CHAPTERONE
ISABELLE
Isabelle 29; Baxter 34
Sergio doesn’t wave as he leaves on Wednesday night, just waddles past with his heavy belly swinging from side to side over his belt. The tall man with the intense green gaze who’s been ensconced with him in his upstairs office for the past two hours struts ahead.
The visitor is a good ten years older than my middle-aged boss, but with the hardened body of someone keeping himself in shape. He has the attitude of a man so used to being obeyed that he doesn’t check if my employer follows. It’s as though it no longer occurs to him that anyone might make a different choice.
Sergio certainly doesn’t.
This is a scant three hours after the bullshit artist told me—no,promisedme—that I wouldn’t be left to lock up by myself again. Alone. In the dark. A target for every sex offender in the area.
And believe me, on this side of town, that number’s higher than you think.
I sigh, but there’s no use getting pissy about it. If Sergio doesn’t fall into line withhisbosses, then this place goes up in smoke and bye-bye income. If that goes, bye-bye flat and bye-bye to my meagre savings.
Besides, it’s not like I don’t know the routine off by heart.
I get in the ice resurfacer. Flattening down the rink is one of the last jobs of the day and one of my favourites. The way men enjoy marking their lawns in that weird crisscross pattern with their mowers, I enjoy scraping and wetting the ice in even-smaller concentric ovals. Wiping away the cuts and scratches from the hundreds of sharp blades that score the ice during the day.
Okay, maybe not hundreds. Some days, dozens is an exaggeration.
Whatever popularity ice skating might have enjoyed in the past, it’s currently at a low ebb. At least in the northern suburbs of Christchurch, it is. Goodness knows what it’s like in the rest of New Zealand, or the world, because my focus is in this one small area of the city. The only place I’ve ever called home.
To be fair, I could rustle up a far better business than the one that Sergio’s running. One time, early in my employment, I spread out a business plan on the table in his upstairs office and explained how easy it would be to expand.
Lessons. Closed rink times for professional athletes. I had a plan to recruit some of the country’s leading coaches to our little corner. Had even approached some of them to feel them out. That’s how serious I was.
My plan could have taken this from a struggling sideline to a serious business venture. An attraction that generated enough profit to bring more investors on board and perhaps expand out until we were talking millions, maybe with an extra zero thrown in for good measure. We could scale up every part of the operation and wind up managing a place we could both be proud of.
Sergio thanked me. Gave me a raise, too. I should be grateful, right?
Wrong.
That was the day he pulled the wool from my eyes. He didn’t want to run a successful skating rink because he already ran a successful business. He washed so much cash through this place that it made my pipedreams look small.
I have never felt like such a chump.
Never enjoyed a day of work at this place since, either.
Sergio held onto those plans. They came in handy once when a government official poked his nose in, trying to reconcile things that just didn’t add up. But a few spreadsheets and a lot more enthusiastic blue-sky thinking and my boss convinced him we were a business on the grow.
But we can’t actually do that. God forbid we turn a profit and get traffic through this place. The last thing my boss wants is to carry out the repairs he tells the government about every year, providing his excessive quotes.
My thoughts come to an abrupt halt as I complete the last circuit, then drive the vehicle off the ice and into the equipment room. I bolt a safety stick across the wheel, wipe up the trail of water the machine left behind, then lock the room.
One more task, empty the rubbish from the kitchen bins, then I’m good to go home.
I tie off the bags, then struggle to get them through the door while using my shoulder to prop the heavy pneumatic hinge open. Outside, the air is far cooler, despite the lake of ice in the centre of my workplace.
My eyes flick to the street, where my cousin’s car is parked by the curb. Mine wouldn’t start this morning and I didn’t have the time or the money to book it into the garage for a check-up.
Tony came through for me, letting me drive away in one of his old heaps. He gets them working just long enough to smash them to pieces at the bi-monthly derby. Although it’s doomed to die soon, I don’t want it stolen while under my care. Our relationship already feels one-sided—I owe him at least three favours by my counting—and that would be one strain too far.
Usually, I’d park it in the lot, but the sharp incline of the entry looked far more threatening when it wasn’t my exhaust pipe on the line. It’s fine. Apart from the flakes of rust dropping like dead skin to the roadside. A better summary might be to say, it’s there. It’s in one piece.
The bag slips in my hand and I reposition my grip, not wanting to be out here any longer than I need to. I hate being outside at night. The area isn’t populous even during the day and any casual observers have left, along with the fading light.
