Xander’s book quote was by Pablo Neruda. It said, “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply.” And some other stuff you might be able to envision someone like Xander reading at a wedding.
I don’t even remember exactly what it said, but it mentioned hands. And falling asleep. And loving someone without forethought or intention.
It made me hot. Like…sweaty-sickly hot. As if deep down in my belly was a flame.
Standing by the road, I remember what the show girl told me about Saturday. How applications are due at five o’clock. I check my phone and find it’s almost nine o’clock at night. I missed turning in an application to be Hansel’s sub.
Hansel has a sub.
I sob all the way back up to my room.
As I collapse on the bed, exhausted and already half asleep, I see a snapshot of a lilac, leather roller skate.
*
I was at the skating rink. Sophomore year, second Saturday of September. Just me, and the girls my mother called my “just-Leah friends.” Maura, Kaye, Shayna, Tiffany. Maura was dating Trey Reiss, a junior with a compass tattooed on his back. Kaye had just told me about her crush on Shayna. And Shayna, of course, was wrapped in Eric.
Tiffany and I had been the odd girls out. Although I guess we weren’t really odd or out, because we had each other. We shared a king-sized packet of Skittles and a “Monster” sized Sprite, and Tiffany joked that we were lovers. I saw Kaye blanch out of the corner of my eye.
I remember I felt pretty that night. I think it was the brand new, lime green Chucks. I wore them with a short, black taffeta skirt that kind of flounced around me when I skated. I remember the shirt I had on. A floral pattern with little shoe lace bows perched on each sleeve. The way it made my boobs look bigger than they were. I was pretty sure the left one was a little bigger than the right, but that night, they were looking even. I had on some watermelon lip gloss, and when I smiled at myself that last time in the tiny little bathroom, I thought, I’m the prettiest. Not Lana. I might even be completely beautiful.
And then I tilted my head and washed my hands and told myself I didn’t care. Mom and Dad were always telling us looks didn’t matter. That by the time we finished college, we wouldn’t care what brand of shirt we wore, or if our blonde hair was dirty blonde, golden blonde, or pale blonde.
But still, I was glad about my new Chucks and my flower shirt from Anthropologie.
The rink was dark when I skated back out. The disco ball was glowing pink. The rink had mirrored walls, so little pink dots were flying all over everything.
There was this area that had funky, old, orange carpet—the short, rough kind of carpet, like they have on the floors at school—and it was elevated just a little bit over the rink itself. The rink, a big oval, was separated from this bench-filled, square area by a half-wall. I leaned on the wall and looked out at the clumps of people skating. I inhaled the smell of stale popcorn and slightly sweaty shoes, and found myself smiling.
Tiffany skated by and held her hand out. I slapped it.
Shayna and Eric glided by, holding hands the way they always did. Shayna waved, telling me I should come on out, but I kind of liked just standing there.
Secretly, I was looking for Freddy Burke. Freddy was this senior lifeguard who had saved me when I hit my head on the diving board at the community pool back in July. He was loud and sometimes a little…much, and his fingers weren’t that gentle with my head, but my body reacted to his like Coke and PopRocks, and every Friday when he played football, my eyes would follow him around the field, watching his legs flex and his butt and shoulders as he moved. Feeling kind of…heavy, way down low in my stomach.
After another songs, I spotted him. He looked good in a blue plaid shirt and cargo khakis. He had really dark hair. I liked dark hair.
Tiffany waved again, and I started toward the rink. I got one foot onto the slick surface when something buzzed inside my pocket. I thought for a second about skating and answering the phone at the same time, but I wasn’t very coordinated. The last thing I needed was to land on my butt right in front of Freddy.
I waited for a break in the traffic, then I turned around and went back to the carpet area.
Missed call: Lana
“Hmmm.”
Lana was dating this guy named Holt McCalister, and she didn’t usually call me when she was over at his house.
It was something that made me sad, but I’d accepted it.
Maybe they’d had a fight. If Lana broke up with Freddy, I would get to see her all the time again.
I decided to go outside to call her back.
The rink had a side door, marked with one of those plastic, glowing EXIT signs, situated just to the right of the men’s bathroom. I didn’t bother taking my skates off. I waved at the guy behind the food counter—kind of geeky and not very nice, but he was playing on his iPod, so he waved back when I nodded at the side door. No one would mind me going out it.