by Lisa Luciano
Glenn let out a heavy sigh.
“Okay. One last time. Then I’m going out on my own.”
“Really?” Ralph said, laughing. “We run the only viable tour. We control the competitions. We produce all the TV specials in the major markets. Face it. We own the whole ball of wax. Where are you going to go? You’ve seen what happens to people who don’t do things our way.”
“You mean like Robby?”
“Let’s just say, unless he changes his mind about allowing us to represent him, his streak of bad luck isn’t likely to turn around any time soon. You’re out when we say so. Cross us, and the closest you’ll get to a piece of ice will be the cubes in your freezer.”
“You think I’m so easy to replace?”
“We made you a star. We’ll just make another one.”
“Is that a threat?” Glenn asked.
“It’s the goddamn truth. This isn’t kid stuff. We’re in this to win. Based on the pre-event sales figures for their tour, Donovan and his Swiss whore would’ve whipped your ass at the box office. We had to take care of it. You don’t need to know the details. Just sit back and enjoy the benefits of our labors. Now we expect to see you in England in exactly two weeks with a spring in your step and a victory in your toes. All the head honchos from the main office are going to be front and center, so remember to smile real pretty at them. Oh, and make sure your girlfriend is attached to your hip. Word has it that a British tabloid is going to break a story on one of the male skaters being gay.”
“Which skater?”
“You’re a smart guy. You figure it out.”
“You bastard. You’re going to plant a false story about Robby?”
“Careful now, Glenn. Don’t make accusations you can’t prove.”
“I won’t go along with this.”
“Yes…” Ralph said, hissing like a rattler. “You will. Face it. We’re the only game in town. Now when the press asks for a reaction, you say that everyone in skating has long been aware of each person’s sexual preferences, but that you felt it was up to the individual to come forward.”
“That’s as good as saying Robby is gay. And you know as well as I do that it’s not true.”
“Hey. Let the chips fall where they may. After all, we can’t control what people think.”
Glenn hung up the phone and wondered how much it would hurt to fling himself from the balcony and crash at the base of the canyon several hundred feet below.
The shower had been running for quite a while. The angrier Kylie was, the longer she’d stay in there. He decided to get his own coffee. As he entered the living room on his way to the kitchen, a couch cushion flew past his head.
“You lying son-of-a-bitch!” Kylie screamed, hurling a heavy glass vase that nearly found its mark. “Is that all I am to you? A damn publicity device?”
Using his arms to protect his face, he dodged books he had never read but looked good on the custom made shelves, and anything else movable she could grab until he finally made his way to her. He surrounded her in a bear hug. She struggled to break loose.
“I hate you!” she sobbed, swinging her fists wildly.
She finally stopped fighting him. He cradled her in his arms, rocking her like a cranky child.
“Shh,” he said softly in her ear. “This is it. I promise. This is the last time. One way or another, I’m getting out.”
Carol hadn’t asked Robby where he’d been for the last week, just as she didn’t question where he went after each daily practice session. Robby was glad about that, the fact that he was feeling better after several treatments from Brody, and that he was on the ice again.
He had committed every square inch of the practice rink to memory, so his eyes easily detected even the slightest flaw. He paused to mend an inch deep hole in the mottled surface. All around him the resilient young bodies of the other skaters wove from one end to the other, somehow avoiding a pile up while whizzing through patches of light, oblivious to one another.
He was always the first one there. After Carol had broken the news to him that he would be working with Paige, he wanted to make sure he arrived early. Paige had not yet completely shaken the sleep from her eyes as she arrived 30 minutes later.
After exchanging quick smiles, Paige slipped into her skates as Robby watched two children awkwardly taking their first matching strokes together and thought about how Carol originally tried to make a pair team out of he and Paige when they were so young they believed holding hands would cause a fatal illness. He wanted to feel the way he did then.
What the hell, he thought as she came out onto the ice.
Her ankles ached with each stroke, but she refused to show it. She couldn’t help wondering if he was comparing her to Brigitta since it wasn’t very long ago that she was in his arms and had been wrenched from them against their will. Paige was determined not only to help him win the Olympics, but to make him forget her.
She stared into his eyes and grinned.
“I’ve got an idea.”
“Oh no,” he groaned.
“That sequence from your old long program. The serpentine footwork into a camel spin and then a triple. Did you ever do it with your eyes closed?”
“No. Why?”
“Why not? I’ll bet it’s a real neat sensation,” she said.
“You have a thing for pain?”
“Come on. Try it. If you can do it that way, think how easy it’ll be to do it the normal way.”
“That’s crazy,” he said, shaking his head.
“Okay… If you’re scared… Carol probably wouldn’t like it anyway.”
He slipped his arm around the small of her back between her shirt and spandex pants, enjoying the momentary warmth of her skin, then lifted her a few inches off the ice and carried her to the gate.
“Stay out of the way,” he warned. If I’m gonna get killed, I’ll need someone to call 911.”
“Cut the dramatics. Just see it in your mind and your body will take over.”
