Chapter 23: Pulling Strings
Private Ice is Best Viewed in Firefox.
Something is wrong.
Nothing Jonathan could specifically identify as wrong, but nevertheless an element was missing from Gina's practice performance today. He had made a few changes to the choreography of the short program to highlight Gina's growing skills, so perhaps it was just that she was concentrating on remembering the new moves. Leaning forward, he put his forearms on the boards and watched as she glided on both feet in a beautifully positioned Ina Bauer. Her back deeply arched, she stretched her arms over her head until they were parallel to the ice. Beautiful.... ok, now...now! There was a slight pause, then she straightened, shifted her weight to the leading outside edge and launched herself into a high double axel.
There it is again. The hesitation...
She looking down again, right before the take-off. It hadn't affected this jump any, but it could have prevented her from getting enough spring into the jump. Frustrating--he'd just spent the past three weeks working on the double axel with her, trying to break her of that habit. He thought he had been successful. Friday night's practice had been her best yet. Now, after one day off the ice, and the problem had returned. Had her weekly day off harmed her? It shouldn't have. In the couple months they'd been working together, she had always returned to the ice on Sunday rejuvenated and eager to begin skating.
Yet, today, something was clearly wrong, he was positive of it. Now her footwork was a half beat behind the music...an error she had never made before. Even when she couldn't land a single jump, her footwork was always perfectly in time to the music. And... her spins seemed just a little too slow today too. Again, it was nothing a casual observer would notice --even Cody was paying attention to his own practice today, rather than running interference for Gina--but... she seemed to be missing that vitality that usually characterized her skating.
The music stopped; Gina finished a split second later and didn't even bother to hold her finishing pose. Putting her hands on her hips, she glided around the tracing of her final spin and shook her head in disgust. "Ugh! Super-travel on the spin." She looked over at him. "That was certainly underwhelming."
He waved her over, noting the dejected droop to her shoulders. "That it was," he said, knowing that it would do neither of them any good to soft-pedal the issue. "My question is, why?"
She shrugged, reached over the barrier and hit the rewind button on the boombox. In the background, Megan and Cody were practicing a set of interlocking steps and complex hand passes that seemed to continually be tripping one or the other of them up. Maybe it was just in the air today. He and Gina watched them for a long moment and then she shrugged. "I don't know what's wrong exactly. Bunch of little things. I'm a little tired, but that isn't much of an excuse, I know."
No... not tired... depressed. Jonathan recognized the expression on her face well enough. He'd worn that look most of his entire life. What he didn't know was how to help her through whatever it was. Lord knew that he'd never been able to conquer his own demons. Subdue them at times, ignore them when he had to, but they'd always been there, lurking in the background. I'm a coach, not a psychologist. He shook his head in response to his thoughts.
"What?" Gina asked, responding to his gesture.
"Sorry, I was thinking of something else." He refocused on her, still not sure how he could help. "Do you want to take a short break?" he asked, patting the bench next to him. Maybe he could get her to open up and talk about it.
"No," she said, skimming backwards. "That's the first rule. Don't break practice because you're tired. Practice through your problems. Practice through your pain. Practice unless you're on your deathbed, and if that's the case, then you'd better follow through and die. Competitions always go on, no matter which competitors are sick or hurt and you have to learn to deal with it, to skate through it." Grimly she moved to the center or the ice. "Play the music again."
You handled that one really well, Griffin.
She'd sounded like she'd been reciting a speech by rote... one that she'd heard over and over again. Oddly enough, though, she was right, skaters did have to practice in all kinds of situations, from the peak of conditioning to the depths of the flu. If you could get out of bed, then you could skate. If could get through a practice with the flu, then you could get through a competition when you were healthy. That was common logic.
But...
This wasn't exactly an applicable situation. Gina wasn't some kid with a bad cold staggering through a program run-though. He hadn't wanted her to rest. He wanted her to talk to him, so he could find out why she was so upset.
Your own fault, old man.
