Authors: Jennifer Comeaux
Mark took off his shades and wiped them on his T-shirt. “Why are Stephanie and Josh moving this late in their career anyway? They’ve been with the same coach since they were kids.”
“They want us to help them with their jump technique. They’ve had a lot of problems with consistency and under-rotations,” Sergei said.
I looked down and spun the chunky bracelet around my wrist. “I hope they’re not going to mess up the good atmosphere we have at the rink. Stephanie is… well, it doesn’t seem like her attitude will fit in with our group.”
In other words,
we
don’t
want to deal with her bitchiness
every day.
“We wouldn’t have agreed to coach them if we thought there’d be major problems. You don’t have to be best buddies with them, but I think you can all get along,” Em said.
Mark bumped the toe of my sandal and shot me a look across the table that said he wasn’t convinced. I wasn’t either, but the deal was done, and putting up resistance wasn’t going to get us anywhere.
“If you think this will help us, then we’ll do our best to make them feel welcome,” I said, knowing exactly what Em and Sergei wanted to hear.
“Thanks, Court.” Em touched my arm. “And I promise this won’t change the amount of time and attention we give you. We’re committed to you just as much as we always have been.”
Mark and I both slowly nodded. Em’s and Sergei’s eyes were hidden behind their sunglasses, but I could feel the intensity with which they watched us. They could probably tell we were still skeptical.
“Do you have any more questions?” Sergei asked.
We turned our nods into equally slow head shaking.
“Okay. Well…” Sergei pushed back his chair. “We’d better catch up to Aunt Deb before the kids talk her into buying more than cookies.”
Em stood and squeezed my shoulder. “My offer still stands if you need to talk later. About anything.”
They headed in the direction of the arena, and I took a sip of my lemonade. Tilting my head back, I let the warmth of the bright sunshine spread over my face. This was supposed to be my week in paradise, a trip I’d highly anticipated since the moment we’d qualified for Worlds back in January.
“I thought this week would be so amazing. Visiting fabulous L.A., competing with the best in the world, hanging out with my boyfriend… and what happens? We bomb in the free skate, Kyle tells me he’s been cheating on me, and we find out we have to train with the most disliked pair skater in the country. It’s like the nightmare that won’t end.”
Mark picked up a potato chip and stared at it a moment before popping it into his mouth. “What do you think about Em saying we need to work harder?”
I took a longer drink from my glass. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe we need to push ourselves more. We could add another hour a day on the ice or in the gym.”
“I guess I always thought we were doing enough.”
“It was probably enough to get where we are, but is it enough to make the Olympic team? To beat Stephanie and Josh, who are likely going to get better with Em and Sergei coaching them?”
“No way am I losing out on the Olympics to them,” Mark said.
“My sentiments exactly. We have to do whatever it takes to be in Vancouver next February. We’re not missing out by one place again.”
Finishing fourth at nationals in 2006 when the U.S. had sent three teams had been the most painful experience of my life. We’d been in the perfect position to be in the top three, but then we’d had a meltdown in the free skate. I still got a lump in my throat every time I thought about that night.
We only had one more chance to get on the Olympic team. I was going to start my college career the next year, and Mark wanted to get engaged and work with his dad at his auto shop.
I wasn’t going to let the Tuckers move in, use our coaches for one season, and steal our dream.
Hell to the no.
Chapter Three
I pushed open the rink door and took a moment to breathe in the cold air. With things about to change at our training base, I wanted to hang onto the familiarity of the place. I’d had two months to get used to the idea of the Tuckers skating with us, but it hadn’t made me any less anxious about their arrival, which would be happening in a few minutes.
Mark was just starting his morning jog around the rink, so I quickly stashed my rolling bag in the locker room and followed his path. Someone had already turned on the stereo, and “Poker Face” echoed off the sky-high ceiling. Normally, Lady Gaga got me going in the morning, but today it was just making me jumpier.
As I completed my first full lap, the blue double doors from the lobby opened, and Stephanie and Josh entered. Stephanie dragged a Louis Vuitton bag, carried a matching purse, and wore a pair of sunglasses that were five times too big for her bobble head. Josh looked much less “L.A.” in his plain black fleece jacket and black pants.
