sam, Frank!”

What?
Who was Sam?

Mr. Leod’s primal roar echoed right around that room. Cherie reached for Mrs. Leod’s legs, and Scott grabbed Mr. Leod.

“Put him down!” Mr. Leod shouted. “Put him down!”

“You son of a bitch! You sold my Jimmy Choos, all of them, online!”

“You deserved it! I will never forgive you for painting my boat pink!”

“That’s because you cut my fur coat in half and hung it on our flagpole! Now say good-bye to Sam!” She held the box above her head, then tossed it up in the air.

“Nooooo!” Mr. Leod roared.

Mrs. Leod caught the box and half ran, half wobbled down the conference table on her four-inch heels as Mr. Leod writhed free from Scott and leaped up on the table.

“I feel the beginnings of a headache….” Cheri murmured.

“Can we charge them extra for being a pain in the butt?” Scott asked.

“You can itemize it under PITB,” I said. “You know, Pain In The Butt, but acronymic.”

Scott nodded at me. “You are very clever, Stevie.”

We watched as Mr. Leod grabbed Mrs. Leod from behind and lifted her up.

She struggled around as a worm on a hook would. “Let me go or this will be the end of Sam.” She tried to throw the box in the air, but he blocked it. Then she turned around and kneed him. Mr. Leod doubled over.

“Up yours!” She brought her heel down on his foot.

“No, up yours, you cantankerous witch,” he wheezed out, dropping to his knees, hands on crotch.

Then Mrs. Leod ripped open the box lid, put her hand inside, and grabbed something. She threw it straight up in the air.

Mr. Leod scrambled to his feet, pale with pain, leaped, and knocked over Mrs. Leod. He grabbed whatever it was flying through the air, landed, and the table cracked, right down the middle. Mr. Leod fell through with an “Oooof.”

Mrs. Leod landed on Mr. Leod with an enraged “Dammit to hell! Don’t you mess up my hair!”

And raised up high, in Mr. Leod’s hand, was…

I peered close.

“What is that?” Cherie said.

“It’s green,” Scott said.

“Oh, my gosh,” I said as it wiggled.