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  Roll with the Punches – Description

  A rollicking, humorous chick lit adventure, full of fun and light romance.

  Falling is extra hard on tall people, like Rhonda Hamilton: the bone breakage, the bruises, the ignominy of it all. And Rhonda’s falling, hard. The latest novel from a reclusive national bestselling author is a twin to the manuscript she’s just finished and started marketing to agents. Some wild roller derby girls add a hint of crazy to Rhonda’s hunt for the book thief, but can they find out the truth before her reputation tanks?

  Plus, Dad is acting odd, storing milk in the garage and throwing away Rhonda’s clothes. Two drool-worthy guys offer to help, guys Rhonda would gladly fall for, if her life weren’t careening between crazy Dad, crazier roller girls, and crazy-cute hunks, then rocketing through derby bouts, giant mudslides and burlesque fundraisers. If she wants to nail the wily plagiarist and keep Dad safe, Rhonda had better stay up on her skates to avoid a very big fall.

  ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES

  A Story of Roller Derby, Alzheimer's and Plagiarism

  by

  Amy Gettinger

  Raucous Eucalyptus Press Irvine, CA 2013

  To my father and mother, Edward and Patricia Buckheister

  Never a dull moment, especially in their eighties.

  Miss you, Dad.

  CHAPTER 1

  October, 2006

  Almost home. Sweat pooled under my bike helmet in the October heat, trickling down my forehead as I rounded the bushy corner by the middle school on my Giant bike. The skirt I'd worn to work at Rancho Santa Margarita Library was stuck to my thighs with sweat. Oh, for some lemonade. Three teenage boys shot across my path on skateboards, popping their front wheels onto the curb as they headed toward the middle school blacktop on my right. I had to swerve and brake hard to miss them.

  The scene by the school was unexpected chaos, with people everywhere. I checked my watch. 4:32 p.m. Normally ghost time on the school grounds. But today, a logjam of cars in the street was spilling out hordes of chattering people, carrying beach chairs and coolers toward a noisy, milling crowd on the blacktop. I hopped off my bike and walked it toward the throng with their billed caps and beer cans.

  Wait. Beer cans? At the middle school? Boy, this new PTA must be something.

  I got closer. In the middle of all the bustle, a herd of women as large as linebackers circled the blacktop on skates. Some were even bigger than me, which is saying something. They wore fishnets, mini-skirts, and well-filled tank tops, plus all the usual roller skating gear—helmets, elbow pads, knee pads, and wrist guards. The skaters, red-faced and sweaty, yelled and shoved each other with precisely aimed shoulders as they skated around a large oval on the asphalt. In the late October sun, their massive upper arms and thighs were pumping, their bosoms and jowls billowing like wild, loose rising loaves of dough. Nearby, a hand-lettered sign in yellow and green flapped in the warm wind, proclaiming: Orange County Roller Queens Exhibition Bout—Mission Viejo Nuns vs. Anaheim Amazons.

  A couple of smaller roller girls wove in and out of the giantesses. One reminded me of Sonic the Hedgehog, ducking through tiny holes between folks and pushing past bigger skaters, causing all kinds of havoc the big girls never saw coming. They toppled and parted, seemingly at her will. Cunning little poop.

  I stood there dripping sweat in the Santa Ana Wind, mesmerized by the spectacle as the crowd grew even larger, nearly covering the school grounds. Dogs and umbrellas and pizza and more beer showed up. I watched with fascination as the roller queens flipped their teammates around like human sling shots, then bumped each other off the track and skated gleefully on. Not a compunction among them.

  The men in the crowd watched this display with something very elemental in their eyes. Large, strong women in action were rare in the suburbs. But the women near me all seemed spellbound as well, half appalled at the roughness of the game and half loving the whole concept of hip-checking people out of their way, right off the track, just for fun.

  My bike got bumped from behind. I turned to see a three-year-old ramming it with his sister's fancy stroller. The snotty baby inside was laughing. And she was right. What was I doing standing here, indulging in mindless fantasy hip-checking? Revisions awaited me at home, or I'd be reading a very rough draft of my pages to my writers' group tonight. I sighed and turned my bike toward home.

