Gold Medal Winter

by Donna Freitas

  That’s a polite way of putting it, I think to myself.

  Stacie leans toward the bouquet of microphones in front of her. “It doesn’t matter what happened tonight. The Team Event is not why I’m here. Group medals are not what I’ve trained for. I don’t know why they even added this event, but they did, so here I am, doing what I’m told. Trying to be supportive and all that.” Then she rolls her eyes again.

  Again!

  “Stacie acts like it’s such a burden to have to skate for the US,” I whisper to Tawny, thinking she is done speaking.

  But she isn’t. “I’m definitely not upset about my performance. This was just, like, a trial run for the singles event. Wait until you see how I skate when I’m doing it just for me.”

  Now she’s done — this is evident because she gives everyone in the room one of her trademark perky smiles and then trots off. I’m left to wonder if that shockingly awful speech might tarnish her reputation. I kind of hope it will. Is that horrible of me?

  I don’t have long to wait to find out, because suddenly the press and everyone else around me erupts in shock, some people shouting additional questions after Stacie, who’s already long gone. Others are just talking to each other about whether or not a world-class figure skater really just had the nerve to announce her arrogant thinking about the Team Event like that in public, live, and on camera.

  Tawny’s cheeks are pale, her face drained of all color. “I can’t believe we just witnessed that.”

  “I can,” I say. “If I’ve learned anything about Stacie Grant since I’ve started to run into her at competitions, it’s that nice, she is absolutely not.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you something else,” Tawny says as we watch the crowd around us dwindle. “She’s not America’s Darling anymore.”

  Early the next morning, I wake to the urgent buzzing of my phone. I don’t even look to see who it is when I pick up. “Mamá?” I say drowsily.

  But it’s not my mother.

  “Espi, I need to see you immediately,” Coach says. She doesn’t sound angry, though. She sounds excited.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t want to discuss this over the phone. I’m outside your door. Put on a robe and meet me here. We need to talk in private.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I rub my eyes, then lift my head from the pillow to see that Meredith is indeed in the room now, even though she was nowhere to be found yesterday or last night when I got back. She’s an unmoving lump in the bed, sleeping soundly. “I’ll be there in a second.”

  “Hurry,” she says before ending the call.

  I throw on one of the Olympic sweatshirts I snagged at processing and decide my pajama pants are good enough for now. Then I shuffle out of the suite in my flip-flops, closing both doors behind me as quietly as I can. The moment I reach the hallway, Coach grabs both my arms.

  “Espi, I have huge news. Scandalous but huge.”

  A pit opens up in my stomach. I’m almost afraid to hear whatever comes next. “Okay,” I say.

  “USFS is horrified by Stacie’s performance yesterday — both on the ice and with the press afterward. They are mortified she acted so badly, and they’ve revoked her position as ladies’ representative for the Team Event as a result.” Coach is looking at me expectantly. “You realize what this means, don’t you?”

  I swallow. “Um.” I’m still trying to shake the sleepiness off. My head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton. “I think I’m slow this morning.”

  Coach smiles wide. Her eyes dance. “You’re up, my dear!”

  Now I almost fall over. I have to lean against the wall to stay upright. “What?” I gasp.

  “USFS has decided to put in the alternate for the free skate today. The alternate who happens to be you.”

  My stomach is suddenly nauseous. My heart swoops and dips in fear. “So it’s suddenly my turn? Just like that?”

  “Well, first it’s the men’s free skate, then the ice dancers are up again, and then it will be your turn.”

  All I can think about is how yesterday I was secretly relieved that it was Stacie’s responsibility to help carry the team and not mine. It’s like I jinxed myself for having the thought. “But … but …” I can’t get the words out to express everything going on inside me right now. My brain is spinning. “But I’m not ready! I’m not prepared to skate today! I thought I still had a week before I was up!”

  She puts her arm around me. “This is what it means to be the alternate. You need to be ready to sub at a moment’s notice. You’ve always known that. And yes, you are prepared. You’ve been training for this your whole life. You can do this, Espi. Now get dressed, because you have an important day ahead of you.”

