Against All Odds or My First Couples Only Skate

A few days ago The Wife and I took The Peanut roller skating. It was the first time I had entered a roller skating rink in more than twenty years. Being on skates again (I didn't even hurt myself!) brought back a lot of fun memories. One of them grew into this piece...

Her hair was curly, shoulder length, so red it seemed to glow with its own inner flame. Her eyes were green, the rich color of the Irish hills. I had noticed her before as she skated past with her friends, her blue and white checkered dress ruffling as she passed. As a child of ten, my radar for noticing members of the opposite sex was still brand new, awkward, hard to understand. Most girls flitted by without even a second glance, the barest hint of any sort of consideration. But this girl was hard not to notice.

The DJ at Spinning Wheels, the premier roller skating destination of my childhood, had just issued the call for a couples only skate. This call usually signaled a retreat to the arcade games for my friends and I. We were all about skating as fast as the attendants would let us, not skating while holding hands with girls. For some reason on this particular day I left the skate floor as usual, but instead of following my friends to wait in line to play the new Spy Hunter game, I lingered, watching the older kids and a few pairs of adults link hands and begin to skate. The first few bars of Phil Collins' song Against All Odds began to pour forth from the speakers.

She skated up to me from behind. I didn't even know she was there until she tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and immediately found the simple task of drawing another breath to be a monumental chore. I was slightly taller than her, but no more than a few inches. I was locked into the depths of her green eyes, lost as surely as any mariner in a rolling sea without a compass. I don't know how long I stood there mouth agape, staring. What felt like ages was more likely just a matter of seconds.

Then she smiled.

That is the first time I recall becoming physically acquainted with the physics of the phrase "weak in the knees". Had I not already been leaning on a wall, my scrawny, lovestruck, ten-year-old ass would have been planted firmly on the carpeted floor, the wheels on my rented skates turning slowly.

"Hi," she said, her beautiful smile deepening.

I don't recall what I said in reply, probably something witty and suave like a deep gulp and a high pitched squeak. I knew on some level that I was supposed to reply. It just wasn't happening. I simply stood there...mesmerized.

"You wanna skate with me?" she asked, hands behind her back, face slightly upturned to mine.

My mouth, still refusing the frantic messages to respond being sent by my brain, remained shut. I stood there and at least managed to nod my head up and down, like a mindless bobblehead. She smiled again, took my hand, and led me out onto the wooden floor.

As we picked up a bit of momentum we both reflexively tightened our grip. Waves of heat seemed to roll over me from the contact point where her fair, freckled skin met my own. One thought (I'M SKATING COUPLES WITH A GIRL! I'M SKATING COUPLES WITH A GIRL! I'M SKATING COUPLES WITH A GIRL) took over my brain and ran on a constant loop for the duration of the entire skate.

We didn't talk, not that I would have been capable of any sort of intelligent conversation at that point. We just skated, hand in hand, making gentle revolutions around the rink as Against All Odds played on. I remember keeping my eyes furiously glued on my skates, praying fervently for my feet not to tangle, not wanting this beautiful girl to think she had picked a complete spaz to skate with. As much as I wanted to look at her face, hoping to see that amazing smile, I kept my eyes locked down.

Soon, much too soon, the final piano notes signaled the end of the song. We began to slow down and I found the courage to meet those heavenly green eyes with my own regular hazel variety. She gave my hand a squeeze before she let go.

"Thanks. That was fun." She waited for a reply, any reply. I don't know, maybe she just wondered if I even had a voice at all since the extent of my communication with her so far equated to a simpleton's head nod and a squeeze from an overly sweaty right hand. Somewhere deep in the control center of my brain someone finally managed to throw the switch. The gag was lifted and I felt my lips begin to move to utter what was sure to be just the right words to make this girl fall madly in love with me.

"You're...uh...y'welcome," I managed in little more than a whisper.

She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, my nostrils filling with the scent of apples. Then, with a final smile, she skated off to join a group of girls in the cafe. I skated a few rounds by myself, oblivious to everything around me. I don't remember what song was playing, I don't remember if anyone skated up and attempted to talk to me. I was in a state of complete shock, my head deep in the proverbial clouds, my fingers constantly coming back to marvel at the spot on my cheek her lips had briefly touched.

Eventually I left the floor. I found my friends at the Spy Hunter, where I knew they would be, and I tried to get interested in the game. It didn't work. For the first time in my young life (and certainly not for the last) thoughts of a girl dominated everything else. Her eyes, her hair, her smile...her kiss. Nothing else I tried to filter through would compute, especially the strategy I needed to focus on to play a video arcade game.

After a while, the call for a couples only skate went out again. My ears perked up, my heart began to race. I had to go find...

I realized then that I didn't even know her name. I skated quickly through the building looking for her, ready to make my mouth work this time, ready to say all the right things.

But I couldn't find her. I checked everywhere while the couple's skate went on. I checked the cafe, scanned the skaters on the floor...looking for that luxurious red hair...not finding it. There was no sign of her or her group of friends. They must have left while I was at the stupid arcade game. I ordered some fries at the cafe counter and sat to eat them while the couples only skate wrapped up. Head bowed, thoughts racing. Soon it ended and, as is the way with ten-year-old boys, I moved quickly on to having fun skating with my buddies.

But I never forgot her, the unnamed girl who invited me to skate my first ever couple's only skate. Every time I catch Against All Odds on the radio it takes me back to that wooden floor, skating loops with the most beautiful girl in the building, feeling like the king of the world, a nervous, sweaty-palmed king afraid of blowing it, but a king nonetheless.