Chapter 2
CHAPTER
TWO
Nine days until the Opening Ceremony.
Ten to skiathlon.
Twenty-five to the inaugural Olympic women’s fifty-kilometer mass start.
Mara had so many countdowns in her head, there wasn’t space left for much else, but on the third day of training in Oberhof, the cameras arrived.
They brought with them even more mental disruptions.
She had expected it, but she didn’t like it.
They had been given the team filming schedule at dinner, and that morning they were shuffled into the room with the best light at the training center to film some B-roll.
Everyone seemed so comfortable, but she couldn’t loosen up. She sat among her teammates, stiff as a board. Memories of last time, of the press conference before Beijing, rushed at her. She’d acted so out of character and had regretted it.
“Mara, did they have dial-up Internet in the Olympic Village during your first Olympics?” Jordan Siwa asked.
“Very cute.” Mara smiled at her young teammate. She certainly felt old, and comments about her long career were nothing new. They just usually didn’t happen in front of television cameras and boom mics and portable lighting.
But if there had been no cameras, her teammates wouldn’t have joked with her at all. She wasn’t exactly a leader to impressionable young athletes, even if that was the story the powers-that-be were hoping to push.
Mara struggled balancing her own needs and the team spirit that was expected during the Olympics.
And she’d had enough Olympic experience to know.
She required extra rest, zen, and alone time during competition.
“Not a team player” a coach in Alaska had said once when she’d been a teenager.
Mara’s father had promptly removed her from that club and trained her himself.
Because Coach Dad had historically worked out so well for so many athletes.
She wasn’t exactly beloved by the other men and women on the US Cross-Country Ski Team and never had been. But her objective was to win, not to girl talk with a bunch of kids getting their first taste of the Olympic rings.
Unfortunately, the cameras were there. They were being filmed, and she had to play her role. She wasn’t going to mess it up like last time.
She was the story. Half of it, at least.
“She’s not quite that old,” another rookie, Brandilyn, said, playfully snapping a USA-branded towel. “I bet she commemorated it on MySpace, though.”
Mara nodded and tried to shape her face into something sweet and acceptable. She had to play along even though playing along, joking along, hell, just getting along wasn’t quite her thing.
“Yes, sure. Because I had so much time for MySpace back in the olden days.” Not exactly a sparkling joke, but Mara hoped it passed well enough.
She’d had multiple meetings with her agent, the US Ski and Snowboard communications team, and the Cross-Country Ski Team press officer.
Their goal… No, her goal was to solidify her legacy—on the course and off.
If that meant playing the princess, she would play the princess.
If it meant controlling herself, she would control herself.
She’d learned her lesson four years ago.
She was following a script this time—smiling big, saying nothing.
“Was it hard for you to find eight friends, Mara May? Seems like it might be.” That voice—warm and smoky—was like ice water on top of Mara’s mood. She tried not to glance at Kirby Bonham.
Tried and failed.
You never knew which Kirby might show up on any given day.
Resourceful, dynamic, talented.
Messy, dramatic, attention-seeking.
It was a crapshoot, and Mara hated the unknown.
Today, Kirby had on all black workout clothes. Last night, she had been wearing black too. A black tank top, a distressed black leather jacket, black chunky boots, jeans that seemed to have been made for her alone. She always looked so striking and so herself. She was a brand, after all.
Kirby had more media exposure than everyone in the room combined.
Good exposure. Bad exposure. It didn’t matter. Kirby was just as likely to hock a meal kit on Instagram as she was to appear on reality TV.
Mara swallowed hard. Remember the cameras. Remember the cameras. “Only someone our age would understand that reference, Bonham.”
She would bet her favorite sunglasses that most of the skiers around her had no idea what a MySpace page looked like, much less the drama surrounding who was in your “top eight.”
“Are you two not friends, KB?” the television producer asked, directing the question to Kirby. He had been silent up to that point, just trying to get “some color,” he’d said, by filming the team horsing around before they left for Italy.
Everyone in the room went silent.
No. They were not friends.
“I’m friendly,” Kirby said, her smile sharky. That smile. It did things to Mara’s stomach. Made her feel nervous, uncomfortable, and frustrated all at once. “Right, Mara May?”
“Of course. You’re a ray of sunshine, Bonham.” Mara despised how Kirby said her name. All sing-songy like it was a joke.
“Yep. Golden. That’s me.”
Heat flushed over Mara’s face as those words sunk in. Mara opened her mouth, suddenly worked up in a way that only Kirby elicited. Kirby got under Mara’s skin, and she had no idea why.
Mara couldn’t afford to lose control this time.
She was the “good girl.” There were expectations, false as they were. A good leader. A good person. Nice, nice, nice. But that little word—golden—threatened to bring it all down.