The night of the exhibition he'd--they'd--gotten too... close. Their conversation had been too intimate; too much had been said that should not have been said. He was Gina's coach--and only her coach. Their relationship needed to be on a friendly, but professional level. She should not have been burdened with the things he'd told her. It had been wrong of him, and it had been completely inappropriate for him to take her to his home that late at night. In the light of day, he had realized his mistake. In the past three weeks, he'd attempted to correct that error--he'd kept his distance, kept their dealings on a coach/student level. But it was too late, and now Gina didn't know how to behave when they were together. Of course, she wouldn't confide in him.
Maybe, it was just a bad day, he thought, as he watched her skate robotically through the program again. If things weren't better tomorrow, maybe he would ask Cody to talk to her. He hated to admit it but Cody would probably be able to break through her barriers. His stomach lurched, though, at the thought of having to ask Cody for help. No! I won't. He would figure out how to help Gina on his own, without any interference from that damn leering cowboy. He just needed to get Gina to talk to him, without letting her past his own walls. Because something clearly was upsetting her, and they certainly wouldn't get anything accomplished until he could figure out what the problem was. All day, her skating had been suffering, and there was no physical reason for it. She simply wasn't concentrating.
The current run-through was even worse. She rushed through the footwork, ahead of the music this time, and once again, her three-turn before the flip was out of control. She picked to the side, managed two and half revolutions, and landed with her feet still crossed. Completely entangled, she crashed to the ice with a loud thud, her wrist taking the first impact of the fall. Jonathan was already halfway out of his seat when her soft cry of surprise and pain reached his ears.
She sat there motionless for a moment, rubbing her wrist. To the displeasure of both Svetlana and Megan, Cody abandoned what he was doing and rushed to her side.
Meanwhile, Jonathan had to make his way along the lower bleachers in order to reach her side of the rink. A popcorn bag, missed by the janitors, nearly proved his undoing, and he let off tension by quietly swearing at it. Six years ago, I could have simply skated over to her. By the time he got to the other end of the rink, Gina had already sent Cody back to his partner.
"I'm fine," she said to Jonathan as she skated to the boards. "I just fell funny, that's all."
"Let me see your wrist."
She kept her arm at her side. "It's ok, really, and I don't need my wrist to skate."
"Maybe not, but let me see it anyway." He held out his hand.
She lifted her arm, and wiggled her fingers. "See, I can still move my fingers. Nothing's broken." He reached over and took her hand, gently rotating her wrist around. She let out a tiny hiss of pain and then bit her lip stoically.
"I don't think you've broken anything either," he said, as she pulled her hand back and cradled it against her. "But I'm not sure, so let's just go to a clinic and have them take some x-rays--if your health insurance won't cover it, I will." In fact, making sure she had health coverage, and finding sports medicine support for the entire rink was something he should have taken care of a long time ago.
She put up a token protest. "I'm covered as long as I go to University Hospital's clinic. But it's not necessary, and I need the practice time."
He indicated the clock. "We've only got another 10 minutes of ice time anyway. I can run you to a clinic, and if they say you're ok, we'll still do the evening practice."
She opened her mouth--perhaps to make another protest, but after looking at him a moment, she merely skated over to the exit and stepped off the ice. Once again, Jonathan made an awkward trek along the first row. When he reached Gina, she was attempting to remove her skates with one hand. "Sit still, I'll do it," he grumbled at her as he picked up her foot and began to unknot the laces. "It's probably a bad sprain."
The receptionist at the clinic rolled her eyes when she saw how Gina was carefully holding onto her wrist. "Honey, I think you're the sixth wrist injury today--gotta be a new record. Biking or blading?"
"Ice skating, actually." Gina said.
Pausing over her clipboard, the nurse looked up. "In the middle of summer?"
Gina shrugged. "I'm in training." She indicated her skatebag, which for some inexplicable reason she had brought into the clinic. Habit probably, Jonathan concluded. Some skaters wouldn't let their bags out of sight unless they were at home or on the ice. Figuring she'd cart it off to x-ray if he didn't step in, he eased it off her shoulder and set it in front of him.
