Chapter 15: Warnings
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Jonathan stood in front of the entrance to the snack bar, trying to work up the courage to walk in. He didn't know why he was nervous. He owned this place--the woman behind the counter was his employee. Perhaps the problem was that it had been so long since he had even tried to walk into a restaurant and order so much as a cup of coffee. So many places were willing to deliver to the doorman-and in a pinch he could cook, as long as he didn't stand for too long of a period.
Maybe he'd just gotten out of the habit of interacting. Aside from business meetings, where he could hide behind an attitude of formality, he had spent little time with the human race.
Practice makes perfect.
Not true. There were some things that even practice couldn't perfect. His body had been crushed beyond repair. His skin was resistant to plastic surgery (Mr. Griffin, you have keloid skin - in layman's terms, you heal above the skin and not below it. Chances are that plastic surgery would make it worse. Best I can do is to give you cortisone injections, which will flatten it out somewhat...). No, he couldn't practice himself into physical perfection.
But he could get used to dealing with the human race on a day to day basis. He would have to, for Gina's sake. Things had been okay so far. He'd been working with Gina about a week and no one in the rink had made any comments, or stared unabashedly. The coaching sessions were a dream as well; all he had to do was tell Gina what to do, and she would do it. She worked very hard, and Jonathan was so busy making minute changes to her technique, or suggesting choreographic variations, that he hadn't had time to really think deeply about what he was doing. So easy. Then again, as far as interacting with the rest of the planet, all he had done was creep up from his office twice a day, and position himself in the front row of the arena. He hadn't gone into the pro shop or into the snack bar.
Unfortunately, this morning he'd overslept, for the first time in ... years.
He hadn't needed an alarm to help him wake up since his competition days. Every morning after the accident, he had awakened without fail at five thirty in the morning. And every morning between five thirty and five thirty-one, he had thought about practicing, and pictured himself doing a triple axel or a triple lutz. Then, every morning at five thirty-two he remembered that he would never do a lutz again, and spent the next hour staring at the ceiling and hating his life.
Those moments, just before becoming fully awake, when everything seems perfectly normal are always replaced by the reliving of the moment when everything changed. To feel fine and happy, and then blink or stretch or try to roll over and then realize that things are not all right, they're not ok, and they never will be. That's the worst of it. It's not that I destroyed my life, but that every single morning I experience it being destroyed again.
But this morning had been different. He'd opened his eyes to see a tiny beam of sunlight peer through the space between the blinds and the wall and illuminate infinite particles of dust across the room to his pillow. He'd stretched, rolled over, and put the pillow over his head. Then he had been alerted to the sound of a vacuum cleaner-his housekeeper was apparently already at work. Pulling the pillow off his face, he grabbed the clock radio from the nightstand and blinked when he realized it was almost nine thirty a.m.
No dreams of skating this morning, just the painful stumbling out of bed that happened every day, only this time the pain was ignored in favor of a mental review of everything he had to get done today, with almost two hours less time to do it in. The normal silk button-down shirt and tie was ignored in favor of a t-shirt under a white cable-knit sweater and black jeans. No time to check his planner, no time to watch CNN. . . no time for breakfast.
Which was why he now was lurking outside the snack bar, with his stomach growling, and his caffeine to blood ratio dangerously low. A morning full of phone calls, a long meeting with Jake, and review of the rink's insurance policies had left him with no time to rectify the omitted meal. Another rumble from his gut made itself heard. Hunger winning out over anti-social impulses, he took a deep breath and entered the snack bar.
Conversation didn't halt. No one looked up and stared.
Almost, he felt let down.
"What can I get you, Mr. Griffin?" the young woman asked. The nametag on her apron read, Marvella!, and she'd decorated the top of it with a little rayon Tweetie Bird patch.
"Coffee, black, a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich," he decided quickly. "What?" he asked, when she wrinkled her nose.
"Boring. I expected something more exotic from you," she said, and winked. "The mysterious Mr. Griffin, who locks himself away in the basement, and only appears by moonlight should be eating something like Peking Duck. Although the only time I had duck anything, it was real greasy, so maybe you wouldn't." She grinned as she handed him a large mug of coffee.
Jonathan wasn't sure what to say to her. Did she always babble like that? He figured he was making her nervous - his face was probably scaring her - so he just gave a semblance of a smile and thanked her for the coffee.
