Chapter 10 #2
I zip the jacket up over the pocket, shoulder my skis, and turn back toward the gondola. Warm-up now. Feelings, cows, earrings—later.
***
The start pen is a controlled kind of chaos.
Athletes bounce on their skis, shake out their legs, slam their poles into the snow in choreographed little rituals that probably make sense only to them.
One guy, a few bibs ahead of me, is doing those explosive jumps like he’s trying to reach the timing wand with his helmet.
Coaches hover behind the fence, muttering last-second instructions into ears already full of noise: “Higher on the delay, don’t chase it,” “Free the skis on the roll-over,” “Trust the line.” Cameras slide past on rails and swing on cranes, lenses nosing in like curious animals, hunting for nerves, for stories, for cracks.
I pull my chin strap tighter until the padding presses firm against my jaw.
Two easy pole plants into the packed snow, just enough to feel the bite of the tips.
I start running the course again in my head, numbering gates in a calm, mechanical rhythm.
One, two, three—easy tempo at the top. Four, five—offset builds.
Six to nine—watch the roll-over. Ten, eleven—hairpin.
Twelve—delay, don’t come in low. The numbers stack neatly, a scaffold for my brain to climb up on instead of spiraling.
For a heartbeat, the noise around me thins, and an image slips in uninvited: My Golden Girl, somewhere in that Czech resort, helmet pushed back, goggles on her head, leaning over her phone between runs.
She’d either love this chaos or hate it.
Or both. I can practically hear her commentary about all the pre-start theater.
I wonder if she’s trying to find a stream, watching a shaky feed of me on some Czech channel with dodgy commentary, half-dressed in her race suit and one boot off.
“Bib fifteen to the gate.” The start referee’s voice snaps me back. That’s me.
Okay. Decision time. Slalom, Ganslern, first run.
This is not where you play superhero. Solid.
Clean. No wild dives, no desperate saves, just enough risk to stay in the game.
Get a good second-run number, then see what’s left in the tank.
I nod once to myself, more a physical agreement than a thought.
I skate up to the wand, plant my poles, and feel the plastic bar resting lightly against my shins.
The starter’s voice comes in that familiar cadence, slow then sharp.
“Ten seconds.” The world narrows to the track under my skis and the tiny digital display ticking down in front of me.
I rock gently, feeling the response in my legs, the snap ready in my thighs. My breath settles on its own.
“Five… four… three…” The beeps take over. High, insistent, cutting through everything.
On the last tone, I drive forward, poles biting hard as I push through the wand.
The first few gates come up fast, but my body moves on automatic, slightly more cautious than I’d like—edges set a fraction earlier, pressure a hair more controlled as I test the snow.
It’s grippy, unforgiving, the kind that punishes laziness but rewards commitment. Good. No surprises.
The course drops into the middle section, where the rhythm picks up, and the combinations start stacking.
Here, finally, I feel something loosen. The turn shapes I rehearsed in inspection click into place, and my skis start talking to the hill in a language I understand.
I nail a couple of key offsets cleaner than I managed even in my head, shin-blocking the poles away with that satisfying crack, hips moving just where I want them.
Then the delay gate appears, the one I’d circled in my mind as the trap.
I come into it with a decent setup, but some small survival instinct taps the brakes a touch early.
I feather the edge instead of letting it run, just for a moment.
I feel the time bleeding out right there—nothing dramatic, no huge mistake, just that tiny, polite hesitation you never get back.
I know it even as I’m doing it, and a flicker of annoyance flashes hot and brief through my chest. Too safe.
No time to dwell. The lower part pitches back toward the finish, the stadium noise swelling as I drop into view.
I take a respectable line—nothing ragged, no late scrambles, no wild saves for the highlight reel.
I’m moving well, but I can feel I’m leaving a little speed on the table, choosing clean over crazy.
For the first run, on this hill, that’s the deal I made with myself.
The final gates blur past, the last compression hits my legs, and then I’m flying over the line, skis still carving instead of skid-stopping. The roar of the crowd folds over me as I straighten, glance up at the timing board, blinking away the sting in my eyes.
