I should have eaten a donut, because practice lasts a long time, and Walrus Mustache keeps me busy doing his job.
At some point I scan the crowd and pick out a handsome man in a suit, sitting alone in the top row of the bleachers. It’s Eric. He’s waiting for me, and Eric isn’t a big fan of waiting.
“Are we almost done here?” I ask Walrus.
“Nearly,” he says. “After you do the resurfacing, you can go.” He tosses something toward me.
Startled, I catch it with only a tiny fumble. It’s a single key. And the key fob reads ZAMBONI.
No. Really?
“Really?” I demand. “I haven’t driven a Zamboni since high school.” And that time it was just joyriding on a dare. My father grounded me afterward.
“Like riding a bike,” he says. “Let’s have a refresher.”
He puts the machine into position. Then, during the last minutes of practice, he goes over the controls. “These here are your hydraulic levers for dropping the conditioner and raising the dump tank. You got your blade adjustment, which determines how much ice you’re takin’ off. Press down here for the snow brake—better hit that puppy once or twice during each pass…”
Good. Lord. I’m nodding like a bobblehead as he tells me all the things I have to do. Then the coach blows the whistle three times, and I know it’s show time.
“Gotta move the nets first,” says Walrus.
Right.
I trudge back out on the ice and remove the first net. But the second one is a problem, because there’s a group of hockey players standing around it. O’Doul is basically using the thing as his pulpit as he sermonizes to Jason. “I think maybe it’s a breathing thing,” he says. “Like, you’re not tightening your diaphragm when you release the puck.”
“No! It’s his shoulder position,” Trevi argues. “He needs to shift his stance to accommodate the change of angle.”
“I think O’Doul is onto something with the breathing,” Beringer chimes in. “You gotta breathe through your eyelids.”
And now I’ve had enough. “Don’t listen to this drivel,” I say to Jason. “That eyelids thing is a joke from Bull Durham.”
“But it worked!” Beringer squawks.
“The only thing working right now is me,” I snap, reaching down to remove the first net pin. When I stand up again, I brandish it at Jason. “He’s the most over-coached forward in the league this week. Y’all just stand around yapping, which won’t help. It’s all muscle memory, for Pete’s sake! This man needs you to snap five thousand passes his way, so his body can figure it out. He doesn’t need your advice.”
It’s suddenly very quiet in the rink. I forgot that there were fans here to watch today. Whoops.
“Anyway,” I say with my voice lowered. “I straightened my hair and my date is waiting, so if you could kindly move your padded bottoms off the rink, I can resurface.”
“Muscle memory,” O’Doul says slowly.
“I could send you some passes,” Trevi offers. “We could all take turns.”
They’re all thinking deep thoughts about this, so I have to physically move O’Doul off the net to dislodge it from the rink. “Y’all wait over there,” I say, pointing at the first row of bleachers. “Please and thank you. Now, I have a Zamboni to drive, so excuse me.”
I’m halfway back across the rink when I realize my mistake.
“Hot Pepper is gonna drive the Zamboni?” Bayer asks. “I gotta see this. Anyone want to make a pool on the time?”
“I’m in!” Jason replies.
Well, shoot. If I hadn’t mentioned the darned resurfacing, I might have done this without spectators.
But now it’s a thing. The Zamboni pool is a rink game where people bet on how long it will take to clear the ice, and the closest guesser wins.
“Twenty-two minutes,” Beringer says, starting the bidding.
Everybody hoots, because twenty-two is a really long resurfacing time. “Who’s got a pen and paper?” someone else calls out.
“I’ll take the bets,” offers Jimbo, the young guy who works in operations. “Got some paper right here. One for you, one for you… Here’s a pen, Castro.”
“Better make this a good run,” Walrus says as I climb up on the machine. “Seems you got an audience. Don’t crash it, for fuck’s sake.”
A frisson of nerves runs up my spine as I put my hands on the wheel.
“Place your bets, boys! Who’s timing this?”
Across the length of the ice, I see Jason holding a pen. He tilts his head to the side, as if considering his bet. Then he scribbles something onto the paper and hands it to Jimbo.
I ease the big machine onto the ice and get my bearings. While I may never have done this job before, I’ve watched a million resurfacings. They always do the edges first. But that’s a bad strategy for me. I’ll save the walls for last, when I’ve already figured out the turning radius.
These are my thoughts as I swing the machine into the first turn. I take it a little too far and have to overcorrect. There are hoots from the bleachers as I come out of the fishtail, and a fine sweat breaks out on my neck. I remember to pump the snow brake and check the surface behind me.
It’s smooth as glass. And if Walrus can do this, how hard could it be?
Okay. I got this. Leaning forward in my seat, I set about discovering how much speed I can pick up on the straightaways and still have plenty of time to take it easy on the turns. I’ll finish the job faster than the earliest bet in the pool. That’ll show ’em.
Turn after turn, I lay down a fresh sheet of ice. The hoots grow louder as I near the ending. The last loop takes all my concentration, since I have to get close to the boards without mangling them. I’m vaguely aware of shouting and whistles as I make my final pass by the players.
When I finally pull the Zamboni through the open doors at the rink’s far end, my arms ache from clutching the wheel more tightly than necessary.
“Official time is fourteen-thirty-seven!” someone shouts from the peanut gallery.
Whoever bet twenty-two minutes can bite me.
In the ladies’ room, I do a quick change into my dress and heels. I nearly dislocate my shoulder trying to get the zipper fastened, but somehow I manage. Then I shove my work clothes into a bag and leave them in a corner of the maintenance room until tomorrow.
When I finally walk into the public end of the rink, I’m properly dressed for dinner. Eric is smiling at me from a seat in the bleachers. As he stands to come down and meet me, Jimbo appears and pats me on the shoulder. “Nice work with the Zamboni!” he crows. “You showed them.”
“Did you bet?” I ask him.
His face turns sheepish. “Yeah. Didn’t win, though. I bet twenty minutes.”
“Who won?” I ask.
“Drake.” Jimbo rolls his eyes. “Rookie luck. He picked sixteen minutes.”
“Oh.” The disappointment I feel is swift and brutal. It should have been Jason who won. He should have been the one who knew I could drive that thing when everyone else thought I’d fail.
Where do I get these ideas? And why do I even care? My gaze flickers toward Jason, who’s already out on the freshly resurfaced ice with two other players. A woman shouldn’t try to impress a guy who doesn’t care.
He’s never going to care. He said so already.
“Heidi! You look amazing.”
And here’s Eric, looking suave in a navy suit and perfectly boring striped tie. A lifetime of good manners allows me to smile and greet him without revealing that I feel unaccountably heartsick.
My ex wishes me a happy birthday and gives me a chaste kiss on the forehead. And that’s fine. It’s not like I want my ex to push me against the wall and force his tongue into my mouth.
Then again, if he’d ever pushed me against the wall and forced his tongue into my mouth, we might not have broken up in the first place.
Eric takes my arm with the same care that a nice boy takes with his grandma in church, and we take our first steps toward the door.
“Hot Pepper.”