by Susan Wiggs
That night, he’d given her a gift—a key chain attached to a silver skate. Elaine, accustomed to receiving tokens from Tiffany and Harry Winston from other boys, was reduced to tears. At the gift kiosk, she’d bought a little snow globe with two tiny figures skating arm in arm, and told him to think of her every time he looked at it.
She became obsessed with Tony. His new status as rising professional sports star had changed everything. He was becoming someone her parents would adore. She’d dreamed about him, fantasized about him. He would be the next Wayne Gretzky. They would keep a condo in the city and a summer place on Long Island, maybe one with an ice rink.
By the time the fourth Christmas had rolled around, she’d been convinced. After only three encounters, she knew she was going to fall in love with him. Never mind that he was an Italian-American from a working-class family, that he had attended public school and worked summers for the sanitation department to earn extra money. Never mind that her parents would immediately enroll her in therapy sessions and try to convince her she was delusional. She was falling in love with Tony Fiore. She’d never been in love before. That fourth year, she showed up early at the ice rink.
Even now, she felt flushed with embarrassment as she recalled how long she’d waited for him. How many times she’d paid for ice time, how many wobbly ovals she’d skated around the rink, how cold she’d gotten from being outside for so long. When she could no longer feel her feet, she’d turned in her skates, trudged out to the street and flagged a taxi. At her parents’ annual affair, she drank too much champagne and danced with too many men she didn’t care about. The very next day, she’d embarked on the annual vacation with her family.
When she returned, she called her college counselor to accept an overseas internship that had been offered to her. Numb with disillusionment, she went to London to work for a prestigious magazine and embark on a fabulous life. Whether or not she’d succeeded at the latter depended on whose yardstick was used.
For the next year, she became an avid browser of the sports pages, seeking news of the NHL. She dug for information about rookie players but found nothing on Tony Fiore, only that he’d graduated with distinction from Notre Dame. She refused to let herself dwell on him, though she burned with curiosity. What had happened to his dreams? His big plans to become a star on ice?
What did it matter if his plans didn’t include her? Eventually she’d forced herself to stop wondering. Stop caring.
A musical chiming noise, like the sound of silver bells, startled Elaine, drawing her back to the present. Apparently the bells signaled the skaters to clear the ice for grooming. The blocky Zamboni machine emerged from its tunnel and pushed out onto the oval to methodically smooth out the ice that had been chopped up by the blades of the skaters. Perched like a toy high on the seat, the driver wore a bright red muffler that streaked like a banner down his back.
Elaine did a double take.
“What’s wrong?” asked Tony.
“I’m being stalked by an elf.”
“Come on.” Laughing, he grabbed her hand. “I’ll buy you a hot chocolate.”
It was lousy hot chocolate from a machine, but the watery sweetness had a strange, simple appeal. “So you became a cop,” she said. “How did that happen?”
“It was my backup plan, in case hockey didn’t work out.”
“I take it hockey didn’t work out.”
He took a gulp from his white cardboard cup. She waited, but he didn’t address her comment. Instead, he asked, “So what about you? I figured you’d be an ace reporter or something. Didn’t you study journalism in college?”
She had a fleeting recollection of her idealism. By becoming a reporter, she’d wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, digging out the facts and holding up a mirror to society. Instead, she made dinner reservations and threw parties and pushed luxury products. She convinced women who couldn’t afford subway fare that they must not be without a certain seventeen-dollar brand of lipstick. As the writer of overwrought press releases, she practiced a strange, hybrid form of reporting and publicity.
Tony’s question was still hanging in the air.
She sipped her drink. “So I became a publicist, okay? Maybe I don’t protect and serve, but it’s a living. Look, Tony, you caught me on a bad day.”
“So tell me what a good day is like.”
She hesitated. “When my clients are all happy and the firm bills them for hours well spent, I have fun at my job,” she said, feeling a bit defensive. “That’s no crime. Working in my field is like going out on dates and to parties. People pay me to attend movie premieres and celebrity galas. How bad is that?”
“Doesn’t sound bad at all. Unless it makes real dates and real parties feel like work.”
Ouch, she thought. She stared down at the table, trying to talk herself out of asking what she knew she would ask. But she couldn’t stand it a moment longer, couldn’t keep in the bitter accusation that had been pressing at the back of her throat from the first moment she’d spied him today. “You didn’t show up that last night.”
He didn’t even ask which night she referred to. “I’m here now.”
chapter seven
The Zamboni driver had worked on the ice forever, it seemed. More than an ice tech or maintenance drone, he was a vital part of the skating operation, practically a celebrity in his own right. Sometimes kids even asked for his autograph, which he obligingly gave. He even put up with the tedious “Zamboni Song,” which some smart aleck invariably belted out now and then.
