Life on the Edge (36 page)

Soon, my dancing led to hunger. Fishing through my wallet, I scrounged up enough change for a snack. I deserved a rare junk food treat after what I’d accomplished.

My T-shirt and old gym shorts appeared suitable for a short trip down the hall, so I took my money and my key and aimed for the tiny room with the ice and vending machines. I swung open the door and found Viktor in front of the ice machine. He’d changed from his suit to jeans and a sweater.

“Oh.” I stopped short. “Hey.”

He gave me the familiar penetrating appraisal except one corner of his mouth twitched upward. The hint of a smile didn’t make me any more comfortable.

He picked up his full bucket of ice. “Can’t sleep?”

“No.” I dropped my coins into the vending machine. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me buying potato chips at midnight.”

The small size of the room didn’t allow Viktor much area to reach the door. To give him more space, I stepped closer to the machine.

As he moved behind me, he put his hand on my arm. “Don’t worry, it’ll be our little secret.”

His body brushed against mine, though he didn’t need to be so close. The stench of stale cigarette smoke and musky cologne filled my nostrils, staying with me after the door shut. My stomach turned and my mind raced. Aubrey and Marley always complained about Viktor’s temper and sternness but never any inappropriate behavior.
You could have misinterpreted it. Don’t jump to conclusions.

But my crawling skin was hard to ignore.

Chapter Thirty

Every day that passed without Sergei’s return brought more strain to my nerves and pain to my heart. His expedited Russian passport was in process but the delivery date uncertain. As a result, he spent Christmas with his parents for the first time in years.

Although I was happy for Sergei to have time with his family, I shed more than a few tears during the holidays. I’d looked forward to exchanging gifts with him in front of the fireplace on Christmas Eve and sharing our first New Year’s kiss. We’d had to settle for marathon phone conversations and instant messaging on our laptops, neither of which could compare with being in each other’s arms.

Less than a week into the New Year, I boarded a plane to Los Angeles for the National Championships. Our large traveling group from the Cape included Viktor and his students. I stayed as far away from him as possible during the trip, but if Sergei didn’t show up in time for our event, Viktor would have to stand in for him again, which I dreaded.

I hadn’t told anyone about my encounter with Viktor at the Grand Prix Final. I didn’t want to start drama when I could’ve misread the vibes I’d felt from him. Bigger issues like making the Olympic team and helping Courtney and Mark win the novice title needed my attention.

My young students started off the championships on a high note, winning the short program in convincing fashion. On the day of their free skate, I had to pull double duty–practice with Chris at the glitzy Staples Center followed by Courtney and Mark’s event at the older L.A. Sports Arena next door.

At practice, Chris set me down from our star lift, and I stumbled as I looked up at the clock on the massive
Jumbotron
. He stopped in the middle of the ice.

“You keep checking the time.” His tone dripped with irritation. “Don’t you have more than an hour to change and get over there?”

“I’m just worried. The kids seemed really nervous at the warm-up this morning.”

We stroked around the ice, hand-in-hand, passing three other teams jumping and spinning in unison. Chris scratched his head. “Why don’t we cut this practice short? You’re a little out of it anyway.”

“No, I’m fine,” I huffed. “Let’s do the
lutzes
again.”

I skated ahead of him, building up speed. He quickly caught up to me, and we flew down the rink. Simultaneous matching jumps followed, eliciting applause from the smattering of fans in attendance.

“See?” I said. “I’m not out–”

Before I could finish, my blade caught the boards, and I slipped sideways onto the ice. My thigh stung from the cold impact. Chris bent and offered his hands, while I wiped mine on my stretch pants.

He raised an eyebrow. “What was that you were saying?”

We left the ice with ten minutes remaining in the session, and I ran to the locker room to shower and change. Striving to look professional, I put on a rose-colored cashmere sweater and a pair of dressy black pants. In my heels, I raced next door and met Courtney and Mark stretching backstage.

Throughout their warm-up and up until they took the ice, I reminded them how prepared they were. They did lots of nodding but remained quiet. In the seconds before their introduction, I fixed my eyes on theirs. They both had a deer-in-the-headlights look and stared at me as if I had the cure for their terror. I knew exactly how they felt and wished I had a magical pearl of wisdom to share.

I held their gazes and squeezed their hands. “Have fun out there, and good things will happen.”

They skated to center ice, and I glanced at the empty space beside me where Sergei should be standing. Sadness gripped me. He and I had worked with our young pair all season for this moment, and he was missing it. He was missing so much.

Courtney and Mark began the program with tentative strokes, and on the opening double axels, Mark jerked awkwardly out of the landing. I clapped and shouted, “You’re okay! Keep your heads up!”

The kids didn’t appear to hear me. Bobbles punctuated all their lifts and jumps, and they didn’t have the attack they’d shown all year. They were trying hard, but I could see the pressure of being the frontrunners weighing them down. They finished the program a few seconds behind the music, a fitting end to a free skate riddled with mistakes.

I bowed my head and took measured breaths. I wanted to scream, not at Courtney and Mark, but at myself. They were capable of skating so much better, but I couldn’t let them see my disappointment. When they reached me, my throat tightened at their devastated faces.

