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It was strange.
Normally, Marcie saw Patricia – Peppermint Patty – as sloppy, loud, and disorganized. She would stomp her way into class, thirty minutes late, disrupting the whole lesson, then fall asleep at her desk until she inevitably was called on. And that wasn’t all. She snored. Loud. She would butt her way into conversations she wasn’t a part of, dragging Marcie with her, and the pages she pulled from her backpack were always at least a little bit crumpled.
This wasn’t to say that Marcie didn’t like her. In fact, Marcie maybe liked her a little too much. For all the school she missed and all the times she seemed to not hear a word Marcie said, she had even more heart and dedication, and she could be sweet, too, when she wanted to be. She always gave her whole self to whatever she was busy with at the moment: baseball, soccer, figure skating. Even things that weren’t sports, like helping Marcie and the rest of the student council make decorations and invitations for Homecoming last year. They had gotten the whole gymnasium ready in a matter of a couple of hours, an impressive feat for a group as small as theirs. Marcie felt comfortable with her, enough to pull a joke every once in a while or to talk for hours on end about things that made Patty only scratch her head in confusion. Enough that Marcie’s anxiety didn’t keep her away; In fact, she was usually the one seeking out the noisy brunette, not the other way around. She missed Patty when she wasn’t around, wished that she had someone with her to talk to even though she had never minded being in her own company before. Even when they were together, Marcie still wished… wished what? What was missing for her to want? She wasn’t sure.
Still, The last thing that Marcie would have described her as was graceful.
And yet, there she was, gliding effortlessly on the ice as if it were nothing but the early-morning clouds it reflected. She seemed almost one with the music she skated to, swirling and spinning with the trill from the flutes and dipping with the deep harmony of the bass. It was strange and graceful, but most of all, it was beautiful. The way her arms arced in the air like the neck of a swan, the way the sunlight bounced off her brown hair, turning it gold as if it had been touched by Midas himself.
Marcie was captivated. The icy fog on her glasses caused a haze over her vision that almost made it seem like a dream, and if it hadn’t been for the beagle sitting next to her, she might have believed it was one. Of course, a dog might not count as an entirely reliable eyewitness, and it wouldn’t be out of character for Marcie to dream something like this, but the bite of the wind and something inside her told her it was real.
Patty came to a smooth stop with the song’s final decrescendo and turned towards the bench where Marcie sat, her hands still hovering in their final position. “So? What’d you think, Marcie?”
Marcie was so caught up in admiration that she almost forgot to respond. “It- It was great, sir.”
“Only great? Come on,” Patty replied, beginning to glide back to the bench. “It was definitely better than just great. That was the first time I haven’t messed up!”
“…Hadn’t.”
“What?”
“Hadn’t messed up. That was the first time you hadn’t messed up. It would be had instead of have since your sentence was in the past tense.” Marcie wanted to kick herself, but it was the only thing she could think to say at the moment due to the sub-freezing temperature and her skating-induced brain fog.
“Yeah, whatever. I know you liked it.”
Marcie had. She didn’t say anything. Peppermint Patty plopped down onto the bench next to her, and Marcie felt the bench shift a little bit under the added weight. Suddenly it wasn’t so cold anymore.
“You should come skate with me,” Patty suggested. “You might as well get some enjoyment out of sitting out here in the cold. Now that I’m done with my routine you don’t need to worry about messing up my practice, either.”
“I’m… not so sure, sir. I’m not very good at skating. I can barely keep myself upright.”
“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun!” The taller of the two stood up, prying Marcie’s fidgety hands apart to hold them in her own. “I can teach you. There’s nothing to worry about!”
“I don’t know, I…”
Marcie felt herself being tugged off the bench and looked up at the girl in front of her. The lopsided smile on Patty’s face, the warmth of her hands in Marcie’s… Maybe Marcie didn’t need as much convincing as she thought.
“Well, maybe I’ll give it a try.”
God. What was she thinking?
Peppermint Patty’s smile only grew. “For real? All right!” She dragged Marcie out onto the ice, still holding loosely onto her mitten-covered hands, and began to explain. “So, the first thing you’re gonna do is make sure your feet are facing outward. Like a little pizza, y’know? And make sure they’re close together, too. Otherwise, you’re more likely to lose your balance, even though it doesn’t seem like that when you’re just learning. And – Woah!”
Marcie’s feet slipped outward and she lurched forward, wrapping her arms around her friend so tightly that Patty could barely breathe enough to get out a word.
“Ack! Sorry, sir, I wasn’t kidding about being bad at this.” Marcie loosened her grip and attempted to steady herself as she spoke, but only ended up falling the rest of the way to the ground, losing her glasses in the process.
“Give yourself some grace, Marce,” Peppermint Patty replied. “Everyone’s gotta start somewhere.”
“Everyone except you. I’m fairly certain you were born with more coordination than an Olympic athlete.”
“Tch. Not quite.”
