by Alina Adams
"Not if he's not going to be there, Toni, which, right now, it sounds like he's not."
"I need you to do something for me, Bex."
Ah, only sixteen digressions later, and here they were, finally arriving at the point of this conversation. Bex immediately felt more comfortable. This was an arena where she was the star, where she knew what to do. As 24/7's only researcher, anyone who had a story to pitch had to come to her first. Only after Bex decided whether or not it had any merit or dramatic potential, would she take it to her Executive Producer, Gil Cahill. If Gil agreed with her assessment, he would dispatch a producer to shoot the story, based on her research notes. If Gil disagreed with her assessment—which was usually—he made her feel like she was exactly three centimeters tall and ready for the bird-brain remedial classes.
Bex did not enjoy that sensation. Which was why, before Gil had the chance to shoot down the ideas she brought him, Bex took the time to shoot down most ideas herself. She was a sort of Gil in training. God, but that was a horrifying thought.
Still, Toni wasn't just any coach trying to sell Bex on a story. She was a classy lady who deserved to be listened to and treated with respect. Before she was shot down.
"What can I do, Toni?"
"I think you should send a camera crew here to the Training Center to shoot Jeremy practicing. Once Mr. Hunt sees that a major sports network like 24/7 thinks his son has enough potential to be profiled as an up and comer, I think he'll realize just how truly exceptional Jeremy is, and he'll agree to let him live up to his full potential."
Unlike, apparently, this Robby Sharpton person.
"I.e., he'll let him go to Nationals?" Bex just wanted to make sure they were all on the same page here.
"Where he'll steal the show, I guarantee it. And 24/7 will have gotten the first exclusive with him!"
Leave it to Toni to do her homework. She was up on all of her TV buzz-words. Still, Bex truly doubted that Gil could be talked into shelling out the expenses for a producer and two-man crew, camera and sound guy, to travel to Connecticut to shoot footage of a boy who, in all likelihood, wouldn't even be at Nationals. And, even if he was, Bex still suspected Toni was doing a bit of the over-hype dance. No thirteen-year-old boy could be as good as she claimed this one was. Jeremy Hunt may have had a ton of potential he was in danger of not living up to, but Bex doubted a thirteen year old at his first major competition had a chance in hell of qualifying for the top five at Nationals. And, as far as the always compassionate television world was concerned, if you weren't in the top five, you were never even entered in the event.
Toni must have sensed Bex's hesitation. Because, before Bex had the chance to purse her lips in anticipation of politely but firmly offering up a "no," Toni interrupted to say, "How about if I send you a tape of Jeremy skating? You can see for yourself how special he is. Just watch him skate for a couple of minutes. Then tell me whether or not you'll go to Gil Cahill with the piece."
She'd been all set to say "no." Bex's lips were all pursed and everything. See?
But, Toni was a sixty-year-old sports pioneer. Bex was just a twenty-four-year-old figure skating researcher whose mother had taught her to be polite, especially with older people. And, oh, yes, Bex also suffered from a terminal gastro condition known as gutless.
"Sure." Bex sighed, knowing that she was merely putting off the inevitable task of saying "no" for a few days at most, and feeling both like a first-class coward and yet oh so relieved at the same time. "Go ahead, Toni. Send me the tape."
"It's already in the mail, honey."
Oh, great, now Bex was not only gutless and a procrastinator. She was also predictable.
CHAPTER TWO
While waiting with dread for Jeremy Hunt's tape to arrive, Bex tried to keep the inevitable at bay by continuing to doggedly plug away at other parts of her job, like compiling biographies of all the skaters 24/7 was scheduled to cover in the upcoming season. As a network devoted to sports twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week (hence the catchy title), 24/7 had an exclusive contract to show the entire year's skating season from October to February, starting with several invitation-only international competitions set to take place all over the world, followed by the U.S. Nationals, and then, in this non-Olympic year, the culminating World Championships.
