I came home after three hours of skating feeling rather pleased with myself. My back camel was developing into a secure element, and I had become more comfortable with some simple jumps. After showering, I sat down on the couch with a dish of warmed leftovers and turned on the television. If I could not find anything interesting to watch, a collection of video taped skating events offered options on demand.
Across the room, I heard my gray cat, Platinum, scratching determinedly in her litter box. I pushed the channel key on the remote control. After surfing the entire spectrum, the poor cat was still scratching. I placed my lunch carefully on the seat cushion and checked on Platinum. Poor Platty squatted in the gravel with a helpless expression on her face. Her big golden eyes looked at me desperately. I immediately assumed the cat was constipated. No veterinary offices were open on Sunday, so I would have to call for an appointment from work the next day and take her that evening.
Platinum sat in my lap shedding and trembling. She had always been a healthy cat and only went to the vet once per year for routine shots and a check-up. Like most felines, she was terribly afraid of strangers, veterinarians in particular. Although she had not been to this vet before, she seemed to sense that this was a bad place, a place where unpleasant things happened. A couple of dogs and other cats in the waiting room did nothing to comfort her. The cat hid her face in the crook of my arm and placed a sweaty little paw on my hand. Her ears quivered as she shoved her head into my armpit.
Finally, the office assistant called my cat’s name and I carried her into an examining room with a pretty painting of a long-haired calico on the door. We waited a few more anxious minutes before the doctor entered the room from the back door.
The man held out his hand. “I’m Doctor Maxwell Svenssen.”
“Kate Northcott,” I returned, managing to take his hand while cradling Platty in my other arm. I explained the problem to the doctor and placed my frightened kitty on the metal table to be prodded and poked. She cowered and glared at Dr. Svenssen as he approached with a stethoscope.
“I’d like to take a urine sample,” the vet began and worked his hand on the cat’s underside while lifting her quivering tail. Platinum’s eyes half closed as she drew down her whiskered brow in discomfort. A stream of bright yellow urine sprayed from her nether region, creating a trajectory that terminated on the linoleum floor, bypassing the examination platform all together. “Well, we certainly have plenty of liquid to test.”
As though an assistant detected the situation, the back door opened carefully and a woman with a sampling cup and pipette entered the room, gathered some urine from the sizeable puddle, cleaned up the residual, and disappeared back into the laboratory. At the conclusion of Platinum’s physical, Dr. Svenssen held her affectionately, stroking her head behind the ears, which had lowered horizontally with disapproval. The vet chatted pleasantly about his own cat and the pets of childhood memory. During his upbeat monologue, poor Platty’s nervousness overcame her instinct to contain bodily wastes until a suitable expulsion site could be found. As Dr. Svenssen talked and chuckled; my cat, with an even more miserable look on her furry features, defecated on his lab coat. A series of solid round turds dropped from her hindquarters, rolled down his white coat, and landed on the freshly cleaned floor.
I gasped in embarrassment and quickly shoved the cat into her carrier. “I’m so sorry,” I repeated.
But Dr. Svenssen said these things happen sometimes and peeked into the laboratory to signal for the technician’s services. Still mortified, I quickly thanked the doctor and escaped into the waiting room to pay the bill. Platinum had crystals in her urine, indicating an infection. The veterinary assistant dispensed a bottle of medication and told me to make another appointment when the treatment was complete.
Poor Platty, I thought. Poor Dr. Maxwell Svenssen.
I kept Platty in her carrier until Dr. Svenssen specifically asked to examine her, then I had to disassemble the enclosure to remove the feline patient.
“I hope she went to the bathroom before coming here,” I mused sheepishly, still embarrassed to face the vet.
“I’ve already forgotten about that,” he returned squeezing Platinum’s bladder routinely. A small pool of urine spilled onto the table, and he pipetted a sample into a cup. An assistant took the plastic container, wiped up the excess, and vanished into the lab. “Just to let you know there are no hard feelings, let me take you to dinner this Saturday.”
I had found Dr. Svenssen handsome until my cat soiled his clothing, then I felt too guilty to even think about him. I certainly did not expect a social invitation and probably blushed as he continued to smile at me. I took the cat from his arms before she could spoil the moment with another bowel movement. Platty anxiously hid in her carrier and I looked up at the vet again. Casually, pushing my hair out of my face, I responded: “I’m the one who should be buying you dinner.”
Maxwell Svenssen laughed and asked what kind of food I enjoy.
Although Platinum’s infection had been cured, Dr. Svenssen called me during the week to confirm our plans and ask what other things I liked to do. Of course, the phrase “ice skating” tumbled from my lips and into the receiver before I could substitute a safe first date reply like “movies or racquetball”.
“I know an outdoor rink about an hour or so from here. It should be open by now.”
I had only skated on an outdoor rink once before, when I visited Talbert for Christmas the previous year in Boston. I had also skated on a frozen pond at a two-day job interview in Minnesota. Not only did I look forward to knowing Maxwell Svenssen better, the prospect of skating outside on a maintained surface intrigued me.
