Alby - Cool Whip

Cool Whip

“I’m ashamed to say it, but I feel scared,” Alby reached for my hand. “I need some air.”
Although it was early spring and the air was still quite cool, we opened the window in Room Number Seven. Alby wanted to be able to smell something, anything, other than cancer. The moment the breeze came through and ruffled our hair, Alby and I were transported.

It was during one of our Fallsview Hotel weekends that Alby was teaching me how to ice skate. He was a phenomenal skater with speed, grace and skill. He would glide around the rink with a stride so light that his skates would barely make marks on the icy surface despite the fact that they were heavy ice hockey skates. My parents had bought me my own trainer skates, white as marshmallows with pink pom-poms at the end of each lace. Alby’s were deep black with newly sharpened blades that shone under the bright lights of the indoor rink.

Mom was apprehensive as she watched my father lift me up and place me on my virgin double-bladed skates atop the ice. I was pretty sure my ankles were going to snap.

As I teetered like a foal taking her first steps Mom called out, “Al, hold her up.”

“I always do, don’t I?” His answer was directed more at me for reassurance than toward her.

Alby stood behind me, holding both of my hands up in the air, his skating propelling me forward while I didn’t lift one foot off the ice. “Look at you, Susie Q! You’re going to be the next Peggy Fleming!”

Peggy Fleming? Was she clumsy too?

Harvey and Marcy, already seasoned skaters having been taught by Alby, flew around me shouting their own brand of encouragement.

“You’re doing great!” Marcy yelled. Older sisters are great.

“Not bad for a midget,” Harvey teased. Older brothers are jerks.

“You’re gonna fall!” Mom yelled, always the voice of encouragement.

After a few chaperoned laps around the rink, I pushed off with my right foot and glided with my left. Then I pushed off with my left and glided with my right. Over and over I repeated the steps until Alby needed to hold only one of my hands.

“Don’t fall down,” my mom continued to shout from the sidelines. She was sitting on one of the folding chairs placed around the rink’s perimeter, clearly nervous that her baby might fall, break a leg, go to the hospital, need surgery, go into rehab, end up with a limp for the rest of her life, never get married or have children and live out a life of solitary depression.

Alby, meanwhile, said to me, “It’s time.”

“Time?” I asked.

He guided me to the back wall, instructing me to wait. Alby, Harvey and Marcy were in the middle of the rink, arms around each other in a huddle, and although I had no idea what was being said, I knew Alby well enough to know that I was in for something. I waited impatiently, anxious to get back on the ice.

Finally the three of them skated toward me and from the corner of my eye I could see my mother put her hand over her mouth as though stifling a scream, shaking her head back and forth until I thought her permanent wave would straighten. What was happening?

“Susie Q, do you trust me?” Alby asked.

I nodded but couldn’t help wondering why my siblings looked like the proverbial cats who swallowed the canaries and my mother looked like she’d faint.

“Then just do what I tell you and I’ll do the rest. Trust me, okay?”

Alby took hold of Harvey’s hand, Harvey took hold of Marcy’s hand, and Marcy took hold of mine. My father turned to look at me and said, “Okay. We’re doing the Cool Whip. Susie Q, keep your eyes closed and whatever you do, don’t let go of your sister’s hand. Got it?”

The Cool Whip? I’d had some on pudding but somehow, I knew we weren’t talking about the same thing and this one didn’t sound very good; and I suspected that once I found out, I was never going to forget.

Within a very short time I went from being led gently around the rink to being whipped around it at great speed. Would my blades snap off and send me careening into space? It was as though we were all train cars and I was the caboose, getting snapped into place after turning a corner. Although I had my eyes closed I imagined my father’s devilish smile as he engineered the voyage.

“Hang on,” he called out.

Oh, like I had a choice?

Harvey and Marcy had been initiated long before I, so they were experiencing the pure enjoyment of it all while I worried about how I would hide the pee I would surely make in my pants. I was scared but exhilarated and the more times we went around, the more I began to enjoy it. The cool breeze of the temperature-controlled rink became nothing short of refreshing and dried the perspiration that had formed in my pre-adolescent armpits.

Soon the Cool Whip wound down and we eventually slowed to a stop. The muscles in my legs began to go slack and my ankles ached but I felt like I could fly. “So, what did you think, Susie Q?” Alby asked as I opened my eyes and searched for my bearings.

“It was so much fun!”

“Were you scared?”

“Only at the beginning. But then I wasn’t anymore,” I was surprised to hear myself say.

“Susie Q, sometimes things in life can be really, really scary but if we just close our eyes and LIVE them from the inside, we find out that we’re bigger and stronger than whatever it is we’re afraid of.”

“Do you trust me, Dad? Then close your eyes and hold on tight. I’ll lead the way.” I held his hand, wishing more than anything that I could engineer this train for which he was the anxious and frightened caboose.