
Mind you, I’m not somebody who moves with grace and purpose. I tend to fall down a lot even when I’m not on wheels. And I haven’t been on wheels since the 7th grade.
It didn’t help that I was in a little brown velvet suit. I didn’t know this, but apparently people don’t wear suits to roller skate in. My friend Eva was dressed in her usual mod Swedish airline stewardess attire, which turned a few heads, but was perfect for leaping about. Which she did. A lot. She and her husband David soared around the rink, doing triple lutzes and backward salchows. It was breathtaking to watch.
I hugged the walls and inched my way slowly but surely. Children dive-bombed me. Grannies taunted me. Various members of the Bloods and Crips conspired to trip me up. Have I mentioned yet, that this was an “urban” skating rink? In scenic South Los Angeles? If somebody would have alerted me to this fact, I probably would have laid off the chocolate-brown eye shadow and Mary-Kate and Ashley “melon-delight” lip crystals (available at Wal-Mart!).
Anyway. Suffice it to say, I have never been so uncool in my entire life. There was one humpy blonde boy there who looked like Rolfe from The Sound of Music – (Liesl’s telegram boy – you know the one). We chatted for a minute, but as I was clutching the side rail for dear life, he saw I had no game and left me on my face. From now on, I’m sticking to the Spotlight.