My name pops up as second—I don’t even catch the exact place at first, just the gap within about three tenths to the lead.
A sharp, disbelieving breath punches out of me, half laugh, half exhale. “Better than expected,” I mutter into my chin guard, chest heaving. Top group for the second run. In slalom. On the Ganslern. I let the numbers settle, let the reality of it sink its hooks in.
“I’ll take it,” I tell myself, and this time the thought lands not as an excuse, but as a promise.
***
Back in the tent, the air is thick with wet wool, liniment, and adrenaline cooling off. Jackets hang from every hook, dripping; boots steam under benches. Coaches hunch over tablets, replaying the same combinations on repeat, scratching lines in the air with their poles.
Max drops down beside me, shoulders still dusted with snow. “For a GS dinosaur,” he says, “you didn’t look half bad.”
“Write it on my helmet,” I mutter, peeling my gloves off. My forearms are still buzzing from the last pitch; my brain is already halfway into run two, rewinding that one delay where I hit the brake.
Coach comes closer, a tablet in hand, scrolls back to that section on the screen, and taps it with a knuckle. “Here,” he says. “You check. Trust it next time. You’re higher than you think.” One clean cue, nothing more. It lands. We know each other’s language by now.
When the coaches move on to the next guy from our team, the noise around me turns into a low, familiar hum—zipper sounds, nervous laughter, someone complaining about the set. I sit back on the bench, unwrap the corner of an energy bar, and fish my phone out of my inner pocket with my free hand.
Family chat. Team chat. One sponsor message about “great exposure already.” No Golden Girl message. Which is fine. Sensible. She’s probably in some freezing start corral in Czechia, worrying about her own line instead of mine.
I’m about to lock the screen again when her name pops up at the top.
Curiosity beats whatever self-control I was pretending to have. I swipe it open.
First photo: a narrow strip of piste at her Czech resort. Bit of orange netting, a crooked homemade banner flapping in the wind, three Masters racers milling around in a mix of retro and modern suits. It looks like someone set a race course in the schoolyard.
Second photo: a cluttered pub table masquerading as a race office. Bibs stacked next to a laptop, beer mats, and a handwritten “RACERS” sign taped above it. Bags and jackets everywhere.
Caption underneath: Masters circus, stage 1. Pec says hi.
I huff out a laugh without meaning to. The guy lacing his boots opposite me looks up; I shake my head, wave him off.
Kitz outside is all polished ice and TV towers. Inside my phone is her tiny circus with its pub and its crooked banner and the same stupid need to be timed. The feeling is exactly the same in both places.
My thumbs are already moving.
ME: Nice glamor shot. Don’t let those retro rockets beat you.
I add another line before I can talk myself out of it.
ME: How was your first run, racer?
“Fabio,” one of the coaches calls, tablet in hand. “One more look.”
“Coming,” I say. I hit send, slide the phone back into my pocket, and stand up. The Ganslern can have my head for the next hour. But somewhere in Pec, my golden girl is also between runs, and that thought settles under my ribs like an extra layer of armor.
***
I’m in the start tent, skis on, bib crackling, pretending I’m listening to split calls and not replaying one stupid line of text in my head.
GS dinosaur / multi-discipline king. It had pinged in between runs while I was still sweating through my suit; I’d read it once, twice, then shoved the phone away before it could turn into a conversation.
Now, under the flapping red canvas, I feel the ghost of that grin in my cheeks.
My shoulders loosen half a centimeter. Even if I ski safe now, I deserve whatever she sends back.
Skis on the rack, tips resting on the wet rubber, I rock from foot to foot while the starter drones numbers.
The snow here is a scraped-down, polished lane through chop, the blue dye already half-washed away by the drizzle.
Higher up, it’s still firm, injected from the week and chewed by a whole field.
B-net flaps, flags slap, the crowd down at the finish is a low roar that comes and goes with each intermediate time.
Someone ahead of me gets a split: green, then red.
The coach next to me swears under his breath.
I roll my shoulders once, feel the plastic bite around my shins, the familiar cuff pressure locking me in.