When his big Lego block of a machine chugged out onto the ice to enact the hourly ritual of renewal, he attracted as much attention as the amateur figure skaters practicing their double axels. The sight of the surface being groomed satisfied on a deep level; rough imperfections disappeared almost instantly. There was a mesmeric, Zen-like appeal in watching the resurfacing of the ice. In perfect, overlapping oval swaths, the machine scraped off the gouged and pitted epidermis of the rink, washed the shavings and then laid down a slick, smooth mirror of perfect ice in its wake.
Reaching a top speed of nine miles per hour, the Zamboni crept along so slowly that the driver had plenty of time to study the crowd, studying him. This was what kept him in his heated vinyl seat each winter, year after year—the opportunity to watch people. He had all the time in the world to observe the way they looked at the world, weathered storms, slammed into walls and picked themselves up after a fall, the way they raced out to embrace life.
He’d seen all sorts of people come and go. The crowd here was made up mostly of tourists and occasional regulars. Every once in awhile, someone interesting was swept up in emotional turmoil—that sort of thing always caught his attention. He’d never tire of watching a mother arguing with her almost-grown daughter. A newly divorced man working up the courage to ask a woman out. A young couple on the brink of falling in love.
They were tantalizing, those glimpses of lives, flickering across his ice. Some disappeared forever, leaving their resolution to his thoughtful imagination. Others came back, their stories deepening, darkening or sometimes turning out all right.
He had one hard-and-fast rule. Never meddle. He was here to smooth out the ice, not mess up people’s lives. But it was tempting sometimes, like right now.
There was no forgetting Tony Fiore and the girl he loved, some society debutante named Elaine. Some years back, Fiore had been a hot prospect in hockey, maybe the best ever to cross the ice here. His explosive speed and unfailing coordination had made him a good bet for any team. But it was his love of skating, that rare and genuine feel for the ice beneath his blades, that sharpened his edge. The overcrowded tourist mecca wasn’t his usual place to skate, of course, but one Christmas Eve long ago, he’d stopped in on a lark. And so had the girl named Elaine. Maybe they’d been lonely that day, possibly frustrated by last-minute shopping or needing to kill time b
efore some engagement, yet they’d both shown up within minutes of one another.
It happened all the time, but these two, they were something. From the first moment they saw each other, they practically melted the ice beneath their feet. They were youth and spirit and hope personified, and anyone watching them could tell they were seeing something special.
When the hour was up, they went their separate ways, of course. The Zamboni driver hadn’t been surprised to see them back the next year, and then the year after that, their interest and passion deepening perceptibly each time. They’d changed, as all young folk do. But there was something about this pair that had never wavered. They’d looked at each other as though they were the first to discover the true meaning of love. It was all there in those young, good-looking faces, those glowing smiles, those hands clasped tight.
And then...nothing. It was no big deal and certainly none of his business, but the ice groomer had taken their disappearance as a personal failure. Deep down, he knew what had happened, and he always wanted to believe he was wrong, but he wasn’t. Life had interfered with these two, and they’d been foolish enough to allow it.
Now they were back, and he was anxious to see if they’d finally figured out what he already knew—that they belonged together, not just once a year, but always. After finishing his rounds, he parked the machine and headed over to the concessions area, which consisted of a few tables and benches arranged on a large mat of interlocking rubber squares. At a cheap metal table, they sat across from each other, hands cradling paper cups of thin hot chocolate, gazes anxious with everything the years had done to them.
“Well, if it ain’t the lovebirds,” he said. “So what is it with you two?”
Elaine glared up at him. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all.” He had a seat at their table, unsnapped the top buttons of his coveralls and let his red scarf hang loose. The name Larry was embroidered on his shirt pocket.
She gasped, then pruned up her face into a frown. Probably trying to figure out if he was the same Larry from the carolers, not that he’d care to enlighten her. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“You’re the Zamboni driver,” Tony said.
“The question is,” Elaine said, “why are you behaving as though you remember us?”
“Because I do.”
She laughed a little nervously. She was even prettier than she’d been years before—more sophisticated, sure of herself. Yet there was something about her, something a little wistful.
“Right,” she said.
“Three years in a row I see the two of you meeting like you invented love at first sight, and then the fourth year—”
“He didn’t show,” Elaine said, and Larry heard the sudden spike of hurt in her voice. Then she looked a little queasy, probably regretting that she’d said exactly what was on her mind. He sometimes had that effect on people. He wasn’t surprised when she left her hot chocolate on the table and headed off to the rental kiosk.
“Sure, he did,” Larry called out after her.
She froze like an ice sculpture, then pivoted slowly back to face him.
He winked at Tony, who shot him a look of fury. “I guess you got some explaining to do.”
chapter eight
“Thanks a lot, pal.” Tony glared at the Zamboni driver.
“You don’t have time to thank me.” Larry jerked his thumb at the rental booth. He was compact and spry, a blunt, friendly man of indeterminate age. He had a froth of white hair, but the light in his eyes sparkled with an ageless mingling of wisdom and merriment. “So, what are you waiting for? An engraved invitation?”