"I'll bring the soup and sandwich out to you when it's done," she said, and then turned to the customer behind him. "And what can I get for you, short-stuff?"
As the "short-stuff" in question was more than likely to be a small child, Jonathan tensed. He didn't want to frighten a little kid with his appearance. Abruptly he took his coffee to the corner booth and sat with his face to the wall sipping the hot liquid gratefully. He hadn't really noticed before how cold the basement was. Someone had discarded a Post Gazette on the seat, so he opened it up and started catching up on the local news. He mentally sighed a little as he turned the pages-even though it had been years since the Pittsburgh Press was shut down, he still missed it. Nothing was wrong with the Post Gazette; it just wasn't the paper he'd grown up with. It had been the Press that had written the very first feature about a young novice champion named Jonathan Griffin. He wondered if he still had somewhere the scrapbooks that his mother had put together for him. Probably not... The one-the only--good thing about his accident was that at least it had happened after his mother had died of breast cancer. She had lived long enough to see him win the 92 Olympics, but she had been spared witnessing what his life had become.
"Here ya go, hot food, coming down," Marvella said from a spot somewhere above his head. A plastic tray was plopped down in front of him.
"Thank you," he said, taking up the spoon.
She didn't move.
Jonathan tasted the soup. "It's good, thank you," he said, hoping she would take the hint and leave.
She sat down across from him.
What?
He put the spoon down and looked at her.
"You're coaching Gina."
Funny how three words could sound like both an accusation and a warning at the same time. "Yes, I am." Warning and none-of-your-business lobbed back at her. Two could play this game.
Marvella stared at him for a long time before speaking. "She hasn't told me much about what happened before, when she skated. But I hear things... stuff that I wouldn't never repeat to her face... and I'm afraid she's gonna to get hurt again."
"If you think that Gina isn't strong enough to handle a skating career, you're greatly underestimating her," Jonathan said, thinking back to when she marched into his office and demanded that he look her in the face. If she could do that, she could do anything. "She's tougher than you think. And her skating... it's incredible. Skating like that deserves to be seen."
"I know," Marvella said. "She's been helping me skate better-I'm trying out for the Partisans' new cheering squad in September-and we used to go to the public sessions at Pitt... she would make up steps and moves to whatever music was playing at the time. It was a real trip to watch her. But that's not what I was talking about. I want to make sure that you don't hurt her."
What does she think I'm going to do? Seduce her and then throw her away? His fist tightened around the soup spoon, which was still in his hand. "My interest in Gina is strictly professional. I just want to make sure she has all the tools to take her skating career to the top."
"That's what I was talking about. Gina doesn't need a disinterested drone running her life. She needs someone who cares enough about her to make sure no one takes advantage of her. Moral support as well as coaching. You seem kinda remote," Marvella said. "I just wanna be sure you remember she's a person not a robot with skates on her feet."
Jonathan almost smiled. One thing that Gina was definitely not was a robot. He wondered what Marvella would have said if she had known how Jonathan really thought of Gina. I wouldn't just get warned, I'd get disemboweled. Still, this was really none of her business. "I know what I'm doing."
End of subject. Go away and leave me alone now.
"I hope so," Marvella said, scooting out of the booth. "Better eat your soup before it gets cold." The words were tossed over her shoulder as she hurried back to the counter.
Considering he now had less than five minutes to eat the entire meal, the suggestion had very little weight. He ate as quickly as possible, and then took himself and his coffee to the rink where Gina was already warming up with Megan and Cody. Gina had two three-hour blocks of training. During the first set, she shared ice time with the dance team, but she had the ice to herself in the second. Although the WPFSC had quite a lot of members and was growing rapidly, the bulk of the membership was in intermediate skaters and beginner group lessons. This allowed Gina, Donna, and Etienne all to have private sessions, and the dance teams to all have semi private sessions. Since Jonathan used Gina's first session to work on individual elements and cardio training, Cody and Megan had nearly exclusive control over the music.
At the moment, the dancers were working on an exhibition piece, Mambo Italiano, for next week's grand opening. Gina was warming up with forward and back crossovers in time to their music. When she saw him, she finished her cycle around the rink and skidded to a stop in front of him. "Hi," she said.
