Wheels Down at Starlight Skate

• Chapter 1 Hard Wheels and Red Ink
• Chapter 2 The Pink-Haired Intruder
• Chapter 3 Wood vs. Ice
• Chapter 4 Midnight Maintenance
• Chapter 5 Gliding on Bad Terms
• Chapter 6 Crossovers and Off-Key Organ Music
• Chapter 7 The Double Axel Dilemma
• Chapter 8 Scratches on the Hardwood
• Chapter 9 Toe Loops and Jam Skates
• Chapter 10 Overlap on the Floor
• Chapter 11 Friction at the Snack Bar
• Chapter 12 Spin Control
• Chapter 13 The Eviction Clock
• Chapter 14 Shared Rhythms
• Chapter 15 Falling Off Edge
• Chapter 16 Neon Lights and Ice Frost
• Chapter 17 The Joint Proposal
• Chapter 18 Smooth Operator
• Chapter 19 Tights, Laces, and Friction
• Chapter 20 Unexpected Balance
• Chapter 21 The Final Rehearsal
• Chapter 22 Cracks in the Surface
• Chapter 23 The Starlight Fundraiser
• Chapter 24 Wheels Up, Blades Down
• Chapter 25 The Disco Ball Glow
• Chapter 26 Rolling Into Tomorrow

The smell of Starlight Skate was a distinct, sacred mix of polyurethane floor coat, butter-flavored popcorn oil, and fifty years of accumulated ozone from the neon lights. To anyone else, it was retro kitsch. To me, it was air.

I leaned over the counter of the skate rental booth, a strip of coarse grip tape in one hand and a razor blade in the other, methodically trimming the edges of a size-nine rental boot. My name is Robin Vance, and my pronouns are they/them, a fact clearly displayed on the enamel pin pinned to my canvas apron, right above the embroidered Starlight Skate: Home of the Roll-A-Thon logo.

It was a Tuesday afternoon, which meant the rink was as quiet as a tomb. The giant fiberglass star suspended from the center of the wooden ceiling rotated

My grandfather, Artie, was sitting in the back office behind a tower of faded receipts and a ledger book that looked like it had survived the fall of the Roman Empire. The red ink was practically bleeding through the pages. Starlight Skate had been in the Vance family since 1974, but according to the utility notices sitting on top of the desk, we had about sixty days before the city pulled our occupancy permit and the bank foreclosed on the building.

"Robin," Artie called out, his voice sounding like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. He adjusted his thick plastic-rimmed glasses and squinted at a glowing tablet screen—a recent, unwanted gift from my mother to help him 'enter the twenty-first century.' "Come take a look at this. The arena management company sent over the draft for the temporary lease agreement."

I set down my skate tool and walked into the cramped, wood-paneled office. The walls were covered in black-and-white photos of roller derby teams from the seventies and autographed glossies of jam skaters who had long since hung up their quads. "Lease agreement? Artie, we own the building. Mostly."

"We own the dirt and the wood," he corrected, tapping the screen with a gnarled finger. "We don't own enough cash to pay the property taxes or the industrial electric bill for the next two months. So, I did what any prudent business owner does when facing ruin. I agreed to a sub-lease. Just for the off-peak morning and early afternoon hours."

A knot formed in the center of my chest, right behind my pin. "Sub-lease to who? The indoor soccer league again? Because their cleats ruined the varnish on the north quadrant last winter, and it took me three weeks of hand-buffing to get it smooth."

"Not soccer," Artie said, avoiding my eye. He shuffled a stack of paper invoices. "Ice."

I blinked. "Ice?"

"Figure skating," he clarified, finally looking up. "The Municipal Ice Center down on 4th Street had a compressor failure yesterday morning. Their main rink is flooded and frozen into a jagged mountain range, and their secondary rink is booked solid for hockey. The regional figure skating club needed practice space for their elite skaters heading into the sectional qualifiers. They're paying top dollar to rent our floor."

"Artie, this is a roller rink," I said, pointing through the door toward the eighty-five-foot expanse of polished white maple floor. "You can't skate on wood with steel blades. They'll chop the floor into kindling!"