Tony followed Elaine, who barely looked at him as she put on her boots, then stood there tapping her toe in impatience. Okay, he thought. Party’s over even before it started. He led her back to the car and held open the door for her, catching a whiff of sweet cold air in her hair as she got in.
“You want to explain that?” asked Elaine, clipping on her seatbelt.
No. He really didn’t.
He slid a glance at her, then concentrated on his driving. The car surged into the string of taxis, limos and private cars. Tony stole another look at her.
Elaine St. James. He couldn’t believe he was seeing her again after all this time. He’d never forgotten her. How could he? All that cool blond beauty, that smart-alecky sense of humor, and the almost-hidden sweet vulnerability he noticed when she didn’t know he was watching. The passage of time had added polish and sophistication to a woman who had been polished and sophisticated to begin with. And in spite of all the ways he’d reasoned with himself over the years, he still wanted her. Bad.
She was the reason he had never married and settled down. Thanks to her, he would never be happy with any other woman. She didn’t know that, and he wasn’t about to tell her. Yet what he had done—rather, what he’d failed to do—the last time he’d seen her had had ramifications he never could have predicted. Because of that moment of decision, just that one moment, his heart had been stuck in the same place. He was beginning to think maybe this was true for Elaine, too.
As he navigated the flow of traffic, he could feel her watching him. Waiting for his answer. “I got no idea what that guy was talking about,” he said.
“Simple. He knew we met there every year on Christmas Eve—”
“Every year, Elaine?”
“Okay, for three years. There was a pattern. Even the Zamboni driver realized that.”
He said nothing for a few minutes. A crooner on the radio made “Little Drummer Boy” sound like a timeless love ballad. “Okay,” he said at last. “I showed up that night.”
A small intake of breath. “I didn’t see you.”
“I changed my mind.” He figured she was too proud to ask why, but the question shouted through the silence. “I couldn’t even get down to the rink level. I was just out of the hospital, recovering from surgery. I had to use a wheelchair to get around.”
“A wheelchair?” She leaned forward to get a closer look at his legs. “What happened?”
“Wrecked my knee and couldn’t skate. I was looking at months of physical therapy, and then God knew what.”
Incredulous silence pulsed through the car.
He had not wrecked just his knee. He’d wrecked his shot at the pros, his plans for the future and his chance to offer something to a girl who had everything. He still remembered sitting at the rail above the rink, his knee throbbing, his eyes smarting as he watched her circling the rink below. He’d tried to imagine what was going through her mind. Or did skating blank everything out as it did for him? Even now, he remembered everything he had seen and felt while she’d skated around the ice, alone, a slender figure moving in and out of the skaters. Anger. Grief. Frustration. Shame. Love.
“I watched you for a while,” he said. “You were wearing a long white scarf.”
“Let me get this straight. You showed up after knee surgery and you couldn’t be bothered to speak to me?”
“We were brand new. I didn’t want to blow it.”
“Well, you did.”
“No excuse.” Except stupid male pride. The shattering realization that everything he’d worked for all his life was gone. “I didn’t even know what I was going to say to you. I was still trying to figure out what to say to myself. I had to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. I was a little preoccupied with that. I told myself I’d get in touch with you later, when my head was in a better place—”
“Your head? What about mine? I was frantic with worry.”
“I figured you’d move on.”
“How could you figure that? You didn’t know me at all. I would have understood.” She almost admitted that she’d been heartbroken, but she was too angry to give him that.
“So tell me this, Elaine, and be honest. If I’d come rolling up to you in a wheelch
air and said, ‘Gee, I may be on permanent disability and I might not even walk again, but how about we plan a future together?’ What would your reaction have been? Would you have stood by me in rehab and helped me learn to walk again?”
She blanched, but didn’t look away. “You’ll never know, because you made up my mind for me.”
He couldn’t dispute that. He hesitated, then opted for honesty. “I made a big mistake that night. I don’t want to make it again.”
“Tell me one reason why I should give you another chance.”
He pulled up to the curb in front of the address she’d given him. It was a luxury building from the 1930s, complete with a liveried doorman.
This was nuts, he thought, eyeing a career dog walker following a pedigreed pack up the tree-lined street. He and Elaine were from different worlds. They ought to forget the whole thing. Instead, he slid his arm along the seat behind her. “Because,” he said, “you’ve never been in love.”
“I never said that.”
“Sure you did.”
“What’s that got to do with us?”
“Maybe nothing,” he said. “Maybe everything.”
She parted her lips a little, and he thought about kissing her. He didn’t let himself act on it. Later, he told himself. Definitely later.
“Thanks for the skating,” she said, then studied him for a few seconds. “Would you like to come up?”
chapter nine
As she greeted the doorman, Elaine felt a beat of unease. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, letting Tony Fiore into her life. They’d only had three dates, after all, and they hadn’t really been dates as much as accidents. They barely knew each other. It was probably best to leave it that way.