  “Okay, sure,” I say, nodding, still in a daze about this turn of events. Then, “I hope you’re right,” I add under my breath as I go back inside the suite, not at all sure I agree with Coach about being ready. I certainly don’t feel ready. And whether I can do any better than Stacie is still a very open question for me. The last couple of days have not been the best in my career, but over the next several hours until the free skate starts, I need to do my best to forget that.

  Dios mío.

  Whatever Stacie started yesterday with her couldn’t care less performance and her public negativity seems to have infected the entire US Figure Skating team. It moves through each one of us like a virus.

  Hunter gets through his program without too many flaws — but he scowls the entire time. His scores reflect this attitude, and the US stays stuck at fifth in the rankings. Then Tawny and Malcolm — so gorgeous yesterday, so elegant — today have lost their confidence, or at least their flair, since not once, but twice, they skip over the more complicated lifts that are supposed to bump their GOEs above the competition.

  Meanwhile, everyone, absolutely everyone — my fellow skaters from countries all over the world, skating fans far and wide, and even your average viewer of Olympic competition — is up in arms about Stacie Grant. Coach had it right: Stacie getting bumped from this event and USFS deciding to put in yours truly, the alternate, is scandalous indeed. I don’t need to go online to find this out. I overhear people talking backstage, for one, but it’s the newspapers people have left lying around the skaters’ lounge that give me the gist of the conversation. The headlines are intense:

  AMERICA’S DARLING GETS DUMPED BY USFS

  STACIE GRANT: SHOULD SHE BE GRANTED A REPRIEVE?

  MAKE WAY FOR ESPERANZA FLORES! AMERICA’S ONLY HOPE FOR TEAM GOLD!

  Reading these ties my stomach into knots.

  I don’t have enough time to process this — all of it — the surprise change in the roster, the world’s reaction, the way it’s upset everyone on Team USA figure skating — because suddenly I’m up for my free skate.

  “Stop tugging at the elastic, Espi!”

  Coach Chen is shaking her head at me while a seamstress is sewing me into the Wang before I head out onto the ice. I know that sounds a little strange and maybe even torturous, but it’s a normal thing that happens in the dressing rooms of major figure skating competitions everywhere. It basically involves someone sewing the edges of your dress to your tights along your hips and butt so nothing rides up while you’re out on the ice in front of millions of people all over the globe. It would be really unseemly to pick a wedgie in the middle of a program, which is why we all submit to the sort of practice you’d think only fancy runway models in Paris would have to endure.

  But being cute is part of our job.

  Skating through a long program with half a butt cheek exposed is definitely not.

  “This is really happening, isn’t it?” I ask.

  Coach Chen puts her hands on my shoulders. “Esperanza, you need to try to be calm.”

  “Okay.” I can’t stop fidgeting, though. The poor nice seamstress lady has to keep pulling out the thread and starting over. Knowing that I’m backstage at the Olympics is challenging my ability to get my head in the game. Knowing that the whole
world is talking about the scandal of Stacie getting pulled from this event and wondering if this was fair, if it was the right call, and if I can do any better, also isn’t helping much. All I can think about as I look around me is that everyone else who is here is way more experienced at this than me. “Look over there,” I say to Coach, pointing through the crowd of skaters and trainers and coaches milling around the dressing room. “It’s Mai Ling again.”

  Ever so gently, but ever so quickly, Coach Chen pushes my arm down and makes me focus on her, not Mai Ling. “I know it’s chaotic in here and you are surrounded by all the competition. But you cannot focus on everyone else” — she comes closer, her eyes intense on mine — “or they will psych you out.”

  I nod. The seamstress sighs.

  Out goes the thread and we have to start again.

  After two more tries, I am finally sewn in.

  “Thank you for your patience,” I tell the seamstress sincerely, and I follow Coach Chen through the door that leads into the arena.