I slowed to a stop near them, and Stephanie propped her glasses atop her head. “Where’s the locker room?” she asked.
Hello to you, too.
I swallowed my irritation and pointed behind them. “It’s the second door.”
Without so much as a nod of thanks, she turned and marched away. Josh lingered and looked all around the large building.
“This is really nice. A lot newer than our rink in Burbank.”
The complete one-eighty from Stephanie’s frigidness to Josh’s friendliness threw me, and I needed a second before I could answer, “Yeah, everything had to be redone after the snowstorm caved in the roof a few years ago.”
“I remember hearing about that.”
We stood for a few awkward silent moments, and I had a déjà vu flash from when we’d met as young teens. I could see us so clearly in the small room, fidgeting anxiously, all alone with nothing to say to each other.
Josh motioned with his thumb to the locker room. “I should warm up.”
I nodded and was about to resume jogging, but Josh’s quiet voice calling my name halted me. “I know it has to be weird having us here, but we’re not here to get in your way. We just want to get better.”
The way his eyes didn’t waver from mine made me believe he was sincere. I was pretty sure his sister didn’t share his amicable feelings, though.
“That’s what Mark and I want, too… to get better. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t all be able to do that without getting in each other’s way.”
His lips twitched into the faintest hint of a smile as his eyes continued to steadily hold my gaze. Another round of uncomfortable silence followed, so I quickly pivoted and took off at a faster pace than usual. Glancing backward, I saw Josh disappear into the locker room. He and Stephanie might share a number of physical features, but they couldn’t be more different personality-wise. I was curious to see their training relationship. Stephanie had drama queen written all over her, but Josh didn’t seem like the type to put up with that kind of nonsense.
After a few more laps and my standard stretching routine, I headed to the locker room to put on my skates. Mark sat on the bench along the far wall, lacing up his boots and chatting with one of Em and Sergei’s junior teams. I sat beside him and slipped my feet out of my sneakers and into my skates.
“Did you talk to them?” Mark asked.
I knew who “them” was without asking. “Just for a second.”
“I walked past Stephanie and she wouldn’t even look at me.” Mark pulled the knot tight on his laces and stood in front of me. “We need to bring our ‘A’ game today and show them we’re not affected by them being here.”
“We need to bring our ‘A’ game every day.”
“True, but today we have to really be on. We should do full run-throughs of the short and long — let them see we already have our new programs in good shape.”
I stopped tying and held up my hands. “Slow your roll. We just finished putting together the long last week, and Em said she still wants to change up the middle section. Let’s not rush things just to make a point.”
I could just see us trying to do a full run-through of a program we barely knew and doing more harm than good. That would be a great way to show how much we were on top of our game.
We went out to the ice and were joined shortly after by two junior teams and Stephanie and Josh. As we all warmed up around each other, I kept an eye on the newest addition to our morning session. They had a balletic style I envied — classic lines like the great Russian teams of the past. Mark and I had taken ballet classes over the years, but we just weren’t naturally elegant. We were known as an athletic team with speed and power who had to work hard at looking graceful.
After we all sufficiently loosened our limbs, Sergei and Em hopped onto the ice, and Sergei skated over to Mark and me while Em headed for Stephanie and Josh. We stood in opposite corners of the rink like boxers huddled before a fight.
I faced away from them and put all my attention on Sergei. I had to lose that mentality and realize the biggest competition we had was ourselves. We had to do just what I’d told Josh — focus on getting better. That was the only way we’d have a shot at the Olympics.
Over the next couple of hours, Mark and I worked on a new jump combination with Sergei then choreography with Em then sections of our new programs on our own. I noticed Stephanie listening attentively to our coaches and following all their instructions, so maybe she had a decent work ethic after all. We’d see how she’d handle triple run-throughs later in the summer.
