Chapter 22: Wind
Private Ice is Best Viewed in Firefox.
Then they were together on another street in the Mala Strana, and in that corner house lived the violin makers, and up the street was the Italian Hospital and the Lobcowicz Place, and Michael imagined nuns in starched white habits moving down bright corridors and a princess walking barefoot on marble floors in moonlight. And there, that small house? That was where Mozart stayed when he came to Prague for the world premier of Don Giovanni.
"The first time Don Giovanni I saw," the rabbi said, "I am your age. I have never seen anything like it ever before. The music. The beauty."
Plink! Plink! Plink! MEOOOOOW!
Sighing at the interruption, Gina looked over at the living room window, where Emma could be seen sitting with her claws poking at the screen. She gave Gina a sorrowful "please, I want to be outside toooooooo!" look. Plink! Plink! Plink! MEOOOOOW!
So much for music and beauty. Gina placed a bookmark in the middle of the novel and sat it down on her lap for a moment. She leaned back against the porch swing, brushed her toes against the weathered floorboards, and set the swing gently swaying. A light summer breeze swept her hair across her forehead, and she absently tucked it back behind her ears. It was the perfect weather to sit and read--cool, and just cloudy enough to avoid glare-- but Gina was spending more time marveling about that fact, than actually reading.
Although it had been nearly a month since she'd borrowed Jonathan's copy of Snow in August, this was the first day she'd actually been able to begin reading it. Between the dancing classes she'd picked up at the University (tuition-free, because of her father's teaching status), intense skating practices, and helping Marvella come up with a cheerleading routine for next week's tryouts, she hadn't had a moment to herself. I'm not exactly alone right now either--
"Matthew! Those are marigolds! I want them to grow there!" Jean's voice sharply reinforced Gina's private thoughts. She looked over her shoulder to where her parents were gardening. Well, actually, Jean was gardening, and Dad was... what is he doing? Leaning precariously over the back of the swing, Gina peered into the side yard, where her father was sheepishly holding a couple of decapitated marigolds in his hands.
He looked at the flowers in surprise. "A marigold? Are you sure? I thought it was a weed." He examined it closely. "It looks like a weed." He tossed the flowers behind him and reached for a pair of hedge clippers. "Maybe I should prune the rosebushes instead."
Jean blinked rapidly and then lunged for the clippers. "You've done enough dam--er gardening for today, dear. Why don't you go read--or something--up on the porch."
"Oh. Alright," he said, sounding a little hurt. He stood up, brushed off his slacks, ambled up to the other porch swing, and picked up an academic journal from a stack on the window ledge. Letting out a contented sigh, he sat down on the swing, then, with a wink at Gina, he began to read.
Gina unsuccessfully tried to smother a giggle at her father's creative way to avoid work. That, unfortunately, brought Jean's attention to her. "Gina, luv, do you think you could lend me a hand down here?"
"Sure thing," Gina said, standing up. "But I think I've inherited Dad's lack of talent with plants."
Rolling her eyes good-naturedly, Jean said, "I rather thought that might be the case."
Gina sunk into the swing and turned back to the book, but once again had trouble concentrating. It was too nice a day to do anything but drift along in daydreams. Skating practices were going rather well, although soon they would need to begin working on the lutz, a prospect that filled Gina with trepidation. Jonathan hadn't said anything recently about trying the jump, but she knew she couldn't put it off forever. She wondered what Jonathan was waiting for. If I don't start working on that jump soon, I'm going to be in big trouble this season.
In fact, they had barely been concentrating on triple jumps at all, except for the triple flip. Most of Gina's practice time seemed to be double axel after double axel after double axel. No, that wasn't true either. The evening practices had been devoted to creating unusual spiral sequences and choreographing Hollywood Nocturne, which included some complex single axel variations. She was getting very excited about the program; it was probably the most interesting choreography she'd ever done. And she still didn't know whether she'd get a chance to perform it. The invitations to the Pro-Am in Atlanta hadn't been sent out yet. Jonathan told her that the organizers had been waiting for the USFSA Grand Prix assignments to be made, because the Pro-Am had been scheduled the same weekend as the Sparkassen Cup in Germany.
