by Alina Adams
When Chris left an hour later, telling her it was time for her to catch the bus — for which, considering her usual fears of screwing up and missing it, Gina was as grateful as for his earlier distraction technique — she stammered, "Um, Chris?"
"Yes, luv?"
"What does... what did... what did you mean by that?"
He smiled. The same smile that caused female fans to scream and swoon when he unveiled it on the ice during a particularly sexy footwork section. He said, "What do you want it to mean?"
"I... It... Does it... does this mean you're my boyfriend now?"
Chris shrugged. "Sure. If you'd like." And then he told her to skate great that afternoon. Which Gina, still floating on a high she hadn't previously known existed, promptly did.
Lucian was very happy with both of them.
He was even happier when, following both Chris's and Gina's definitive wins at the World Championship, the media picked up the story of the newly minted couple — Gina was so giddy with glee, she couldn't help telling anyone who'd inadvertently crossed her path practically before her final artistic mark was flashed on the scoreboard. And the media ran with it.
It was as if Christian Kelly and Gina Gregory had reinvented romance. (The fact that, only two years earlier, the same media had been tripping over themselves to enshrine Chris and Lauren as skating's most romantic couple ever, rarely came up.) There were talk-show and magazine interviews to give, endorsements to make, and charity galas to attend. As final proof of just how the image now superseded the skating, even Sports Illustrated succumbed to their off-ice appeal. For their traditional Olympic preview issue, they put Gina on the cover — which wasn't a big surprise, she was the defending Ladies' World champion, the obvious favorite for the Gold. But rather than showing her on the ice as they had all their previous skaters, Sports Illustrated photographed Gina with Chris. He may have been the favorite for Gold as well, but in the Men's event, which was hardly as popular as the Ladies'. And he wasn't even American, for Pete's sake! Still, there they were. America's Sweethearts. A package deal.
When Chris won his second consecutive Olympic Gold early into the Games, Gina's victory later in the week was considered a given. After all, even God himself wouldn't dare take from the media a story they were so dying to tell (and many had already written in advance). Gina skated her Long Program cautiously. It wasn't the best she'd ever performed, but it was enough to deliver the result everyone wanted, and that was all that mattered. Not a single newspaper the following day reported how many triples she'd landed or even what scores she received. Everyone was too busy speculating about how soon Gina and Chris would be trading their matching Gold medals in for a pair of equally matched gold wedding bands.
Gina never had a chance to ask. Immediately after her win, while Lucian, Chris, and even her mother (the ban on not attending Gina's competitions had been lifted once she adequately calmed down) were busy giving interviews in the mixed media zone, Gina was whisked to doping control, where she stayed for several hours waiting to be declared legal. Immediately afterwards, the dizzying whisking continued as Gina was pulled away to appear on all the morning shows. After that, it was another set of print interviews, this time for the foreign press, then the Gala Exhibition, where she skated her regular show program, followed by one encore and, when they kept clapping, a reprise of her Short Program. Gina and Chris took a bow together at the conclusion, at center ice, garnering the loudest ovation of the night and, to make the crowd go even wilder, skated a few steps together, culminating with side-by-side camel to scratch spins. They waved, and collected flowers and teddy bears, and performed an extra victory lap hand in hand. But, in that time, they also didn't manage to exchange one word that wasn't strictly business.
The exhibition was followed by a banquet so loud and so crowded that makeshift sign language was the only means of communication. Then came the bitterly cold closing ceremonies where each marched with their respective national teams, followed by Gina flying back home to the States for a parade in her hometown while Chris went to England for some kind of meet-the-Queen thing.
Gina literally didn't hear from Chris again until they met up on the first day of the Champions Tour. She was heading for the women's changing room and there he was, leaning against the opposite wall, talking to one of the Russian Pairs skaters and laughing over something Gina hadn't heard. The laughing stopped once Gina stepped into view. To be honest, everything stopped. All laughter, all conversation; heck, later, Gina would swear even the heating vents ground to a halt. The hallway was sprinkled with a handful of skaters, tour personnel, and arena workers. They all turned to look curiously at Gina, then at Chris, then back again. She wondered what they were waiting for. She wondered what she was waiting for.
Gina knew she should walk up to Chris, throw her arms around him, kiss him hello, catch up on the weeks they'd been apart. It was what any normal girlfriend would do under the circumstances. Gina was still Chris's girlfriend. Wasn't she? Why did she suddenly feel as though she was the only one who didn't know the answer to that question?
"Hello, luv." Chris seemingly took pity on Gina and her dilemma. He moved away from the Russian Pairs skater, took several steps forward, and gave Gina a kiss. On the cheek. He gave little girls and grandmothers who came up asking for autographs a kiss on the cheek, too.
"Chris?" She managed to turn his name into a question.
Which he managed to sidestep entirely with one of his own. "How was the parade, then? Wrist sore from waving at the masses?”
"I — it was fine. Chris..."
"Feels strange, doesn't it? Suddenly having no championship to train for? My whole life it's always been about the next competition, and now there isn't one. Takes some getting used to, wouldn't you say?”
