She Didn't Fix Her Reputation. She Threw It Away novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Fresh Meat

With no phone and forty dollars, she walks into a Millvale roller rink and gets mistaken for a derby recruit, until the TV shows Grayson offering $50,000 to find her.

The phone hit the river without making a sound I could hear.

A truck rattled over the bridge behind me.

I stood at the rail until rain soaked through my white blouse.

My bag held forty dollars, a bus transfer, and a lipstick my mother's stylist had chosen.

I had no key.

The house key was on the ring with my car key, back on the kitchen island.

My car was back in her garage.

I started walking toward the lights on the other side of the river.

The sidewalk ended twice, and I crossed under the bridge beside a road full of puddles.

By the time I found the main street in Millvale, my shoes had filled with water.

Most shops were closed.

One building still had a bright sign over its doors.

RAFFERTY'S SKATE CENTER.

The letters blinked in pairs, and music thumped through the brick wall.

I pushed inside because the lobby was warm.

The smell hit me first: popcorn, floor polish, and wet wool.

Women in helmets circled a painted oval at alarming speed.

One skater rolled backward while talking to somebody in the bleachers.

She pointed at a smaller woman and shouted, "Move your ass!"

The smaller woman moved.

Then she struck the floor so hard I felt it through my shoes.

I turned toward the door.

"Fresh meat?" somebody called.

A woman with a bleached pixie cut hurried toward me.

She wore a helmet with TONI MONTANA written across the front.

Cherries ran down one tattooed arm.

"You're late, but we have twenty minutes left. I'm Toni. What's your name?"

"George," I said.

It came out before I had time to choose something better.

"George it is. Shoe size?"

"I don't skate."

"Nobody does until they do. Shoe size?"

I looked at the door again.

The rain ran down its glass in gray sheets.

"Eight," I said.

Toni whooped and led me to a counter piled with rental skates.

A man stood behind it with a skate blade in one hand and a cloth in the other.

He was broad enough to block the rack behind him.

A dark beard covered most of his face, and a scar crossed one eyebrow.

He glanced at my soaked blouse and then at my face.

His hand stopped on the blade.

Toni tapped the counter.

"Eight, helmet, pads. She's trying out."

"Those shoes won't make it home," he said.

It was the first thing he said to me.

"They weren't doing well before I came in."

His mouth moved slightly.

He put dry socks beside the skates.

"Lost and found. Fresh ones."

Toni waited while I pulled them over my cold feet.

She knelt to check my laces, then shoved a helmet onto my head.

"Bend your knees. If you fall, land on the pads."

"How often will that happen?"

"How much time have you got?"

The man behind the counter made a sound that might have been a laugh.

I stepped onto the floor and landed on both knees.

"One," Toni called.

I stood up holding her arm.

I took three steps and fell backward onto my padded backside.

"Two. Try to keep that pretty head away from the floor."

The women skated past without staring at me.

One offered a hand each time she passed.

By the seventh fall, I had stopped looking for the door.

By the eleventh, I could cross the short side of the rink without Toni holding me.

On the fourteenth, my legs flew apart and I landed in front of the snack bar.

I started laughing.

I couldn't stop.

Toni rolled up and rested her elbows on her knees.

"Are you hurt?"

"Probably," I said.

"Good answer."

She helped me up as the music cut off.

The skaters gathered their bags and argued about a missed block.

I tried to hand back the socks.

The man at the counter looked at them and shook his head.

"They're yours."

"I can't pay for the skates," I said.

"Nobody asked."

Toni appeared with a towel and a paper cup of hot chocolate.

"You need somewhere to dry off?"

I wrapped both hands around the cup.

"I've got a couch," she said. "My kid's got school tomorrow, so you'll have to meet the terrible breakfast cook in the morning."

"I don't know you."

"Fair. I'm the woman who counted your falls out loud."

I drank the chocolate and burned my tongue.

"I can leave in the morning," I said.

"You can leave whenever you want."

The television over the snack bar changed from a hockey game to the evening news.

Grayson's face filled the screen.

He stood on my mother's lawn, with his head bowed and his eyes shining.

"I'm frightened for Georgie," he said. "I'll give fifty thousand dollars to anyone who helps bring my fiancée home."

Toni lowered her cup.

Across the room, the man at the counter turned from the screen and looked straight at me.

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