Orson Introduced Me To The Committee While I Sharpened Their Skates

I had a child's skate against the wheel when Orson Heller told the festival committee what I did for a living.

"Maritza handles the wiping down," he said. "Every operation needs someone who keeps the shoes clean."

The wheel hissed. I finished the pass before I looked up.

At forty-seven, I was a broad-shouldered Cuban American woman with brown skin, dark eyes, and a silver braid that reached the collar of my work coat.

I owned and ran a portable skating-rink fleet out of a rented shop on the south side of Minot. I could sharpen a skate and keep a conversation going, though that conversation gave me very little to work with.

"Skates," I said. "Shoes don't usually need an edge."

Two committee members laughed. Orson laughed louder.

He was a tall white man of fifty, with pink cheeks, sandy hair swept over a thin spot, and a soft belly under a spotless wool coat.

His coat cost more than our shop's monthly heat bill. He liked to stand near equipment without touching it.

Freya Lund didn't laugh. She was forty-two, Norwegian American, and the logistics manager for the January festival. She had brought a tape measure, a site plan, and six pairs of skates from a community closet.

"Who sets the ice thickness?" she asked.

"We have people," Orson said.

"Me," I said. "Depending on the site and weather, we build it in thin floods. Your power feed and drainage matter before we discuss thickness."

She set her plan beside my wheel.

"The south lot slopes."

"Then we need to measure it. Ice won't fix a bad base."

Orson spread both arms. "We'll make the magic happen."

I switched off the wheel.

"Magic isn't on the load sheet."

Freya smiled at that.

My son, Tomas, stood by the chiller trailer with a pressure log in his hand. At twenty-three, he was a Cuban American man with my dark eyes and none of my patience. He was a refrigeration apprentice, working under a licensed contractor while he learned the trade.

He put down his clipboard too hard.

I shook my head once.

The committee had come to discuss a $21,600 winter package. They deserved answers, not a family fight beside a grinding wheel.

I walked Freya through the floor crates. Our rink measured forty-four by seventy-two feet. Aluminum panels carried cold glycol beneath the ice. The chiller rode on its own trailer. Two refrigerated box trailers hauled the gear; their units could keep wet equipment above freezing between winter jobs and carry cold loads in summer.

I drew a blue chalk square around one panel coupling.

"What's that for?" Freya asked.

"A check I haven't finished. I brush off the square when it's done."

My father had taught me that in his repair shop. Never make a check mark just because you wanted something finished.

Orson stepped between us.

"She's particular. That's why I keep her."

I put the chalk in my pocket.

Three winters earlier, we had formed Prairie Lantern Events. We each put in $6,000. Orson handled bookings. I handled the rink, crews, transport, and ice.

What I hadn't put into that company sat around him in numbered crates.

When we first signed the papers, he had complained about the equipment schedule.

"Do we need every little number?"

"Only if we ever need to know what's ours," I had said.

Now he was leaning on crate P-18 like it had grown from his sleeve.

Freya asked for the setup window. I gave her eighteen hours after the base and power passed inspection, with weather allowed for in the contract. She wrote it down.

Orson promised twelve.

I crossed out twelve on his sample schedule.

"Eighteen," I said.

He watched my pen. His smile stayed, but it thinned.

After the committee left, Tomas shut the shop door.

"You let him say that."

"I heard him."

"Then why didn't you tell them?"

"Because they asked about their festival. I answered about their festival."

Orson had already gone to lunch. On his desk, beneath an unpaid fuel bill, lay a printed email.

The subject read: Fleet Purchase, Friday Collection.

I read the first line twice.

The proposed price was $48,000 for both box trailers, the chiller trailer, and the full floor package.

My equipment had cost $186,000, bought over eleven years with savings, used purchases, and money from selling my old service truck. No lender remained on it.

I called Orson.

"What's being collected Friday?"

"Don't start with that voice. I'm moving assets around."

"Whose assets?"

"The partnership's. We need breathing room."

He always said we when the room got small.

"I'll need the buyer's name."

"You'll get your share when everything settles."

I ended the call before Tomas could take the phone.

At home, I pulled my lockbox from beneath the spare-room bed. The key was taped inside my father's old chalk tin.

Inside lay three original vehicle titles, the signed lease, and eleven pages of serial numbers.

Before I lifted them out, my phone lit up with a message from Orson.

Bring The Titles Friday. Don't Make This Difficult.