She Didn't Fix Her Reputation. She Threw It Away novel · Chapter 3 of 32
Chapter 3: Skate Rental
Joel admits he knew her from the door and gives her a job instead of a phone call, and then Grayson tells the morning news she may hurt herself.
The man behind the counter switched the television off.
The room went quiet except for skate wheels clicking across the floor.
Toni looked from him to me.
"George?"
"It's Georgie," I said.
"I can see that," the man said.
I set my cup down before I spilled it.
"Are you calling the number?"
"No."
"You looked like you knew."
"I did. From the door."
He came around the counter, carrying my wet shoes in a plastic bag.
"I'm Joel Rafferty. It's my rink."
Toni took a step between us.
"And it's my team," she said. "Nobody's collecting a bounty here."
"I said no," Joel told her.
He put the bag beside my feet.
"Grayson can call this place all night. I won't answer him."
"You don't know what he did," I said.
"I saw the news."
"Then you've seen more than I have."
Joel looked down at the towel in my hands.
He took a deep breath through his nose.
"I know something about a bad piece of film."
Toni rolled her eyes, but not at me.
"He used to play hockey," she said. "One fight got filmed."
"I knocked a man unconscious," Joel said.
"He was hitting a rookie who'd dropped his stick," Toni added.
"The camera caught the knockout. That's the part people kept."
He went back to the counter before I could ask more.
I watched him stack skates by size.
He left a pair in the wrong cubby, noticed, and moved it.
Toni touched my arm.
"My couch offer still stands."
"What does your son think about strangers?"
"He thinks they eat too much cereal. He's usually right."
I stayed at Toni's that night.
Her son had left a blanket folded on the couch and a handwritten warning above the remote.
THE LEFT BUTTON STICKS.
In the morning I came back to the rink with Toni before her dental shift.
My shoes were still damp.
Joel had set them beside a fan behind the counter.
"I owe you for the socks," I said.
"Keep them."
"Then I owe you for drying my shoes."
"They're still wet."
"I could help here," I said. "Until I can pay for a bus home."
His eyes went to the empty rental racks.
"You know how to sort sizes?"
"I can count."
"Fifteen an hour, cash. Rentals and snack bar."
"I don't know how to run a snack bar."
"The pretzels go in the oven. The money goes in the till."
I held out my hand.
He shook it once.
His fingers were rough and warm.
"No photos of me at work," I said.
"I don't photograph employees."
Toni arrived with scissors stolen from her bathroom cabinet and marched me toward the ladies' room.
"Your hair gets tangled in that helmet," she said.
"I can tie it up."
"You can. Or I can make you look like you want to be here."
I took the scissors from her.
My mother's stylist had kept my hair long since the first campaign ad.
She said the waves softened Catherine's sharp face.
I gathered one handful and cut it at my jaw.
The wet length fell into the sink.
Toni made a noise.
"Let me even that before anyone sees it."
She cut the other side while I held the sink.
When I came out, Joel was at his sharpening bench.
He looked up, then went back to the wheel.
"You look different," he said.
"That's a brave opinion."
"I was going to say better."
"You took too long."
He slid me a box of laces to sort and a mug of coffee.
The coffee tasted like someone had boiled a hockey puck.
"Do you serve this to customers?"
"Only the ones who complain about the skates."
"I'm going to complain about the coffee."
"Then I know what to serve you tomorrow."
I sorted laces by length while he worked beside me.
At noon Toni came back with sandwiches wrapped in foil.
We ate standing behind the counter because a school group had taken every table.
I put in six hours that day.
Joel counted out ninety dollars, even when I told him I'd spent half an hour learning the register.
"Learning is work," he said.
At Toni's apartment that evening, her son watched the morning news replay on the television.
Grayson stood beside a reporter, holding a photograph of us from Christmas.
"She isn't well," he said. "She may hurt herself if she's alone."
Toni's son turned on the couch and stared at my hair.
"Mom," he said, "isn't that George?"
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