14
VERONICA’S ROLLER-SKATING LESSONS were held at a big, drafty indoor rink, a Quonset hut made of corrugated metal. The metal had rusted in spots, and from these spots brown and orange streaks ran down the corrugations. The parking lot was mostly mud, with a clamshell island here and there, and Veronica’s mother cursed under her breath as the car pitched across the lot, tossed like a boat on a day when the bay was choppy. The entrance was a plywood shed stuck onto one end of the metal building. Over it was a sign that had once been brightly painted in red and yellow. The paint had faded and peeled, so that the appearance of the sign belied its claim:
FUNTIME ROLLER RINK
The door was loose on its hinges. The girl at the ticket counter was chewing gum and reading a comic book. Veronica’s mother passed a card to the girl, and the girl cut a notch out of it with a conductor’s punch. Then she looked at me. I had brought ninety-five cents with me. Neither my mother nor I had had any idea what it would cost me to rent skates and skate for a while with Veronica, so my mother had told me to call and ask. I hadn’t wanted to do that, for a reason that persists to this day: I don’t want to appear to be ignorant of the ways of the establishment I’m patronizing. I dislike calling a restaurant, for example, to ask whether they will accept a personal check as payment for a meal. If the answer is yes, I become convinced that when I write out my check at the restaurant, the waiter is sure to say, in a voice that carries to the dimmest and most intimate corners, “Say, I’ll bet you’re the guy who called this afternoon to ask whether we take personal checks, aren’t you?” And if the answer is no, then I’m sure that when I pay with cash or a credit card, something in the way I handle the money or the rapidity with which I produce the card will bring on that booming voice anyway. So, rather than call the Funtime Rink to make the inquiries myself, I got Raskolnikov to call for me. Armed with the information that he procured, I was able to push my ninety-five cents at the girl with some confidence, bothered only by the small fear, which I have never outgrown, that between the time I have learned what to do at the establishment and the time when I actually walk through the door, all the rules will have changed; if I attempt to pay the restaurant bill in cash, the waiter will look at me with shock and embarrassment and whisper, “I’m sorry, sir, but we no longer accept American money.”
“What is this for?” asked the girl.
“Rent skates,” I said. “And skate for an hour.”
“Oh, that’s just right,” she said. “It comes to ninety-five cents.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, relieved, pretending a familiarity with roller-skating that I did not have, hoping that the girl would assume that I frequented other, larger, more glamorous roller-skating rinks and was, therefore, familiar with the going rates.
“Oh, you must be Peter!” said the girl, clearly not deceived. “Your uncle called this morning to find out how much it was going to ‘set you back’ to go skating here.”
“My uncle,” I said, trying to smile.
“Yes, he told me it was your first time skating, and you wanted to impress your girlfriend, and he wanted to make sure you had a good time. Is Veronica your girlfriend? Veronica’s a really good skater. Is she going to teach you? I’m sure she can teach you a lot.”
“I really just need practice,” I said, weakly. I started for the door that led inside.
“How did your uncle get that nickname, Rascal?” the girl asked.
“Oh, it’s a long story,” I said. I kept on walking.
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🎧 175: Veronica’s roller-skating ...