During our mid-morning break, I grabbed my phone and an energy bar from my locker and went up to the lounge overlooking the ice. Stephanie and Josh sat in front of the big window with a couple of skating moms. Stephanie was eating some kind of cracker while Josh hungrily spooned his yogurt. I took a seat at a nearby table and started my morning ritual of checking all my social media sites. Mark plus a group of my training mates descended on the table and were noisily discussing the latest comic book movie when Em strode to the center of the room and clapped her hands together.
“Since I have a lot of you here, Sergei and I want to invite you all to a barbecue Sunday at our house. We’re celebrating Memorial Day early since we’ll be here Monday.”
“Free food?” Mark said. “I’m there.”
“Sergei’s the grill master,” Kenny, one of the junior skaters, said.
Everyone else chimed in with positive responses until Stephanie spoke loudly above the din, “Will there be options besides meat? I follow a strict vegan diet.”
The room went silent, and Em hesitated a moment. “Sure. We’ll have lots of vegetables and salad and fruit. And if you tell me what kinds of dishes you like, I can make something for you.”
“Vegan meals aren’t easy to make,” Stephanie said in a condescending tone.
My eyebrows shot up, and a couple of throats cleared around me. No one questioned Em’s culinary skills. She was as proud of her cooking as she was her skating accomplishments.
“I think I can whip something up,” Em said, not missing a beat. “I’ll email everyone the directions in case you don’t remember how to get there. Or if it’s your first time.” She smiled at Stephanie and Josh.
She breezed toward the narrow stairwell, and the rest of us lingered a bit longer, finishing up our snacks before we had to get ready to put in another two hours on the ice. Once we donned our skates, Mark kept bugging me again to do run-throughs of our programs, and I continued to refuse. We couldn’t spend the next seven months trying to one-up Stephanie and Josh on a daily basis. That would take way more energy than simply concentrating on doing our best.
By the end of the second hour, my face was caked with sweat, and pieces of my hair that had escaped my ponytail stuck to my forehead. Mark and I had done repetitions of our new triple toe-double toe-double toe combination until I’d lost count of the number. We were still out of synch on the takeoff of each jump, but we were landing them, which was the most important thing. Josh and Stephanie weren’t having the same success. Sergei was reworking their jump technique, and I winced on every hard fall they took. I knew what it felt like to slam into the ice that many times in one session, and it was a level of pain I didn’t wish on anyone.
The big clock on the back wall ticked closer to one o’clock, and Em shouted, “Free-For-All Friday!” to which a chorus of cheers rang out from the group of us on the ice. All of us except Stephanie and Josh, who looked completely lost and confused over our excitement. Em skated over to the stereo next to the ice, and Josh glided over to me.
“What’s Free-For-All Friday?” he asked as he wiped his glistening face with a towel.
I leaned against the boards and recaptured the stray hairs in my ponytail holder. “At the end of every Friday session, Em puts on a random mix of music, and we all skate for fun and make up choreography. We go two at a time with everyone getting a turn.”
“That sounds kinda awesome.”
“It is. We look forward to it every week. Em and Sergei skate together sometimes, too, which is a lot of fun to watch.”
“Mark and Kenny, you’re up first,” Sergei said.
“Give us something good, Em,” Mark said as he pushed off from the boards.
The rink came alive with “Viva La Vida,” and Mark and Kenny took off in opposite directions. I recognized most of Mark’s steps from the footwork sequence in our long program, and I shook my head. The whole point of the weekly exercise was to let loose and be original. My partner was awesome at following directions, but creativity didn’t exactly flow freely from him.
Halfway through the song, Em cut the music and called out, “Stephanie and Courtney.”
We gave each other cursory glances, and I straightened the straps of my tank top. I hoped we wouldn’t get a slow song where Stephanie could show me up with her perfect balletic positions. We established our starting spots far across the rink from each other, and the upbeat R&B sound of Ne-Yo’s “Miss Independent” burst through the speakers. I smiled and shook out my arms.
Stephanie was smiling even more confidently, and my excitement dimmed. Free-For-All Friday wasn’t meant to be competitive, but the direct stare Stephanie aimed at me felt like she was saying, “Game on.”