He squinted across the length of the rink, took a deep breath, then closed his eyes and began. His feet twisted and turned almost too fast to see, all the time staying only fractions of an inch from the ice. He felt slightly disoriented, but was comforted by the sound of his blades scraping the surface. He made his way to the other end and Paige cheered.
“Great! Do the rest.”
Buoyed by his success, he eagerly hopped into a spin, his extended leg and torso forming a precise perpendicular angle to his anchored leg. Colors rushed past his eyes that were squeezed shut.
“Yeah!” she yelled. “Now the jump.”
He took a quick peek to get his bearings and pushed off. He didn’t notice that Carol had arrived, but Paige did.
“Head for my voice,” Paige shouted, watching Carol’s reaction from the corner of her eye.
Before Carol could stop him, Robby had sprung into the air. He was off balance. She could see it and he could feel it, but it was too late. He came down hard on his right blade and then his hip, finally skidding to a halt. Paige dropped her arms, but was unconcerned. Robby rose slowly and brushed ice chips from his pants as he eased over to the rail.
“You’ll get it next time,” Paige said cheerfully.
“Having fun, kiddies?” Carol called to them from behind the boards.
“Ooh. Somebody ate gorilla biscuits for breakfast,” he said, purposely slipping and sliding, doing his imitation of a novice skater.
“We’re wasting time,” Carol said flatly.
He grinned and nodded.
“Very smart,” she declared, clearly furious.
“What’s the problem?” Robby asked.
“You’re acting like a child.”
“Then stop treating me like one.”
There was a long, empty silence.
“In less than two weeks we are going to the Olympics. The Olympics! Not some little crap competition in the middle of nowhere. If this is an indication of how seriously you’re taking this,
then don’t waste my time,” she said.
Robby began stretching at the rail. It was like yelling at a puppy. As exasperated as Robby made her, Carol could never hold onto the anger. Not with him.
She laid her hands on his, leaned in close, and whispered. He nodded. He didn’t dare say anything about the blood blister forming on his hip from the fall. He knew there would be no sympathy forthcoming.
Damn, Paige thought, knowing Carol had won again.
Just then, Carol glanced over at Paige. The young woman’s eyes were riveted on the location of Carol’s hand and both knew it. Carol stood up straight and immediately withdrew her arms. Paige offered a triumphant smile.
Maybe today isn’t a total loss. I rattled her cage a little, Paige thought.
She’d settle for a draw. At least for now.
The delicate chime of a white antique phone with gold trim was the only sign of life in the parlor. Passing by on his way to nowhere in particular, Freeman waited for someone to answer it. Something told him he should before anyone else did. The sound of his footsteps on the Italian marble floor tiles filled the room as he crossed to the matching table.
“Hello,” he said. “Hey. Calm down. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.” He waited. “You’re what?? he asked, praying he had heard her wrong. “Are you sure?” His head began pounding. “Did you tell your parents?” He didn’t like the answer. “Then how do you expect me to tell mine?” He listened. “Okay. Look, we need to talk. Don’t do anything. I’ll call you. I love you.”
He placed the phone back on the hook and slowly sank into a white satin chair.
The world will just have to deal with it, he thought.
What surprised him is that while there was clearly a way out, that his parents would insist he take it, and that it would be the smart thing to do, he knew immediately it wasn’t what he wanted.
Robby laced his skates for the afternoon session as Paige hovered over him like a hummingbird.
“Is that as fast as you can move?” she said, scraping her rubber guards against the mat.
She could wait no longer. She grabbed his gloved hand and dragged him onto the ice as Carol watched from behind the rail.
In order to help him with the pantomime, Paige would temporarily play the part of Robby’s paramour. In the end, he would skate the program, not for the judges or the audience, but to this invisible lover. His task was to win the heart of his lady. With painstaking precision, she guided him through a series of intricate, yet lyrical movements, occasionally punctuated by stingingly precise triple jumps. He swirled and dipped, reached and withdrew, exactly as she commanded.
“Okay. Stroke the air around me like you’re caressing my… her face. Sell it. Make the audience see the woman you adore,” said Paige, wondering who he was picturing in his mind.
He continued mimicking the gestures perfectly, just as they had practiced them in the rehearsal hall days earlier.
“Hold it. It’s not working,” Paige said angrily as she stopped the tape deck sitting on top of the barrier.
“You’re just going through the motions. You have to stop thinking and just feel the part.”
Robby was frustrated. Carol clearly was growing impatient with the amount of time Paige insisted on giving to the choreography.
“He’s scared to let go and open up. He needs something to hide behind. Maybe if I give him an image to hold onto,” Paige decided.
She dug her hands into her hips and sighed. If this didn’t work, they were sunk.
“Nijinsky did a ballet to the music we’re using called Le Spectre de la Rose. It’s about a young woman who goes to a fancy ball and gets a rose from one of the men she dances with. She goes home and dreams that the rose has turned into her ideal lover. They dance together, then when the dream is over, she watches him jump out the window. Her heart is broken because even though she knew he wasn’t real, he’s gone and she can’t ever have him back again. So in a way, she’s forced to grow up. When he goes, he takes her childhood fantasies with him. She has to confront her own adult reality.”
