Page 34 of Canadian Boyfriend

But also, look at me, yelling at someone! I was coming to understand that my peacekeeping had been about my fear of losing people—maybe I wasn’t so much a peacekeeper as a people-keeper. I’d always done whatever it took to hold on to the fragile friendships I’d managed to make in ballet school, the guys I spent time with in New York, Ian, and, of course, my mother. As Gretchen had pointed out, Iwasalways twisting myself to suit other people, trying to tread lightly so as not to alienate and/or disappoint them.

For some reason I didn’t have that fear now. Maybe because now that I’d had my eyes opened to this pattern, I was startingto break it. But I kind of doubted that changing years of deeply rooted habits was that easy. I suspected my newfound comfort with yelling had more to do with the person I was yellingat. I had seen the way Mike Martin never let Olivia’s anger change how he treated her. Though that was a stupid thing on which to base my confidence. She was his kid. I was… whatever I was.

I waited for him to say something in response to my outburst, maybe one of his reflexive apologies. He stared at me with a dumb, bewildered look on his face. “So, Mr. Canadian who saysI’m sorryto a chair when he sits on it has nothing to say?”

Look at me, goading now in addition to yelling.

“I’m not going to apologize for getting you health insurance! I’m not even paying you! Unless you want me to apologize forthat? Iwilldo that, because I think it’s pretty shitty!”

Wow, OK, he was yelling back. That was actually kind of interesting. Ian and I had never fought, probably on account of my aforementioned doormat tendencies. Not that I was comparing Mike Martin to Ian. Just that this was my first real fight. With anyone—witness all those years I did what my mom wanted even though it was breaking me. Even at the end, when I’d finally made my stand, I’d been weepy instead of defiant.I’dended up apologizing toher.

So this two-way yelling was… actually kind of refreshing? Was that insane?

Clearly, because Earl 9 came wheeling over to Mike Martin, whining. He didn’t growl at me, but it was clear whose side he was on.

“The amount I’m saving in rent, car payments, and insurance measured against the number of hours I’m actually working means you’re paying me a ridiculous hourly wage,” I said, lowering my volume. “Like, how dumb do you have to be to—”

He looked away. I’d gone too far. It had not occurred to me, as I’d gotten carried away with the thrill of yelling, that I had the power to hurt the feelings of a man like Mike Martin. Who had to apologize now? I opened my mouth to do exactly that when Lauren came up the stairs from the basement. Earl 9 barked happily and rolled over to her.

Mike Martin blinked. “Lauren, hi.”

“I knocked on the door downstairs, but I guess you didn’t hear.” She looked between us as she stooped to rub Earl 9’s head. The implication that we hadn’t heard because we’d been too busy yelling at each other went unspoken.

“Now that Aurora is living downstairs, probably best to use the front door when you come and go,” Mike Martin said. To me, he added, “They usually boat over here, or walk across the ice in the winter, so they come in through the basement.”

I started to object. It was his house. People should be able to come and go via whatever means they normally did. But Mike Martin talked over me. “We’re having a fire outside and going skating. You’re welcome to join us.”

I didn’t have any skates, but I went outside after a little cooling-off period. I didn’t want to leave things unresolved. Everyone was zipping around on the lake. A portion of it had been cleared of snow, and lights were strung from poles stuck into the snowbanks around the perimeter of the makeshift rink. There was a fire burning in a pit on the shore. The whole thing looked like a commercial for something. For Canada, maybe.

The air was frigid but clean smelling and had an instant calming effect. Mike Martin had taken the dock in before winter hit, but there was a deck-like portion that remained, on land but going right up to the water. I sat on it with my feet hanging over the edge. Mike Martin and Ivan were chasing each other aroundthe ice. They didn’t have hockey sticks, but they were flying. I should probably have my Minnesotan citizenship revoked for admitting this, but I had never been to a hockey game, despite my research into the sport in high school. If that was how hockey players skated, I hadn’t fully grasped the speed and power of the game. There was grace in it, too, in the footwork required for those sharp, precise turns. It reminded me of ballet, but inverted. Everyone always thought of ballet as light and graceful, but it was actually powered by brute strength. Hockey, if it involved this kind of skating, was strength and force, but it required an underlayer of refinement, of delicacy almost.

Olivia skated up to me, sure and steady. “Come on out!”

“I don’t have skates.”

Lauren joined us, executing an impressive quick stop on the edges of her blades. “You can just slide around in your boots.”

“OK.” I lowered myself off the deck, and when my feet hit the ice, I immediately started to slip. There was a flurry of laughter and exclaiming, and Lauren and Olivia arranged themselves on either side of me so they each had one arm.

“Ready?” Lauren asked.

“As I’ll ever be.”

“And here I thought dancers were graceful,” Lauren teased. I liked Lauren, whom I’d gotten to know a little. She had a dry sense of humor that made it easy to be around her.

“Maybe when the floor isn’t made of ice,” I said as I shuffled forward. It was fun, though. “Olivia, doesn’t this seem like something the Ingalls girls would do? Skate together like this?”

“Yes!”

We made a slow circuit, the guys lapping us. At some point, they finished whatever game or race they’d been doing and joined us, Mike Martin skating leisurely backward ahead of us.

“You gonna be OK if I let go?” Lauren asked, and I nodded. “Check me out,” she said. “I’ve been practicing.” She skated around to gain speed, then executed a jump-turn, a single axel or something—I didn’t know figure skating. It was impressive.

Everyone cheered, including Olivia, and when she let go of me to applaud, I fell.

Mike Martin, whose backward skating had kept going, abruptly reversed and was by my side in a second with a spray of ice, like wewerein a commercial for Canada… or for stupidly attractive hockey players. He looked down at me, and, apparently satisfied that I was OK, did the three-stage smile that popped out his dimple and said, “We have to stop meeting like this.”

He stuck out a hand. I didn’t really see myself getting up under my own steam, so I had no choice but to grab it.

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