I engulfed them in hugs. Courtney started crying on my shoulder, and I patted her curly hair bun.

“I’m sorry,
Em
,” she sniveled.

“It’s okay. You’ll learn from this and you’ll be better because of it.”

The resulting low scores were no surprise nor was Courtney and Mark’s drop from first to third place. I took them backstage and hugged them longer. Mark kept mumbling about the jumps he missed, while Courtney was too teary to speak. My cell rang, and I knew the caller without looking.

Mark knew, too. “Sergei probably thinks we won.”

“He’s going to be so disappointed,” Courtney said.

I stopped the phone from chiming and put my arm around her. “I’m going to tell him how hard you guys fought today. You never gave up.”

The phone rang twice more, but I ignored it so I could continue to console the kids. When they trudged toward the locker room, I answered the next call.

“Where have you been? How’d they do?” Sergei asked.

I pulled my hair back from my face and sighed. “They had a rough day. They got the bronze, though.”

“What happened? They’ve been competing well and you said they’ve been having good practices.”

“Nerves got to them.”

“Didn’t you talk to them to help them feel confident?”

His accusatory tone surprised me. I gave the chair in front of me a look of disbelief since Sergei wasn’t there. “Of course I talked to them,” I spat into the phone. “But I can’t control what they do on the ice. You know that.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just going crazy over here, not being able to help.”

I sank onto the chair and watched the champions celebrate with their coach across the corridor. “It’s so tough when everyone expects you to win. They felt that pressure today.”

“You’re feeling that pressure, too.” He must’ve heard the rising anxiety in my voice.

“Yes.” I massaged the back of my neck. “Everyone’s practically put us on the Olympic podium already. I’m trying not to think about it, but . . .”

“Maybe my news will help. I’m booked on a flight to L.A. on Wednesday.”

I sucked in a breath. “You got your passport? You’ll make it in time for the short?”

“I’ll be there.”

****

He wasn’t there.

An East Coast snowstorm cancelled Sergei’s connecting flight from New York. So, as Chris and I prepared to take the ice for our short program, Sergei sat in JFK Airport.

I bounced up and down and adjusted one of the straps of my shimmering blue costume. The dress was sleek and resembled the top of an evening gown I’d seen in a department store. Sergei had been rendered speechless the first time I’d worn it. His admiring gaze had given me shivers and made me feel especially beautiful.

The creepy look Viktor currently directed my way gave me shivers of the bad kind. I paced back and forth in the tunnel, cursing Mother Nature under my breath.

“I can’t believe Sergei isn’t here,” I muttered to Chris.

He took hold of my hands and said firmly, “We can do this without him.”

I didn’t doubt his statement, but I missed the extra assurance I got just from looking into Sergei’s eyes. I shut mine and visualized his smiling and confident face.

The arena buzzed with palpable energy when we glided onto the ice, and I knew our music would energize the crowd even more. The last thing Sergei had told me on the phone earlier was, “Just work it.” I took a deep breath and shimmied my shoulders, ready to give the program all the sassiness and spunk it deserved.

Members of the audience whistled when the acoustic strains of “Hotel California” began. I put on a flirty smile and moved like liquid to the music. With the dangerous triple twist out of the way in the first thirty seconds, we set up for the side by side jumps. Chris matched my swooping crossovers down the rink. In perfect unison, we switched to the outside edges of our blades and stabbed our
toepicks
into the ice.

I immediately sensed a problem. My
toepick
had slipped, preventing me from attaining the necessary height on the jump. I landed cross-footed and lost all balance. My backside crashed to the ice, stunning me and the crowd, too, judging from the hush that fell over the building. I hadn’t missed the triple Lutz in months. But I’d just missed it in one of the most critical programs of my life.

I scrambled to get back in step with Chris, and he whispered, “Fight.”

We regained momentum with our star lift that covered the length of the ice. The audience cheered us on, and I received a boost of adrenaline. We couldn’t afford any more mistakes in the program. One was damaging; two would be lethal.

With a clean performance the rest of the way, I believed we’d kept ourselves in the mix, but I didn’t know how the teams before us had skated or how the teams after us would fare.

Chris and I quietly waited for our scores, clutching each other’s hand. Inside, I cursed the ice and my
toepick
. What if my slip-up put us out of contention? A fraction of an inch of my blade could be the difference between achieving a lifelong dream and watching the Olympics from my couch.

I dropped my head when I saw our names in third place. Four pairs still had to skate, so we could potentially fall further in the standings. We had to stay in the top three to be within striking distance of the gold medal, and more importantly, a spot on the Olympic team.

Television reporters grabbed us for interviews as soon as we walked backstage, not giving Chris and I a moment to ourselves. When we were finally alone and discovered we’d remained in third, I hugged Chris, but he was stiff in my arms.

“You were thinking about Sergei not being here, weren’t you? That’s why you missed the jump?” he asked in a biting tone.

“What?” I pulled away and gaped at him. “It was a fluke thing. My
toepick
slipped. I wasn’t thinking about anything except landing the jump.”

“You’ve been stressing about him all week, making mistakes in practice . . .”

“I was ready tonight. Don’t make this into something bigger than it was.”