This meant that Bex was in charge of finding out everything there was to know about every single skater, Man, Woman, Pairs, and Dance, that had even the remotest chance of showing up on the air, and then digesting and summarizing that information into easy-to-read sound-bytes the announcers could pithily read on camera while sounding as if this was stuff they just happened to know off the tops of their heads. It was the most horrible kind of drudge work. Because it was drudge work that was also incredibly hard. (Kind of like skating itself. One elite ice-dancer once described the process of mastering a compulsory pattern as, "boring, yet really difficult.")
Bex had trouble enough compiling pertinent information on the American skaters, since they repeatedly lost the questionnaires she sent them, or, once she got them on the phone, answered everything she asked in monotonous monosyllables, punctuated by equal parts giggles, "likes," and "you knows."
But, at least—and thank God for small favors—most of the American skaters were more or less in her time zone. Which meant Bex didn't have to drag herself out of bed at five a.m. and, teeth still unbrushed, eyes half pasted over with sleep, attempt tracking down, by phone, a renegade Pairs skater in Lithuania. Also, American skaters, monotonous monosyllables, giggles, "likes," and "you knows" aside, usually spoke English. Not so for a majority of their competitors. Japanese, Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese dialects), Russian, French, German, and Serbo-Croatian, that they could speak. But not English.
Naturally, this meant that Bex passed a good portion of her day dialing four-hundred-digit international phone numbers, arguing with overseas operators, wrestling with telephone wires that only worked during a full moon after an eclipse as long as there wasn't a sudden regime change, and, once she finally got through, shouting questions ranging from, "Could you please list for me, in order, all the elements in your short program, plus the name of your music, its composer, and your choreographer," to "Is there any connection between your father's death last year and your decision to skate to a traditional Irish funeral dirge this season?" Only to receive in response a string of incomprehensible Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Russian, French, German, and/or Serbo-Croatian, always shouted at the highest possible decibel. To help Bex understand them better.
After a few months of this "Which Jump's on First?" routine, Bex could state with absolute certainty that shouting did not, at any time, help her to understand them better.
Granted, Bex wasn't so ethnocentric that she ever thought that citizens from other countries should be able to speak English. She didn't expect them to, any more than she expected herself to speak Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Russian, French, German, or Serbo-Croatian. Although Gil did; he always looked so surprised each and every time Bex reminded him that she didn't. The fact was, Bex had been honest about her linguistic skills when she applied for this job. She told Gil that she'd studied Esperanto in college because she'd been fascinated by the concept of an international language (and also because she'd thought it was funky and weird, and Bex naturally gravitated toward funky and weird the way normal people gravitated toward, well, normal; but she hadn't told Gil that part. She'd really needed the job, after all, to pay off all those pesky student loans she'd accumulated while studying the aforementioned funky and weird). Alas, Gil heard "international language" and, in Gil-logic, assumed that it meant Bex could speak the language that everyone else spoke... uh ... internationally. Gil was wrong.
When she first started at 24/7, Bex hired translators to help her with the phone calls. This was a good plan up to a point. Its flaw came in that most people fluent in a foreign language didn't necessarily speak skating, which, as demonstrated by the Universal Skating Translator,
was necessary even while speaking English. When Bex tried to use The Universal Skating Translator to go from English (Bex) to, say, Russian (interpreter) to Skating (skater) to Russian (interpreter) and then back to English (Bex), she ended up facing a confused Russian speaker who covered the receiver with one hand while turning to Bex with a quizzical expression to report that, "He says he will end his short program by sitting in a sailboat."
It took quite a bit of heavy research on Bex's part before she learned that the Russian word for a "Spread Eagle" skating move literally translated to "sailboat."
That's when she sort of gave up on translators.
And, after her third incomprehensible international telephone game of the day ("My music choice, she to symbolize my love of goat cheese,"), Bex temporarily gave up calling, too, deciding instead to take a break (or, as Gil called it any time he walked by her office to see Bex engaged in such unproductive activities as eating lunch or breathing, "goofing off”) by researching something easier. She figured now would be a good time to satiate her curiosity about this Robby Sharpton guy that Toni mentioned in her phone call. Bex figured if he was some sort of skating boogeyman, the one about whom parents told their children, "You'd better practice hard, or you'll end up just like Robby Sharpton," then it would probably behoove her to know exactly who he was.
