With graduation looming, Liza Sanderson and her ragtag group of friends practice for an upcoming BMX competition. One of their fellow classmates with a dark secret stands in the way.
With graduation looming, Liza Sanderson and her ragtag group of friends practice for an upcoming BMX competition. One of their fellow classmates with a dark secret stands in the way.
Bumping into a lamp and apologizing I said to myself, âLiza, you need to get your shit together. You canât just get this tanked at someoneâs house party even if they are your friend.â
Pulsing music and flashing lights resonated in the room. What had once been my friendâs house had turned into a nightclub. Judging by how handsy people were getting in the corners it wasnât too far from turning into an orgy. Red solo cups twisted and passed by me. People laughed and joked, barely audible over the loud music. I didnât think his tiny house could hold so many people, maybe seventy five or so.
Letting down my guard around them could mean trouble, but trouble could mean fun. High school wasnât going to last forever, but I treated every day like it would. People had often told me they were the best years of my life, which I wanted them to be.
The world spun as I staggered through the crowd, moving in rhythm to the beat. Too much commotion and too many drinks for this olâ girl.
I wanted to find a place to crash but couldnât even find the couch.
The strong scent of body odor came along with all the sweating people huddled tightly together. I watched as liquor oozed over one of the walls. Izzyâs mom would kill him when she saw it. The drips had nearly hit the curtain. Beer cans littered every visible surface and what wasnât covered in aluminum cans was filled with red solo cups.
I bumped into one person, then stepped back, almost bumping into two men dancing with a blowup doll. The gaping O of her mouth moved as she jiggled. One of the guys rammed his face into her rubber tits.
âSorry,â I said, bumping into another unsuspecting dancer.
The drink Iâd been carrying for the past twenty minutes had disappeared. I couldnât recall finishing it or tossing it in anyoneâs face. I lifted my hands in front of me to make sure I wasnât still carrying it.
My eyes hurt, partly from the lights but mostly from being tired. Iâd ridden my bike the entire day and had gotten a good practice in. The BMX competitions were right around the corner. I had to be at the top of my game, especially if I planned on getting redemption from last yearâs failed championship.
That meant Iâd had enough for one night.
My only aspiration, aside from graduation, was to ride professionally. I didnât have any illusion the career would last a lifetime, but I did want a fair shake. I idolized the riders Iâd watched on tv and on YouTube.
Thatâs the best I could hope for, a small shake.
I couldnât wait to get home to tell my brother about the doll and all the other nonsense Iâd seen. Heâd missed out on another good party.
A familiar voice reached me over the thumping electronic music. âLiza? Are you okay?â
âIzzy,â I said, looking through the crowd for him.
Then the blowup doll thwapped me in the back of the head.
I turned to scream at the two guys, but before I could, Izzy, standing behind me, grabbed the doll and popped it with his bare hands.
The two guysâ jaws fell open.
Izzy didnât have to say anything. They fled. It wasnât much different from watching a dog tuck its tail and run.
âI had a drink, but I donât know what happened to it,â I slurred. âWe might have a drink thief in our midst.â This was an attempt at a joke, but it fell flat.
Izzy took my hand and led me toward the kitchen. âHey, come on. You donât need it anyway.â
The once immaculately clean kitchen looked horrid. The floors were covered with what looked like a combination of chocolate syrup and liquor. My feet stuck to the floor as I stepped through the door frame. Two people stood by the window necking. A giant bowl filled with water, ice, and beer sat on the counter. Half a dozen liquor bottles cluttered the table. Right where Izzyâs mother did her crossword puzzles in the morning was a pile of cigarette butts and a half-smoked joint. A pungent odor wafted from the trashcan, something like a combination of vomit and whipped cream.
The chair dragged across the floor as Izzy pulled it out for me.
I flopped down in the chair. Â âWhat are you doing?â
âSobering you up. Coffee and pancakes.â
He turned and flipped the switch on the coffee maker, running his fingers through his scraggly beard. The coffee maker gurgled to life. Pans rattled from the cupboard as he dug through it. For an average-sized guy, he had big hands.
The couple groping each other by the window gave us a disgusted look and walked for the door. As they were passing by, I recognized the chick. Weâd had algebra together freshman year and also the same homeroom.
