By late afternoon the municipal rink kept a silver dish of calling cards no larger than postage stamps, each tied to a skate with baker's twine. Mr. Moss at the rental window asked the first pair not to hold hands until they had read the names.
We asked beside the thermos queue, while wool hats pretended not to lean in. A woman with still-dry gloves said he told her the left blade likes to know who is on the right before the waltz. She had assumed he meant the people.
Each skate receives a card written in pencil, so the name can be sharpened between sessions. They glide to the boards, bow by the toes, and only then link straps, as if the ice were a drawing room with unusually good lighting. Mr. Moss says the cards are leftover ticket stubs from last winter; the skates, he insists, prefer paper that already smells like cold.