Bowling Dreams & Cheap Wine

Chapter 7

I can't stop thinking about what happened with Raj. I misjudged him so quickly and then I tore a page off some low esteem notice and handed it to him with my name on top. Why didn't I start with my good qualities? My strengths? Ehhhhh. My stomach is in fifty different knots wishing I could rewind and try that again. He was going to ask me out and I ruined it. He was 100% right. I can still like Nate and care what Raj thinks, right? Not that Raj is an option now. Proof of that was when he had been done with hockey practice, he didn't say another word to me on his way out. 

Time to focus on my job. The beginner's skating class is like wrangling ten meowing, crying, kittens. It's an adorable disaster of skaters experiencing ice for the first time. This group is five and under. They're heartbreakingly cute with their helmets and skater outfits and assists they hold onto. Parents hover and video in the background all of this a blur for what's going on with me. 

"Excuse me!" a parent calls out. She steps closer to the ice.

I hurry and skate over as I see what's about to happen. She's about to step on the ice in her high heel boots.

I blow the whistle hard, scaring the precious ice kittens.

"You can't come on the ice!" I use my instructor shout for full meaning. "Skates! You need skates!" I point at her feet.

"What if I take my shoes off?" she yells back, hopeful that I just didn't tell her No. 

"No." I skate to a full stop right in front of her.

"Could you get a photo for me then of Emma? A close up. Not too close—"

I point to the sign on the plexiglass.

DO NOT BOTHER INSTRUCTORS FOR PHOTOS

She smiles guiltily. "I know, but I just thought one wouldn't hurt."

I spin around on my skates and clap, taking in the sight of two girls bawling silently. My assistant, Julia, is tasked with coaxing them into moving.

Ice skating isn't like other sports. You have to account for the fact that nothing will go right almost at every lesson. Sports like soccer or T-ball, kids can run laps if things aren't going well, but on the ice, if you let the kids loose, they fall, they break things, and they quit.

Jenny Parks, Opal's mom, has enrolled her other daughter, Matilda, in this class. She sits halfway up the steps in the arena watching, judging, aiming her evil gaze at me because even though I told her Opal wasn't ready for the next level, she went ahead and contacted my boss, Cami.

That's right, Opal's mom, the staff and I talk.

I finish teaching my class how to glide instead of stomp on the ice, something not intuitive to non-skaters. People want to walk on the ice instead of the gentle push of their skate. "You did amazing today,. I make eye contact with Julia to get the criers off the ice first. The rest of the kids take their time, laughing and skating their little hearts right out the entrance.

Once my skates are off and I have taken a break, I go over to receptionist desk, checking winter session sign-ups.  

"There you are," Cami says, coming towards the desk. "I was looking for you. Do you have a sec?" 

Cami's a couple of years younger than me, but she has one of those faces that could still pass for 23. Her blonde hair and brown eyes made for excellent advertisements when she competed professionally. She's tiny, too. Most of the kids from my class are exiting through the front doors. "Sure. What's up?"

"I want to switch you to the 8-11 age group full time. Right now, you teach one class in that group."

"Did I do something wrong?"