I didn’t answer her. Instead I seized the opportunity to give the girl at the rental counter our skate sizes. Dad started us skating almost before we could walk. We went as a family almost every week; my parents would still hold hands like they were teenagers. And... I started to mentally swear at myself because I was about to lose it.
We started walking to a bench, but Jolene scooted in front of me. “Hey, so that was clearly a bad joke.” She took both my hands like she was about to bare her soul to me. In a soft, gentle voice, she said, “If you feel like you need to cry, just give me a sign and I’ll collide into you, knocking us both to the ground—that way everyone will think you’re crying ’cause I kneed your junk.”
I laughed, and not for the first time that day. Probably not for the fifth time, and we’d only met up a half hour ago. My heart settled into its Jolene rhythm, the too-fast hammering rate it leaped to when I stared at her too long.
“Seriously though, you good?” she asked. “’Cause we can do something that doesn’t involve rented footwear.”
“I’m good.” And with her, I was. “Besides I want to show you this. It’s like flying.”
With a comically wrinkled nose, Jolene took her skates and started jamming her feet into them.
“Here, you have to pull the laces tighter than that.” Sitting opposite her, I grabbed Jolene’s foot and placed it on the bench between my legs.
“I think you’re cutting off my circulation.”
“That’s what you want. Give me the other one.” She did, and I laced her up. “Come here.” I lowered her foot and pulled on her hands until she stood. I didn’t have my skates on yet, so the added inches from her blades put us at almost eye level. “How do they feel? Are your ankles secure?” My voice was unsteady from being that close to her, but I didn’t care.
“I feel like I’m embarking on the first stage of Chinese foot binding.”
“Good. I like you this height.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
I felt my face flush, but ignored it. “I don’t know. One of us doesn’t have to look up or down. We’re eye to eye.”
“And mouth to mouth. Smooth.”
Now that she mentioned it—actually, long before she’d mentioned it, like the second I’d seen the height of her blades before she even put her skates on—I’d imagined standing with her, mouth to mouth. I hadn’t imagined getting called out on it, but it was impossible to predict anything with Jolene. I loved that. I loved that it was equally impossible to think about anything or anyone else when I was with her.
“And don’t forget you have a girlfriend.”
Her words were a gut punch. Erica. Right. Crap. That was happening more and more often lately, forgetting about Erica when I was with Jolene. And I really didn’t want to be that guy.
“Ready to show me all your moves on the ice?”
“Lead on.”
* * *
An hour later, I was pretty sure that Jolene was a worse figure skater than I was a poker player. And I was a terrible poker player.
“Movies have lied to me. All the ice-skating montages where the novice turns out to be amazing after a single power ballad of practice scenes? No. Nope. Not even a little.” Jolene gritted her teeth as I helped her to her feet for the millionth time. “Ow.”
I didn’t have nearly as much sympathy as I had for her first half a million falls. “Quit trying to do all these spins. Just skate.”
“But the spins look amazing.”
“Not when you do them.”
She burst out laughing and took the gloved hand I’d offered. She was wobbly, even with my support, so I took her other hand and skated backward in front of her. “There’s this thing called patience.”
“There’s this other thing called condescension.”
My mouth kicked up on one side. “I’m just saying you can’t be amazing at every new thing you try. Ice-skating takes practice.”
She squeezed my hands, and my heart rate sped up in response. “I just hate this beginning part, where I want to be so much better than I am. I want to be at the fun part, where I can decide I want to do something and my body is like, ‘oh yeah, we got this.’”
“What part of life is ever like that?”
“The movies.”
I rolled my eyes, but there was a smile on my face that softened the action. “I meant real life.”
“Movies can be more real than life. They’re life the way the filmmaker wants it to be, or life the way the filmmaker needs to show the world, or life the way the filmmaker is afraid it is. It’s true life, even if it isn’t exactly real.”
We glided to a stop, and my smile halted with us. “That’s how you should start your essay.”
Instead of responding, her gaze followed a little girl who looked barely out of diapers, skating past with a skill and confidence that she was clearly envious of.
“Jolene.” We were standing still, so I didn’t need to keep holding her hands, but I did. I kept my voice soft until her gaze returned to mine. “What you just said—that’s why you want to be a filmmaker. Write it.”
“I’ve tried,” she said, gently tugging first one hand free, then the other. “There’s a reason I want to be a director and not a screenwriter. Besides, apparently writers are the least important part of the movie. I mean, look at the one we saw last weekend. The script was awful, but it made like a jillion dollars.”
I completely ignored her baiting comment. “I’ll help you.”
Her arms lifted slightly, as though she wanted to wrap them around herself, but then she forced them back down. “I don’t want any help.”
This time I let my annoyance pinch the skin between my eyes as I glided back a step. Her hands immediately reached for me, and she steadied herself. “Letting other people help you doesn’t mean you’re weak or helpless. Sometimes it just means you’re smart enough to understand that you don’t have to do everything on your own.”
I offered her my hand again, just one, because the truth was that she didn’t need both.
She eyed my hand, then my face, and a second later she lifted her chin and skated past me.
We stayed for another hour and she kept falling, ignoring every attempt I made to help her up.
* * *
I should have felt better at home that night in my own room but I didn’t, not really. My body might have been lying on my own bed, but my mind was still in the city, with Jolene.