Hearts in Bloom (4 page)

CJ sniffed the sweet fragrance. He looked at her over the tops of the flowers. “Would you be willing to go out without having business to discuss?”

Unable to respond, Ivy only nodded.

The next two weeks flew by in a cloud of hazy happy evenings. CJ had other clients, so she didn’t see him every night, but often enough. The website had generated a tiny bit more traffic. He said the difference would increase over time. Beth returned from her honeymoon, leaving Ivy no reason to hang out at the store beyond her normal shift. She spent her time in the greenhouse
again, glad to be in grubby clothes and boots.

One Saturday, while Ivy enjoyed a quiet lie-in, watching the birds out her window, CJ called.

“I have the perfect date spot,” he announced.

“Oh?”

“Let’s go skating.”

“Ice or roller?”

“Roller.”

Good golly. Ivy knew how to roller skate but it had been years; the last time she’d been to Skate World was in middle school. She pushed herself up into a seated position. “Indoors or out?”

“Your choice.”

“Skate World it is—I tried inline skates once and discovered I’m not that great on them. You?”

“I do all right.”

“Sounds like fun.” Self-consciously she stretched her toes and massaged the tendons on the bottom of one foot. Hopefully, it was like riding a bike and she’d remember quickly how to balance and move in roller skates.

He picked her up—his insistence, although she lived so far from town that meeting at the rink would have made more sense. Still, she didn’t mind a ride in the silver beastie. Her jeans slid smoothly over the leather bucket seat and the wood paneling on the high-tech console looked like the real deal, not plastic fake-wood. The hairs stood up on her arms, and she rubbed the skin vigorously. CJ dialed up the heat, but she wasn’t cold. At his indication, she lifted his mp3 player he had hooked to the car stereo. She chose a playlist mix, interested in his musical taste and abilities to match keys and rhythms. Nodding along with the beat, she listened to some songs she’d never heard but decided she liked.

They found a spot in the surprisingly crowded parking lot and walked through the tinted glass doors into the wide, cavern-like foyer. The carpeting had been updated from the icky ‘70s “game room” pattern she remembered to squares of flat gray. The wood paneling, once dark enough to swallow all light, had been painted in bright primary color blocks, but the windows to outside were the same bubbled yellow glass as when the place was built in the 1970s.

CJ had brought his own skates, which he looped over one shoulder with the laces tied together.  He paid the modest admission fee—truly she was a cheap date—then CJ guided her toward the door with a hand on the small of her back. At the sound of the door buzzer, Ivy pulled the door open and stepped in ahead of CJ, breaking his contact yet wanting it back.

Ivy swore they’d stepped back in time. Little about the place had changed since middle school. The carpeting had been updated here too, but the round benches for putting on skates still wore black pile carpet, pressed flat after two generations of butts. The walls still had the orange and red pile carpet good for dimming the noise of hundreds of wheels on the open rink, and many other details seemed familiar. CJ stood next to her in line at the skate rental counter, his arm around her shoulder. She leaned into his touch and took a look around the rink as she listened to the song blasting away. Sure enough, everyone stood in a large oval, putting their right arm in, their right arm out, their right arm in, then shaking it all about.

That’s got to be the same recording of the Hokey-Pokey they played when I was here last time
.

She stepped to the counter and handed the teen boy her ticket. He said they ran true to size, so she asked for size 8 women’s. He offered a pair of worn, brown leather skates with thin brown laces and orange wheels.

These haven’t changed either
.

CJ accompanied her to one of the round benches and they sat thigh-to-thigh to do up laces. Her toes seemed happy in the
skates, even with the double layer of socks she’d worn to avoid blisters. Ivy pulled out two quarters for a locker but they were still only 25 cents. She put the other quarter in her pocket just in case, then piled their shoes and her purse inside and closed it, taking the key.

“Ready?” CJ asked. His smile issued a challenge.

She followed his confident path to the entrance of the rink, past a child’s birthday party and a couple arcade games, glad he was in front so he couldn’t see her struggle to remember how to create forward motion. At least on the carpeted area she could half walk. The DJ had resumed “normal” music and a current pop tune filled the rink with a dance beat. Ivy couldn’t think of the band’s name but had heard the song on the radio and liked it. CJ stepped across the sloped edge of the rink onto the floor and waited for Ivy to do the same.

Please don’t fall down
.

She held onto the wall—no longer carpeted but now painted blue—and stepped smoothly onto the hard floor of the rink with both skates. They rolled forward. She fought the change in balance and momentum as her hips, knees, and ankles tried to remember how to do this.

“Have you skated before?” CJ asked, smiling and staying with her.

“It has been a very long time, but yes. Give me a minute to remember how. Why don’t you skate around at your own speed and catch up to me on the next lap?”

He winked and took off. He skated with the pace of other skating traffic but was so smooth and practiced Ivy could hardly look away from him. She lifted her hand from the wall and pushed off with one skate to glide on the other. Slowly the motion needed came back to her. By the time she’d gone halfway around she had gotten up to speed and joined the flow of other skaters.

Wind created with her forward motion fanned her hair away from her face as she moved down the rink. The beats of Ke$ha’s newest hit thrummed in her chest. She watched CJ skate. The line of his leg was fluid and sure, his skates steady, his posture unaffected by the speed he traveled. Low in her abdomen, a demand like Audrey II’s “feed me” thrummed. The man was sex on wheels. The music driving through her backed up her thought. Ivy’s skates pulled to the left slightly. She waved her arms to compensate and found her balance. CJ smiled and whirled to her side, cleanly avoiding other skaters.