The wait probably wouldn't be too much longer, then, since Gina knew from Cody that the Grand Prix assignments had been made earlier this week. She had been relieved to learn that Donna would be going to Sparkassen. I'm not up to competing with her. Not yet. Of all the current eligible skaters, Donna seemed the most intimidating (even more so than SuZhen Li, who was probably a better skater). The USFSA was giving Donna three Grand Prix events; a definite sign of preferential status, for most skaters only attended two. With Skate America, Sparkassen, and The Cup of Russia on her schedule, Donna not only had the opportunity to earn close to 100,000 dollars, but also learn how her new programs stacked up against the rest of the world's skaters.
Gina considered the names she'd read on the list Cody had shown her, knowing that these were the skaters the United States Figure Skating Association considered to be the brightest hopes for world medals... The ladies: Donna, Bethany Clarke, Tomoko Yoshinari, Savannah Roarke, and Emily O'Connor. The men: Ryan O'Connor, Jeff Simons, James Ostrowski, Rich Duggan, and Patrick Sorelli. The pairs: Kelsey Westin and Nikolai Katasanis, Tia and Michael Ciavelli, Sally Goldberg and Gennedy Markov, and Mary Sue Franklin and Lazslo Cherkassky. The dance Teams: Megan and Cody, Juliet Mason and Robert Duras, Kristy Thomas and Jason Daniels, and Claire Lundeen and Jeff Johnson. Nearly four years before the next Olympics, and the USFSA was already playing the prediction game.
Will my name ever be listed with theirs?
No, that was non productive thinking. My name will be listed with theirs. I will be on that Olympic team. Next year, I will be on the international team. She leaned back in the swing, closed her eyes, and indulged in a "productive" daydream, as the notes from the Brahms' Two filled her head. In her imagination, she landed every jump with ease, as, spurred by the support of the crowd, she finished a final blurred scratch spin and then stood with her arms outflung in triumph. The crowd went wild--cheering, and blowing horns, and yelling "Gina!" Jonathan gave her a proud smile and his eyes lit up with shared joy. And when she stepped off the ice, Etienne put his arms around her, spun her in a circle, then bent close to her ear and said, "Gina, you were fantastique!"
Plink! Plink! Plink! MEOOOOOW! "Stop that!" Gina's father swatted the screen with his magazine. "Goofball cat."
Gina, why are you daydreaming about a guy that you've barely talked to?
She had no answer to that question, and was just barely beginning to understand that the Etienne of her daydreams was not even the Etienne she knew. The dream Etienne was a man who took an artistic risk and skated to a violin sonata so obscure that Jean couldn't even identify it. He was more serious, more intense than the Etienne she had been allowed to meet. Someone who had been hurt in some unidentifiable manner ... someone more like....
A burst of wind blew the book off her lap, flinging it against the house with a muffled thud.
All of a sudden, Gina couldn't bear to sit still any longer. What had once been an afternoon of relaxation had been drowned in overwhelming feelings of restlessness. She needed to do something, to move, to run, to skate. No... not now... this was not a time for either the tightly controlled precision of a practice session or even for experimenting with movement and music. No, now was a time for speed, for blurred motion and the adrenaline and endorphin rush that came with pushing your body to the wall and then through it.
An abrupt jump to her feet sent the swing careening backwards and prompted startled looks from her father and Jean. "I'm going to the park to rollerblade," she announced as matter-of-factly as if she had said she was getting a drink of water. "Back in a couple hours."
She hardly heard Jean say, "I think it might be threatening rain."
