There’s a real chance I don’t have any moves, but I’m in too deep. Luckily, my nerves ease up when I lace the skates. Wearing them, I feel transported to another time—another me—and as I push off the bench beside the rink, I glide toward the center as smoothly as ever.
I’ve still got it.
Meanwhile, Penn’s got all the skating skills of a toddler on stilts.
I sail backward to get a better look while he teeters along, holding on to the rink’s edge to stay upright. It’s dark, the disco lights dancing along the wooden floor and across Penn’s face, which is pinched in concentration. He tosses off his backward hat, as if that’s what’s throwing off his balance. I laugh at him as the first notes of “Lovefool” by the Cardigans ring out.
I feel like I’m twelve years old.
In a good way.
“What do you think?” Theo shouts from the side of the rink.
I flash him two thumbs up, then twirl for good measure.
When I stop, I catch Penn’s eye. He’s leaning against the boards. “Show-off,” he yells.
But he’s smiling.
Penn keeps watching while I round the rink, and his attention leaves me self-conscious. MyWhere’s Waldo?of an outfit doesn’t help. I’m in pink jeans and a striped T-shirt, its hem inching up as I skate. It’s nothing, a sliver of skin, but when I pass him, I remember his words from last night. About the negligee.
There have been women who wanted me to see them in lingerie,he said.
That’s what Penn’s used to. Who he ends up with: women less inhibited than me.
Women a little more like MASH Me.
I round the rink, effortless. It feels like flying when you do it right.
When I curve toward the middle, I slow down, lift my arms overhead, and spin beneath the disco balls. Afterward, I do a fewmore laps, then skate over to Penn, whose steady stare makes me wonder if he ever looked away at all.
“Still got it,” I say, hands on my hips. I’m a little out of breath.
Penn’s gaze rakes over me, as he grips the boards behind him. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “You do.”
The sincerity in his voice catches me off guard. So does the look in his eye, sparking a tiny flutter in my chest. Hope, maybe. Because Penn and I might not be compatible grocery shoppers, and The Disco Diner might be more work than I can wrap my head around, but I can do this: I can make Penn want MASH Me.
She could be the answer. To the Penn question, anyway. Because if my diaries are any indication, the me who exists here never had a problem winning men’s affections. Her dating life, as Penn said, is a little something here, something there.
Nothing serious.That feels far more doable than true love.
Maybe I just need to think a little more like Middle School Me, who played the MASH game, and whose concept of romance boiled down to a meaningful arm brush. Back in seventh grade, I’d had nothing but a couple slobbery spin-the-bottle kisses I’d rather forget, so perhaps love isn’t the answer. Maybe a casual side hug will suffice. Or, better yet, Bridget can get Penn on a three-way phone call and ask if he could ever like me.
Maybe I can just…
I grab Penn’s hand, pulling him into the rink. “Come on, Pennjamin. You need lessons if you’re going to cut it around here.”
He looks down at my hand in his, then at me. A slow smirk crawls up his face as I glide backward, tugging him after me.
But then his face registers actual panic.
And he goes down.
And he drags me with him.
Penn falls backward, and I fall forward, landing right on top of him.
My face gets smashed against his chest, his body cushioning the blow. We’re a tangle of banging elbows and knees as I try to wrestle myself upright. My palms find the floor on either side of Penn’s head, and I push up, away from him, but my arms are wobbly, still shaking from the shock of the fall, and I end up hovering over him instead, our faces only inches apart.
