Waltz of Her Life

"I can't believe you," Molly said.

When they swung back around for a second time, the song wound down.

The D.J. had been playing the Anne Murray song "May I have this dance." As the couples only song ended and the lights came back up, the other skaters trickled onto the floor. Soon it became as crowded as it had before, and Linda released Molly, enabling her to swing around and skate forward.

After a few more songs, Linda began to get tired, and skated over to the snack bar to rest and relax. She ordered a coke and watched her sister and her friends joke around with each other as they skated together several times around the rink. Once or twice Molly swung around and coasted backwards for awhile, waving to Linda, showing a look of triumphant pride on her face.

By the time the D.J. announced "couples only" Linda sought Molly out once again, not to teach her backwards skating, but to tell her she wanted to go home.

When they rode home together, Molly excitedly gushed about all the cute guys she'd seen and the way she'd learned how to skate backwards. Linda stayed quiet. It had been fun to return to the place that had been so important to her in early high school, but now she felt like an outsider. It was time for something new and different, but what? She wondered if she would ever find out.

The guys at the roller rink had seemed so much younger than she remembered, also. Had they asked her to skate, she wasn't sure if she would have accepted. Many of them had pizza faces and even the guys who could skate backwards seemed like clunky, awkward bucks compared to Tom. But that was four long years ago! Maybe she needed a new guy in her life to concentrate on. For now she would try to be the best employee and candy striper she could.

Two weeks later, during Charlie's Angels, the telephone rang. Molly always commandeered the phone and all the messages that came through, snatching the phone from its cradle before anyone else. "Hey Lindy, get the phone! It's some guy."

When Linda answered the phone she heard Seth's husky, smooth male voice: "Hey gorgeous! What's going on?"

"Wow, this is a surprise," was the only reply Linda could muster for the moment. She asked him how things were in Cincinnati, and how work was going. In return, she told him all about candy striping, working the feed store during the day, and working on her tan at the pool.