A Big Storm Knocked It Over by Laurie Colwin Page B

of Sunday church manners. He called women over a certain age “ma’am”; he almost bent double to shake the hands of shorter people. It often drifted into Jane Louise’s mind to wonder what he was like in bed. She wondered this about a great many people: In this regard she was a variant form of Sven. As she ate her dinner, she reflected on this question.
    Sven the Lover she saw as a kind of mechanic, a man with a workbench in his basement, slowly taking the parts apart and slowly putting them back together, with tremendous concentration but no real personal interest. Mokie she imagined as hot and languid, the sort of person who sighs and props himself on one elbow to take a sip from a bedside glass of water. Teddy was ardent and straightforward, like a boy. Unlike Sven, who doubtless went in for accoutrements, or Mokie, who might be able to take a telephone call in the middle and then peacefully continue the enterprise, Teddy did not much go in for frills. Rather, he himself was thrilling. His feelings were the main thing. It amazed Jane Louise, who felt her emotions were pretty obvious, that a person so restrained in daily life could be so carried away. He was a hungry man.
    Here they were, the four of them, at this big table in the middle of nowhere on a major holiday, surrounded by people they had never seen before. Jane Louise was eating her duck and thinking about sex. What was anyone else thinking about?
    After dinner they piled on their coats and scarves, gloves and boots, and went down to the pond for an evening skate. The Schuldes boys had lit the flambeaux. Near the benches, where youcould sit and put your skates on, they had lit a bonfire. The pale quarter moon hung in the cloudy sky, and the stars peeked in and out of the fleeting darkness.
    They put on their skates and tested the ice. It had frozen several feet and was as black as obsidian.
    Teddy was a wonderful skater. It was like dancing to him. Recently he had taken their skates to be sharpened, and he circled the pond, his scarf flying behind him, his hands locked behind his back. He skated over to Jane Louise and led her onto the ice.
    Jane Louise, who had usually been the person with the least amount of money in the fairly fancy places her parents moved to, had spent her teen years hanging around the skating club that she could not afford to join. All her friends belonged, and kept their skates there. Members had a little red number tag laced into their skates. How Jane Louise had longed for that! She had never, since money was always tight, asked for lessons, and she had learned by watching. Skating with Teddy was nicer than any skating she had ever done.
    Over on the other side Mokie and Edie were being silly. They looked like a pair of storks. Atop their curly hair they wore stupid-looking hats with pom-poms, and they were attempting to execute an ice tango: They looked like the photo of the scientist dancing with the sandhill crane. At pastry class in Paris they had eyed each other solemnly, and when Edie had come to class with her skates over her shoulder, Mokie made his move. They spent their two years in Paris in bed, in class, on the ice, or in cafés perfecting their French. Now they were waltzing and twirling, and Edie was laughing.
    Mr. Schuldes skated while smoking a large curved pipe and wearing a Tyrolean outfit and feathered hat. Mrs. Schuldes wore an old mink coat. One of the guests, who had been a professional skater in her youth, took off her coat to reveal a pink skating costurneand heavy pink tights. She glided out into the middle and executed a series of twirls and leaps.
    As they skated past the torches, their faces were momentarily lit up. The warm light cast a glowing shadow. Then they skated into darkness. The three Schuldes boys pushed a round wooden table onto the ice and covered it with a cloth. Mrs. Schuldes skated out with a tray of hot chocolate and cookies.
    â€œI have died and gone to heaven,” Edie