Under the table I kicked off my shoes and planted my stocking feet on the linoleum. The cold felt nice, helping combat my drunken stupor. Two eyes felt like too many, so I closed one, which slowed the world down. I didnât think I could sit down, not with the liquor churning the world like butter, but I managed.
âThings could really turn for us,â I said, trying to stay in the present. âIf we keep our shit together, we could get a sponsor and get out of this shithole.â
We couldnât afford to screw up another championship. Weâd put in too much work, spent too much on equipment. Well, what we hadnât stolen anyway.
Izzy grabbed a pan from below the stove and slapped it onto the burner. âWhat do you mean?â
I rubbed my temples. âWe could come into one of those merchandise deals, you know?â
He handed me the cup of coffee. âMerchandise? You mean like action figures and shit?â
I chuckled. âItâs interesting thatâs where your mind went. I was thinking more like tee shirts.â I shifted in my chair, keeping my feet up. I remembered the cold tiles below my feet. âDo you think Iâm good? I try really hard.â
He chuckled, flipping a pancake on the spatula. âPretty good for a misfit.â
The sizzle of the batter reminded me of other times heâd made pancakes. His mother would work late, and weâd get snockered and almost always sober up on Izzyâs pancakes. It was like a tradition for our team.
I ran my socked foot across the cool tile. âThe competition is scarce. You, me, Sandman, and Garcia. Thatâs one hell of a lineup. Donât forget about Red.â
âItâs going to be a good season,â Izzy agreed.
The cup of coffee felt good against my hands and the world slowly stopped spinning. Was I talking too much? âWhy donât we drink coffee with a straw?â
âPeople would burn themselves if they did.â
I tapped my temple with a single finger. âThatâs pretty smart.â
A bottle of syrup thumped onto the table, followed by silverware and an overflowing plate of pancakes. I couldnât stop myself from digging in. I cut them, lathered them in butter and syrup and went to town. Izzy flopped down across from me and ate them too.
A bang echoed from the living room.
Izzy refrained from getting out of his seat. He sighed deeply instead. âThat sounded expensive.â Â
Mark, a kid from school, came in and asked if he could have some. It wasnât long before a couple of other guys came looking for pancakes, too.
Izzy didnât hesitate to drop a stack of paper plates onto the table and pass the rest around. âEat up,â he said with half a smile.
Everyone came through until all the pancakes disappeared. Some of the partiers didnât bother with forks or knives, only taking off with them in their hands, rolling them up and eating them like burritos.
Nearly an hour went by as the party died down.
Izzy, whoâd dutifully cooked another two dozen pancakes for his partygoers, finally kicked the last few people out and walked me the half mile back to my house, Corona in hand. We usually didnât go anywhere without our bikes, but this was an exception. If Iâd left my bike anywhere around the party, it could have sprouted legs and taken off. We couldnât have that. Not only had some of the parts been expensive, but it would have been detrimental to our reputation.
As we walked through the streets, staring up at the light pollution and listening to the traffic whiz past, I remembered the year before and the championship weâd botched.
At first, Izzy, Sandman, Garcia, Red, and I had considered ourselves just a street team. Without competing, a street team can only go so far, unless they have a successful YouTube channel or a sponsor willing to take risks. We didnât have those things. Our YouTube channel didnât get shit for views compared to the professionals, and no sponsor wanted to spend money on us.
Iâd always been a fan of BMX racing and vertâvertical, or ramp stuntsâand had watched the X Games since childhood, memorizing tricks from YouTube channels of some of my favorite riders. Iâd even had their posters on my walls as a young girl. My love for the sport had put me in touch with some talented people. A few of my friends learned, too. Iâd even played all the Dave Mirra games throughout my childhood, more fuel for my obsession.
Red and I had been the original members of the Blacktop Kings to enter the BMX circuit. We were the only two from Lexington to compete. The rest of the guys hadnât had the money or time. My friends, the ones whoâd filled most of our team, came from the rougher parts of town and didnât have much. Red had taken me under his wing, taught me everything I knew, and helped pay for me to compete my first season.
In the beginning, Red had been reliable. Then he started working a day job. Now, not much could pry him away from work. Sometimes heâd show up for practice, but most of the time he wouldnât. Then heâd wonder why his scores suffered.Â
Izzy had always been interested in competing. But after Red stopped showing up, he knuckled down and started practicing. He also started nabbing parts to save himself a little dough.
