Being Sloane Jacobs (18 page)

“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” he says. “Sounds like your cold is gone too.”

“What?” I say.

“Your cold. Two days ago, when I called, you were hacking into the phone.”

Oh my God. Sloane Devon must have actually spoken to him. “Oh, right,” I squeak. “All gone!”

“Listen, I’m glad you called. I’ve been wanting to talk with you.”

“What about?” There’s a long silence on the other end of the line. I hear him clear his throat a few times. “Dad, it’s late and I’m exhausted. If you’re not going to talk, I’m going to bed.”

I shock myself a little with the statement. I’ve never spoken to either of my parents so plainly before. Maybe I really am exhausted, or maybe I’m just high from my win on the ice. Whatever it is, it obviously shocks my father too.

“I don’t like your tone, Sloane,” he says. His voice no longer sounds strained. Now it’s clipped and angry, like when he’s on
Meet the Press
getting grilled about something he doesn’t want to discuss.

“That makes two of us, Dad,” I shoot back. “Listen, I know it’s an election year. I’ll be a good daughter. You don’t have to worry about me. I know you’re busy, with everything—and
everyone
—else you have to worry about.”

I hear him suck in a hard breath. He sputters for a few seconds.

“That is completely out of line,” he says. “You are completely out of line.”

“I’ll see you back in DC,” I say, then jam my finger down on the red End Call button. I grasp my phone tight in my hand. My heart is pounding so fast that I just want to throw the phone as hard and as far as I can. The urge is
so strong that I actually raise my arm over my head, aiming for the parking lot next door.

“Am I interrupting something?”

I turn around and see Matt, the keys to his bike lock in his hand. He’s wearing a black zip hoodie over a pair of loose, worn-in jeans, and his hair is wet and curled up around his jaw, fresh from the shower. Oh my God, he’s so hot.
Oh my God, stop it
. Oh my God, how long has he been standing there?

“Bad phone call,” I reply.
More. I need more. Think
. “Just a friend having guy troubles.”

He seems to buy it, thankfully. I’d be toast if he overheard anything about DC, or worse, the campaign. I tell myself to be more careful next time. But there won’t be a next time. I don’t plan to call my father again this summer. I loosen my grip on my phone and slide it back into my pocket.

He shoots me a patented Matt O’Neill half grin and shrugs. “Guys,” he says. “Nothing but trouble.”

“You would know,” I say, before I can stop myself.

His smile falters. “Listen, I’m not sure what you’ve heard about me—”

I cut him off. “I haven’t heard anything.”

“I think you have,” he says. He steps closer, and I catch a whiff of his smell: mint and clover and something smoky. I try not to sway on my feet. “I know I have a bit of a reputation, but I don’t want you to think—”

“Is it true?” Again, I cut him off.

“Is what true?”

“The story about the girl and the janitor’s closet?” I see the recognition flash across his face in waves, first shock, then anger, then something else. Embarrassment? Shame? I can’t tell in the dim light.

“Yeah, it’s true,” he says. He opens his mouth to continue, but I stop him.

“That’s all I need to know,” I say. I start back into the dorm. I hear him call to me from the bike rack.

“Sloane, wait, let me explain,” he says, but I don’t need an explanation.

Not from him. And definitely not from my dad.

CHAPTER 14

SLOANE DEVON

Pairs sucks.

I was under the impression it would be half as hard. I thought my incompetence would stick out half as much. But it turns out pairs just sucks times two. It
double
sucks.

Even though we’re going to be exhibition partners, in class Andy is in the good group, whereas I am in the sucky group. And in most of the classes I’m paired with Roman Andrews, a lanky, pizza-faced blond guy from Kansas whose long program costume is an exact replica of Captain Kirk’s uniform. He started sweating the moment our names appeared next to each other on the training lists.

Then there are our coaches, Katinka and Sergei Bolosovic, former Russian national champions turned husband-and-wife coaching duo. Sergei doesn’t speak much English, so his coaching is mostly relegated to raised eyebrows, grunts, and strategic eye rolls. Katinka does her best to be
supportive, but every piece of advice she offers sounds like it’s coming straight from the Cold War.

