Waltz of Her Life

Linda chose not to think about it any further. There was nothing that any of the other nurses or even a priest could tell her about the mysterious Cindy. Saturday night of that weekend, she borrowed money from her father so that she and Molly could go to the roller skating rink.

It had been almost four years since she'd gone on dates with Tom there, and while she'd expected to run into some old friends, she was not surprised to find a whole new crop of people rolling and whirling about on the floors. When she first mentioned to Molly the idea of going to the rink, Molly said "Aren't you a little old, now? You're in college."

She'd replied "Is there some kind of a law that you can't go any more after you graduate high school?" but she knew what Molly was getting at. Roller-skating was a high school thing. The reason she didn't recognize anyone there was that a whole high school generation had cycled through since the last time she'd been there.

That was good, in a way. During the open skate, she made sure to skate backwards and turn so that the guys could see that she knew how to do it. During her roller skating days before, she'd often been picked for couple's skating over prettier and more popular girls because the boys knew she'd be able to follow their fancy moves.

The music was different, also. When she'd skated regularly, they'd played "25 or 6 to 4" and "Rocky Mountain Way" so often it felt strange for her to skate to new music. At the rink, they now played "Sweet Emotion," and "Free Bird." As Linda worked on her side-to-side movements and glided backwards, she saw Molly and a gaggle of her friends stumbling along, talking among each other, and laughing.

Soon after that, someone poked her in the back and she whirled around, startled.

Molly whizzed past, laughing. "Gotcha! Hey, how can you go backwards like that?"

"It's easy," she said.

"Well then show me!"

Linda guided her over to the side, and they cruised onto the carpet near the snack bar. "I'll show you here," she said, "so that if you wipe out you won't have a whole bunch of people falling all over you."

She tried to show her younger, smaller sister that going backwards was just like going forward in the way she should shift from side to side. The first time Molly tried it, however, she started flapping her arms and leaning backward, saying "Whoa, whoa, whoa!"