"Ah." The nurse took Gina's insurance information and led her off to an examining room. Left to his own devices for the moment, Jonathan found an empty couch in the waiting room, and sat down. None of the magazines on the end table looked particularly intriguing, and after halfheartedly watching an inning of the baseball game on TV (very dull, the Dodgers were ahead of the Pirates by six runs), he turned his attention to the skatebag. He remembered tossing Gina's skates in there without bothering to dry off the moisture. Since such treatment led to rust, he decided to clean them while he waited for her.
The simple task of buffing the blades with a terrycloth towel brought back a rush of memories, but this time Jonathan found himself taking pleasure in them. Cleaning off his skates was a ritual, a way he had eased himself from the intensity of practice back into the world outside the rink. Sometimes, he'd practiced so hard he was too tired to move, and he'd endlessly slid the towel over and over the blades, putting off the moment when he would have to stand up and stagger to the locker room. And sometimes he'd just sat there reverently holding onto the equipment that allowed him the communion with the ice.
He had always thought blades were so clean and elegant that it would be hard not to admire their spare lines and gentle curve. He held one up to eye level, then turned it and gazed down to the heel from the perspective of the toepick. The groove running down the length formed a shallow U shape--he felt like he was peering through the sites of a shotgun.
Carefully, he drew the towel along the blade--it had recently been sharpened and little fluffs of terrycloth were dismembered along the way. Then he made sure to buff the plates of the blade and the tiny screws that kept it attached to the boot. Condensation often seeped onto the sole and plates when skates were transported from a cold rink into the humid summer air.
Once he was satisfied that the blades were completely dry, and warmed enough to prevent further collection of humidity, he stretched the bright blue terry blade covers over each of them and then sat there, holding the skates in both hands. Even though Gina's skates were much smaller than his had been, holding them felt like coming home. He closed his eyes for moment and simply let the weight of her skates pull on his arms. Their weight was slightly different from his long ago skates, but the feel of worn leather and cold metal could not be mistaken for anything else. Remembering it all felt almost relaxing, in fact, like returning to your own freshly made bed after a long vacation. For the first time in a long time, the memories did not bring him pain. They just "were." When he had competed, he had the superstitious habit of making a scuff on his right skate from the boards of each new arena. Of course, he always had to cover the scuff with black polish right before the actual competition, but he had felt better knowing that under the polish, was a little totem from the building. He opened his eyes and examined the little white skates again... these were pretty banged up.
Actually, the boots looked to be nearing the end of their life span. He tested the resistance on the ankles. Yes, they were beginning to break down. Jonathan didn't know when Gina had purchased them, but generally a pair of competitive skates lasted no more than six to nine months, depending on how intensely a skater practiced. Possibly, she could get another month, maybe six weeks use out of them. The timing could be better--she would have to break in new skates at the beginning of the season. Most skaters tried to break in their boots in the middle of summer, so it wouldn't affect their competitions. Another thing he should have thought about earlier. Some coach he was turning out to be, if he couldn't even keep such simple but important details in mind. He'd been too busy thinking about Gina to be thorough about coaching her.
He was still holding the skates when Gina emerged from behind the nurse's station with her wrist wrapped in an ace bandage and covered by a blue cold pack. Acting like it was perfectly normal for her coach to be holding her skates in the middle of a doctor's office, she said, "You were right. It's sprained. The NP said if I keep ice on it, the swelling will probably go away overnight. I told her that putting it on ice was what sprained it in the first place." She shrugged. "Anyway, they gave me some Tylenol for the pain, so I'm fine to skate another practice."
He put her skates back and stood up. "I think we'll skip the evening practice. Even if you feel ok, I'm not sure how we'll get your skates back on you."
"Oh, I didn't think of that."
"One night isn't going to make a difference in your career," he said, leading her out the automatic doors into the bright sunlight of the parking lot. "On the other hand, I'm a bit more worried about the condition of your boots."
"I just got them in February," she said.
"Yes. Well, that's six months. They're breaking down right on schedule." He placed the bag containing said skates in the back seat, and then waited for Gina to get settled in the passenger seat before picked up the conversation. "You've got a few more weeks wear out of them, but I think we ought to start breaking in new boots as soon as possible."