Several blocks away from Gina's house, in the opposite direction from the rink, was a large public park, which had recently built a five-mile biking/blading trail around a man-made lake. Mindful of the fair amount of late afternoon traffic, Gina half walked/half jogged to the park, quickly changed into her blades, and then hid her sandals under a picnic table.
Now!
Having taken advantage of the trail several times that summer, Gina was already quite familiar with the dips, drops, slopes, and holes that delineated this particular trail. Still, she began slowly, impatient but not foolish, and skated once around the trail alert for new hazards. At a low cruising speed, she glided around carefully noting a widening pothole about a third of the way through, and the low hanging tree branch at the bottom of the biggest slope. The twenty-five minute warm-up was just enough to whet her appetite for an all out sprint. She glided to a halt back at the picnic table, double checked the strap of her helmet and readjusted her kneepads.
Then she was off...
First, the flat, where Gina stroked steadily faster and faster, the wind beginning to whip the hair sticking out from under her helmet into a tangle.
Push.
Push.
Then a slight rise, the stretch from the ankle to thigh as she powered up.... around the giggling couple, whose hand in hand skating revealed that their presence was less for exercise and more for togetherness. A windier day would blow them backwards.
Another flat, this one was longer and packed with Saturday skaters, giddy with the first cool day in weeks, although the gathering cloud cover made the more wary think about packing up and going home. Gina ignored them all and skated around them with swift, sure moves. She was concentrating on...
The hill. A ten degree angle traveling nearly a mile around the lake--start out too slow and you won't make it.... start out too fast and you burn out in the middle. But Gina, in peak physical condition from months of skating didn't worry about going too fast. Not this time. Not today. Instead, dodging the patter of raindrops that were just beginning to fall to the earth, she powered her body up the slope, even as less hardy types were awkwardly running across the park in the blades in an attempt to beat the cloudburst.
The wind, which had been cool and friendly to her before, was now her enemy, pressing at her body (which was less than thrilled with the current state of affairs). Now she was alone...
No, not alone... the rattle and scrape of wheels on pavement was doubled... and Gina moved to the right to allow another to pass.
The blue clad figure moved forward, faster than Gina could imagine going, a daredevil in kneepads. Spurred by this inspiration, Gina pushed harder, just reaching the summit of the hill seconds after the other. With an exultant war cry, he disappeared over the rise. And then Gina cleared the top as well and it was her moment....
Go!
The descent was steep, curving twice, covering nearly two miles, a stretch of land that often dumped novice skaters into the lake. But Gina was no novice, and knew just how to crouch to get the best combination of speed and control.
The wind now in her face...
Rustling past her ears like the ocean in a shell.
Rain, streaming into her face, at once cooling and exhilarating.
Up ahead, the other skater gave another rebel yell, stood straighter, took the curve with daring, employing forward crossovers to increase acceleration. Gina whipped around the curve as well, bending her legs lower, curling like a skier on a downhill run, going faster still as she minimized wind resistance. Her heart pounding in her chest, throat, ears, as she merged with the wheels and the world blurred around her.
Speed!
Little by little the slope eased, straightened, as she neared the finish...the place where she began.
Letting the wheels slow with friction, she stood tall again, reached up and undid the strap of her helmet. Still breathing heavily, she shook her hair free, wiped salt and rain out of her eyes, blinking in surprise as the other skater did the same, revealing white-blonde hair and familiar brown eyes. Just as her lips were forming the words, "I didn't know that was you," he smiled, and said, "Gina, that was fantastique!"
"I didn't know that was you." Once begun, her voice wanted to finish the initial sentence. Am I dreaming? Am I sitting on the front porch, still?
"No. I didn't know you either. Mais, that was fun, yes?" Etienne sat down at the picnic table and began removing his skates.
It was wonderful. And I didn't even know that was you.
"Fun?! That was wonderful!" She leaned against the table and undid the straps at the tops of her blades. Aaaah. "I didn't know that was you." Um, Gina, you already said that once.
