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“Not competitively, but she still skates. You met her the other night, actually. You were a bitch to her.”
“What?” Cat asked for at least the tenth time.
“The woman who was on the ice when we got here to practice.”
“Her?”
“Yeah, her.”
“She’s at least twenty pounds overweight, and–”
“It’s muscle. She plays hockey and probably does some heavy lifting around here, too. She’d partner me, Cat. She could handle the lifts. Other women probably couldn’t.”
“You’re serious?” her sister asked, sounding exasperated at the whole thing.
“Yes, I am. About asking her, at least.”
“You want to ask a woman who hasn’t skated professionally or competitively, at least, in what, a dozen years, if she’s your age?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Why do you hate me?” Catalina asked. “Why can’t you just go with, I don’t know, Fortnite guy? I just forgot his name because my sister thinks it’s better for her to skate for a chance at the Olympic Team with a woman who hasn’t skated on the circuit in years, who’s way too old – because, yes, twenty-six is already old – and who plays hockey and lifts heavy things around an ice skating rink.” Catalina finally took a breath. “God, if I told Mom about this little suggestion of yours, she might actually fly home to yell at you in person.”
“I doubt that,” she said.
“Chandler, you need to think about this. This isn’t a good idea.”
“It’s the only one I have because I’m not skating with Fortnite guy and getting called ‘dude’ all the time. He asked me if I wanted to grab pizza at the concession stand later, Cat. He wants a girlfriend and for me to gain, like, five pounds from a greasy piece of concession stand pizza.”
“Well, you could stand to get laid, so if he’s a no, I’d say go for it.”
Chandler looked away from her sister and said, “Will you at least think about me asking Belle if she’d consider it?”
“No, I won’t because it’s a ridiculous idea, and it won’t work. And even if it would, what are the odds that she’d say yes? I assume she left skating for a reason since you said there was a long story there.”
Chandler turned back to her sister and said, “Yeah, it was my fault, and I don’t want to talk about it, but I hung out with her a little last night, and she still skates, Cat. She was the best skater in the program, and she said she skates here every day, morning and night. She landed a double Axel the other day.”
“So?”
“So, someone who isn’t up to snuff isn’t landing Axels over a decade after she stopped competing. I’m going to really think about asking her. You should, too.”
“I’m going to think about the other videos that I’ve sent you and see if we can get one of those guys to meet us at home when we’re done here. If you’re not interested in Fortnite–” Catalina stopped. “Justin. His name is Justin. If you’re not interested in him, fine, but I’m not going to find you a better option this late, so prepare to not make yet another Olympic Team.”
Catalina then walked off down the hall.
CHAPTER 7
With a big event like this, Belle had to rely on some temporary employees to run it since they couldn’t afford to hire full-time or even part-time employees permanently when they wouldn’t need them ninety percent of the time. Her dad had done an amazing job of starting to bring in more and more things like this, though. In the beginning, no one had wanted to do anything but have an odd hockey practice here. Now, they had open skate nights, classes, and coaching where people or groups could buy rink time, a whole hockey league jockeying to get practice times and games, and they hosted birthday parties regularly. Her dad had also added a small arcade off to the side of the concessions, and while initially, it was just a few games people had to use quarters to play, it now had ticket machines, and people could win prizes. Belle was now on her way to check on that arcade and, more specifically, the ticket counter.
Pretty soon, instead of them only needing extra help ten percent of the time, they’d need it twenty, and then, thirty. The Ice Park was putting the town on the map when it came to winter sports. Yes, it would take a lot longer for it to ever be fully refurbished and for it to garner any real attention, but it was a start, and that was what Belle and her father had needed: a fresh start after everything that had happened.
She walked up to the teenager she’d hired to run the arcade for event night and checked to make sure they had everything they needed. Discovering they were running out of some of the candy options they had for prizes, Belle ran to the back storage area and found the boxes of what they needed. She helped restock before she checked on the concession stand, where Steph was trying to keep down the line with the help of another temp who seemed to be having some issues.
“Not those. I need the salt and vinegar chips,” Steph barked.
“Oh, sorry,” the temp, whose name Belle couldn’t remember right now, said and reached back to put the regular chips back down.
This was the problem with hiring people temporarily: Belle didn’t have more than a few minutes to train them before they had to get to work, and then she had to do it all over again with the next one.