That's why, instead of trying to dial Taiwan, Bex instead dialed the four-digit extension for the 24/7 records department, and asked them to bring up Robby Sharpton's file, presumably compiled by one of Bex's many, many predecessors (it often disturbed Bex to learn just how high of a turnover rate this job had, but she thought it best not to ask any questions as to why that was exactly. All she knew was, at 24/7, a skating researcher's tour of duty lasted approximately as long as the lifespan of your average Vampire Slayer, or red-shirted security guy on “Star Trek”).
Once the file was delivered, Bex leafed through the top few pages. At first glance, she wasn't even sure she'd gotten the right info. She checked the name on the folder, "Robert 'Robby' Sharpton," so yes, she had the right guy. But, if this was Toni's definition of a skater failing to live up to his potential, then perhaps Bex needed an adjustment to her Universal Skating Translator.
Because, as far as she could see, ol' Robby had done pretty well for himself in skating. He was the 1985 and 1986 U.S. Junior Pairs Champion with Felicia Tufts, a (according to their official photo) ballerina-tiny blonde with no breasts, her hair up in a bun or a flowing ponytail, a big Miss America smile, and tasteful golden studs in her ears, and the 1987, 1988, and 1989 U.S. Senior Pairs Champion with Rachel Rose (they were called R&R by their fans), a ballerina-tiny blonde with no breasts, her hair up in a bun or a flowing ponytail, a big Miss America smile, and tasteful golden hoops in her ears.
Tufts & Sharpton - View The Video
And, if that weren't enough, once that latter partnership broke up, the one-time Novice and Junior Men's Champion went back to his Singles career, qualifying for both the 1990 and 1994 Olympic teams, finishing fourteenth at the former, and fifth at the latter. To Bex's untrained eye, Robby Sharpton's looked like a pretty darn respectable career.
She was about to log on to the Internet to see what else she could find out about this man to help explain what Toni meant by his wasted potential when—speak of the devil— the perpetually sullen mail clerk (he always looked like he was writing a screenplay in his head and really resented being disturbed by this job thing) came by to carelessly lob a videotape-sized package wrapped in brown paper into her in-box. Not surprisingly, it turned out to be a videotape wrapped in brown paper. From one Mrs. Antonia Wright. The attached note read: "This is Jeremy Hunt. And it wasn't even one of his better days."
Bex sighed. Then she figured she might as well get it over with. The sooner she watched the tape, the sooner she could call Toni and tell her they wouldn't be doing a feature on her student.
Oh, that would be fun.
Bex popped the tape into the VCR atop her filing cabinet, and used the remote to turn on both it and the television set, automatically adjusting the tracking as she waited for the images to start. The first thing she saw was a fuzzy, upside down view of the Connecticut Olympic Training Center's main ice surface, which, no surprise, looked exactly like every other ice surface anywhere else on the planet. And, even though she'd heard from dozens of skating professionals about how ice could be too hard, or too soft, or too slick (apparently, if skaters were to be believed, their lives were a perpetual retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears), to Bex, ice was still ice was still ice. It was white, it was wet, it was cold. Let's get on with the program.
As if heeding her unvocalized command, the camera straightened itself out and pulled into focus. And then it proceeded to whip nauseatingly about the entire rink, weaving in and out and around two dozen kids in brightly colored warm-up jackets trying to land jumps and center spins, until coming to a sudden and abrupt jerk-stop upon finding the one kid it was looking for.
"Jeremy Hunt, I presume," Bex mumbled at the now centered preteen. Had Toni said he was thirteen? He looked closer to eleven, definitely pre-adolescent, and, while not precisely scrawny—Bex could see the toned muscles in his arms and especially his thighs and calves— he was definitely on the slender side.
