“You’ve been recognized. Get ready for the fangirling.”

Randy waves to the girls. They burst into giggles. I give him a look. “You shouldn’t encourage them.”

“Why not?”

One of the girls finally takes it upon herself to skate over. She glances at Randy and then me, wringing her hands together, then playing with the end of her long ponytail. “Miss LeBlanc, um… should, uh…” She glances at Randy again. “Should we practice one more time or get changed?”

I look at the clock. It’s almost eleven-thirty. “Oh! You girls can get changed.”

“Okay.” She nods frantically and then gives Randy the side-eye again.

“Unless you all want to show Randy your routine. He’s not a figure skater, but he plays hockey for Chicago.”

“Oh my God!” She looks over at the other girls, who are pretending not to watch us, and screeches, about six inches away from my ear, “You were right!”

I cringe at the excited squealing. For the next ten minutes, Randy’s bombarded by thirteen-year-old girls. He’s sweeter than maple-butter tarts while he signs things like binders, notebooks, and backpacks that the girls retrieve from the locker room.

Then their parents show up and do the same thing. The moms are the worst. Especially the pretty ones. They put their hands on his arm and simper compliments. It makes me want to barf. It also makes me want to boob-punch a couple of them. I pretend to keep busy checking my clipboard. After a while it’s clear they’re not going anywhere, and I still need to get changed—and shower now that Randy’s here. Usually I do that at home as the locker room showers are questionable.

I’m a little concerned about what the plan is going to be. I don’t have a car, so I would’ve taken the bus home, but I don’t want to take Randy there for a multitude of reasons. My mother will not approve. Also, the underwear guy has been over a lot. He puts on sweats now, but he walks around shirtless quite a bit. It’s unpleasant.

I shoulder my bag and start toward the locker room. Randy grabs my wrist. “Just wait a minute, ’kay?”

“I’m going to change.”

“Is anyone on the ice after this?”

“There’s another class in less than half an hour.”

Randy frowns. “That’s too bad. I wanted to watch you skate.”

“Some other time. I’ll be out in a few.” I leave him with the parents. He’s used to dealing with this kind of attention, and he doesn’t seem to mind it.

As soon as I’m in the locker room I call Sunny, but her phone goes to voice mail. I get her message about chi-cleansing and karma being her friend and wait for the beep.

“I can’t believe you didn’t warn me that Randy was coming here! I didn’t even shave my girl parts, and now I’ll have to… I don’t even know. It’s not good. My situation is dire here. My garden needs to be pruned. No, not pruned, sheared. I’m mad at you until further notice! God, he’s so hot,” I tack on at the end.

I hang up and debate calling again to apologize. It’s not that bad. I definitely need to give everything a onceover with a razor, but it’s not a jungle or anything. I toss my phone in my purse and rummage through my bag. I don’t have conditioner or soap. I don’t even have a towel, which sucks, but options are limited. I can’t leave here without showering. Luckily, I have shampoo and a razor. It’s old, with rust marks, but it’ll have to do.

I turn on the water, take off my skates, and strip. I’m ripe after four hours on the ice. The water feels fantastic, so I stand under the spray for a few seconds, enjoying the heat. I try to keep my hair out of the water as much as possible so I don’t have to mess around with it. I squirt some shampoo on my hand and rub it all over my vag. My legs need doing as well, but the crotch is most important. I’ve got some growth from my last home-waxing job.

The razor is super dull. It’s terrible. I can’t believe how little hair it removes on the first pass. I go over it several more times and get most of it, but it could definitely be smoother. I move on to my legs; they’re just as bad, and I make almost no progress. I might as well be using a butter knife.

I’ll get Randy to stop at a store on the way to wherever we’re going. I’ll have to fix my fuzz problem before he sees me naked. I give up on my legs, which are now red in the spots where I’ve razored them.

I use the shampoo to wash the rest of my body and dry off with one of my spare leotards. It’s highly ineffective. I get the biggest areas, but I’m still damp, which makes getting dressed a pain. Everything sticks. And I don’t have one of my nice bras, just an old sports bra. It’s been washed so many times it’s gray instead of white.

As excited as I am to see Randy, I feel totally unprepared, aside from the fact that my girl parts are moist. I pull on my sweats—the only thing I have other than my work clothes—and they smell like burned toast. I check my reflection in the mirror; I look like a street person.

Holes pepper the knees of my pants. If I look close, I can see skin through a pea-sized tear at my hip. I hope Randy doesn’t notice. After the sports bra and the old University of Guelph shirt with bleach stains on it, I pull on my hoodie. I’d like to say this is an improvement over my T-shirt. It’s not. I finger-comb my hair—no brush, of course. I’m a hot mess today.

I jam everything into my bag, aware that I’m taking a long time. I half expect to find Randy waiting for me in the hall. I’m actually a little surprised he didn’t end up in here with me. As I round the corner to find him, I run into someone I definitely don’t want to see.