He focused on her first comment. "Yes, sometimes, one must go... one must go fast. It's the only thing one can do. Go fast. Faster than your life can catch you."
Gathering her thoughts, Gina hid her face in the tasks of taking off her skates and thick socks, and looking under the table for the shoes she'd left there earlier. What in your life are you running from? Are you running from yourself? But before she could ask anything, the sky finally opened completely, drenching both of them in a cold rain. He stood up, grabbed her hand, and yelled over the weather, "Come! My car's just across the park."
But my shoes...
The grass was slick under her feet and her clothes were sticking her. She kept knocking her skates against her side, and her teeth were beginning to chatter. Yet as they ran hand in hand across the deserted park, Gina was convinced that this was the most romantic moment of her life.
They skidded to a halt in front of his bright red Porsche and Etienne threw the driver's side door open. "Go in, go in," he urged, as she hesitated for a moment, loathe to damage the interior with water stains. Protesting still, she slid across the seat, trying to avoid putting her muddy feet on anything but the floor mat. Etienne leaped inside and quickly started the engine, as dual blasts of warm air and loud rock music initiated from the dashboard. "Aiee! Excuse-moi," he said, turning off the radio.
"No, it's ok." She fiddled with the buckles on her skates for a moment, unsure of what to say. Outside the car, on the trail, it was so easy... but now that there were no distractions, Gina didn't know what to say. And Etienne, normally a chatterbox, was uncharacteristically silent. The rain splattering against the windshield seemed unnaturally loud.
Etienne took a long look at her, then peered at himself awkwardly in the rearview mirror. His hair was plastered to his forehead and water dripped down his nose. He started laughing. "We are already so wet, what does it matter if we are inside now."
In that light, their mad dash must have seemed pretty silly to anyone watching. Gina smiled at the thought. "If you want to, we could go stand outside the car in the rain."
He pretended to consider it. "No, I do not think so. The rain, it is too cold for that." He leaned past her, fished around in the glove compartment for a moment, and then surfaced with a comb and a granola bar wrapped in a baggie. He offered it Gina.
She shook her head. "No thanks. I'm not really hungry."
He began combing the water out of his hair. "It's really quite good. I make them myself."
That didn't make her any hungrier, but out of polite curiosity, she broke off a piece and began nibbling on it. It was good, and she told him so.
"Eat it. I don't get to cook for people as often as I would like to," he said. "One day when I am at retirement from skating, I will have my own restaurant and I can cook for the whole city."
"Here? In Pittsburgh?"
He shrugged. "Perhaps. Pittsburgh, New York, maybe Boston. I cannot say for certain. I have not expected to stay so long in America, but now, I cannot imagine to go back."
Gina ran her fingers through her hair, knowing that it would be a horribly tangled mass before too long. He started to hand her the comb. "No. Definitely no thanks. I'd never get that little bitty comb through this mess." She paused for a moment, remembering a chance commentary from the video tape she'd watched the night of the gala. "You came here to train, right? In Colorado. There was some problem in France with the federation?"
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a moment before he answered. Gina had the impression that he was choosing his words very carefully. "In France, yes, I was National Champion, I was Olympic Silver Medalist... it was not good enough. There was another skater, a boy, who was very very good. He would do what they tell him. I was difficult. Always I have certain ideas of how I wanted things, the music I wished to use. So they say that what I had achieved in 1992 was enough. That I should move aside for the next generations."
"But you were only, what, 20?" She couldn't believe this kind of thinking.
Again, he paused for a long moment. "But I was the World Silver Medalist, what could they do? They ask me to do special qualifying skating for them. Just me, in a rink with only a few officials to watch and to judge. They tell me to change my music, my costumes, my programs... tous, tous, tous. I had no money of my own. Not at that time, not yet. And then the money that they were going to give me did not come. Here I was, an Olympic skater, and I did not have the money. My father and mother tell me to stop skating and to find a job, they do not think it was worth the fight. All that worry. My skating began to suffer-- the Autumn of 1992 was a terrible season for me."