After a few tries, Marcie successfully collected her glasses, stood, and steadied herself, still holding onto the other.
“Let’s try again,” Patty suggested. “It’ll be better this time. Better than staying stationary and just standing here, at least.”
Patty’s green jacket bunched under Marcie’s grip. “Better than standing here and not falling?”
“You won’t fall. Just look at me. I’ll go backward, you go forwards, and we move together, got it? Small strokes. Don’t get caught up in trying to go fast or anything, just hold on to me and look straight ahead. That way you can’t get too scared.”
“You underestimate my brain’s abilities to overthink,” Marcie replied, but even as she did so, she attempted to move forward.
“No, you’ve totally got it! Listen, the bigger of a deal you make it out to be, the bigger it’ll actually be. Just don’t think about it! That’s how I get through most things. Of course, sometimes you’ve gotta strategize and stuff, though, so it’s not always the best way to do things, but I can adapt to the situation. ‘S not a static rule.”
Marcie continued to stay silent, choosing to focus on not falling rather than formulating a response to Patty’s rambles. She watched her feet instead of looking at Patty like she’d been instructed to – which, for some reason, made Marcie feel extra wobbly. She was grateful for the rambling as a partial distraction, though. It kept her from thinking about all the things that could’ve gone wrong, at least. Her confidence increased the longer they circled the frozen pond, and after what seemed like no time at all to her (and probably ages to Peppermint Patty, though Marcie couldn’t be sure), she finally felt ready enough to take another step towards skating independently.
She finally looked up at her skating partner, who she found was already looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite place, and their eyes met. Patty was flustered as well; she seemed to be caught just as off guard by Marcie suddenly looking back at her as Marcie was about the opposite. The situation set in. Marcie was here, skating on the ice with Peppermint Patty, not just watching. And they were so close, a couple feet apart, but still; Marcie wasn’t sure if her sudden disorientation was due to her attempt at skating or something else entirely. Her mind went blank, leaving her with only butterflies in her stomach and wobbly, slipping skates. She nearly fell over again but was caught by her skating partner, who pulled her suddenly much, much closer than before in an attempt for stability.
“Ah! I’m sorry, I just… Let me help you; I’m sorry, I guess I just got distracted and I didn’t mean to stare or anything, but–”
Marcie gently put a hand up to Patty’s face, partially to make her stop talking and partially to push herself far enough apart that she could stand on her own again. “Thank you. I didn’t mean to startle you, either. And thank you for helping me.” She let her hand fall, revealing a shyer-than-usual grin from the other.
“Well, yeah, of course.”
She couldn’t tell if the pink on Peppermint Patty’s face was just from the cold or something else entirely. She figured her own face probably looked about the same.
“I’m ready to go on my own now I think. Or maybe just with one hand for support.”
Marcie didn’t want to let go of both hands. She chalked it up to nerves and settled for just one. Patty nodded in response and reacted accordingly, leaving only a tightly-held, mittened hand between her and her friend, and began to pull Marcie along. Everything felt faster now with less support, and Marcie struggled to keep up – even her biggest glides were still small and unstable.
“We’re going a bit fast, sir…”
“C’mon, Marce, sometimes it’s easier to go faster! Just keep your feet together and let your center of balance–”
CLUNK.
Patty’s toe stop hit a stray stick on the ground, and she lost her balance, lunging forward and pulling Marcie along with her still-held hand. Her skates flailed, failing to get a grip on the slippery ground, and she hit the ice flat on her stomach.
“Ouch,” she groaned weakly as she rolled over to lay on her back.
Marcie had fallen into a sit, but she still had the air knocked out of her. Her attempts to catch a breath, though, soon turned into laughter – a small chuckle at first that bubbled over, releasing all at once until it became nearly hysterical. She let herself fall back onto the ice as well.
“What? What’s so funny?” Peppermint Patty looked over at her, puzzled, but now giggling as well.
“It’s just that –” Marcie struggled to get words out between laughs and snorts – “I guess you’re not as graceful as I thought.”
This really made Patty laugh. “Graceful? Me? Who do you think I am, some kind of princess or something?”
The two girls lay there together in the cold, in the middle of the frozen lake, laughing until they were dizzy. It was freezing, but Marcie couldn’t think of anything else she’d rather be doing, even if they had spent more time sitting on the ice than actually skating on it. When the laughter died down, she rolled onto her side to look at Peppermint Patty, who was staring up at the sky, her hair and jacket now freckled with snow.
“You’re weird, Marcie,” she said, seemingly having noticed the shift in position.
“Speak for yourself, sir,” Marcie replied. “I think it’s better this way.”
Patty closed her eyes contentedly. “Oddballs against the world, huh? Kinda poetic.”
She held her hand out again. Marcie took it.
They lay there for a while, drinking in the moment and the sharp winter air.
And though it was different than usual – soft, still, and silent – Marcie didn’t find it strange at all.