  As I picked up speed, a small, white poodle shot out of the crowd, taking exception to my wheels, and pulled hard at the end of its leash, yapping and snarling. Silly dog. I rode on, but then a shout went up on the blacktop, and I turned my head to see a huge, gnarled pileup of helmeted Nuns and Amazons. Ouch. Only the littlest Amazon was still up, skating a victory lap.

  "Hey!" I heard nearby.

  I finally tore my eyes away in time to see the fluffy white dog somehow caught under my bike's moving wheels. Like laundry on spin cycle, the fluffball flipped and spun until the bike spit it out behind me in a little white heap before I even had time to brake.

  "Cuh-rap!" A blocky Latina in a tight roller queen costume ran up, broken leash in hand. A foot shorter than my “five-foot-thirteen” frame, she was built like a stack of old computer monitors on swivels. Her messy hair was dirty blonde with long dark roots, her face tough, her nose big. One eye crossed a bit, and one ear had a dozen gold hoops in it.

  I got off the bike with a sinking stomach. Surely, I had not killed yet another small animal. My childhood reputation had been one of "death on pets", and it was, sadly, well-deserved. When asked if one of her daughters could babysit, my mother would say, "Yes, but you want Monica. Rhonda's better with alphabetizing things than keeping them alive.”

  The Latina, about twenty-something, scooped up the whimpering dog in chubby arms, one with a vulture tattoo, the other with an angry tornado swirling up it. Her face had gone white. "Uh-oh."

  "Oh, God," I said, "Sorry. It was only under there a second." Stupid dog.

  She looked down appalled at the dog, whose eyes were big and sad, but whose tail was actually wagging.

  Dollar signs flashed in my head. "How much damage could there be in that amount of time? And how did he get off leash?"

  "She." She glanced over her shoulder, then back at the sad dog, and said in a Spanish accent, "Hey, you got a vet?"

  "Yeah," I said, "But they close at five o'clock. The dog is fine. See?"

  She narrowed her eyes. "You. Take us there. Now."

  "Don't you have a car?" I said, heart sinking.

  "Your car. Which way?" She started running at my gesture. I followed on the bike and she yelled back at me, "Move it. I don't got all day."

  * * *

  We exchanged names in the car. Cathy, better known as Catherine the Grunt on the Anaheim Amazons roller derby team, spent most of the vet visit outside, smoking and blaring rapid-fire Spanish punctuated with English curse words into her cell phone. The rest of the time, she sat biting her chipped black fingernails to the quick and jiggling every round joint she had like a four-year-old. She was still wearing her skates, kneepads, and elbow pads.

  After two tense hours, the little white fluffball emerged from her X-ray, MRI, and much pampering. The dog was fine except for a broken hind leg, which had been bandaged in bright pink. At the cost of a used car. As the tech handed her the idiot dog, its tongue flicked out and licked Cathy's chin.

  "Awww. See? She's fine. Don't worry," I said, leading the way to the front desk.

  Cathy looked up. "You don't get it. I'm broke. The repair shop won't even give back my car and it's my cousin's shop. You better pay or I’m gonna have to rob a bank."

  I sighed and paid. My librarian's salary had recently been cut, so I'd been tutoring
for more cash. Where could I fit in the twelve extra hours of tutoring needed to cover this little debacle?

  We headed to the car. "Do you need a ride home?" I asked.

  "No." She sighed, looking down at the smug little pup panting in her arms. "Back to the school." In the car, Cathy jiggled so much the dog squeaked.

  "You been with the Amazons long?" I asked, but she just looked green.

  As we neared our destination, she said, "Can I borrow your bike helmet? I'll bring it back tomorrow."

  Well, at least she wasn't suing me. "Uh, sure. I guess. You don’t have one?” No answer. "Listen, I'm really sorry about your dog."

  "She's not my dog," Cathy grimaced, undoing her seatbelt. "She belongs to Cleo, the team captain. She's all Cleo has for family. I am so screwed."

  "Team captain?" I envisioned one of the big, muffiny girls. But when we turned the final corner, only one person, cigarette in hand, paced in front of the now deserted school: the littlest, smartest Amazon.