She was silent for the few moments it took Jonathan to get the car into the late afternoon traffic--lots of people must have decided to go out for Sunday dinner. Then she said, "Why? Say I wait until September to get new boots. Regionals aren't until November. I know now that I'm not invited to the Atlanta Open."
Ah ha. So that's what's wrong.
"And how do you know that?" Last time he checked the invites weren't totally set. "I don't even think the organizers of the event know who they're going to invite."
"Etienne knows he's going. So the invites must have gone out already."
"Etienne was invited as soon as he announced he was going professional. They didn't have to wait for the French Federation to send in the Grand Prix list. They already knew he wasn't going to Nation's Cup." But now Jonathan was starting to feel a little unsure as well. The Atlanta Open was no sure bet. Terrance had a favorable impression of Gina's skating, but when it came to an open event, there were other elements to consider as well--like which skaters would draw the most television viewers. And when did Gina start talking to Etienne on a regular basis?
"Yeah, I thought about that too, later. So Cody and I looked up IMG's website and they have a list of skaters already up. Kiki, both Kira and Katya Dyakonova, Amanda Barrett, Sandi Madison, and Lydia Davies are the women competing. Not me." She turned her head to look out the car window, her hands plaiting the seatbelt into little folds.
"Alright, you've got me. I have no idea what's happening down there. I would have thought that Terrance would have called me, and let me know what's going on, one way or another, but I haven't heard a damn thing."
He was getting a bit annoyed, and the Pro-Am wasn't the cause of it. It was as if he and Gina were on a record that kept skipping in place. Gina would have a personal crisis, and then tell him about it while they were in the car. It was like a mobile psychologist's couch. I wonder if the Mercedes-Benz Corporation's marketing department would be interested in that idea. Anyway, the car was no place for a therapy session, and he wasn't going to make the mistake of taking her back to his penthouse again. He was tempted to continue driving her home, go home himself, call Terrance immediately, bully him into putting Gina on the list, and then call her with the good news. But there were other issues at work here and if he and Gina didn't solve them now, they would return again and again.
But where to go? Seeking quick inspiration, he looked over the strip mall that filled the block to their right. Burger King? No... Pizza Hut? Maybe... Ah... TCBY. He eased into the right turn lane. "I'll call Terrance tonight and see what's what. In the meantime, let's sit down over some frozen yogurt and have a strategy session."
Gina shrugged.
Ignoring the handicapped parking in front of the store, he circled the lot until he found an empty space. He'd never been able to bring himself to use those parking spaces. He grabbed his planner from his briefcase and tucked it under his arm. Silently they made their way into the cool air-conditioned shop and breathed in the vanilla smell of waffle cones baking. Unfortunately the line of hungry customers snaked around a few times and ended near the door--no surprise really since it was a summer weekend, but it didn't do much for his fading patience. When two people in front of them looked over and then quickly looked away, it suddenly occurred to him how both of their appearances might look to the other patrons. He leaned over and whispered, "They must be wondering if we were in a bar fight last night. Look at us!"
She glanced over at his silhouette twisted over the cane, back at her wrapped arm and ice pack, then giggled. "A bar fight? Did we win?"
"Indeed we did." He might have felt encouraged to continue the flight of imagination but they'd reached the harried clerk at the front of the line. He took pity on her and ordered a simple strawberry cone, while Gina asked for, "Whatever your low-fat special is," and was given praline yogurt.
They found one empty but unclean table in the middle of the store. Jonathan placed the trash onto a tray and then slid it under his chair. When was the last time I went out for ice cream? Maybe when I was ten, with my coaches. The thought that he was continuing a coach-student tradition with Gina made him smile. Then he noticed she was looking at her cone with a rather confused expression on her face. "What's wrong?"
"I'm right handed," she explained, lifting her bandaged wrist. "Just trying to figure out how to manage this without major spillage. Oh well, here goes nothing." She tilted her head slightly and brought the cone to her mouth.
Until that moment, Jonathan had forgotten how incredibly sensual a woman eating an ice cream cone could be. Stop that! I thought you had decided to keep this on a professional level, he told himself. Quickly, he concentrated on his own sundae, and the two of them ate their treats with minimal conversation. By the time they finished, he had his body under control again. He got out the planner and turned to the calendar. "Before we go any further, shall I assume that you're serious about competing this year."
