Desk Jockey Jam

by Ainslie Paton

  Toni shook her head at him and walked away and he sat on watching a lizard scuttle in the flower bed and wished he could bury himself in the earth as well. No such luck.

  “What’s with you?”

  Men were given younger sisters for a reason, but Ant had no idea what it was. Arabella stood in his sunlight, hands on hips, questions on lips.

  He looked up at her and said, “Puce.”

  “Are you sick? That’d be right, leave all this cleaning up to me and Miriam. Mum’s exhausted. Nonna’s already gone to have a lay down.”

  He sighed. “I’m not sick.”

  Bella sat beside him. “Something’s wrong with you. What did you do to Toni?”

  “Nothing.”

  They both watched the lizard and listened to cousin Mario complain about school fee increases. When that got too painful he said, “Do you know about Toni?”

  “Know what? I know you did something to her.”

  “All I did was ask her out.” All he’d done was lose his head and his heart to her in the space of fifteen minutes, like some freak out of the chick flicks Mum liked. If what he felt after being smacked down was even one whisker of what Dan felt when he’d cut Alex loose he had no idea how the guy didn’t drown himself.

  “Oh.” Bella looked him full in the face. “Ouch.”

  “So you do know.”

  “Of course.”

  “Does everyone know? Mum, Nonna?”

  “God no. And it’s not like she wants to make a thing of it. And before you ask, yes her parents know, and they’re fine about it.”

  “So I’m the last moron who didn’t know.”

  “Yep.” She patted him on the shoulder. “That’s what happens when you don’t pay attention.”

  “I pay attention.” Toni had said something similar.

  “No you don’t. You only pay attention to five things, Ant: being a good son to Mum, a good grandson to Nonna, a good brother to Mim and me, surfing with the boys and work. I bet you can’t even remember the names of Francesca’s twins.”

  He had no idea. He could see them across the yard in their car carry-ons. One wore white, one wore yellow; there weren’t even any clues to what sex they were. Yet he’d been at their christening a month ago. Well, his good son, grandson and brother body had been. His head had been at work.

  “Look as family you’re the best. Dad would be so proud of you, but you have tunnel vision, you only see what’s right in front of you, and you only pay attention to what you can use.”

  “You make me sound like an awful person, a real user, some kind of monster.”

  Bella sighed. She stood and brushed her skirt down. “No, just an average bloke.”

  4: Pivot

  Bree in her Kitty Caruso uniform, sat with her four team mates: Detonator, Pregnant Pause, Ann Arkey, and Cath Arsis watching the Bad Secretaries take on the Tuck Shop Ladies Arms. The Tuckers used a goat herding strategy to put the Bad Secretaries out of play and free their own jammer. They were going to win.

  Beside her Toni the Detonator Pagano shouted, “Good whip,” as the Tucker’s pivot grabbed their jammer’s hand and swung her forward so she was better positioned to break through the pack and score.

  But Bree felt both jammed and whipped, and she didn’t dare pivot because Detonator had brought a Stickyfoot—a non skating, family friend along to the bout and that family friend was Anthony Gambese.

  “Tell me again how you know him?” she hissed. “You’ve been away so long I didn’t think you knew anyone.”

  “The Gambeses and the Paganos have known each other since day dot. Oh good jam!” yelled Detonator. “Our mothers were best friends. Our fathers too, until Ant’s dad died when Ant was fifteen. Ant and I took baths together, played street cricket, had our first smokes, you know that kind of thing. But once his dad died he was busy being the man of the family and had no time for me. I haven’t seen him for years. How was I supposed to know you worked with him? Don’t worry, there’s no way he’s going to recognise you. I hardly recognise you.”