Inside the open-air facility’s heated shelter, I extracted my figure skates from their carrying case. I had been wearing this pair of skates for about four years, since my early days of private lessons at the Arctic Circle in Lawrence, South Carolina. Scuffs wore the white polish off the boots indicating they had been well used. An occasional gash interrupted the smoothness of the leather testifying to falls and missteps. Stitches on top of the toe boxes had been cut by careless free blade placement during backward and forward scratch spins.
“Those are nicer skates than I ever had as a kid,” Maxwell ventured glancing at my boots.
“You were a skater?”
“Not really. My father froze a small rink in the backyard and I played hockey there with my friends. I never took lessons or joined a league. My brother and I just fooled around for fun. I didn’t even have real hockey skates. My parents bought each of us a pair of cheap figure-type skates from a discount store.”
I smiled warmly. Maxwell’s childhood experience echoed mine, but he had not been obsessed with hockey. For him, recreational ice skating had just been a pastime. During other seasons, the neighborhood kids played baseball in the park or basketball in someone’s driveway.
“All I ever wanted to do was learn to skate backwards. Good hockey players skate very fast backward and forward. They stop and turn quickly. I never did learn to skate backwards,” he continued.
“It’s hard to learn those skills without lessons,” I assured.
But Maxwell disagreed. “Some of the kids could dart all over that little rink. They skated backward easily. Somehow their bodies just knew how to do it.”
“Maybe some of them did take a lesson or two.”
The vet shrugged. “Maybe some of them did,” he conceded, though I doubt he really believed it. He simply preferred not to differ with me.
Had I been forthright, I might have explained the roller skating skills I learned without the benefit of lessons. The group skating class I attended as a young child did not teach me much more than sculling, stopping, and forward stroking. It certainly did not lay the foundation for the homespun roller queen I became as a teenager. However, I did not want to share my woeful tale with Dr. Svenssen. While I barely knew the man, I had also begun to recover from the backlash of my youth. As an adult skater, I was able to release my disappointments and achieve personal triumph in a more mature self-directed context.
“I think it’s actually time for a new pair of skates,” I mused. I certainly would like a custom pair now that I could afford (and possibly merited) better equipment.
“My sister-in-law knows all of the rinks and pro shops. I’ll ask her which one is best,” he volunteered.
“Is your sister-in-law a skater?”
“My nephew plays hockey,” Maxwell clarified. “She drives him all over. She used to skate a little herself but I don’t think she does anymore.”
Max and I stayed only about an hour at the outdoor ice arena. On a Saturday afternoon, early in the season, the place was understandably packed. Had I wanted to show off in the center, I would have struggled to commandeer a spot for myself. I completed a couple of sloppy L-spins, artifacts of skating without a proper warm-up. However, I felt no need to flaunt my abilities for Dr. Svenssen’s sake. Adolescent daydreams of mesmerizing Howard Millbank with my skating aptitude had already been fulfilled with less than fantastic results. Finally, I could stop daydreaming and live in a reality that I no longer found disenchanting. I enjoyed skating side-by-side with Max while we became acquainted.
My desire to look attractive for this date interfered with practicality. I wore cotton-spandex leggings and a pretty cotton sweater, and unwise choice for cold weather activity. Cotton is widely recognized as a comfortable fiber because its moisture absorption properties help to cool the skin in the summertime. However, trapped moisture can freeze under winter conditions and may thaw as the body perspires. This keeps the wearer continuously damp, which can lead to chilling, muscle stiffness; and, in the most extreme cases, hypothermia. Inappropriately dressed, I became very cold and continued to shiver long after we stopped skating.
I must have looked like a complete idiot huddled next to the lobby fireplace sipping hot chocolate. I was supposed to be a skater. I was supposed to know better. While I may not have tried to dazzle my date with a showy display of spins, my vanity did lead me to wear a cutesy outfit that could not protect me from the elements. Max agreed it was colder than he expected, but the pragmatic veterinarian decided to layer polypropylene thermals under his clothes.
Max held my cold hands across the table of a fine Cantonese restaurant where, that night, I ate my first chive dumpling. Maxwell Svenssen had found the most direct path to my heart: starting from my skates and proceeding through my stomach. That evening began a string of dates that did not take long to develop into virtually inseparable companionship volleying between his condominium and my apartment.
Peace of mind at work yielded, among other things, renewed energy; energy that I channeled into ice skating. In addition to two evenings of skating per week, I increased my Sunday allotment to three hours, often including an hour of open freestyle after the adult session. Occasionally, I even attended Saturday morning freestyle, which was surprisingly not crowded at Hansie’s. I had not exactly learned to skate like a daredevil in a swarm but had plenty of new material to practice in whatever space I found. With a lower overall stress level, rink crowds made me less nervous and apprehensive. Of course, the regulars at Hansie’s Ice Chalet were not the most intimidating experts. I sloppy double was about as good as they got, child or adult. Once a youngster conquered the axel and a double or two, in whatever form, the thrilled parent usually took the budding champion to a better facility for more serious coaching. This kept the actual skill profile of the rink rather weak, hovering around low freestyle no matter which age group took the ice. For the time being, the place was an ideal training ground for a self-conscious adult skater with a mismatched array of abilities.
Chapter 64 posted 12/4/02
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