She stared at him.
He kept her gaze and said slowly, "two months ago, a feisty girl walked into my office, stared me down, and claimed she didn't want to compete. Since you seem to be so upset over the Atlanta Pro-Am, I guess you've changed your mind. You do want to skate. You do want to compete--and you're very serious about both."
"I hadn't really thought about it in those words." She was twisting a napkin into tiny points. "I was thinking one event at a time, and the Atlanta competition is the next event--when I thought that I wouldn't get to skate until November, after all... I guess I am serious about it."
"You guess." It sounded harsher than he meant it to and her saw her flinch. This conversation wasn't really going the way he thought it would. "Let me back up a moment. Gina, you're a wonderful skater, and a joy to work with, but if you get this upset over every setback, real or perceived, it's eventually going to tear you apart." She looked down at the table, as he emphasized, "I'm talking from experience here."
It appeared for a moment that she was going to add something to that, but she continued to stare at the table and said nothing. Jonathan waited a moment, and then continued. "So what I'm asking is for a full commitment to skating this year. That doesn't just mean that you show up for every single practice and give one hundred percent physically. It means that you make the emotional commitment to accept the good with the bad. I have to be honest, for almost every skater the setbacks outnumber the triumphs. You have got to be tough, let it slide off your back and keep working hard. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Yes." It was a tiny, scared whisper, and Jonathan felt like the king of jerks. Then she took a deep shaky breath. "In a way, it makes me feel better to know that things not going well is a normal situation. But I'm scared to want it. There are things that happened before that I don't want to go through again."
"I'm not like your mother, if that's what you're referring to." He hadn't wanted to bring Francesca Logan into the conversation either.
"No, that's not what I meant, and I know you're nothing like her. This was something else... something that I did... my mother had nothing to do with it." More pieces of the napkin hit the floor. "Not really."
He waited for her to explain further, but she kept playing with her napkin. Whatever it was, Jonathan wasn't going to learn about it today. "You can only be responsible for what you put out there on the ice. You can't let what any judges, or any other competitors, or the sponsors, or the USFSA does affect your skating in any way." He'd seen that happen to too many other skaters. "Let me worry about that stuff. All you have to do is skate your best, ok?"
"Ok." This time she sounded positive.
"Good. Now, the next step is to work on the long program for Regionals. I have a few ideas for some less than usual moves we can incorporate into the program, but first the basics." He removed the cap from his fountain pen and started doodling on the sketchpad. "Your spins are excellently centered and positioned, but we need to add more speed to them. The half- Biellmann is especially beautiful, but let's up the difficulty and work on a reverse."
She smiled. "Ouch. That could be painful. Also," she paused, and he held his breath, hoping she'd realize what her real task was. "I'm thinking of trying an illusion spin."
He was waiting for her to bring up the lutz. That was what she really needed. As long as she avoided talking about the lutz they might as well plan to go on a picnic during the World Championships, because they certainly wouldn't be going to Denmark. "Let's put an illusion on the back burner. They're really not difficult to do, but nearly impossible to do well. The audience likes them more than the judges, we can save it for an exhibition number." And I don't really like the illusion spin either.
Putting her chin in her hands, she stared at the counter for a long time. Finally she said, "Guess we'd better start working on that damn lutz."
Smiling, he reached over and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "Yes. As soon as your wrist is less tender, we'll start working on the lutz."
He arrived home pleasantly full of frozen yogurt and not at all tempted by the lasagna his housekeeper had left in the oven. He had no idea how he was going to help Gina with the lutz, but maybe something would occur to him by morning. I hope so. If I could only be out on the ice with her and demonstrate it myself. The jump harness would be one way, but Jonathan didn't really believe in them. Too many skaters got so dependent on them that they were afraid to jump without them, and Gina didn't need any more problems of that sort.
Putting the issue aside for the moment, he remembered that he needed to make a call to Terrance Stafford in Atlanta. It was nearly eight o'clock; he and Amanda probably were finished with their dinner. After unearthing the Staffords' number from the jumble of odd notes he'd thrown in his briefcase last month, he settled down on the sofa with the cordless phone and punched in the numbers.
