Crossing the Ice

by Jennifer Comeaux

  Chapter Sixteen

  The hotel lobby at international skating events was always a fascinating scene with conversations in various languages filling the air. Standing among the loud chatter at the High Peaks Resort, I examined the colorful practice and competition schedule on the bulletin board. I was so antsy to get the ball rolling and compete the next night. I was also antsy to get the meeting between my parents and Josh rolling. There was nowhere in the little town of Lake Placid we could meet privately, so Josh was going to “run into” us in the lobby in a few minutes. I’d told my parents we were dating on the down-low, so they were aware this had to appear to be a casual spontaneous conversation.

  “Hey, Honey.” Mom came up and put her arm around me.

  “Hey.” I gave her a hug and did the same with Dad behind her. “Did you get settled in?”

  “The room is beautiful,” she said. “We have a great view of the mountains.”

  “It’s so pretty here. Liza and I walked all around yesterday and took a million pictures.”

  Dad pushed his glasses higher on his nose and glanced around the lobby. “So, do you have to send The Piano Man the secret code word to come down?”

  “Did you just call Josh The Piano Man?”

  “Well, I thought we should have a code name for him in case anyone’s listening when we talk about you, and your mom said he plays the piano.”

  I laughed and shook my head. Dad’s goofy sense of humor had caused me many moments of embarrassment when I was a teenager. He didn’t look like a guy who would crack jokes with his thick glasses and always-buttoned-up shirts, but he’d quietly sneak in the funny when least expected.

  “He should be here in a few minutes,” I said.

  “Are The Piano Man’s parents here this weekend?” Mom asked.

  My laughter resurfaced. “You don’t have to call him that. No one’s listening to us right now. But yeah, his mom is here.”

  “I wish we could meet her and spend more time with Josh. He seemed like a sweet boy when I saw him at the rink… and from what you’ve told me.”

  “He is. He’s—” I spotted him coming out of the elevator, and my heart beat a little faster. “The sweetest guy I’ve ever known.”

  Josh’s eyes brightened as they connected with mine, and then he quickly looked away. He walked with purpose toward the restaurant off the lobby but slowed when he approached us, giving us a little wave.

  “Hey, Court.”

  I waved back, laughing internally at the ridiculousness of the charade. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  “I was just going to check out the dinner menu.” He extended his hand to Mom. “It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Carlton.”

  “It’s wonderful to see you, too.” Mom smiled bigger than a casual meeting would inspire.

  “Dad, this is Josh Tucker,” I said.

  Josh shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Sir.”

  “Same here.”

  “Are you having dinner with your family?” Mom asked.

  “Um… yes. My mom and Steph are supposed to meet me later.”

  “Maybe we’ll see you all in there.”

  “I was thinking we could take a walk down Main Street and find something to eat there,” I said.

  If we were in the same restaurant as Josh, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from looking at him. We hadn’t been able to spend any time alone since we’d been in Lake Placid, and I was having serious withdrawals from his boss kisses.

  “Josh, I hear you graduated from UCLA,” Dad said. “That’s impressive you finished in four years while also skating.”

  “It was pretty hectic. I wish I’d had more time to enjoy the college experience. I didn’t see much outside the classroom.”

  Dad rubbed my shoulder. “I’m glad Court waited to start so she’ll able to get the full experience at BC. Those were some of the best years of my life.”

  “Don’t jinx it, Dad.”

  “No such thing as jinxes. We make our own luck, and you submitted a great application.”

  “Her essay was awesome.” Josh smiled at me.

  I opened my mouth to thank him, and it hung open as Stephanie and Mrs. Tucker entered the lobby from outside. Both of them carried multiple shopping bags. Stephanie came to a halt, her jaw tightening, but then I thought I saw a sinister smile narrow her eyes.

  Oh, crap. Can I please click my heels together and poof myself upstairs to my room?