  This was true. And it wasn’t simply because this was the last place Anthony would think of looking for her. For a start, Anthony hardly ever looked at her anyway. It was as though he thought he shouldn’t in case she read something unprofessional, something sexual into it. On top of that, The Big Swinging Tricks uniform was a good disguise. Under all her padding and helmet, with her hair tucked up, and black war paint on her face, Bree was virtually undisguisable from any of the Tricks with the exception her lack of tattoos and the big red stars on her helmet which signified she was a jammer, responsible for scoring the team’s points.

  “And you brought him because?”

  “Because he made an arse of himself then apologised so damn sweetly I felt sorry for him. He’s my cuz. He’s the brother I never had. Why do you care that he’s here?”

  Bree knew why she cared. It was too close for comfort, but she wasn’t sure which part of what Toni said to react to first. Anthony being an arse, that he could apologise sweetly, or that he could make anyone feel sorry for him.

  The being an arse thing she could see. He’d been an arse to her this week, just for violating the unspoken principles of their territorial deal and coming into the office early. He’d invaded the peace of her mornings with his strong smelling take-away coffee, his brooding dark looks and general pissed-off-with-her-ness.

  Then he’d written an absolutely cracker report on demand uncertainty that Doug had taken straight to Bryan, who’d come out of his lair to personally talk to Anthony. And she was supposed to be The Senior Analyst.

  Worse she knew he was breathing down her neck in the share portfolio competition, which she was supposed to win. Had to win, otherwise everyone would think her promotion was about skirts and heels, not the quality of her work.

  They’d been taking their places on the team bench when Detonator waved at him across the stadium and pointed him out. Bree nearly stacked. Anthony wasn’t in his Armani or Boss, just jeans and a t-shirt, he wasn’t even clean shaven, a dark shadow of stubble on his jaw. And he was tanned and his t-shirt emphasised what his suit didn’t—a wall of chest and shoulder, narrow hips and powerful legs. Yeah, he was a sex god out of the office as well as in. And that was so inconvenient.

  He’d brought a crowd with him, three girls and four other guys. Bree watched them find a row of seats that would take them all and settle in. From the strategic placement of arms and hands she worked out the girls were all accounted for, which left a cute athletic looking blonde guy and Anthony as the only two not partnered up—unless.

  “Tone, is he gay?”

  “Ant! God no. He’s a player. Big time. Kind of a slut I suspect. He embarrassed himself by asking me out.”

  “He asked you out. And you’re like cousins, siblings, and he didn’t know?”

  Toni shrugged. “He stopped paying attention to me a long time ago. It was a very awkward moment, but since our families run together I’ll have to see him for the rest of my life, I didn’t want it to be strained, so I asked him to come watch. Anyway what does it matter? Why are you so concerned he’s going to recognise you?”

  “Because I’m The Senior Analyst, and senior analysts at Australia’s oldest and most respected stockbroker do not play in a full contact roller derby league and wear undies everyone can see with Bite Me written on them.”

  The Detonator laughed. “Well maybe they should. Why are you ashamed of it? I looked up your stats. Kitty Caruso is one of the league’s best jammers.”

  “I’m not ashamed. I just don’t think it’s anyone at work’s business.”

  Detonator took her eyes off the new bout in progress, Trash Talking Tarts versus Impossible Princesses and looked at her. “He’s a good guy, Bree. You could trust him.”

  “I think he’s a jerk. There are only six of us in the mining equities team, we all got hired together twelve months ago and until I got promoted he hardly knew I existed. He only noticed me because I beat him and given
he’s a big boofy bloke, that damaged his fragile little ego. Now he’s trying to out-compete me. I can do without him knowing anything about me, especially something that could hurt my reputation.”

  Bree puffed out a breath, snatched another. This really was annoying. Derby was her sanctuary, rough, loud, fast, intensely competitive. It was the place she could let off steam, shout and shove, push and parade around saying ‘looking at me’, and no one would judge her for being a show-off, a big mouth or an aggressive piece of work.

  They’d love her for it.

