“Uh, the sane kind?” I ask, my gaze scanning over the several screaming kids and adults on the ice. “Em… I’m just saying. I really like my ass. And I would prefer it not be broken by ice right now.”
“Are you saying you can’t skate?”
“Of course I can. I’m not ten. It’s just…”
“What?” She presses. “What is ‘just’?”
I raise my shopping bags towards her face. “I’m not big on holidays anymore…” I puff out. “Besides, I have nowhere to put my items.”
“They have lockers for that sort of stuff.”
“I don’t have the time. I’ve gotta work.”
“It’s Saturday,” she mentions. “What obligations could be that important to take away from your weekend?”
“I just got back in town,” I exhale, running out of excuses. “I have to unpack and get my clothes in order.”
“Yes.” She nods. “Because if you don’t, the clothes will get up out of your suitcase and run away.”
She grins, letting her sandy brown eye brows rise towards the sky. Her stare slants. “You need this. And you know it. The look on your face yesterday when you came in said it all. And you stayed in your office all day. Never coming out for a bathroom break, for crying out loud.”
She was right. I know that she’s right.
But it doesn’t make it any harder to let loose. And I stand there, rigid as a statue until she takes the bags from my hands and heads in the direction of the rink, her stride long and purposeful as I rush after her, trying to avoid another pedestrian-accident as people rush excitedly by me on their way to whatever tourist attraction awaits.
I slip and slide over the snowy path leading to the skaters, stopping only when Emily does. She hands a twenty over to an attendant who hands her a key. She passes it to me.
“Locker 201 is yours. You’re going to shove these inside.” She nods towards my new clothes, stuffed in several bags. “I’ll get our skates as soon as you tell me your size.”
I do, my head swimming the entire time.
Several minutes later, laced up in a pair of borrowed ice skates, I step out onto the white frozen floor, fear latching in my throat. I’m even more afraid when Emily steps in beside me, floating like a butterfly as she pushes herself onto the ice, gliding gracefully.
I watch her longingly, wishing I could do the same. But I feel stuck, my fingers clutching to the waist-height wall as if my life depended on it.
I suck in a freezing breath, regret mingling its way into my hard-earned oxygen. I let it go.
Hank Williams belts out the lyrics to “White Christmas” over a surround-sound speaker, and I waddle over the white ice like a newborn doe, the scratching sounds of my skates almost deafening to my sensitive ears.
I watch Emily mouth at me. “Let go,” her lips mimic.
I do. Slowly. And as the safety of the wall slips out of my grasp, I find a wind that only fills me on my morning runs, when I leave the world and all its fucked-upness behind me. That wind pushes me towards Emily.
She extends her hand, reaching for my own, and I take it, the terror I felt just moments before melting like the pure-driven snow. I smile. Frozen face and all. Looking towards the legal secretary with a new awe in my eyes. She smirks back.
“See? I told you it wouldn’t be so bad.”
“That remains to be seen. We’ll wait until I walk out of here with an unbroken ass.”
She laughs. “You got it.”
A strange comfort finds me, and I settle in, discovering the child-like parts of me I thought were gone. I soar over the ice, skating with ease. Old skills I’d believed had abandoned me return with a vengeance, and the more I skate, the more relaxed I become.
In my oversized coat and stiff blue jeans, I circle the ice. I even twirl across it. Feeling more satisfied and serene than I’ve been in months, I find myself opening up to Emily, my icy walls lowering along with my angst.
I answer her unspoken question when she finally voices it to me. I surprise myself with my honesty.
“So?” The brunette levels at me. “Want to talk about what had you walking into work as if you’d seen a ghost?”
I don’t want to tell her that I had seen one. Just last night. Instead I say the first words that come to my mind, my mouth letting out the truth. Bit by bitter bit. I sigh.
“I’ve had a rough time of it lately. Especially on my trip.” I take a deep breath. “Ya see, I went to Chicago to sell my condo.”
“Oh.” Emily perks up.
“The condo I owned with my ex-husband.”
“Oh.” The word holds a hundred different meanings, and this “oh” is unlike the last. I continue anyway.
“My friend Marilyn was also in a really bad car accident the other day in Manhattan. A car crash that put both her and her father into a coma.”
Emily’s face sinks, sorrow sinking into her features. I keep going.
“Her coma is induced. Just until the swelling in her brain goes down. But her father’s…” I trail off. “It’s much worse. In fact…” I say, feeling the story sour on my tongue. “He might not make it.” I continue skating beside her. “And to add insult to injury, a man from my past has…” I don’t know how to finish that sentence. “Well, he’s come back. And what we had was, uh, really complicated.”
“‘Complicated’ as in ‘The sex was amazing.’” She grins sadly.
“As in ‘The sex was life-altering,’” I admit. The wind nearly freezes the sudden frown on my face. “But it didn’t work out. It couldn’t…” I let the statement linger in the air. “Besides, he’ll be heading back to where he came from soon. I just wish he would hurry up and leave. So I can forget how it felt to want him so badly.”
Though I know that’s not likely. Not until his family gets better.
But Emily comforts me by nodding knowingly, her expression showing a range of emotions I can’t pin down. She glances over at me. “I understand. And until Mr. Hot-Cock leaves…? What will you do?”
“Avoid him like the plague.”
“A life-altering sex plague,” she adds with a smile.
“Hey, it’s a start.”
And so is the afternoon. Emily and I skate until our limbs are tired. Until our throats are too sore from laughing.
We part ways several hours later, and for the first time in a long time, I get that familiar warm feeling. The feeling of finding a new friend.
The feeling lasts all the way downtown as I head towards my Brooklyn brownstone. On the way, in the backseat of a bright yellow taxi, I pass the Jackson Enterprises building, the site of so much corporate theft.
Minutes later, my eyes cross by the biggest clothing store I’ve ever seen. A baby’s clothing store.
It’s a reminder of all the unfinished business I left behind in Chicago. Business I know I have to go back to. Business I’m scared will break what little I have left.
Chapter Seven
HEATH
Saturday night
Saturday night is a night for sin.