  Cathy yelled as she opened the car door, "Dios mio! Smoke is coming out of her ears. Gimme that helmet.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Later, at my Tuesday night writers’ group meeting, I rubbed my shin, where a large bruise was forming. Ow. It had only been a couple of hours since a livid Cleo had grabbed her precious dog, then hauled off and punched Cathy hard in the solar plexus, sending her sprawling into the bushes. Then she'd turned to me with fire in her eyes and kicked my shin before stalking off.

  I'd given Cathy a ride home, then raced to my writers' group, and now I was being bored to tears by a silly guest lecturer wearing pink. Drone, drone, drone.

  That damned curly bronze hair, poking out adorably from the sparkly pink helmet reading PRAYING MANTIS, frames a heart-shaped visage and glittering green eyes. A pink lip curls at me as its owner breezes past, a tiny elbow pad jabbing at my hip. It waves at screaming fans in the stands.

  Oh, get real. My well-oiled wheels glide smoothly past the insect and I own the sloped wooden derby track. Until the mantis shoots under my arm in a blur of bubble-gum spandex and catches my skate on hers. I trip and hit Harley, and we crash hard into the rails.

  I hate pink.

  "Your ass is mine," I breathe, and tear through the sea of mean roller queen elbows on wheels of vengeance. Weaving around double-wide butts, I slam my significant mass right into my neon pink target and a swirl of shiny skirts and fishnets spirals down, down, past the coach's bench, and away.

  The crowd roars.

  Well, not exactly. The crowd in the evening cool of Jackie's dining room was laughing at my snores, and someone was kicking my leg under the table. I roused myself from my blissful roller queen stupor, raising my head from Jackie's shiny new mahogany dining table, a drop of drool by my mouth.

  "I mean, really." Our guest speaker, Yvette Winkler, had a proper English accent that grated on my every nerve. "Couldn't James do without this whole first chapter? Rhonda? Rhonda?"

  I tried to look alert, but it was difficult while also trying to remember the details of that vivid roller derby dream, which I needed to jot down for the start of my next story. My fellow writers laughed some more. At me. Thank God it was almost break time.

  "Rhonda?" Yvette cooed at me. "Woolgathering, dear?" Bronze curls escaped her pink headband, complimenting her narrow green eyes. The ex-editorial-assistant-turned-published-author/freelance-editor wrinkled her freckled nose and tapped a long pink fingernail on the table. Not a cool move for a guest speaker.

  I shook my head free of roller schemes. "Er—no. I was—"

  "Well, that's good, because …" And Yvette was off again, hawking her dubious services in an annoying bee-like buzz. Apparently, Yvette thought our writers' group was "experienced but leaderless," and she was fully prepared to come in and run our "rather haphazard" group meetings and give us all "insightful" feedback on three thousand words a week for a "small" weekly fee from each of us. This would "ensure quality output," from all of us.

  "It's a win-win proposition, isn't it?" rang Yvette's bright BBC tones. "No laggards in the publishing game!"

  "Laggards?" I said. "Most of us are published."

  "Look. How will James know his characters need more work," Yvette plunged on, "without an objective reader like me? As his friends, you all indulge him way too much. But the truth is his story needs to start with a bang. Get them hooked from page one." Blah, blah, blah.

  James Connors, our newest group member, had innocently volunteered to read his first chapter aloud to the group moments before, only to be made a bad example of now. He sat dejected on the other side of Yvette and pushed back his dark curly hair with a well-muscled arm and a sigh. His faded green scrubs, worn straight from work, accentuated his broad chest.

  I sure wanted to indulge him—way too much. Boy, did I ever. Until I realized he was staring appreciatively at Yvette's perky pink cashmere sweater and the miniscule jeans that would about fit my arm.

  " … The number of adjectives on his first page is staggering, but with some work …" she rattled on.

  Adjectives? I'd give her adjectives. Mean. Nasty. Presumptuous. Tiny. Six-legged.

  "Raise your hand if you agree?" Yvette said.

  It was just like third grade. Except, unlike the teacher, Yvette was standing next to me and she couldn't see the faces I was making.

  Marian Olsen, knitting at the end of the table, was amused. Jackie Shawn, our hostess, listening in from the kitchen, was snickering. And George Bonner, ogling Yvette from across the table, was bald.

  Yvette held forth. " … so you see …" The group had listened way too long.

  "Yvette, you want me to kill my first two chapters?" James finally got in edgewise.