  She and her mom came directly toward us. Josh saw what must have been terror on my face and turned to the door. His face took on its own look of alarm.

  “Hello,” Stephanie said, her eyes critically scanning my parents and myself.

  Between her examination and Mrs. Tucker’s equally strong stare, my cheeks burned. It was like they were cataloguing everything about us. I could see Mrs. Tucker’s disdain as she took in Mom’s bright yellow sweater, handmade knit scarf, and “mom jeans.”

  “I thought you were shopping,” Josh said as he stood in front of us like a protective shield.

  “There were only a couple of decent stores.” Mrs. Tucker removed her leather gloves and tucked them into the pocket of her stylish white coat, which appeared to be cashmere.

  She looked even more plastic than I’d remembered. She had the same shade of creamy skin as Stephanie and Josh, but it was too smooth, too perfect, and her lips had apparently received a recent injection of some sort. No one had lips that full.

  “Mom, you haven’t met Courtney, have you?” Stephanie asked, sounding way too friendly. Warning bells went off in my head.

  Josh slid slightly to the left so he was no longer a buffer between us. I stuck out my hand and then quickly realized Mrs. Tucker wasn’t going to reciprocate. All I received in return was a cool gaze. I brought my hand up to my hair and nervously combed the flyaway frizzies.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said. And by “nice” I mean terrifying.

  “I think we met at a competition before.” She looked me up and down.

  I was ninety-nine percent sure we hadn’t, but I wasn’t going to start a dispute. “Perhaps we did.”

  Mom leaned around Josh and smiled at his mom. “Hi, I’m Courtney’s mom, Karen, and this is my husband Tom.”

  “Bethany Tucker,” she said, still not offering a handshake.

  I finally realized who she reminded me of — Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. She had the same frosty, piercing stare that could make grown men cower in fear.

  “You must be so proud of Courtney,” Stephanie said to my parents. “How she works almost every night to pay for her skating.”

  So her fake nice behavior was a ploy to make sure her mom knew we weren’t wealthy. I shook my head in disgust. Classic Stephanie.

  “Mom, Courtney works as a bartender,” she added.

  Mrs. Tucker hummed quietly as she eyed me once again. “You should give the staff here some tips. The martini I had last night tasted like well brand. It was terrible.”

  “Well, if the service is bad, they make up for it with the beauty of the rooms,” Mom said. “I’m not going to want to leave here.”

  Mrs. Tucker smoothed her shoulder-length brown hair. “My room is ridiculously small. I was expecting a lot more from a resort.”

  Mom’s smile never wavered, and I wondered what she was thinking behind it. She was familiar with Stephanie’s attitude from all my years of competing against her, but I hadn’t given her a heads-up on what Josh had told me about his mom. And speaking of Josh, one of his eyes was twitching, and his lips were pressed together in a tight line. He looked like he was going to lose it at any second.

  “We were headed out for a walk, so… it was nice meeting you.” I tipped my head at Mrs. Tucker and urged my parents toward the exit.

  “Wait, Hon, we need our coats,” Mom said.

  “Oh. Yeah. Let’s go up and get them.”

  I turned around toward the elevator and high-tailed it out of there. Behind me I heard Mom and Dad echoing my “nice
to meet you” sentiment.

  I punched the elevator button, and Mom and Dad caught up to me as the doors opened.

  “Good quick thinking, Court,” Dad said. “I didn’t know how we were going to escape from Cruella de Vil.”

  “Tom,” Mom scolded him.

  “What? All she was missing was a pack of Dalmatians.”

  I rubbed my hands down my face. “She was even scarier than I’d expected. And I had pretty grave expectations.”

  “I can see where Stephanie gets her… personality. They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Mom said.

  “Then what happened to Josh? A tornado must’ve blown his apple across the orchard,” I said.

  My phone chimed at the same time the elevator stopped on my floor, and I told my parents I’d meet them at their room in a few minutes. I clicked on my inbox and read the text.

