Crystal, meanwhile, was tilting her face to the sun, hoping to feel some warmth. Crystal had a gigantic winter coat that always made me think of Kenny on “South Park”—it’s orange, with a big cone-like hood around her head that looks like an old diving helmet, only it has fur around the edges. Crystal and her family moved here from Colorado last year and she still hasn’t adjusted to the low temps and the occasional four-day lack of sunshine.

My sister, Gretchen, was sitting on the bench beside the ice with her leg sticking straight out, looking as frozen as a fishstick.

I didn’t know why she had come along with us to the lake, actually. I guess either she was still hanging on to the concept of being my big-sister chaperone, or she was sick of staying inside the house with a gigantic brace on her leg, or else she was hoping to meet a nice single guy who loved kids, which is what she’s usually hoping to do.

Sometimes I really worry about my sister. Whenever I hear stories about girls buying wedding gowns and rings for themselves when they’re not even dating someone, it kind of makes me think she might do something like that. She can be a little out there at times. Besides, she was so obsessed with the concept of marriage that she got married at twenty-one…and was divorced by twenty-three.

Maybe that was partly why my parents had jumped all over the idea of me coming to stay with her, so that I could check up on her and make sure she was doing all right. Since her divorce last year, she’s been pretty down, which is completely understandable.

But I mean, it was her idea to separate from Luke. Doesn’t that mean she should be getting over it faster?

Of course, there were a couple other reasons I was staying with her.

One, my nephew Brett, who’s three years old and adorable—when he’s not having a tantrum or pouring cold beverages down your back.

Two, their dog, Bear, who’s one of those giant white Samoyeds and looks like a polar bear except that he moves a lot quicker than a bear.

(Then again, I’ve never seen a polar bear run. Maybe they can really book.)

And three, the fact my sister crashed while skiing and landed really badly and broke her right leg in several different places, which meant she couldn’t really take care of either her dog or her child all that well because she couldn’t drive, or walk. It happened when she came home for Christmas and she was really rather pathetic, her leg half reconstructed with pins and bolts, which is when we all hatched this plan for me to spend my January—and February, if necessary—in the Twin Cities. I was basically done with school and ready to graduate, except for an Independent Study in English—a writing project, which I could work on here as easily as at home. I needed to meet with my adviser now and then, and fill out some forms for graduation, but that was about it.

“Kirsten, we would really appreciate it if you could do something that’s important for the whole family.” My mom put it in these very serious, very guilt-inducing terms.

But the truth was, I didn’t need that much convincing. Even though Gretchen and I had never been that close, because of the seven-year age difference between us, and the fact that she still treated me as if I were nine, instead of eighteen, I had always looked up to her, in some ways. And others, not so much.

There were tons of things I wanted to do here—go to museums, like the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker, and check out a play at the Guthrie Theater, and catch some sports events at the U or the Target or Xcel Centers. Of course, with Gretchen laid up, and me looking after a three year old, I probably wouldn’t get to do any of those things, but they were on the list. I’d miss my friends, but it was only a month we were talking about.

Gretchen was so thrilled by the idea of me coming to stay with her for a month that she scared me. Was she that desperate for companionship that she’d take in “Cursed” Kirsten for a few weeks? (She’d nicknamed me that when she was twelve and thought it was hilarious. Now that she was twenty-four, apparently it still was.)

When I’d tried to convince her to let me stay with her two years ago, for my April vacation week, she’d done everything she could to talk me out of it. She’d gotten mad at me and Jones back when we were fourteen and we acted goofy at her wedding, and she’d never given me any credit for maturing beyond that.

Now there was this sudden interest in her taking me “under her wing.” I’d never been under anyone’s wing. I didn’t know if I would like it. The position didn’t exactly sound comfortable…for either one of us. I didn’t understand why she saw me as some sort of project that needed work, like the way she went berserk with her home renovation and redecoration plans, but I could put up with it for a month if it helped her.

“Come on, Kirsten. Let’s do it again!” Emma skated over and took my hand.

“We probably shouldn’t. Those guys keep watching us,” I said.

“They haven’t really taken their eyes off us. Or you, anyway,” Jones said to Emma with a smile.

“They want to watch us? Let’s give them something to watch,” she said with a grin. “Come on, Crystal!”

The four of us got into a line, and somehow I ended up on the end again. “Hey, no fair,” I said as we started to skate, faster and faster. Soon we were catching up to the guys.

Then my friends let me go.

I was like that battery bunny. I kept going, and going…

And I couldn’t stop. And then I was crashing into…all of them. Two of them went down onto the ice and I landed right on top of one.

“Are you okay?” one of them I’d fallen onto asked, his face turning red, and getting redder and redder the longer I stayed flattened on top of him.

Then someone else kind of wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me up. “Didn’t I tell you to be careful?” I looked over my shoulder and saw that it was Sean. His hands were warm as he touched my skin—my jacket was short and my shirt had come untucked from my low-rise jeans—and he wasn’t even wearing gloves.

“S-sorry,” I stammered, as he held onto me for a few seconds longer than necessary.

The boy I’d landed on top of—who’d valiantly tried to stop me—got to his feet and asked, “You okay?”

“Fine,” I said. “Sorry. Really sorry about that.”

He shrugged. “No problem.” I watched as he skated away. He was nearly as good on his skates as Sean—who was still holding onto my arm. “Just don’t let it happen again,” Sean said, “or we’ll have to show you how it’s really done.” He gave me a little squeeze as he pushed me toward my friends.

Good grief, I thought. It was almost worth falling again.

“Congratulations, one of them is still standing,” Jones told me as I wobbily skated over to her.

Everyone was giggling and I couldn’t help smiling, too.

“You know what? Let’s go inside,” Crystal suggested. “Before they kick us out of the rink for good.”

“Great idea,” I said. “It’ll be easier to kill you all when you’re on solid ground.”

“You don’t want to kill us,” Jones said. “Thanks to us you just met a completely adorable guy. Or four or five of them, actually.”

“True. And thanks to you, they all know I’m a complete klutz. Cursed Kirsten strikes again.”

We walked up the wooden ramp and steps into the park building to take off our skates, still laughing. A Girl Scout troop was selling hot chocolate while they took orders for cookies. We each got some and then went to sit by the window so we could check out the guys some more.

But all we could see was Gretchen glaring through the glass because we’d forgotten and left her outside with Brett. She didn’t want to come in and be tempted to have a hot chocolate with whipped cream on top, never mind order twelve boxes of Girl Scout cookies. If I were on a diet I probably would have avoided them as well.