  Yvette's green eyes glowed. "Oh, James, don't get me wrong. I really love your premise, but if we picked up the action in chapter two or three, put the reader right in the story, Rhonda wouldn't be falling asleep by page ten.”

  Grrrr. "I wasn't—"

  "Falling asleep?" James turned wounded blue eyes on me—lagoon-blue eyes that made him both vulnerable and edible amidst the warm woods and elegant furniture in Jackie's newly renovated house.

  "No, I—rough day. It’s not his fault," I said.

  Yvette took his hand. "I know it's hard to hear this, but trust me, James." Was she batting her lashes? This dining room just wasn't big enough for the both of us.

  See, I have this uncanny ability to take one look at a person and know their deepest desire. Of course, at age twelve, my sister wouldn't admit it when I'd revealed her desire to kiss Tom Selleck silly, and my best friend Harley called me a "fortune killer." But right now, I knew what Little Miss Spider had her sights on, besides control of our writers' group, and she couldn't have him. Ever.

  "I didn't fall asleep the first time I read it." My chin went up. "In fact, I think James's first page—actually, his whole first draft—is a terrific effort for a beginning writer. And he's very brave for reading tonight after an absence of what? Three months?"

  "Absolutely." Marian agreed, pushing her short, sassy gray hair back. Her gray eyes sparkled. Author of a successful series, she had recently switched from writing mystery and suspense to writing non-fiction when her novel research had turned up more intriguing things to write about in real life. Her secret wish was to paraglide with Colin Firth on her sixtieth birthday.

  "I liked the hors d'oeuvres shaped like breasts." Jackie's words floated in on a waft of coffee and pastry smells from the stove. She wrote erotica that made me blush. Her deepest desire: a gold Porsche, a villa in Nice, and a firmer butt.

  George finked out on me. "The party scene was fun, but James needs to clarify his character motivation." George wrote and published sexy mysteries with a female detective named Marta. I really didn't want to know his innermost desires.

  James smiled his thanks at us. A lock of brown hair curled on his wide forehead, a yummy lock that would look fantastic in the portrait I planned to paint fo
r the hallway of our first house. Oh, yes. I had plans for that noble forehead and the spark in those vivid blue eyes. Plans that included many years of hot, sweaty nights, cool romantic days and travel to exotic realms.

  Unfortunately, we hadn’t really dated. Yet. We'd attended the odd sports event together, like buddies. He'd been attached and I'd been burned by other guys. But I'd known him for ten months now, and this morning, he'd finally emailed me and asked me for a lunch date for tomorrow. Now, just the sight of the man flipped my lust switch to OVERDRIVE. Hell, I might just jump the gun after this meeting tonight and ask that cute lock of hair out to coffee again, and this time I'd reach out and pull it close and kiss that strong, perturbed mouth underneath for an eternity or two. If Yvette ever stopped trying to slash and burn his manuscript.

  I cleared my throat and butted in. "People. Without James's first two chapters, you'll need a bunch of dreaded flashbacks to show the murder."

  Marian said to no one in particular, "I love flashbacks.”

  I went on, "I mean (A) Chapter one clearly shows that awkward period after two people meet and feel some kind of pull, but aren't sure what to do about it. And (B) it makes the main character, Charlie, human with all that depression and the bad hair." I looked up. "And (C) How will James's readers feel if Ariel completely disregards Charlie's problems and just throws herself at him right there on the kitchen island at her parents' thirtieth anniversary party?"

  Yvette picked up James's chapter. "Who's Charlie? This says Fabiolino."

  James's perfect brows drew together, but then he smiled, showing delicious dimples three deep. "Oh. I—uh—changed it, Rhonda. Doesn't Fabiolino sound better?"

  Marian nodded.

  "Fabiolino?" I winced.

  George muttered, "He learned that from you, Rhonda—changing all the character names just when we get used to them.”

  These were good people. I just smiled at their needling because my mind had snagged on the idea of kitchen island sex. Perfect. Tonight, after the meeting, I'd bypass the coffee shop. I'd lure James to my place and throw myself at him. I was nearly thirty-five years old, for God's sake, the same as James. My mother wanted grandchildren. If this damned editorial insect would just stop buzzing between me and my future children's father.