Fortunately, Terrance was home and seemed glad to hear from him. "Jon, old chum, I was just thinking about you this week."
What was it with all the skaters from the old days wanting to shorten his name? He swallowed his irritation... this was a political call. "Really? I hope you were thinking nice thoughts then."
"Actually, I was wondering if you'd given any more consideration to taking on another skater. I told you about Patrick Sorelli at the Gala, remember?"
Jonathan tried to find a more comfortable position in the sofa as he thought back. Terrance had said something about an old student of his who was unhappy at Broadmoor. He didn't have a financial need to take on students, so he hadn't followed up it. "I'm learning how to coach by trial and error, Terrance. I was hoping to see how this season went before I took on another student."
Maybe that would satisfy him.
"Next year might be too late. Patrick is getting terribly discouraged. Magnuson is his main coach, but he's also coaching Rich Duggan and James Ostrowski. Duggan and Ostrowski both got two Grand Prix events; Patrick got stuck with Finlandia and nothing else. He didn't even get a bye to Nationals. I'm afraid that if Patrick doesn't get decent coaching this year, it will be the end of it."
The situation had a familiar ring to it. "And where do you come in to this?"
"He was one of my first students when I started coaching four years ago. He's got incredible talent but I soon realized that I don't have what it takes to coach at that level. Patrick's got some rather interesting artistic ideas, and I'm utterly useless in that area. I helped get him into Broadmoor, and now I'm feeling rather guilty that it hasn't worked out for him."
Jonathan had a feeling that there was more to this situation than Terrance was telling him. Still, he couldn't help but be intrigued. What would it be like to have another student, to help another skater make it on the international level? It might even help Gina to have a training partner. . . he'd bring it up at the next practice and see what she thought. For now, though, Terrance needed to be appeased. "If he's serious about changing coaches, then I'll fly him up here for a trial. I won't make any promises until I meet the kid and see him skate, though. If we don't hit it off, I won't be any more use to him than Magnuson."
"That sounds like an acceptable plan," Terrance said.
All right Terrance. I'm doing you a favor. It's your turn now.
"While I have you on the phone," Jonathan said, "I wanted to ask you what the situation was with your Open event. How is that going?"
That innocent question prompted a spate of complaints about the administrivia and red tape that Terrance was going through. "...and then first the ISU says, yes, we'll sanction the comp for eligibles, and then they change their minds and say no, you can't use eligible skaters. And then the bloody fools change it back again. I don't know what's going on anymore. To top it off, this morning--at 4 in the morning, actually, I got a phone call from Lydia Davies. The twit never could keep her time zones straight. Her complaint is that she doesn't want to skate against the eligibles. She's afraid they'll make her look bad, but of course she didn't actually come out and say that. Instead she just says something about making a stand and refusing to skate ISU run competitions now."
Jonathan made soothing little noises into the phone, wondering how he could work Gina into the conversation.
Terrance continued his recitation. "Still, I'm sure that the comp will come about in the end, but I seriously doubt that Lydia is going to change her mind. Fine. Let her make a fool of herself in the Battle of the Sexes and Too Hot To Skate, because after the ISU gets done mucking around with the events, that's all that's going to be left for the true professionals."
"So you're short a skater in the ladies field."
"Not especially. Six ladies or five, it's still quite a decent amount for an Open."
Fine. Cards on the table time. Echoing Terrance's earlier words, Jonathan said, "Have you given any consideration to adding Gina Logan to the list?"
"If it were just up to me, Jonathan, I would be thrilled to have her there. But this is a televised event. No one is going to turn on the television to see some unknown named Gina Logan skate against Kiki Kikusawa. They want tension and drama. They want a story they can box up and air while they're resurfacing the ice. That's how I ended up inviting both Kira and Katya Dyakonova. Two sisters competing against each other... what a hook!"
Tension and drama... No, I can't... It would be too much of a sacrifice.
But... it might be the one thing that would get Gina into this competition...
"Terrance," he said quietly. "What if you told the networks that..."
Text Copyright © 1999-2000 Karen Frank