You and me both.
"When I lost the French Nationals, I think -- it is the end. Finite. I am too tired to fight them anymore. Right in the middle of the season. What gave me pleasure was now most painful to me."
"But, you didn't quit. You changed your mind and moved here," Gina prompted.
"Yes. I found a sponsor. A company sent me a letter to say they would pay for my training, my housing, transportation, costumes, everything, if I would move to Colorado and train there." He grinned at her. "It was an easy decision to make. I packed myself up, and voila, I am here. Happy ending."
It explained so much and yet so little. The move to Colorado... that had re-established his love of skating, his connection to the music. Temporarily. But the question, why did you stop skating artistically challenging programs, then? seemed too intrusive, too invasive to pose to someone who was, after all, barely an acquaintance. She settled on polite commentary and said, "And I'm sure the sponsoring company was quite happy with you as well. Two Olympic Gold Medals, four World Championships."
For a moment, a brief flash of pain dimmed his eyes and then vanished so quickly Gina was sure she had imagined it. "In a year, the rules changed and skaters became millionaires. But I am still not sure I can ever repay them for the chance they gave me." He wiped a circle in the steam that was gathering on the front of the windshield. "But that, Gina, is the history of my life, in, as Americans say, a nutcracker."
Her brain supplied the necessary idiomatic correction, but she didn't say it out loud. In a warped way, nutcracker was as correct as nutshell. "And now what? Several years of touring and Professional competitions and then you open a restaurant?"
"Exactly. In fact, I have already said yes to five competitions in Fall. It is funny, because all five are sponsored by the ISU. It will be almost like I am still in training for the championships of Europe and of the World."
Gina hardly heard the end of his sentence. Without even asking, she knew that one of those competitions was the Pro-Am in Atlanta that she had been hoping to be invited to. Obviously, she had not been invited. "Five competitions. Yes, almost like the Grand Prix."
"Right. But instead of Skate America, Skate Canada, Sparkassen, Lalique, NHK, and Cup of Russia, it is now, San Jose, Toronto, Boise, Atlanta, and Tokyo. Not quite the same kind of oomph, no?"
Her last spark of hope disappeared during his recitation. That was it then. Her season was over before it began. "It's better than nothing," Gina said, smiling like she was joking for real. She glanced out the window. "The rain is stopping. I'd better get home before my parents think I drowned."
"It is no problem," Etienne said, as he put the car in gear. "I can drive you home. But you must tell me where you live."
"Oh, it's right near the rink, actually," Gina said, directing him out of the park.
"Gina, there is something wrong, non?"
"No." Then surprised by his unexpected perceptiveness, she continued. "Not really. I was hoping to compete in the pro-am in Atlanta, but if the invites have already gone out, and I didn't get one...."
"Ah, I see." He reached over and squeezed her hand. "It is only one competition, Gina. A Pro-Am that counts for little with the ISU, except as a way for them to make money. So your journey starts at Regionals. That has not changed. Next year, Gina, you will be asked to appear everywhere."
Next year. It was hard to be patient when her main competition was getting younger as she was getting older. Tiny girls doing big jumps. But he was right... Her trip to Nationals would begin at Regionals no matter what Pro-Am events she competed in. Shrugging off her worries for a moment, she changed the subject to lighter matters, "So when you open your restaurants in Pittsburgh, Boston, and New York, what kind of food will you be serving?"
"All of the kinds of foods. I will have many rooms, and each room will serve a different type of food." The rest of the short way home, he kept her in hysterical laughter as he described a vast array of increasingly extravagant meals, served in a restaurant that would rival the Plaza for elegance. By the time they pulled up in front of her house, she had almost forgotten her disappointment.
Almost.
And, unfortunately, she thought, stepping onto the wet gravel in the driveway, she had also forgotten her shoes.
Text Copyright © 1999-2000 Karen Frank