They still hadn't quite managed to find a comfortable conversational routine. After her trip to his office, Gina had adopted a young student relating to older teacher attitude of respectful politeness (maybe this was what Marvella had been talking about?). While it made sense during the training, it didn't feel natural. Of course the last time Gina had had a coach, she'd been 14, and Jonathan had never been a coach, so a more casual relationship would probably take time. It would be hard to find a balance between cold professionalism and overly nurturing. He felt awkward, and he thought Gina felt awkward as well.
He took another sip of coffee. "Let's work on the combination jumps today-I want you to be able to tack a double toe or a double loop at the end of every triple you do." This wouldn't be too difficult for her on the salchow, toe loop, and loop-but it would be problematic for the flip and the double axel. "After that, I think we'll play around with single jump combinations and see what we can come up with." With her talent for edge jumps, he wanted to see what she could do with walleys and one-foot axels.
Gina nodded and took off her sweatshirt to reveal a gray and forest green practice dress. It looked like she had finally gotten around to buying some practice clothing. "Been shopping?" he asked before he could edit himself.
Looking surprised that he had noticed, she said, "Not exactly. Cody asked Cyndie to send me a few costumes-and she went way overboard and UPS'd everything she had. Five years worth of competitive costumes, most of which I haven't even had a chance to try on yet. And dozens of practice dresses and skirts." She smiled. "I won't have to buy a costume for years."
Although he nodded, Jonathan didn't completely agree. At the very least, she would need new costumes for Nationals and Worlds. But he understood why she was so happy. Buying new costumes-or having them designed for her-would be committing wholeheartedly to a competitive season. Using Cyndie's hand-me-downs at least prevented her from making an investment, and dwelling on future competitions. He silently congratulated Cody for removing one of Gina's objections. By the time she truly needed new costumes, she be ready for what they meant. Then another thought occurred to him. "Isn't Cyndie taller than you?"
"A couple inches," Gina said. "But most of that was her legs. It's not a big deal for the practice clothes. As for the performance costumes, a seamstress is coming by the house on Saturday to fit Cody and Megan's outfits, so I'm going to have her alter some things too."
"Dare I ask what you'll be wearing in the show? If I remember correctly, Cyndie and Cody made some odd costume choices." He was referring in particular to the matching fuchsia lamŽ jumpsuits that the Neills had used in a Las Vegas style program (it had not gone over well with the judges either, although the mini kick line across the ice had been interesting, to say the least).
"So I take it, you'd object to the lavender harem girl costume," Gina said, apparently relaxing with him enough to make a sarcastic comment.
On the ice, I would. He didn't say it out loud this time, though. It had taken them over a week just to relax enough to even joke around this much. Instead, he laughed, and said, "If I see you in a harem costume anywhere near the ice, you'll end up skating in a sweater and trench coat."
"Don't worry," she continued. "The compulsory dance costumes are more conservative and very beautiful. But if you're giving away that sweater, I'll take it. It looks very comfortable."
Confused, he said, "What sweater... oh the one I'm wearing. It's wool, a bit itchy. Not my preferred look, but I overslept." Then, not really wanting to pursue the topic any further, he said more sternly than he meant to, "Ok now, lets work on those jump combos."
Gina flinched at his change of tone. "I'm sorry - it's just that back in Cincinnati we all used to tease Fritz about his crazy ties. And I just thought that... oh, never mind." And she was off, her feet skimming the surface of the ice, and with a sure three turn, moved into an easy triple toe, double toe combination. Very nice. She skated back towards him, and did a wide three turn and used her free leg to heft upwards into a triple salchow, and then on the landing, picking again with the free leg into a double toe.
She had good speed going into and out of these jumps, so the combinations weren't very difficult for her. He coached her through the easier (for her) combinations: triple loop-double toe, triple toe-double loop; triple salchow-double loop; and the triple loop-double loop. As he had surmised, the triple flip combination stalled her, because her triple flip wasn't strong enough yet.
"You still don't have control of the inside edge when you pick," he called to her, as she stood up and brushed ice chips off her skirt for the fourth time in a row. "You go up slightly tilted and it throws your landings off. It's hard to do that second jump, when you can't hold the landing of the first."
She skated closer to him and said, "Why do I have the feeling that you are making me do this combo, just to teach me a lesson about the solo jump?"
"Is it working?"
"Yes, but there had to be a less painful way of telling me that. How about, 'Gina, you're tilted on the flip, and I don't like the way you fudge the landings.'"
"You'll remember it better this way," he pointed out.
"I'll say," she muttered. "I guess I should work on the solo flip, huh?"