  If she did any of those things in the office, even toned down she’d be branded a diva, a trouble-maker, hard to work with and on her way out the door. Because what was good for the blokes was not good for the chicks. If a bloke was aggressive, loud, pushy and competitive, it was his hot ticket to the top. It was all so unfair. And now that dark and Euro-surly was sitting in her stadium, dirtying up her sanctuary she had one more reason to resent him.

  Toni grunted. “Ah, it’s like that. I’m glad I work with knives and I’m top dog. No one threatens me in my kitchen unless they want to be looking for a job in someone else’s before the shift is over.

  Bree sighed. Maybe if she waved a few knives around at Petersens they’d forget she wore heels and be too manhood-threatened not to get out of her way.

  Toni bumped her, elbow pad to elbow pad. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

  She nearly left the seat. “Oh fuck no!”

  Toni elbowed her again and laughed. She shouted, “Okay, okay. I won’t say a word,” over the half time music starting up, Adam Ant singing Goody Two Shoes.

  They waited while the Trash Talkers and the Princesses left the track, going to their team benches for a short break to allow the fans to top up on junk food and hopefully shell out on team merchandise, which along with the players’ dues kept the league alive.

  There was little sponsorship, no prize money, no pay to play, no fame. Like lots of women’s sports, roller derby simply didn’t rate the attention of mainstream media, so the fan base was smaller than it might’ve been, and with the costs of the stadiums, event management and insurances, keeping the league running was a dicey undertaking.

  It was easily as fast as basketball, almost as rough as football, it was strategic like soccer, and far more exciting than cricket, but since it was a woman’s sport, it was only second best. Bree tugged the snap on her helmet and resettled it on her head. Second best could very well be the story of her career if she didn’t stay focussed at work. Maybe Anthony showing up on her patch was a sign. Maybe it was time to give this up. She’d missed more training sessions than she’d made it to this year. The risk of an injury and having to lie about it was high, and now the risk of exposure was higher. Hopefully, G-man would only come this once and go back to whatever else it was he did when he wasn’t dissing territorial agreements and embarrassing himself by asking the wrong girl out.

  She watched him and his friends, sharing out cans of drink and hot chips. It was hard to imagine him embarrassed. Harder still to imagine him doing anything sweetly, and impossible to conceive he didn’t have a girlfriend. Toni said he was a player; he probably juggled a dozen women. She sat forward and scrutinised him across the track with the benefit of knowing she could without being caught. If he juggled a dozen why did he come alone today, and why was he watching the couple beside him kiss with what looked like envy?

  Interesting. When his crew had taken their seats again they’d sat in a different order. Now there were obvious couples on either side of G-man. He was blocked in by his own pack, the only one not scoring. In real life Anthony was a jammer, good at assessing the scene, seeing opportunities develop and being quick to take them. He wasn’t jamming now, and there was no pivot to throw him a hand and whip him forward. Maybe it was possible to feel sorry for him.

  ·

  “Scott, explain it again,” said Alex, leaning across Dan to prod Scott in the leg. “I think I like this.”

  Ant had Alex on his right with Dan then Scott at the end of the row, and Mitch on his left with Belinda, then Carlie and Fluke. He could hear Belinda and Carlie squeal every time a skater went down which was a regular thing. This was almost like attending the dance championship heats to watch Dan and Alex, except with porn names, loud speaker commentary, 80’s hits, hip checking and limb crunching aggression. And the fans came in dress up. Toni’s team’s fans were easily distinguishable by their hot pink t-shirts and top hats. Supporters of the team they were playing, the Roaming Scandals, wore togas. He guessed the pun, a bad one, was on Roman sandal.

  “Two teams of five on the track at the same time. Everything moves counter- clockwise.” Scott winced in time with Carlie’s squeal as a player on Toni’s team face-planted the track. “Each team has one person who can score. That’s the jammer. They’re the ones with the stars on their helmets. They score by getting past all the others in the pack. The ones on their team help them and the ones on the other team try to stop them.”

  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 great
est 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.