Like Red had taken me under his wing, I took Izzy under mine.
Sandman and Garcia had dragged their feet into the competitions. I donât think Garcia would have gone at all, if not for a hearty shove and the promise of clout. Heâd always been a sucker for the spotlight and loved to be the center of attention, especially when the fairer sex was involved. He considered himself a bit of a ladiesâ man. My younger brother, Sandman, on the other hand, didnât want the attention. His motives seemed much simpler. He wanted to be around his friends and he wanted to have fun.
Even though we were brother and sister, we were close.
Getting more serious about competitions meant that we had to take our old, choppy bikes and bring them back from the graveyard, sometimes illegally. Izzy and Garcia went around the neighborhood after midnight, scoping out parts to steal. What we didnât keep for ourselves we shoved into an old doghouse and sold later. The main thing we needed most was innertubes. We burned through a lot of them during practice and day-to-day driving. I went through probably two tubes a month during practice and probably five or more during season. Although some of the other guys didnât take the risks I did, so they didnât go through as many.
Stealing parts wouldnât get you caught. Rarely did someone see a brake cable and think, âHey, thatâs mine.â It was the frame they remembered.
But we had a solution to that, too. A bridge about half a mile from my house served as our BMX graveyard for dumped frames. The water beneath the bridge had tons of them now. There were some expensive brands, too. Sanding off the serial numbers proved to be too much work, so we decided to chuck them as soon as they were stripped.
Red seemed to think the frames would be worth something in scrap metal if we sold them all together, but none of us wanted to risk moving more than one or two of them at once. Itâs one thing to get caught with a bike frame you didnât buy. Itâs a whole different ballpark to get caught with a truckload full.
We werenât the only ones, though. Our competitors in the area stole bikes too. They would slap a layer of spray paint on them and call them new. If we chose to paint a bike, we would go above and beyond to make it unrecognizable. We even purchased a metal punch and used it to alter the serial numbers. There were even a few weâd resold.
All of us practiced hard through the winter. While some of the other teams were sitting on their couches, we were busy working our asses off at the blacktop. We knew that our competitors, most of them, anyway, had a financial advantage we didnât. We were competing against folks who could get a new bike every season if they wanted.
Izzy bumped into me. âWhatâs on your mind?â
âIâm really hoping we donât repeat last yearâs championship. For one thing, I canât understate the amount of pressure. Everyone is watching. Itâs terrifying.â
Izzy nodded in agreement, taking a couple of strokes in his beard. âSounds tough.â
The familiar houses of my neighborhood surrounded me. As we walked, rows of houses and apartment buildings stretched as far as the eye could see. Â The streetlight caressed the side of Izzyâs face, making him look older. A dog barked in the distance, somewhere beyond the streetlights that illuminated our way. I didnât have a good idea what the time was, but it had to be late.
We stopped just short of my house. It looked eerie with its dark shutters and dark windows. I checked to make sure my parentsâ lights were off. If they caught me out this late, theyâd ground me for a lifetime.
The thought of living a mundane life like everyone else felt exhausting. The concept of working a normal nine-to-five job felt painful. Iâd never fit into the cookie-cutter lifestyle.
âI donât want to be poor anymore,â I told Izzy. âWe have to do something.â
He ran his fingers through his beard. âWe got what it takes. If we can get Red to commit to the end of the season, itâs a done deal.â
We stopped and looked at each other. Sometimes Izzy acted more like a big brother than Sandman did. Â
I ran my fingers through my hair. âBut what if he doesnât? What if we donât make it?â
Izzy chuckled. âIf we donât make it, at least we kept in good shape.â
I wrapped an arm around him. âThanks for walking me home, Izzy. Iâll see you in the morning.â
He returned the hug and smiled. âYouâre welcome, Liza.â
I slid inside my house, looking out the window in time to see Izzy walk off. As I passed the hallway mirror, I noticed something stuck in my dirty blonde hair. I touched it. Gum. I crept through the kitchen to my bedroom, mindful of my sleeping parents.
Where had the gum come from? And what the hell ever happened to my last drink?
The floor creaked. I traversed each step feeling like I was maneuvering around landmines in the hall. Pictures of the family stared back at me under the dim lights. A picture of my brother playing T-ball. A picture of myself riding my first bike, a Huffy.