"Three turns first. The problem is that is you have such a wide three turn, which works for you on the salchow, but when you do the same thing on the other foot for the flip, you also have to pick with the free leg. But since that leg swings too far out on the turn, you don't have as much control over the take-off." He paused to make sure she was processing this. Her eyes were closed-she was "seeing" the instructions in her head. "Do some very slow outside to inside three turns down the length of the ice. What you want is to trying to stay in a straighter line. Check after the threes and hold the position for a few seconds, ok?"
It took the good part of the next two hours for her to gain control over the flip to his satisfaction. But by the end of the afternoon, Jonathan felt more confident about the overall look of the jump.
"It's funny," she said, "If you'd asked me before the day if I had a triple flip, I would have said, 'yes'. Now, I'm not even sure I'm even close to having it." She leaned over the boards and grabbed a towel out of her skate bag. Wiping her face, she said, "Whew, I'm exhausted."
"Before this morning, you could land what I call a 'scary triple-flip.' You had a triple jump that was fairly simple to recognize as a flip, but with poor technique. From a judging standpoint, if you did a program with that flip in it, you would have gotten credit for doing a flip, and if there was any deduction, it would have been less of a tenth of a point. But something always looks 'off' when you have poor technique, it even if a casual observer can't put their finger on it; it affects the program as a whole. And of course, you risk blowing the combination jumps." Gina looked rather depressed at this statement, so he continued, "But, after today, I think I can confidently say that you 'almost have' a flip."
She smiled and then took a gulp of water.
"Totally exhausted?"
"Yes."
"Perfect. This will be the best time to work on the triple loop. If you can do it after a two hour jump practice, then doing it at the end of a four minute program should be no trouble at all." He took the towel off her shoulders.
"You are an incredibly evil man," Gina said, as she pushed off.
But she was smiling. And she landed a triple loop.
Jonathan felt like smiling with her. She landed another, and then fell on the third. That was ok. He hadn't expected her even to land two. "Ok, Gina, take some time to cool down, and then if you are up for it, work on the layback combo spin."
Cody, meanwhile, had skated over to him. "Don't you think you're pushing her too hard?"
Lovely, more commentary from the armchair coaching society.
"Don't you have your own partner to worry about?"
With a challenging grin, Cody replied, "I figure I don't have to worry about her when she goes to the bathroom. She knows how to flush. I don't pretend to know how to do your job-"
"Oh?" Jonathan gave him his full attention. "You could have fooled me."
"I'm just concerned. I've known Gina a long time, and she's the kind of person who will push herself past the point of pain if she thinks it will please someone else."
Gripping his cane tightly, Jonathan said, "I call that kind of person a champion. She's tired, yes, but she seems perfectly happy to be out there."
"That's because its how she thinks it should be. Her mother used to come to all her practices. Even after her coach let her go for the day, Francesca used to make her skate longer. She was sure that five more minutes would make the difference between Champion and loser." Cody glanced at Gina again. "She's not a complainer. Someone else needs to tell her when she's had enough."
"And that someone would be you?"
God Damn Cowboy.
Cody shrugged. "She's pretty special to me."
Special how?
The other man continued, "I don't know, maybe she's fine. She doesn't look as tense as she used to when she was a teenager. But I just wanted you to make sure you knew the kind of person you're dealing with."
Cody, you and Marvella should get together. You two would make a lovely Greek Chorus. "Ok, you've said your little heroic speech, consider your good deed of the day accomplished." Purposely, he turned his attention back to Gina, who was now working on that variation of the Cranston sit spin. When Cody had skated off towards his own coach, Jonathan beckoned to Gina. She skated back over to him.
"How are you doing? Too tired?"
She was breathing a little heavily, but she said, "No, I was just kidding before. I'm tired, but it's a good tired."
"Well, take it a little easier for the rest of the afternoon-we still have three more hours of program run throughs and choreography tonight." She looked a little surprised, so he added, "If you aren't tired now, you will be by ten o'clock."
She shrugged and said, "Ok, you're the coach. I'll go work on my spirals."
Jonathan looked over to the dancers and caught Cody's eye. The man looked way too pleased with himself.
Damned Cowboy!
Still a pang of worry shot through him. Already two people who were closer to Gina than he was had come up to him and expressed concern. He didn't agree with their assessments... but was he right? Or were they?
Text Copyright © 1999-2000 Karen Frank