I can skate and spin, and I’ve been practicing all those arm-swishing movements in my room whenever Ivy’s not around to give me the evil eye. But when it comes to letting someone lift me over his head? That I’m not so good at. I have trouble putting my trust in a pair of arms that have roughly the density of a cooked piece of linguine.

“Sloane! You must go with dee lift!” Katinka skates over to center ice, where I’m flat on my butt, my legs out in front of me in a V shape. Roman is towering over me, sighing.

“You keep saying that, but I still don’t know what that means.” I mean to say it under my breath, but Katinka hears me.

“I know dis ees first time you do pairs. Ees not easy, I know dis. But you must try.” Katinka offers me about one-eighth of a smile, which in Russia is practically a hug. “When Roman lifts, you must lift. Breathe in with dee lift, yes?”

“Yes,” I say. I stand up on my skates and turn, eye to eye with Roman. Looking at his lanky arms and narrow hips, I’m thinking the lifting problem might not be only with me.

“Roman, you lift.” Katinka nods and crosses her arms behind her back. I’d feel more comfortable if she prepped herself to catch me, because it looks like the last thing Roman lifted over his head was his Han Solo action figure as he positioned it above his bed. No joke, the kid brought his dolls to summer camp.

“I’ll do my best,” Roman says, with another gargantuan sigh.

Katinka counts off, and Roman and I take off side by side. The move, which three couples before us all completed without incident, calls for me to drop back a stride. Then Roman is supposed to grab my right hand, pull me toward him, then wrap his hands around my waist and use the momentum to lift me straight up. It’s an “elementary lift,” as Katinka keeps saying, in that Roman uses both hands and I’m not upside down or anything, thank God. He isn’t even supposed to hold me up very long. It’s supposed to be a fluid lift, my arms artfully over my head. Afterward, he’s supposed to deposit me gracefully back onto the ice.

So far he’s deposited me onto my butt. Three times. Thanks a lot, Roman.

At the required speed, I drop back. Roman grabs my hand with his sweaty palm, and pulls me in. His hands are around my waist. I breathe in and try to go with the lift, like Katinka says, but as I feel my skates leave the ground, I hear Roman let out a grunt the likes of which I haven’t heard outside of a Wimbledon tennis match. It does not inspire confidence. And so I do what comes naturally. I try to catch myself. I grab onto his hands, which are holding on to my waist so tight I think his bony little fingers are going to leave bruises. I feel his arms buckle, his grip slip.

I yelp, and then I flail, as if I’m trying to hoist myself back up into the air like you would if you were falling out of a piggyback ride. This causes Roman to just sort of let go.
And then I’m tumbling again. I swing my legs to get them down before my butt, but it’s not the ice they make contact with. It’s Roman, or, to be more accurate, Roman’s groin.

The impact is so hard, my knee actually hurts. Katinka yips, the other skaters gasp, and I think I actually hear Sergei say “Oh my God.”

The only person who doesn’t make a sound is Roman. He’s on his knees, doubled over, staring at some invisible point on the ice, his face red and getting redder. He looks like a pressure cooker about to blow with the loudest, longest stream of profanities.

“Roman, I’m so sorry,” I say. Even though it was mostly his fault. I went with the lift. Where was he going?

Roman looks up and focuses his angry stare on me. His beady little eyes narrow. “You,” he finally says. “You are the
worst
partner
ever
. No one could partner you.
No one!
”

Sergei and Katinka speed over to him. Sergei helps Roman to his skates and starts leading him off the ice. But before he goes, he looks over his shoulder and shouts, “No one!”

Jeez. Drama queen much, Roman?

“I think I need a new partner,” I say to Katinka, who offers me what I think is a sympathetic nod. That or she’s considering shipping me off to a gulag.

“We will find you someone more … substantial,” she says.

“Yeah, okay,” I say. “Preferably someone who can at least bench the equivalent of my weight?”

“Muscles ees not dee issue. You need partner who control you, because you no trust. You must
trust
,” Katinka says.

Across the ice, the three other male skaters seem to almost shrink behind their partners. Their body language screams,
Not me! Oh please God, not me!

“Maybe Andy could join this group?” I give Katinka my most pathetic face, in hopes that she’ll take pity on me. “I think we might be a good match.”