His haircut made him look younger, too. His hair was extra-fine, blond, straight, and looked as if it had been cut by someone putting a ceramic bowl on his head, then trimming everything that stuck out. Although he did have a sparkling smile, just like Toni said. After seeing the scary, phony smiles in the photos of both Felicia Tufts and Rachel Rose, it actually made Bex happy to see a skater for whom a childish grin looked natural, rather than like a carefully practiced part of the choreography. The most striking thing that Bex noticed about Jeremy, though, was that he wasn't nearly as pasty as the traditional skating drone. Despite his naturally tight complexion, Jeremy actually seemed to be flaunting the remnants of a summer tan. Like maybe he didn't spend his entire life in a rink. Like maybe he had some wholesome outside interests, too.
Not that any of it mattered for the task at hand. Bex was paid (if you wanted to call it that) to research stories about potential, break-out stars. Not wholesome, well-adjusted Boy Scouts and the Fathers Who Want to Keep Them That Way.
"Alright, kiddo, do your stuff," Bex said. "Make Toni proud."
His music began. Bex recognized the opening bars to Warsaw Concerto. An interesting choice, as it was an awfully powerful piece. Wasn't Toni afraid a kid Jeremy's size would be crushed by the grandeur of the building chords?
Bex wondered what Toni was thinking.
Until she saw Jeremy land his first quadruple Salchow.
It went by so quickly, and looked so smooth and easy and clean that, for a second, Bex was sure she must have miscounted the turns in the air. He must have only done a triple. It couldn't have been that simple. Bex reached for the remote control so that she could rewind the tape and put it in slow motion to make sure it had really been a quad.
But, that's when Jeremy landed his quadruple Toe Loop.
Bex put down the remote.
And she just watched.
She watched him land a triple Axel.
Combination Spin.
Serpentine Footwork into a triple Lutz.
The difficult tricks seemed to flow out of him as smoothly as water from a straw. No. No, it was more than that. The difficult tricks seemed to flow out of his music. They seemed both inevitable and unpredictable and utterly natural, as if every triple jump was a part of the boy, who was a part of the notes. It was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
Oh, and by the way, Toni was right. The kid didn't just jump. He could actually skate, too.
Bex finished watching the entire program.
Then she rewound and watched it all again, this time carefully counting each of the revolutions on each of the jumps.
And then she grabbed the tape out of the VCR and tore down the hall to Gil Cahill's office.
>
She didn't even turn off the TV.
CHAPTER THREE
Gil Cahill's office was all the way down the hall. It was the last one you came to and it was the only one around that particular corner, which meant that, once you got there, there would be no chickening out and claiming you'd come to see someone else. Gil's office was the office of no escape. A few months ago, in a fit of whimsy, Gil's secretary, Ruth, hung a little sign on her desk. It read: "No one gets in to see the Great and Powerful Wizard. No way. No how."
When Gil saw it, he said, "Good," and closed his office door behind him.
This was the sign Bex always tried to avoid looking at as she cowered in front of Ruth's desk, feeling very much like "Bex, the meek and the small," every time she asked to see Gil.
It was, actually, a very schizophrenic experience. The fact was, the only time Bex ever asked to see Gil was when she thought she'd found someone or something worth profiling. Which usually meant she was bursting with excitement and eager to run in there and wow Gil with what she'd discovered. Which meant she hoped he wasn't busy and would see her. On the other hand, seeing Gil was ... well... seeing Gil. It was rarely a lot of fun. Which meant she also hoped that he was really busy and couldn't see her.
"Gil can see you right now," Ruth said, and gestured toward his office.
Yahoo, Bex thought. Followed by, Drat.
His office was the only one on the entire floor with windows. He had them on all three sides, an Eastern, a Southern, and a Western exposure. Gil usually kept the blinds closed. His desk was the size of a horse coffin. And it was located in the farthest corner of the room, so that a visitor had to cross what felt like miles of hostile tundra, while Gil just sat there, looking at you expectantly and not saying a word as you trudged past all the photos on his walls: Gil with the current president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Gil with the organizer of the Kentucky Derby, Gil with Arthur Ashe and Muhammad Ali and Mark Spitz and Joe Namath and Joe DiMaggio and Arnold Palmer and lots of other people with big, white, perfect teeth.