“You okay?

Ivy laughed. “I got it.”

Gallantly he offered his arm but Ivy shook her head. “I’d only pull you down.”

CJ caught one of her waving hands and spun in front of her, skating backward. He reached for her other hand and she relinquished it, smiling. They danced down the rink hand in hand. Ivy was sure he’d slam into somebody and they’d go down in a heap but he didn’t.

She melted. Only the wobble of the skate wheels tied her to reality. CJ was so smooth only the tension in his arms belied his presence. His long legs and lean torso were not the holographic projection he seemed. He smiled at her. Giddiness reminiscent of a high school dance fluttered through her chest. Pop music and a good-looking boy paying attention to her were a powerful combination.

The song changed to a Katy Perry dance tune and the DJ turned down the main lights in favor of blacklight. A string of Christmas lights flashed around the wall at the ceiling, red, blue, green, gold. Disco balls reflected the tiny spots of color.
Her T-shirt glowed in the blacklight, the stitching a different color around the V-neck. CJ’s laces stood out vibrant green against his black skates.

CJ let go Ivy’s hands and swung behind her. He placed his hands at her waist and arranged his skates around hers to not tangle. His big hands and fingers cupped her, molded to her curves. The fit awakened a blossoming desire. She steadied her skates and allowed him to push her around the rink. A thrill ran down her chest and her stomach flipped at how much faster she was traveling now. She flattened one hand on her chest and wanted to scream as they rounded the corner at the end of the rink, the way a roller coaster made her scream. She stiffened, and he must have sensed her tension because he lowered their pace in the straightaway. She moved her hands on top of his.

A girl between the ages of about nine and eleven zipped past them in a day-glow yellow, long-sleeve shirt and sparkly sequined skirt over neon pink leggings. Ivy laughed. God that was cute. And very bright. She followed the girl through the crowd of skaters and spied a boy about the same age. Tall and skinny, he wore a black baseball cap that covered all but the hair falling in his eyes.  When he spotted the girl, he skated quickly away, weaving through and around other skaters.
Good thing the boy’s an excellent skater—I don’t think he’d escape otherwise.
Had it been so long since she’d pursued boys with such zeal?

CJ moved alongside her and kept hold of her hand. She loved how her hand fit in his. She hadn’t realized how fulfilling such a simple connection could be. Comfort and familiarity tricked her heart into believing she’d known CJ forever. She felt seventeen again, fourteen, nineteen—all the innocent ages before John. Before she learned a gold ring did not make a man loyal, if it meant anything to him at all.

After a few laps, the song changed again to a slower love song, although true to current pop it still had a beat—a beat perfect for sex. Projecting his motion to a horizontal position forced heat to her cheeks. The lighting shifted from blacklight to low light with spots on the disco balls. The resultant spinning reflections on the rink floor were disorienting. Ivy clocked one skate’s wheels with the other and started to go down. CJ caught her and hauled her upright again, pulling her to the outside of the flow of traffic.

“Want to rest for a while?”

She nodded, reluctant to leave the exhilarating atmosphere and the sensual pull of the slower tempo—but she didn’t want to hurt anyone by biffing hard on the rink and getting in the way. CJ let go her hand and gestured for her to leave the crowded floor. Once her wheels hit the flat carpeting Ivy felt more stable, although she had to work harder to move forward.

They shared a soda and tried to have a conversation at the snack bar, but the music was too loud to make that feasible. Mostly Ivy laughed and smiled. A bit later, CJ once again led her around the rink. They enjoyed several songs and changed direction when the DJ directed them. Ivy wasn’t as proficient turning to the right as she was to the left but managed not to fall. CJ’s hand strayed once or twice from her waist to her backside, although that could have been accidental,
a trick of shifting balance.

After two hours of fun, her feet said they’d had enough. Ivy opened the locker and they changed out of their skates into shoes. Walking felt strange and soothing on her feet as she returned the skates to the rental counter. CJ met her around the corner with a bag of blue cotton candy he bought while she was busy. She laughed and thanked him, and even let him have some as they drove back to Walterville.

Maybe this one is a keeper
.

Ivy hit the red button on the cordless and placed it back on the charger, a frown pulling at the corners of her eyes. That was the third customer today complaining about the bouquet they’d had delivered from McVey via an internet 800-service. Working with people had taught her customers could not do math related to logic and small businesses, nor read the fine print.  Paying for a bouquet online with “no delivery fee” actually meant you were paying a service fee and commission to the order-taker, and the local shop who would deliver then had to make an arrangement with what monies were left, minus the local delivery charges. Necessarily it would not look like the online picture.

That link absolutely had to go. It shouldn’t have been added without asking her what experience they had with national bouquet ordering services in the first place. Ears feeling tight, she snatched the phone back off the charger and dialed the number on CJ’s card.

She was tired of being screamed at. Plain and simple. This was not business improvement.

He wasn’t answering his damn cell and this piece of her mind wouldn’t wait. She pulled out her cell phone and looked up Dex, ignoring the phone book under the counter, still in its yellow plastic bag from delivery six months ago.

With tiny onscreen keys, she fought with the alphabet to wrestle his name and Eugene, OR into the blanks. She scrolled through the results until she found “C. Wilson.” Crowing, she dialed.