She nodded, dumbly. Maybe that was it. Maybe Chris was right. Maybe the reason everything felt so strange now was because they were in uncharted waters. From the time she was a tiny girl, Gina had been thinking about the Olympics. Well, now they'd come and they'd gone and she'd won and now she was on her own. For the first time in her life, Gina didn't know what was supposed to happen next. Maybe that's why everything felt so disconnected. Maybe it wasn't Chris at all. Maybe it was all her.
"It does feel strange," she admitted.
"At least we've still got the tour. That's somewhat of a comfort before heading out into the cold, cruel world, no? I'll see you on the ice for rehearsal." He squeezed her shoulder, smiled, and jogged away.
Gina raised her hand to wave, but he was already gone.
There was no time to talk on the ice, of course. This being the first official day of practice, the opening number was no less than a stumbling, crashing jumble, with no one knowing where to go, when to move, or who they were even supposed to partner with for entrances and exits. Gina expected to be paired with Chris. Not only because of their relationship, but because the Men's and Ladies' Olympic Gold medallists always came out together. However, because that pairing was so obvious, nobody apparently thought it needed to be rehearsed, and so they spent the bulk of their three hours on the ice sitting around, waiting for the more complicated combinations to be ironed out before dutifully stepping through their paces and being sent to wait some more.
Gina would have thought all the downtime would be optimal for a private chat, finally. But every time she looked up, Chris was on the other end of the arena, talking with one person or another. She waited for him to look up and wave her over, but he never quite found the time.
After rehearsal, the tour manager took them all out to dinner. Chris and Gina were seated next to each other at the big banquet table. They were toasted repeatedly by their fellow skaters and asked for autographs by fans dining in the same restaurant. They were the center of attention. The center of everyone else's attention. Once, feeling bold, Gina slid her hand under the table onto Chris's thigh. He didn't pull away, but neither did he acknowledge the gesture. A few minutes later, he half stood out of his chair to reach
for a steaming platter an arm's length away. Gina's hand slipped off and back to her side.
She wasn't an idiot. Gina knew when she was being dumped. In fact, her biggest concern was not that she was being dumped, but maybe that she had already been dumped. Gina wished she had someone to speak to about the issue. But, the problem was, previously, she'd taken all of her relationship cues from Chris. They'd done everything his way because Gina, to be frank, had no way. And she still didn't. She needed someone to tell her what to do. But there was no one.
There was no one to tell her how to react when the entire world seemed to know her business. Everywhere Gina went, people watched her closely, especially if Chris was in the room. They would be talking and then Gina would arrive and they would stop. It was like having a perpetual surprise party being planned for you. Where the surprise was anything but good.
There was also no one to tell Gina how to react when the entire world seemed to know her business — before she did. Gina felt pretty certain she was the last to know that Chris was now sleeping with a Swiss girl whose function on the tour was to hit the ice and bend her body into assorted pretzel shapes — most not particularly ladylike, if Gina did say so herself — while the real skaters caught their breath between acts.
And after the pretzel girl there was the television reporter who hosted the tour's network broadcast. Once they became an item, the tabloids jumped into the act, writing about Chris and Gina's tragic breakup in vivid details that never happened. You couldn't really have details where there hadn't actually been a formal breakup.
Now that it was in the tabloids, anyone and everyone felt emboldened to question her about it. Gina had thought the whispering was bad. The flat-out cross-examinations turned out to be worse.
Oh, sure, everyone tucked their queries under soft and fluffy canopies of concern. They wanted to know how Gina was doing, they wanted to know what Gina was feeling, they wondered if there was anything they could do for her.
Sure there was. They could shut up and go away. And yet they never did.
They simply multiplied, coming out of the woodwork. One magazine actually did a poll on how the public thought Gina was handling her split. Gina wondered what was more pathetic, people voting on her state of mind or her reading the results to get some idea of how she was doing.
Because, frankly, Gina wasn't certain how she was doing. She knew only that she was in constant movement. The tour was seventy-five cities in less than three months. Arena after arena, hotel after hotel, holding Chris's hand every night for the finale without looking at him and pretending not to care that he hadn't looked at her. After that tour ended, she was offered a professional contract with the Ice Capades. Gina waited to make sure that Chris had accepted his own offer with the European Holiday on Ice before agreeing to the gig. So then there was another six months of touring, this time with a company of total — although always curious — strangers. She was the headliner and got her own dressing room. Which was perfect for sitting around and brooding — and cultivating a reputation as a stuck-up bitch who thought she was too good to hang out and have a drink with non-champions from the chorus line.
Gina would have been happy to hang out and have a drink, as long as the hanging and the drinking didn't always come with the cryptic questioning and the subtle teasing. So she compromised. She didn't hang. But she did drink.
It really was amazing how winning Olympic Gold and having her face splashed across every newspaper in the country ducked around such pesky technicalities as her not quite being twenty-one.
When Gina wasn't on tour, she was constantly being invited to movie premieres and private parties in clubs guarded by VIP lists. Designers wanted to dress her, jewelers wanted to drape her, and C-list celebrities wanted their pictures taken with her on the red carpet. Gina went along with it all. Because it sure beat figuring out what else to do.