“Andy ees very good skater.” She looks at me hard, as if trying to determine whether I’ll bring Andy down with me. That one-eighth of a smile reappears, one penciled-in eyebrow arched high. “Yes, I think you are right. Tomorrow we meet during free time. You need work.” I hope she means “you need
to
work,” but I think she means I need some serious skater renovation. With only two weeks until the final exhibition, I’m pretty sure she’s right.

At least Ivy will be happy. I’m not giving her a run for her money—or spandex—out here. It’ll be the Cinderella story of the summer if I manage not to maim my partner.

After practice I lie in bed, flat on my back, my arms and legs splayed out around me. It turns out falling on your butt over and over again is pretty stinking exhausting. When I agreed to the swap, I figured I’d be giving my body a bit of a rest from the body war that is hockey. I assumed that my knee might even get a little time to heal over these four weeks. Wrong, wrong, double wrong.

I hear a drum solo coming from inside the wardrobe—my
ringtone. I groan, thinking that my phone might as well be all the way back in Philly. There’s no way I’m getting up and going all the way over there.

Who could be calling me, anyway? Dad hasn’t bothered to check in with me since I left, and so I haven’t bothered to call him either.

Mom always used to make me call her and let her know where I was. That was the rule. In exchange for never having a real curfew, I had to agree to call her anytime I “changed location,” as she said. Even at her worst, she’d always answer the phone when I called and always expected me to check in. But ever since she’s gone away, I haven’t spoken to her at all. No phones in the first thirty days. Them’s the rules.

The drums reach a fever pitch, and I know the call will go to voice mail soon. What if it
is
Dad? What if it’s an emergency?

The drum solo starts over, and now I know I have only a few seconds left. “Aw, hell,” I mutter, then leap out of the bed with the last ounce of energy I have. I fling open the wardrobe door, reach into the pocket, pull out the phone, and click the Answer button without even checking the number.

“Hello?”

“Sloane?” It’s not my dad, although it’s definitely a guy’s voice.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Nando.”

It takes me a good solid five seconds before it all clicks together. Nando, of course. Nando with his dark eyes and that confident-but-not-cocky swagger and lips close to mine and—

“Oh, Nando! Hi! How are you?” It comes out a little more enthusiastically than I’d hoped. I wish I could swallow back the words. I sound like a greeter at Walmart.

“I’m great,” he says. I can hear the smile in his deep voice. “I just wanted to see if you could get away. No hockey this time. Maybe food. We can hang out?”

“That sounds great,” I reply. I collapse onto the bed, my phone pressed against my ear, equal parts exhaustion and excitement. Nando. Studly, sweet, kickass Nando. This totally makes up for my hippo-on-skates performance in practice today.

But then I remember that before I finally left the rink in shame, Katinka told me that if I didn’t start improving, she’d schedule me for evening sessions on the ice. My stomach drops. Katinka didn’t say it, but I’m pretty sure this is the equivalent of after-school tutoring for the kid who can’t pass the algebra test. I don’t care if figure skating isn’t my thing, I can’t turn in another performance like today’s. No one will believe I’m Sloane Emily if I spend 90 percent of my time flat on my butt. And worse than that, I’ll be a loser. I’ll be the worst. I’ll be the bottom rung—if I’m not already; word of my attack on Roman today has probably gotten out. I can’t take that.

If I’m going to make it through this summer without
totally humiliating myself, I can’t spend my nights with Nando, even if he does have a badass slap shot.

“I can pick you up in an hour?”

“I’m really sorry,” I say. “It
does
sound great, but I can’t.” I can feel the excitement ebbing away, the exhaustion taking over. “I’m sort of behind. I need to focus.”

“You’re behind? Not from what I could see at the game the other day,” he says. Oh right, I’m supposed to be at hockey camp. Crap.

“Well, you remember what it was like,” I explain. “Before you got scouted? It’s just a lot of pressure.”

“Yeah, I remember.” Something changes in his voice. “Listen, maybe another time. You gotta relax every now and then, or trust me, the pressure is going to get to you.”

“Totally,” I say. “I’ll call you soon, okay?”

“Sounds good,” he says. “Night, Sloane.”

I click the button, roll over, and fling my phone underneath the bed. I feel a twinge in my shoulder at the motion. I bury my face in the covers and moan. But I know what I’ve got to do. If I can get my act together by Friday, maybe Katinka will let me out of my detention—er, extra training.