  Josh: I’m so sorry. They weren’t supposed to be back so soon.

  Me: It’s okay. Why not knock out all the awkward meetings at once?

  I slid the card key into my door and went to the desk for my coat. Liza’s team jacket lay draped over it. I knew Em must’ve had a hand in making sure the federation assigned Liza and me as roommates.

  My phone dinged again, and I read as I slipped my arms inside my pea coat.

  Josh: Your parents are really nice.

  What could I say complimentary about his mom? She hadn’t burned the flesh off my face? Maybe I should just keep the conversation away from her.

  Me: They like you a lot.

  Okay, so maybe Mom and Dad hadn’t said that (although I knew they would once they got to know Josh), but compared to Cruella and Cruella Jr., he was freaking Prince Charming.

  Josh: My mom is rude to most people, so please don’t take her behavior personally.

  That was so much easier said than done. I shivered at the memory of Mrs. Tucker’s sharp gaze boring an icy hole into me. If she was that repulsed by me as just a random skater, how much was she going to hate me as Josh’s girlfriend?

  ****

  “Show time, go time,” Mark said, holding his hands up for a double high five.

  I slapped them and exhaled a long breath. We were next to take the ice in the short program event, also known as two-and-a-half minutes of high stress. Missing one or two elements in the short could bury a team in the standings.

  Em walked with us through the dim backstage corridor to the entrance to the brightly lit rink. Sergei was already out there with Stephanie and Josh, who’d just finished skating according to the applause. I shed my navy Team USA jacket and handed it to Em, and I rubbed my bare arms to stay warm. My sparkly black dress only had thin straps over my shoulders. Mark matched me color-wise with black pants and a black button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up.

  I bounced on the heels of my skate guards as we marched out under the lights. The arena wasn’t large, and the seats weren’t close to being filled. Pairs hadn’t been a marquee event since Em and Chris had retired. The ladies would bring in a much bigger crowd the next day.

  Stephanie and Josh exited the ice, and I watched their body language for a hint of how they’d skated, but they both wore poker faces. Mark nudged me from behind, and I hurriedly removed my skate guards and stepped onto the ice, glancing back at the boards. Sergei smiled as he hugged Stephanie, and a twinge of jealousy twisted my stomach. It was still bizarre seeing Em and Sergei with Stephanie and Josh, giving them the same hugs and nods of approval. Mark and I needed to perform better than they had. We had to show Em and Sergei who the top team in our camp was.

  I circled the ice, lightly pumping my legs to warm up, and Mark skated to my side as the announcer read Stephanie and Josh’s score. The new judging system had been in place long enough where I knew what the numbers meant, and their score was one of the best they’d ever received for the short. An extra kick of adrenaline made my legs move faster.

  Mark took my hand and pressed hard. “Ready to show them who’s boss?”

  It was uncanny how after nine years of skating together, our thoughts on the ice often echoed one another. His use of the word “boss” brought another thought to mind, though — one of Josh kissing me passionately as we lay beside the fire.

  I rattled my head. Now was not the time to think about such things. Now was the time to put all my emotion into skating a fierce tango. Em and Sergei smiled at us from behind the boards, and we took matching deep breaths, preparing for our introduction from the PA announcer.

  “They represent the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, Courtney Carlton and Mark Phillips.”

  We glided to center ice amid warm applause and assumed our starting pose of the traditional tango hold. With Mark’s head bent close to mine, I whispered, “Let’s do this,” more as a reminder to myself than to him.

  The sharp beats of Tanghetto’s “Enjoy the Silence” began, and we moved across the ice still in dance hold. When we reached the boards we broke apart and switched to side-by-side stroking, building up speed for the triple twist. The cold air blew across my face, but not a hair strayed from my perfectly pinned bun.