  “This is really happening, it’s really happening,” I mutter under my breath as we push through the crowd of skaters. Many of them have headphones on, doing the very thing that I should be doing, which is trying to block out all the madness and pretend like we’re not actually at the Olympics. I’m so nervous my heart is practically jumping out of my body. But the relief I feel that the quad sal isn’t a part of my program today is intense. At least I have this reprieve to hold on to.

  “Stop tugging at the neck of your costume,” Coach Chen says. “You’re going to stretch it out!”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have worn this. I wish I’d brought another dress from home so I would have had options.”

  Coach Chen sighs. “Espi, stop worrying about what you have on and worry about your long program. Mitslaya is up next. Then it’s Mai Ling, and you. Despite whatever it is that Stacie started, you guys are still in fifth, which means that you, Esperanza Flores, could bump up those scores and position the US for a Team Event bronze.”

  “But China and Russia —”

  “— are not your concern at this moment. Focus on your program and block everyone and everything else out.”

  “Okay,” I say, but in truth, I’m terrified. I’m all out of sorts. I’m basically 100 percent Esperanza Pollo right now — that’s what those headlines should have said. And I hate how the ladies always go last. Everyone loves to leave the worst pressure to us, so if we fail, they can get good shots of us sobbing on camera.

  That sounds bitter, doesn’t it?

  It might, but the thing is, it’s true.

  Then to make matters worse, my hand brushes my earlobe and I gasp.

  “What now?” Coach wants to know, exasperated.

  “I forgot to put on the good-luck star earrings Joya gave me,” I cry. “I’m triply jinxed today.”

  Coach looks like she wants to kill me. “Forget about jinxes. Now is not the time.” She points to the center of the rink.

  Irina Mitslaya is already out on the ice. Rather than burrow into myself and go over all the elements in my program in my mind, I focus on her. I can’t help it.

  She’s mesmerizing.

  Graceful. Gorgeous. Nearly perfect.

  The crowd adores her.

  When Mitslaya finishes, it takes the sweepers a long time to clear all the stuffed animals away for Mai Ling. As Mitslaya passes by me, out of the corner of her still smiling mouth, she says, in perfect English, “Take that, Miss Quad Queen.”

  I take a step back as though I’ve been slapped.

  Then I wonder whether she might be related to Stacie. They’re both blond, after all.

  I turn to Coach. “Did you hear Irina —”

  But she gives me the death stare. “Focus, Espi. Focus.”

  I nod. Yet I just can’t.

  Watching Mai Ling out there next only makes matters worse. She’s absolutely flawless. The height of her jumps would make Mr. Morrison get up out of his seat. Her spins are so fast that she’s a tiny blur on the ice. My one consolation is that she doesn’t go for a quad anything.

  This isn’t enough to quell the nausea I feel, though.

  I grip my middle. My face goes pale, I can tell.

  Coach looks at me in alarm. “Get yourself together. You’re up.”

  My head spins with all sorts of things that it shouldn’t, number one on the list being that Stacie essentially threw our chances of Team Event gold in the toilet.

  Tawny emerges from the dressing room. “Knock ’em dead, Espi,” she says, giving me a quick hug. “I’ll be right here rooting for you.”

  “Hmmm,” I say distractedly, pulling at the Wang again.

  “You can do this, Espi,” Coach Chen says, though there is a frantic pleading in her tone.

  The Olympic official opens the door to let me through, but I don’t move. I don’t think I can do this. I really don’t. So many negative thoughts are having a party in my head just as I step onto the ice.

  Focus, Espi, I think as I skate to my starting place.

  This is it, Espi, I think as I take my pose.

  You are competing at the Olympic Games! I think as my music starts.

  It’s happening now! I think as I falter and almost trip, but ultimately manage to save myself from what could have been a major bobble.

  Oh no. I’m already off to a horrible start. You’re not going to do worse than Stacie, I console myself as I round the edge on my way into a series of jumps.

  But I am going to do worse.

  Because right then, I choke.

  I choke hard.