Robby stared at the frozen white surface beneath his blades. Carol stared at him. Paige stared at Carol. Each was deep in their own thoughts.
“Don’t you see?” Paige continued. When those little girls who drool over the edge of the rail look at you, they don’t see a real person. They see their fantasy come to life. That’s the spirit of the rose. A perfect man that they can only have in their dreams.
“That’s great,” Carol said, trying to keep her mind focused on the matters at hand. “But don’t forget. It won’t mean anything without a strong technical program.”
“There’s more to skating than jumps. The fact that you brought me here proves that.”
“He can’t give up his strength.”
“I’m not asking him to. I just want to add to it,” Paige explained.
“He has to have eight triples,” Carol insisted.
“He has to have time to breathe,” Paige countered.
“Every other top man will have eight triples. Without them, he hasn’t got a chance.”
“If he doesn’t upgrade his artistic level, he won’t win anyway.”
“What are you trying to do?”
Robby circled nervously, wishing he could stick a sock in both their mouths.
“I’m trying to use the choreography to give him time to rest between jumps so he won’t fall on his face before the end of the program.”
“Are you sure that’s all?”
“Meaning?” Paige asked, staring defiantly back at her.
“Robby has a reputation for his technical expertise.”
“Which you’re happy to take credit for.”
“The jumps are supposed to be the focus of the program. Not your choreography!” Carol shouted.
“Afraid I’ll do in two weeks what you couldn’t do in fifteen years?”
That was enough for Robby. He stroked to the barrier, rewound the tape, and pressed play before offering a determined glance at Carol and Paige who knew him well enough to realize how angry he was. They stood silently as he took his position at center ice.
He looked almost child-like in the t-shirt with a silk-screened picture of three monkeys, one with a hand over its mouth, another covering its eyes, and the third plugging its ears, dancing on his chest until the dramatic music flooded the room. Robby stood at attention and began stroking.
His crossovers were powerful and deep as he went from one end of the rink to the other.
What does he feel? Paige wondered.
He commanded the ice, carving out space like an eagle surveying its domain. His blades pushed and pulled the slick surface, driving him forward at a dizzying speed. It was so smooth, so easy. He loved making his body do exactly what he wanted.
Paige observed it, but knew she couldn’t do it. She saw nothing but a cold, unrelenting patch of white before her. Robby lifted off and got tremendous height, enabling him to stick the landing of the triple jump. He bent his right knee and extended the other leg behind him. His arms were stretched confidently to the sides as he held the position several seconds.
Okay, Paige thought. You don’t have to show off.
By the time the five minutes had passed, he had done each jump Carol demanded and still found a place to fit in the moves Paige had created. Where there wasn’t enough time or too little, he had improvised, something neither Carol nor Paige had seen him do before or thought him capable of.
It was rough in spots, but when it was over everyone knew they had just witnessed the most technically difficult, yet artistically sound program ever skated.
“What do you think?” Paige asked Carol.
“It’s going to be wonderful. Not there yet, but it will be.”
The bitch just won’t give in, Paige thought. Well, neither will I.
Robby glided over, trying to smother a satisfied smirk. For once, he’d had the last word without uttering a sound.
“Want to tr
y it again?” Carol asked.
“No,” he said. “It’s okay. It felt good.”
Carol forced a smile to hide the fact that her heart was heavy with sadness.
He doesn’t need me anymore, she thought.
“Can’t we liven up the place?” Robby asked, energized by his accomplishment.
Paige slipped another tape into the cassette machine. A medley of old rock n’ roll tunes gushed from the speakers.
“Turn it up,” he commanded, thumbs in the air.
Carol watched them skate around, laughing and shaking their hips to the pounding beat. Then suddenly, Robby slowed his gyrations, finally halting in place as if grabbed by an unfriendly force.
He stroked off the ice, slipped on his guards, and marched toward the locker room. Paige and Carol looked at each other, equally bewildered. They both took a few steps in that direction and stopped.
“You go,” Carol said before she could stop the words.
Paige swept into the locker room unconcerned with who or what might be going on in there. Robby was seated on the bench with his forearms resting on his thighs, looking as if he had drifted to another place and time.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“That song. I haven’t heard it in so long. From the time I can remember, we used to have our New Year’s Eve parties at my grandparents house. My father hated to dance. My mother could never get him up except when they played that one song. I don’t know why, but when it came on it was like he was another person. It was amazing. Everybody had so much fun. I think it was the only time I saw him smile and really mean it. Once my grandparents were gone, we stopped having the parties. My father started keeping the store open on holidays and we didn’t go anywhere or do anything after that. It’s never been the same.”
Paige sat beside him and stroked his back.
“This isn’t about your father. He doesn’t understand. He never wanted to be a part of it. That was his choice and there’s nothing you can do about it., except to show him he was wrong not to believe in you.”
Robby didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to feel. He didn’t want to be strong. He just wanted to lose himself in Paige’s arms.
Carol paced outside and finally took a deep breath when Robby and Paige emerged from the locker room. Just then, Brody came bounding into the arena and intercepted them.