  We flew backward into the entrance to the twist, and I stabbed my toe pick into the ice. Mark tossed me up into the air, and all my muscles tightened as I spun three times above his head. After the final rotation, I opened up and fell into Mark’s waiting hands for a smooth set down. One element done — check.

  We twirled around and quickly transitioned into our footwork sequence, where we hit all the steps sharply, further deepening the tango mood. The tension of the steps heightened the adrenaline coursing through me, and I felt ready to burst as we approached the side-by-side triple Salchows.

  Calm yourself. Free and easy into the jump.

  We pushed off on identical back inside edges and completed three rotations. Mark was a blur next to me until my right foot hit the ice for the landing, and I saw him do the same at that precise moment. Perfect unison, perfect execution. I internally pumped my fist. The Salchows had been known to abandon us at the most unfortunate moments.

  We attacked the second half of the program with the same intensity, and we came out of our death spiral and struck our ending pose right on the final beat of the music. Mark looked for another high-five, and I smacked his hands even harder that time.

  As we hugged, I caught sight of Josh and Stephanie sitting in the kiss and cry. They’d stayed there to watch us skate. Josh was clapping, but Stephanie just glared at us. They departed backstage as Mark and I arrived at the boards and exchanged hugs with Em and Sergei.

  “That was so strong, guys.” Em squeezed my shoulders.

  “Everything felt really crisp,” I said as we took seats on the bench in the kiss and cry. “We never let the tango feeling drop for a second.”

  “The timing on the lift was better than Paris, too,” Sergei said.

  We always sat in the same order to wait for our score — Em, Mark, me, then Sergei. Em reached across Mark to hand me my water bottle, and I took a long swig. How would the judges score us compared to Stephanie and Josh? Our program component scores, similar to the old “artistic” mark, had always been about the same, but we’d usually beaten them on the technical score. Now that their technical ability had improved, how would the numbers shake out?

  “The score please for Courtney Carlton and Mark Phillips,” the announcer said and paused. “The short program score…”

  Another pause ate at my nerves. I clutched Mark’s knee, and he put his hand on top of mine.

  The announcer read the total, and I nodded with excitement as the details of the technical and program component marks flashed on the video screen. We’d earned our personal best short program score.

  The standings appeared on the screen, and our names showed above Stephanie and Josh’s. My head bobbed with even more vigor, but then I peered closer at the numbers and did the quick math. Only an eighth of a point separated us. We were virtually tied going into the free skate the next night.

  The ne
xt group of teams crowded around the ice door for their six-minute warm-up, so we escaped backstage. We turned the corner to meet the media, and I overhead Stephanie speaking to a reporter.

  “Our number one goal is to make the Olympic team, and we’re in the perfect position to do that. We’re skating the best we ever have.”

  They sure were. It was starting to hit me just how much of a battle nationals was going to be. And it made me feel a little sick to my stomach.

  We had to give sound bites next, so we stood behind Stephanie and Josh to wait our turn. When they finished, we came face-to-face, and Stephanie lifted her chin and moved past us, nothing said. She’d apparently decided to drop her friendly act from the previous day.

  “Great job,” Josh said.

  Mark was standing next to me, but Josh looked only at me. His electric blue shirt made his eyes pop even more brilliantly.

  Damn, the competition should not look this good.

  “You, too,” I said.

  Mark placed his hand on my back and steered me in front of the reporter. We answered question after question from each media outlet, most about how we got along with our new training mates (“Great” was our standard vanilla answer). Our final interview found us next to Stephanie and Josh again, and we both concluded at the same time. We all walked in awkward silence toward the locker rooms, stopping to see the final standings on the monitor. We’d finished in fourth and fifth places, which I’d expected, but happily the two-time national champions were a mere one point ahead of Mark and me in third.

  Stephanie pivoted and blocked my path, and when I tried to go around her she stepped in my way.

  “It was a great competition, don’t you think?” she said.

  What is her angle now? Josh and Mark both watched us warily, likely wondering the same thing.