skating with Lucy
Posted on Jan 4th, 2007
by 
antenna
antenna
I didn't tell anyone at work where I was going when I cut out early yesterday. No one asked anyway. I hooked out at lunchtime to meet Lucy at the roller rink.
She had called the night before as I was dozing off and said something like, "I'm turning 45 tomorrow and I'm not happy. Let's go skating." How could I refuse?
It was a little short of notice for most of her friends, but three of us including Lucy showed up to skate in the big empty rink. The nice guy who let us in blasted the music and retreated to his office, only lured out briefly, bribed with brownies, to take our picture- three mamas, unsteady on our wheels.
I used to be a roller girl. It was what you did in our town when you were old enough to go out but not old enough to really go anywhere- the preteenage alternative to the disco scene or something. Anyway, I was a a skater girl, long red braids flying behind me as I went.
When I was in college, I worked many jobs. By day, I interned in a design studio around my class schedule, at night I did data processing at a credit union. At the design job, I scored some really good skates, castoffs from a defunct production of 'Starlight Express'- silver leather with red wheels. I slung them over my shoulder to take to my night job. While the cleaning crew buffed the long loops of linoleum hallway, I punched numbers into dinosaur computers. When we all finished, I'd put on my magic skates and fly through the empty corridors of the Federal Building, over the gleaming linoleum, faster than I ever knew I could go in any rink. The cleaning ladies came up for their smoke breaks and cheered me on. The security guys watched on the cameras, and surreally phoned me in the office to ask me out.
Funny, I haven't been on skates in a good twenty years. I don't think Lucy ever had. We put them on, cringing over their rental-ness, nervous about ankles and knees. We didn't cling but did scooch for a few stiff rounds. It felt completely unknown and crazy until suddenly, without warning, my body remembered what to do, crouching down, leaning into turns, legs surer and surer with every pass. I never did master skating backwards, despite Lucy's best efforts to teach us even as she taught herself (our other friend did fine). I was perfectly happy to skate forwards faster and faster, while my friends wafted backwards, gracefully swinging their hips to move their skates, just like Lucy's former skate-pro husband had advised. By the time we turned in our skates, Lucy felt better about turning 45.
I felt better, too, remembering one of the many things I used to know how to do.
She had called the night before as I was dozing off and said something like, "I'm turning 45 tomorrow and I'm not happy. Let's go skating." How could I refuse?
It was a little short of notice for most of her friends, but three of us including Lucy showed up to skate in the big empty rink. The nice guy who let us in blasted the music and retreated to his office, only lured out briefly, bribed with brownies, to take our picture- three mamas, unsteady on our wheels.
I used to be a roller girl. It was what you did in our town when you were old enough to go out but not old enough to really go anywhere- the preteenage alternative to the disco scene or something. Anyway, I was a a skater girl, long red braids flying behind me as I went.
When I was in college, I worked many jobs. By day, I interned in a design studio around my class schedule, at night I did data processing at a credit union. At the design job, I scored some really good skates, castoffs from a defunct production of 'Starlight Express'- silver leather with red wheels. I slung them over my shoulder to take to my night job. While the cleaning crew buffed the long loops of linoleum hallway, I punched numbers into dinosaur computers. When we all finished, I'd put on my magic skates and fly through the empty corridors of the Federal Building, over the gleaming linoleum, faster than I ever knew I could go in any rink. The cleaning ladies came up for their smoke breaks and cheered me on. The security guys watched on the cameras, and surreally phoned me in the office to ask me out.
Funny, I haven't been on skates in a good twenty years. I don't think Lucy ever had. We put them on, cringing over their rental-ness, nervous about ankles and knees. We didn't cling but did scooch for a few stiff rounds. It felt completely unknown and crazy until suddenly, without warning, my body remembered what to do, crouching down, leaning into turns, legs surer and surer with every pass. I never did master skating backwards, despite Lucy's best efforts to teach us even as she taught herself (our other friend did fine). I was perfectly happy to skate forwards faster and faster, while my friends wafted backwards, gracefully swinging their hips to move their skates, just like Lucy's former skate-pro husband had advised. By the time we turned in our skates, Lucy felt better about turning 45.
I felt better, too, remembering one of the many things I used to know how to do.
Access: Public
art
August 2007 