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“You miss home?” Ros said.

“No,” I said. “Just tired.”

“If you’re upset I’m not in the photo, you can admit it,” said Touchstone.

“We should take another one with you in it,” I said, passing him his phone back, and he wedged himself in between us and snapped an unflattering selfie.

“Celia?” said Ros, and their voice was gentle. “It’s normal to be homesick.”

They reached for my hand under the blanket and squeezed.

“Right, Touchstone?” said Ros.

“I couldn’t do sleepovers until the seventh grade,” Touchstone said.

“That’s such a lie, Touchstone. You slept over at Neil Carmichael’s in fifth grade.”

“Do you have to remember absolutely everything?” he said.

“My memory is both a blessing and a curse,” I said, and right at that moment I remembered how Buckets would barge into my room in the middle of the night, even though he wasn’t allowed, because he wanted to sleep in my bed, which also wasn’t allowed, except when I let him. I felt myself go pale with homesickness.

“Do you want to call home?” Ros said.

“I’m worried that will just make it worse,” I said, my voice cracking.

“Okay,” Ros said, and they clapped their hands together. “Enough outside time. As a wise woman once said, we need a change of scene. This is a situation that calls for Power Jam .”

Touchstone looked horrified. “What? No! You promised we’d watch other stuff! We’re not going to seriously spend the summer watching ‘the worst show on television’?”

“You know we don’t give that review any credence,” Ros said. “The guy who wrote it barely even watched the show!”

“He’s an extremely well-respected TV critic,” Touchstone said. “And he clearly struck a nerve, since it went viral.…”

“Yeah, because people love to see popular art shredded to pieces! Besides, that critic is a thousand years old, and of course the show is ridiculous—that’s the whole point!”

“The whole point is that it’s bad?”

“The whole point is that it’s fun ,” Ros said. “What’s that word—Celia, you know what I’m thinking of—”

“Campy,” I said. “Over the top.”

“ See? ” Ros said. “Celia has spoken. To the TV. We shan’t delay.”

The TV was small, but it had about seven different remotes, and it took my extremely competent friends an awful long time to figure out how to get Power Jam playing. I volunteered to help a few times—Lord knows I was good at problem-solving—but Ros insisted that they and Touchstone could figure it out. After about twenty minutes of punching buttons, swearing, and intermittent googling, Ros and an extremely reluctant Touch finally figured out how to play episode three of Power Jam by signing in to one of the nine hundred streaming services using Touchstone’s dad’s password. Episode three, one of the best, was when the story really started to take off, with the introduction of Blade Mendoza, the show’s villain.

“I think this might be my favorite episode,” I said from the couch.

“Duh,” said Ros, tossing Touchstone a bag of gummy bears for them to split. Between the two of them, they could put away an unholy amount of sugar. “That’s why I put it on. Now watch and enjoy.”

I tried to follow their directions.

Power Jam was a British TV show about the cutthroat world of Roller Derby that had made its way to the US in the middle of our sophomore year, whereupon Ros and I started watching it and became obsessed.

It had everything—extremely hot queer characters, convoluted plotlines, a sense of humor, great costumes, incredible montages of the aforementioned extremely hot queer characters roller-skating passionately and dramatically.

The show had been a balm to us after Ros’s dad skipped town, even though the critical reception was not always favorable.

Ros’s favorite character was Kenna, the rough-and-tumble captain of the squad played by the smokin’ Ronnie Ruthless (that was her actual real name ).

Touch, who was a reluctant fan, liked both the tough-as-nails coach and Louisa, Kenna’s wisecracking love interest.

But the best character, in my humble opinion, was Blade Mendoza, the villain, played by Oliver Teller.

Blade was a bad boy from the wrong side of the rink who was always getting in trouble for punching someone or checking someone too hard, who’d deigned to join the scrappy Roller Derby team called the Soul Crushers after being kicked off the soccer team for stealing his coach’s car and joyriding it into a tree.

On-screen, Blade stumbled from the car.

His forehead was split into a gash.

His light gray eyes glittered like two agates.

He looked back at the wreckage, then down the empty street, then back at the camera, and then he fell into a crouch and grabbed his head in disbelief.

Blade was a villain who on the rarest of occasions seemed to have a heart of gold, and even when he performed nefarious deed after nefarious deed, I couldn’t help but love him.

Plus, it helped that he was blisteringly hot.

On the couch, I tried hard not to drool.

“I can’t believe you think that guy is attractive,” said Touchstone. He’d left the couch for me and Ros and was sprawled on the ground in front of us, propped up on one elbow, in a position that reminded me, not unfavorably, of my dog Tabitha (my other dog, Buckets, preferred the couch).

“I can’t believe you don’t,” Ros said. “I’m not even into guys, and I think he’s good-looking.”

“He looks like a fish,” said Touchstone.

“A fish ,” I yelled. “Are we looking at the same person?”

“It’s his eyes! I can’t believe I’ve never noticed this before. He’s got weird googly eyes, like a fish. They should call him Old Fish Eyes,” said Touchstone.

“If he’s got fish eyes, then sign me up,” I said. As if I even had a shot in my wildest dreams; he and Ronnie were dating in real life.

“We know, Celia; you’re obsessed with him,” said Touchstone.

“I’m not obsessed,” I said. “It’s just that he’s objectively hot.”

“I have to agree,” said Ros.

“Y’all are out of your minds,” said Touchstone, and settled back in to watch the show. He was, for the most part, a good sport about watching episode after episode of Power Jam .

We watched as Blade was punished by having to join the Soul Crushers, much to the dismay of Kenna, the captain. “He’s never skated before in his life!” she said. “In spite of being named Blade!” She thrust her old roller skates at him, and then came the wonderful moment when Blade turns out to be a natural, a roller-skating savant. We sang along to the song that played over the montage of him skating beautifully, and Touchstone plugged his ears, and miraculously, I started to feel a little better.

“Thank you,” I said to both Ros and Touchstone—though Touchstone still had his ears plugged, so Ros was the only one to hear.

“Anytime,” Ros said, and they wiped an errant piece of river grit from my temple.

We finished episodes three, four, and half of five before we decided, as a group, to turn into a deep, homesick-less sleep.

Footnote

1 He was not technically Touchstone’s uncle.

Henry, as was his name, was technically an ex-cousin by marriage, the particulars of which were so convoluted they might as well have come straight from Power Jam , a British show about the cutthroat world of Roller Derby that Ros and I watched religiously.

We could never remember Touchstone’s exact relationship to Henry, just as we could never remember how all the plot points of Power Jam fit together.

Had the stalker arrived before or after regionals? Had Blade Mendoza, the villain, cut Kenna’s laces before or after he’d discovered that she’d sold her hair to buy him new wheels? But here’s the thing: Never getting it right was part of the fun with Ros.

They remembered some things, I remembered the others, and between us, we cobbled together a story that might not have been right , but it was ours.