"They aren't wearing ice skates, kiddo," Artie said soothingly. "They use off-ice frames. Roller blades with toe stops designed to mimic blades on wood. It's totally safe for the polyurethane. I double-checked with the manufacturer."

Before I could mount a defense of our immaculate maple floor, the chime above the front entrance double-buzzed, echoing through the empty building.

"That'll be them now," Artie said, pushing himself up from his vinyl swivel chair with a grunt. "Be nice, Robin. That sub-lease check is the only reason the lights are staying on through the end of the month."

I followed him out to the main lobby, my quad skates slung over my shoulder by their laces out of sheer habit.

Standing by the ticket booth was a girl who looked like she had gotten lost on her way to a high-fashion athletic commercial. She was wrapped in a black matte track jacket with gold embroidery across the back that read Northern Lakes Figure Skating Club, paired with sleek compression leggings. But what caught my attention immediately was her hair: a brilliant, blinding shade of hot pink, pulled back into a bun so tight it looked like it was held together by pure willpower.

Beside her were two heavy-duty rolling gear bags and a woman carrying a clipboard who had "overbearing sports parent" written in every line of her tailored beige trench coat.

"Artie Vance?" the woman in the trench coat asked, stepping forward with an outstretched hand that sported a French manicure. "I'm Brenda Vance—no relation—and this is my daughter, Laurel. We spoke on the phone about the floor time."

"Welcome to Starlight," Artie said, shaking her hand warmly. "This is my grandchild, Robin. They run the floor maintenance and the rental shop around here."

The pink-haired girl—Laurel—turned her gaze toward me. Her eyes were a sharp, ice-cool blue that contrasted violently with her warm hair. She looked down at my worn canvas apron, swept her eyes over my faded t-shirt and wide-leg denim, paused briefly on my pin, and finally landed on the heavy leather quad skates hanging over my shoulder.

"Quads?" Laurel asked, her voice light but laced with an unmistakable edge of skepticism. "People still use those outside of retro music videos?"

I felt my jaw tighten. "They're custom-built Riedell 336s with Snyder Advantage plates," I said, keeping my tone deliberately flat. "And this floor has been maintained specifically for four-wheel balance since before your mother bought that coat."

Laurel raised one dark eyebrow, unzipping her gear bag to pull out a pair of stiff white boots fitted with an unusual, arched metal frame holding three inline wheels and a large, bulbous rubber stopper at the front. "Well, starting today, this floor is an elite training space. I need four hours of uninterrupted track time every morning, zero music except my short program track, and the air temperature kept at fifty-eight degrees."

"Fifty-eight degrees?" I scoffed. "The heating system in here was built during the Nixon administration. If we set it to fifty-eight in October, the pipes will freeze, and the floor will buckle from the humidity shift."

"Robin," Artie warned softly, laying a calming hand on my arm. He turned to Laurel's mother with an apologetic smile. "The temperature stays at sixty-eight, as outlined in section four of the agreement we signed. But the floor is all yours until two o'clock every afternoon."

Laurel didn't look satisfied, but she swung her gear bag over her shoulder and began walking toward the entry archway leading to the main floor. Her hard plastic wheel guards clacked against the tile foyer with a sharp, intrusive rhythm.

"Hold on," I said, stepping into her path.

She stopped, looking up at me. Up close, I could see the faint trace of chalk on her fingers and the faint scuff marks on the toes of her expensive leather boots.

"Rules of the house," I said, pointing to the framed sign above the entrance. "No food on the floor, no gum, no outside street shoes past the blue line, and if you chip the finish on the wood with those toe stoppers, you answer to me with a sander."

Laurel looked at the sign, then back at me, a tiny, defiant smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "I don't chip floors, Robin. I execute triple loops. Try not to blink while you're watching from the skate counter."

She brushed past me, the faint scent of strawberry hair spray and crisp peppermint lingering in her wake. I watched her walk out onto the pristine, glistening wood of the Starlight floor, feeling the sudden, overwhelming sensation that my quiet world was about to get very loud, very complicated, and extremely pink.