She heard from Lucian again for the first time since the Olympics almost a year later. To his credit, Lucian was still Lucian. He didn't ask Gina how she was. He merely told her what he wanted from her. It was most refreshing. A corporate client was putting together a private VIP show of past Ladies' champions and he wanted Gina to participate. Lucian was one of the producers. There was a pile of money to be made for both of them.
Gina currently had no idea how much money she'd earned, how much she'd spent, or how much she'd managed to hold on to. But Lucian said show up, so she showed up.
And skated like crap. She'd forgotten to mention when they'd talked that Gina hadn't technically taken to the ice — even for a quick warm-up — in almost half a year.
The night of the event, Gina didn't try a sole triple jump. She fell attempting a Double Axel, then proceeded to sit on the ice for an uncomfortably long time, dazed under the spotlight. When she finally did clamber up, it was on all fours, her butt stuck up in the air like a squatting dog's. Did she mention that she'd also chosen to skate to a particularly ear-splitting version of Janis Joplin's “Take Another Little Piece of My Heart?" While wrapped in strips of black leather? That no longer quite fit thanks to the ten extra pounds Gina had put on since having it made?
She started drinking as soon as she stepped off the ice, not waiting for the after party or even to change clothes. Heck, Gina didn't even take her skates completely off. She sat on a bench backstage, laces untied, her boots' plastic tongues flapping, legs splayed and stretched straight at the knees, chugging a Zombie hastily mixed by the cowed caterer.
Lucian was walking around behind the scenes, a headset on to confer with other producers as the show progressed. He caught sight of Gina and stopped in his tracks. He took off his headset, handed it to a production assistant, walked up to Gina, grabbed her by the hand, and pulled her to her feet.
"Come with me," he said.
Lucian practically dragged Gina out of the arena and into the elevator of their hotel. He bypassed her room in favor of his own and threw her inside. She landed on her stomach, on the bed.
"Sit up properly," he ordered.
She did.
And then Lucian did a most surprising thing. He squatted by her knees so that he could look up into her face and, with seeming sincerity, asked, "What in the world have you done to yourself, little girl?"
She stared at him for a long moment. And then she admitted, "I don't know."
"Why?" he demanded. "Because of Christian?"
"I don't know," she repeated. And it was the truth, too. This thing, this lifestyle of hers had long ago taken on a... well, life of its own. She couldn't remember when she'd actually stopped thinking of Chris and just let the stream carry her along.
"You are the most naturally gifted skater I have ever taught. Ever seen, as a matter of fact. Why in the world would you throw away a blessing from God like this?”
"It doesn't matter." Gina shrugged.
"It does. It matters, because you matter."
"Right."
"No self-pity," Lucian thundered. "I won't stand for that."
She shuddered. But she also, for the first time in a long time, listened.
"I'm not exaggerating, Gina." Lucian emphasized each word with exquisite care. "I will not stand for this kind of behavior from you. You don't shred a Monet painting, you don't burn a Beethoven symphony, and you don't toss a Dickens novel in a drawer to mold. I will not let you do this to yourself. You are a work of art. You need to start behaving that way. And you deserve to be treated that way."
"Yeah," Gina snorted. "By who?”
Lucian appraised her coolly. And then he said, "Let's start with me. And then we will go from there."
She let him, of course. When had Gina ever managed to say no when given strict mandates about what she should do and how she should do it? It made no sense logically, but as soon as Lucian took over her life, she felt back in control of it again.
Gina now had a reason to get up in the morning. She knew what was expected of her, what to do to earn praise, what not to do to avoid censure, and what was coming
up just around the corner for practically every minute of the day. There were no surprises, there were no unpleasant shocks, and there were no confusing decisions to be made.
Lucian rebuilt Gina's skating, her professional career, and finally, Gina herself.
She got her self-confidence back. Well, maybe not self-confidence; Gina wasn't convinced she'd ever really had that. But she got back her confidence that other people were confident in her. Which was just as good, really, and more comfortable, to boot.
It was all thanks to Lucian. So the least she could do to thank him was accept his marriage proposal. Especially when, afterwards, Gina couldn't even quite recall whether he'd asked her to many him... or simply told her. Not that it made a difference.
CHAPTER NINE
SKATINGANDSTUFF.COM MESSAGE BOARD
FROM: SkatingYoda Posted at 12:02 PM
You know, everyone is always getting on Lucian's case for marrying Gina but I always thought she was the opportunist there, not him. Does anyone remember how her career was in the toilet before she married him? She couldn't get arrested for traveling on her camel spin. Lucian was the one who made her a star again after the Olympics. She used him, IMO, not the other way around.
FROM: GoGoGregoryl Posted at 12:05 PM
«Does anyone remember how her career was in the toilet before she married him?»
You don't know what you're talking about Gina was a huge star after she won the Olympics Gina had her pick of shows and in a poll done two years after she won she was voted America's favorite woman athlete of the decade she didn't need Lucian to make her a star she was the best and everyone knew it.
FROM: SuperCooperFan Posted at 12:09 PM