Chapter 22: Two Weeks in April
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Alexi was wrong, it was earlier at home than it was here. The house was dead still when I woke. If I was just waking up, then Sasha was probably just stepping out of the shower. That was a pretty picture to my thinking and I must have really been thinking because I blushed clear down to my navel. Of course, I was blotting out part of the picture by seeing him in a towel. To my mind, a man's um... thing has always been kind of silly. I mean when one really thinks about it one sees that sex is a pretty silly affair. Of course,when I get close to Sasha, it doesn't seem so silly after all.
I decided that I'd dig the tea bags out of my carry on and get something warm before my morning run. I slipped into my jog bra and sweats and headed for the kitchen. I bumped into several things on my way there. It wasn't bright enough to see yet. I managed to find a pot. The kitchen was nice and clean. At least Mrs. Stanachev was a decent housekeeper. By the time my tea was made, I was aware that I had woken someone. I hoped it wasn't Alexi.
Mrs. Stanachev came shuffling into the kitchen looking for all intensive purposes like a sack of flour with curlers. You could see where Alexi had gotten his looks. His mother's eyes were folded like the wrinkles in said flour sack. She had a very tight, ungenerous mouth. Where it looked shifty and minorly attractive on Alexi, it did not have the same effect on his mother.
"Good Morning. " She said in thickly accented English.
"Good Morning"I replied.
"You are up early." She dropped into Russian.
"The time change. It's earlier in Rhode Island... at home, than it is here."
"Alexi will be up soon."
"I know, I just need to put on my sneakers."
"You drink tea in the morning?" She asked.
I nodded.
"You let me make it, then we'll all sleep better."
"Thank you, I'm sorry if I woke you."
"No trouble."
Alexi made his appearance not too soon afterwards. We took our run at my pace. Alexi was surprised when I started singing during the last mile. "It makes it more difficult." I explained. But then I had to teach him the song. One thing was nice, I didn't have to worry about being mugged. We pulled into the house singing "just Around the River Bend" from the Disney Pocahontas. Alexi made it sound truly comical. It was mostly phonetics to him and his parents did not understand it at all, but I thought that it was particularly appropriate. Something's coming.
I showered and changed and dove into my History text like the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was the single most important thing in the universe. I ate over my books and that meant that I didn't have to socialize with Alexi. I stayed out of the way while his father got ready and left for work. I read my math and flew threw the differentiation problems with ease. See the rule? Apply the rule. I asked Mrs. Stanachev if she would help me with my language lesson. I had talked with my teacher about a special credit for learning Latvian. Mrs. Stanachev wanted to have no part of it. "Talk to Alexi." she said. What could I do? I didn't really want to spend any extra time with Alexi if I could avoid it, but I had to learn some Latvian words and phrases if I wanted the credits.
Despite my reservations, learning Latvian with Alexi was fun. We traded names for objects in Latvian, English and Russian. Then we did rapid fire repetitions to jog our memories. By the time I was done wrapping my mouth around the strange words and he was done wrapping his around the English we were almost rolling on the floor of his room, laughing til our tummies were sore.
We had a quick lunch. We were supposed to see his coach at 1 PM. We had to get there early because I had to warm up before I could stretch and then I had to warm up again. I wanted to be on the top of my game for this and I wasn't feeling so great, the time change again.
Everything seemed to fall into place. I warmed up and spent 40 minutes stretching and then I did some footwork. Alexi tried to match me and considering that he did not know the sequence, he did pretty well. Then he did a sequence and I tried to match him. I'm not sure I did as well, so we stopped and went over it more slowly. "Want to do some jumps?" I asked.
We went through our doubles. I kept a good watch on his technique and style trying to judge how much like mine it was. I had made some changes since watching tapes of his earlier performances.
We tried some camel spins, he called the time. We spun very close together and he drifted. I made a mental note to spin further away from him. Our unison was ragged, but that is to be expected. I needed to slow down so that I wouldn't be too tired for the lesson. There's no sense in leaving it on the practice ice so to speak.
A man separated himself from another skater and came over to where Alexi and I were discussing the spin. He consulted his watch.
"Alexi, are you ready? I am running early today so we can start early and have a few extra minutes." This was obviously his coach. It was not anyone I had recognized, he had not coached any really famous pairs, but he was at least Russian. He couldn't be all bad and he could he quite good.
Alexi looked at me." Ready? Not too tired?" and then at his coach, "We're ready."
The coach put us through the same paces as Russavini had, it just wasn't as intense. I did all my doubles and he only asked to see my triple toe. I did tell him that I could do others. I wasn't sure if he had paid any attention when he looked at me pointedly and said "You said you do other triples, which ones?"
"Flip, Lutz, salchow, and loop." I replied.
"Which is your best of all?"
"The flip, definitely the flip."
"Not the triple toe? Interesting. How often do you miss?"
"I double it sometimes, but I never miss."
"Interesting, you must work on your triple flip then Alexi, no?"
We did some spins side by side. My sit was definitely superior to Alexi's and that was not good. I spin faster, lower and with a better center. We are supposed to spin exactly the same. The camels were more equal, he has nice extension. We did a simple spiral and matched perfectly. I didn't mean to think about being Alexi so close to me, It had the same kind of energy that I felt with Sasha. "It is just skating." I told myself firmly. "It is just skating." I think Alexi felt it too.
When our hour was up, Alexi's coach said very little. He asked us to work on a pairs sit spin if we could do it without getting hurt. We went to Alexi's gym and lifted weights. He had to spend a good deal more time with them than I did. I took a shower and waited for him to finish. I almost fell asleep.
We hit his house for some supper and then it was back to the rink. I was already yawning. We did not go easy. We tried again and again to do that damn pairs sit spin. He counted the time and every time we were off.
"Again," he insisted. "Again. Again. Again." Until he was thoroughly frustrated and we were both thoroughly exhausted. "I give up! You can't do it." He shouted and kicked the boards.
"We can do it. Or we'll do it and do it until we can. One more time. I'll count." I said. Instead of just counting the important elements, I made like a metronome. "Move on three." Finally, we executed a slow, wobbly but recognizable three revolution spin. When we had exited the spin, Alexi picked me up with a wordless yell, hugged me and spun around.
"I'll definitely be able to throw you." He commented. "You're very light."
"Want to try?"
"Sure, double salchow?"
That was a frightening thing, trying a throw jump with him when our timing was so off. But we did it, it felt good and in a split second decision, I put in an extra rotation.
"Don't you ever do that again!" He yelled, "You scared me to death! When I say double. You do a double, damn it. Do I make myself clear?"
Is this where it starts? I thought in a moment of panic. But what ever it was, anger or fear or helplessness, Alexi mastered it. Though he loomed over me, intimidating to say the least, he did not touch me. Lucky for him.
"I'm sorry I scared you, Alexi." I put my hands against his chest. "But you have to trust me too. I won't do anything if I don't think I can."
"We're both tired... and I'm sor... No, I apologize. I didn't throw you high enough for a triple and it really scared me."
I was quiet all the way back to Alexi's house. I went straight to bed. I was totally bushed. Surprisingly, Alexi went straight to his bed too. I kept on thinking one thing. Finally I threw a robe on and, tapped on his door. He turned on the light and sat up. I stepped into the room, closing the door behind me and leaning on it.
"Alexi?"
"What?"
Alexi slept without a shirt and he had a very muscular physique. It was completely impossible not to stare.
"Alexi, if you throw me high enough for a double and I can do a triple, what could we do if you threw me high enough for a triple?"
"I've been thinking about that."
Text Copyright © 1998-2003 Mary E. Tyler