I went into my room and dodged laundry scattered all over the floor. A strange, dank smell permeated inside, and I couldnât make sense of where it came from or what it could be. It smelled a bit like weed. Thatâs when I remembered what it was. Iâd spilled bong water on the carpet.
My âIrish twinâ brother Ericâor Sandman as we called himâstepped into my room, closing the door behind him. At six feet tall, he loomed over me. âHowâd it go?â
âYou should have come to this one,â I said. âYou know Garciaâs ex, Monica?â
âYeah.â
âEarly on, she stripped down to her panties and shook her ass in front of everyone, right there in the middle of Izzyâs living room. You should have seen the look on Garciaâs face. I thought he was going to flip a lid. He got mad and ended up leaving early. Oh, and there were these two guys and this blowup doll, too. Donnaâs house caught on fire too. And pancakes.â Â
âShit, I guess I missed it. No broken windows this time?âÂ
âNo. And Izzy walked me home,â I added.
âGood.â He walked toward the door and looked back. âDrink some water or that hangover is going to get you. And brush your teeth. You smell like a brewery.â
I remembered when my brother was chubby. Heâd lost a significant amount of weight since joining the team. He wasnât the partying type, so he rarely hung out. His version of socializing consisted of school and our practices, not much else. Heâd embraced being a senior better than I had too.
He wasnât a prick, though. Heâd covered for me that night. He had told our parents that Iâd gone out to study with my friend Trish for a big test. Truthfully, I hadnât been friends with Trish in years.
As I sprayed water on my toothbrush, my phone pinged. Izzy. He wanted to make sure everything had gone swimmingly after I got home. I texted him back to let him know Iâd slid in without getting caught.
Originally, Iâd planned on just having a couple of beers with the guys, but what I got instead was to see the softer side of Izzy. He didnât have to look after me like he did. As I threw myself into bed, I thought about school the next day. Why couldnât it be Friday already? It was only Wednesday.
The only thing I had to look forward to was practice.Â
Let me start by saying that I picked this book up on a whim, a long-shot. I received the request from Carter, and I wasn't too sure about it. I do enjoy reading YA, but its been a while since I tackled a purely contemporary YA book (although based on the time period this is set in, I don't know that I can call it contemporary).
What finally convinced me to press the "accept" button was the preview that Carter had uploaded into Reedsy. It starts off with this gorgeous, and mind you, hilarious line: "Liza, you need to get your shit together. You canât just get this tanked at someoneâs house party even if they are your friend.â Amy, that's not even that special of a line. Well, maybe not to you, BUT it made me chuckle and, knowing it was YA, it automatically set in my mind that Liza was going to be the kind of rebellious, snarky character that I enjoy reading about.
And I wasn't wrong! I absolutely devoured this book over the weekend. You've got this majestically woven network of secrets and the frighteningly real, grungy world of Lexington, Kentucky. It's a very immersive environment that Carter has glued together using words. The book gave me Outsider's vibes (you know, SE Hinton) because of how gritty everything is, including the characters. Each one is a creation all their own, even the characters that you want to choke because their being teenage idiots. Everything is so well-rounded.
As far as plot goes, I feel like I answered this already. Every page kept pushing me forward. I was reading way past my bedtime, sneaking up early in the morning to read, and multitasking like no one's business. I HAD to know what Liza's secret was. I needed to know how they were going to get Trinity to fess up to his crime. Were the Blacktop Kings going to win? What would happen if they did? There was just enough suspense to label this as "page-turner."
Now, I've raved enough. Time for my trademark one complaint. I'll try to do it without spoiling the entire book.
Liza's secret was a point of mystery for me through out most of the book. She kept musing about who to tell first and how to really let it out. Looking back, I should have seen it coming, but I didn't. When Carter finally reveals what she's been holding onto, I was actually a bit disappointed. I felt that it was too hyped up for such a secret. I am happy that it was revealed. I'm glad that Liza was able to find a safe place and flourish with this newfound identity. At the same time, though, this book didn't feel like that sort of story. Looking back, I understand why she was nervous and held it in so long; the book isn't set in our current year. Still, though, I was a bit disappoint that her secret was that. I wanted it to be much, much more.Â
All around, an excellent book and very much worth a read! Thank you so much, Carter, for giving me the opportunity to review it.