If she caught wind that I even noticed a hint of exhaustion on her face, she’d mount my ass over the bar with her derby memorabilia.
“We need to think realistically, guys. Let’s start with sponsorships from our employers. Maybe we can get something going there, especially when we tell them that Patti is putting up 10K for the cause. They might just follow suit,” I said.
“It’s worth a shot, but this is a hard time of year with Christmas coming in a couple of weeks. But maybe we get them excited about some last-minute tax deductions?” Rory said with a glance at Marty.
Marty stopped tapping her fingers on the table and shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”
We spent the next hour making a list of employers and agreed to check in with one another tomorrow to determine if we were getting any nibbles.
One by one we said our goodbyes after our first round. No one wanted to reject Patti’s offer of free drinks for the night, but none of us felt right about taking advantage either.
For a few minutes, at least…while we made the list, a buzz of excitement hummed over our group.
We could do this. We had a starting point.
By the time the list was made, and we all stared down at it, the buzz had morphed into the worry settling over us. Like we all knew this might be our only decent shot.
None of us mentioned the obstacles with our plan. How some companies had a process for this and getting an answer could take months or longer. Time the kids didn’t have.
This was it. We had no plan B.
I took a trembling breath.
When you didn’t have a plan B, you ended up at the mercy of others. You ended up packing your meager belongings and piling them high in the trunk and back seat of a rusted-out sedan.
With no plan B, your mother tells you this is another adventure. New places. New people.
She tells you that you’ll love a new school.
You’ll have a blast making new friends.
But really, your stomach gnaws on itself in the dark while you try to keep yourself from throwing up the generic SpaghettiOs you had three hours before.
You force a smile.
You pretend to be asleep so you don’t have to lie about being excited.
When really, you’re one mile closer to the unknown and one mile farther from that little girl who thought she might have finally convinced her mom to let you sleep over. The girl you didn’t dare tell your mom about until you knew for sure.
The girl who didn’t matter now, because you’d never see her again.
My heart raced in my chest. A wave of dizziness cascaded through me.
“Hey, you okay?” Marty asked. She’d been trapped in the middle of the booth, making her the last one left.
I’d never said a bad word about my mother. I’d never confessed to anyone how many times she broke my heart. I loved her so damn much. Even after all these years without her, the thought of saying anything that stained her memory cut me to the core.
So I smiled, and I buried it.
And I focused on what I had the power to change. Right now, that meant saving the program for the kids. For Rylee. “Yeah, I’m good. Just tired.”
“You’ve had a rough day. You should go get some sleep.”
“I will. I just want to check in with Patti first.”
“Okay.” Just a few steps away, Marty turned back to me. “Maisy…you should probably have a talk with Eve. I thought she was fine, but with all of this—with whatever might be happening with you and anyone else—she’s not fine.”
“I know,” I said quietly, trying to ignore Priest in the background watching us.
“If you need to talk, just hit me up.” Marty smiled and turned for the door again.
But I didn’t see her leave. I only saw him.
I took a seat at the bar, several stools away from his penetrating stare.
Needing a minute. Just a damn minute.
“That was fast…how did it go?” Patti asked, stopping in front of me and slapping her bar towel over her shoulder before she started scooping ice into a highball glass.
“Not great, but not horrible. Depends on how good we’ll be at talking our bosses out of their money.”
“Well, that sounds about as fun as a root canal. Give me just a second, honey, and we’ll talk about it.”
“Sure.” I studied the black and white images over the bar of Patti in her heyday. It was the action shot all the way to the right, with her arms thrown wide, hair billowing out from under the hideous cap helmets they used to wear, when they chose to wear helmets, and her feet midair as she jumped over a pile of fallen skaters that called to me.
My favorite shot.
The look on her face, hungry, determined, and…fulfilled. With old-school classic white roller skates on her feet laced only halfway to give them more flex. Barely any knee pads or elbow pads to be seen, and the ones who did have them? They were nothing more than bulkier material like what you’d see from a thin winter jacket. As for gloves? What the hell were those?
How much skin did they leave on those banked tracks anyway?
The black and whites left me wondering the color of their polyester shorts and shirts. I’d put my meager earnings on orange, olive green, and brown, some of the less fortunate color combos of the seventies.
Only now did I notice how little Patti talked about the details from those days. Sure, she told stories about getting fancied up in rockabilly clothes, their hair up in pompadours with barrel curls and bandanas. She fondly bitched about the painstaking accuracy needed to execute the perfect exaggerated winged eyeliner and red lips for photo shoots and tours.
But when it came to the down and dirty, when the sweat dragged streaks of mascara down their flushed
