“But that’s awesome!” cheered Phil a bit too enthusiastically.

“I haven’t done one of those in … who knows how long,” said Marci, enthused but rueful.

“Awesome!”

“I thought you were watching—it looked like you were watching.”

“I was,” lied Phil, without meaning to.

“Well, obviously you weren’t. What were you doing?”

“I don’t know.” Phil really wished he had just lied and said he had seen his wife’s single axel. “I guess I was just … thinkin’. About work,” he said, lying again. He hadn’t been thinking about anything. But he knew she’d believe him if he said he was thinking about work. Because he was always thinking about work lately. “Sorry.”

“Well, just try to be here now, you know.”

“Yeah. Sorry,” said Phil, wanting a cigarette again. And then he tried to make up for missing Marci’s single axel and said, “Hey! Why don’t you do another one! I’ll watch this time.”

Marci laughed and said she didn’t know if she could pull off another one. And then changed the subject and asked, “Want some hot chocolate?”

“Sure.”

And Marci and Phil skated back to their picnic table, and Marci pulled a thermos out of her tote bag and cracked it open and poured a couple of mugs full of hot chocolate, and they sat and sipped.

“Mmm. This is good,” said Phil.

“Thanks. I made it the way people used to make it. With actual melted chocolate.”

“It’s good.”

Marci was still excited that she had executed a single axel jump. And started talking about how maybe she should take skating lessons again. Just for fun. Her work brought her to Presque Isle a few days a month. Maybe the next time she was there, she could swing by the Forum and inquire about lessons.

Phil wasn’t really listening to his wife because he was actually thinking about work. It looked like Aroostook Pellets might be losing its largest single contract, the University of Maine at Fort Kent, because the university had started installing biomass boilers. And now Phil was worried that biomass was going to become the university’s preferred heating fuel.

“Phil!”

Phil jumped a little and wondered why Marci was practically yelling at him. He didn’t know that she had asked him—twice—what he thought about her taking skating lessons.

“What?” he asked, irritated—because his wife seemed irritated.

“Where are you? Where’d you go?”

“Oh. Sorry—just … we may be losing the university in Fort Kent—and … we’re gonna have to lay people off if we do. And that’s … not a good feeling.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Marci didn’t realize how grave the situation at Aroostook Pellets was and wanted to comfort her husband—but didn’t know how to.

And then Phil started unlacing his skates. Because he was done skating. And never wanted to go in the first place.

And Marci forgot about wanting to comfort Phil. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“I thought we were done.”

“We’re just having a hot chocolate break, Phil,” said Marci, exasperated. “We haven’t even been here twenty-five minutes! And you told me to do another single axel—so you could see!”