Page 10 of 50 First Skates

“No, I got a Fluicer yesterday,” he said, kind of loud, like duh, I should have known that. “I’m going to make fresh orange juice.”

“Fluicer?” I exclaimed. “You hardly know ’er!”

Nothing from him. Nada. He didn’t even smile. Just looked sad again and continued adding oranges to his basket.

“Listen, I’m sorry if I was rude this morning,” I said. And then I surprised myself. I decided to just come right out and tell him that I thought he was good looking but then I’d heard Dave say he’s the new assistant coach for the Comets and I told him that I’m Coach Barrett’s daughter. I could tell he already knew that. But he did look kind of surprised that I said what I said.

“I appreciate you saying that.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t want to be presumptuous…I mean, you might not even be interested in dating me, but obviously it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to date.”

“Correct” is all he said.

“Correct that you aren’t interested in dating me or that it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to date?”

“Yes,” he said. And then he turned away from me and carried his basket to the checkout counter.

I could not believe how rude he was being! And I also could not believe how much better his butt looked when he was walking away from me! What an amazing new form of torture for my ego and eyeballs!

But I was determined to turn things around. I just didn’t want him to turn around, because then I wouldn’t be able to see his butt anymore. “Hey,” I called out. He stopped in his tracks for a second and then kept walking. “Hey. You offered to teach me how to skate earlier, and I’d like to take you up on your offer,” I said, catching up to him.

“It’s not a good idea,” he said, staring straight ahead. “I’m busy.”

“Well, which is it? Is it not a good idea or are you busy?”

“Yes,” he said again.

“Oh my goodness. What the hell is your problem?”

His very strong jaw got very, very stiff. Like he was trying hard to stop himself from saying something. He looked down at his basket, looked around the store, then nodded once and just placed his basket full of oranges on the floor and walked out the front entrance.

I followed him. Because, “Seriously?!”

He kept walking out to the parking lot.

“Dammit!” I muttered.

He barely glanced back at me and said, “What?”

“I forgot to buy apples!”

“Then go back inside and buy apples.”

“I’m not going to! How do you like them apples?!”

“Doesn’t matter if I like them,” I think I heard him mumble as he took out his keys and unlocked a white Chevy Malibu.

Obviously it was a rental, but of course I couldn’t resist making fun of it.

He told me he had a 1970 Dodge Challenger when he lived in Calgary. Said he got it pretty cheap and fixed it up when he had time. Said she was a beauty. That it taught him how to have patience and faith while he worked on her, consistently. He sounded so wistful when he was talking about that car. I almost felt jealous of the car because he seemed to care about it so much. And it also sounded like he worked on her really carefully. Ugh. How crazy is that? He said he was advised to sell it because it wasn’t a practical car for Kenton.

“Ooof,” I said. “I bet it wasn’t easy to make the decision to let her go.”

He finally looked me straight in the eye and said, “It really wasn’t. She’s irreplaceable, but…it’s the practical thing to do. I will always have regrets…but that’s life.”

“Boy, you must be fun at parties,” I said.

“I used to be,” he said as he opened the car door. “I used to be.”