  I choke like I’ve just tried to swallow an entire piece of chicken parm from Luciano’s in one bite.

  I choke in such a way that I cannot be resuscitated.

  Because what happens next is that I fall spectacularly on my triple axel, and in the process take the Team Event medal hopes of the whole United States down with me, single-handedly and once and for all.

  “Oooooh!” goes the crowd as I sprawl there, arms and legs spilling everywhere.

  Everything else that follows occurs in slow motion. I can barely hear my music. My hand and my arm are cold, but it takes me a moment to realize it’s because they are still on the ice.

  “Go Esperanza! Come on, Espi!”

  Tawny’s voice pulls me back to myself.

  I finally get my bearings, pick myself up, and finish the rest of my program. But the whole time, my brain is going, You blew it, Esperanza! You blew it for everyone! Now there won’t be a Team Event medal for anybody! You blew it at the Olympics!

  Your official Olympic debut is an all-out Disaster! Capital D!

  By the time I come off the ice, I’m sobbing even as I’m trying to smile. I give a whole new level of meaning to the Kiss and Cry.

  I’m embarrassed. I’m mortified. I’ve let everyone down.

  The crowd claps sympathetically. I can’t even wave my thanks for their support because my hands are over my eyes.

  Coach Chen pulls me into her arms the minute I reach her. “Oh, Espi.” She hugs me tight as I sob into her shoulder, shielding my face from the cameras that are filming all of this live. My cheeks burn from shame. To know that everyone I love and everyone from school and half the state of Rhode Island just watched me fail myself, fail the United States, and fail my fellow skaters, makes everything worse.

  I’m no longer America’s Hope for Gold.

  I’m more like America’s Failure for Everything.

  I hate the Olympics.

  “I can’t handle all of this pressure,” I say to Coach through my sniffles and hiccups. “I choked! I choked and now no one will get a medal because of me.”

  “Esperanza, look at me,” Coach Chen says. She hands me a tissue and I wipe my nose and my face. “Sometimes we fall. It’s a part of life and it’s part of being a skater at this level. It happens to the best of us.”

  “Sometimes we fall? That’s all?”

  “Yes. If you remember correctly, I fell once
too.”

  I nod. I do remember. Probably half the world does.

  “And then what happened afterward?” Coach wants to know.

  “You lost.”

  Coach Chen sighs. “Yes, I did. That year I did. But then what happened the next time?”

  “You won an Olympic gold medal.”

  “Yes, I did. Because sometimes we fall.” She takes my chin in her hand and looks at me intensely. “And sometimes we don’t.”

  “Sometimes we don’t?”

  “Yes, Esperanza. Sometimes we don’t fall, and that’s when we win.”

  Just then, the scores come up from the judges. The crowd sighs and groans.

  My scores are bad. But then, we knew they would be. The total is a full four points lower than Stacie’s, which means I’m the anchor of the team, and not in a good way. I’m dragging everyone down to the bottom.

  “I can’t do press right now,” I wail, thinking about just how badly I’m going to get swarmed by cameras and microphones the second I leave the Kiss and Cry.

  “Espi,” Coach Chen says, forcing me to look at her as we go to a private space backstage. “You can smile, you can cry, you can do whatever you feel. Be honest and be yourself. Just remember, the Olympics are not over for you. They’re far from over. You’re going to skate two more times before the Closing Ceremonies! You still have a shot at individual gold. And now you’ve got your fall over with.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You have. I know it.”

  “So you’re not mad I choked?”

  Coach Chen smiles. “Oh, I’m mad at you, Espi. I’m mad you let all the figure skating drama get to you instead of focusing on what you’re really here for. But I have faith that you’re going to turn it around. It’s a setback, but it’s that and nothing more.”

  “No?”

  “You can’t let it define you.”

  “I can’t?”

  It seems like I can only repeat what Coach says right now.

  “No,” she says forcefully. “You are not going to be remembered for this fall this Olympics, Esperanza Flores. You are going to be remembered for being the first female in history to land a quad sal at the Olympics.”