Before Mara ruined her carefully crafted persona, a loud thunderclap sounded from the far side of the room, and all of them snapped to attention.
Mara’s main coach, Ulf Karlsson, was standing by Coach Stacy Wu in the doorway, out of the camera’s view. They were foils to each other. Coach Karlsson was stoic and blunt. Coach Wu was funny and kind.
But it was Coach Wu who had clapped. When she wanted to, she had the ability to bring every single one of them back to their childhood selves. Frankly, some of her teammates weren’t that far removed from the Junior Nordic Ski Team.
“That’s enough of this.” Coach Wu waved her immaculately manicured fingertips toward the camera crew in dismissal. “More tomorrow. It’s time to ski. Skate skis today.”
As they got their gear on, Mara put her head down and worked to calm herself. She hated that one word from Kirby had the ability to crack her.
Mara wanted to will everyone away. She didn’t like team training sessions. It was awkward. Everyone was so nice and supportive, and she didn’t have that good teammate mode dialed in, even after all these years.
Her mom called her shy. Her dad said she was focused.
She was pretty sure lots and lots of people said she was a bitch. She tried not to worry about that, but she felt very observed this time around. Everyone expected her to win a gold medal, or several. Everyone was watching to see if she choked again.
Ten days until her first event.
Twenty-five until her last.
A staff member opened the locker room door. “KB? Mara? Some dude from US Ski and Snowboard wants to talk to you both in the hall. Together.”
Mara’s eyes immediately went to Kirby. She was almost completely geared up. And as much as Mara felt like she and Kirby were diametrically opposed on all things, she could see her own unease mirrored in Kirby.
“That sounds ominous,” Kirby joked. “Do you know what this is about?”
“No.” Mara just wanted to race. She wanted to train, preferably by herself, and race, and win. She didn’t want to have meetings, or be filmed, or have to spend a second longer than necessary with Kirby Bonham.
An older man gave Kirby a sour look as she approached him in the hallway. She’d met him before. Lots of times, but she was terrible at remembering the names of self-important men. Larry, maybe? Barry?
He’d once told her she should stop cursing in her online videos, and she’d promptly disregarded him for all eternity.
“A word, Miss Bonham?” Blarry said.
“Okay.” Kirby steeled herself.
“You as well, Miss May, if it’s not too much trouble?” he said.
Gosh, how courteous.
“What’s this about?” Kirby asked as Blarry escorted them away from the locker room and into an empty office.
He ignored Kirby, only looking at Mara. “I’m so sorry to interrupt your training, ladies, but I’d like to chat.”
“That’s quite all right,” Mara said politely. Such a teacher’s pet.
“I’ll make this brief. It’s been made clear to us that the television networks intend to make your history a large storyline during the Olympics. We’ve been contacted by producers and journalists,” he said. “But we do not agree with the rivalry approach. We would prefer to have a united front.”
Who was we? Because fostering a rivalry worked quite well for Kirby.
Mara trash talking Kirby four years ago was honestly one of the best things that had ever happened to her. It had catapulted her into the public consciousness and pushed her to prove Mara wrong.
Kirby skied better mad. Milking their rivalry for attention had zero downsides as far as she was concerned.
Blarry droned on. “We don’t think pushing the conflict angle is the right thing for you.”
“You mean it’s not the right thing for Mara,” Kirby said.
He didn’t contradict that. “Or our sport. The Olympic Games are our chance to reach a wider American audience and bring new people in.”
And new money, but Kirby knew better than to say that.
He continued, “It’s a ground-level opportunity to get kids and their families interested in cross-country skiing, and they’ll be our Olympians of the future.”
Gag.
That sounded nice but was just a bunch of marketing bullshit.
“Cross-country skiing is not as appealing if the primary narrative surrounding the sport is catty and ugly,” Blarry finished.
Rivalries in men’s sports were never described as catty. Cross-country skiing had instituted equal racing distances for men and women for the Milan Cortina Olympics, but that equality didn’t always extend to how men and women were treated as athletes and people.
“We don’t create an ugly atmosphere,” Mara said. “We hardly speak to each other.”
“You hardly speak to anyone,” Kirby said before she could stop herself.
“Quips like that are precisely what I’m talking about, Miss Bonham,” Blarry said. “Another example is your disruptive dig at Mara in the locker room during what would have otherwise been a nice team segment.”
Mara wrinkled her nose but didn’t say anything. It was annoying that he was sniveling all over Mara as if she were actually a princess. Mara had held her own in that locker room. She was fine.
“I’m sorry. I’m terrible. What’s your name again?” Kirby asked.
“Chandler Wendleton,” he bit out.
Whoops. So not Larry or Barry.
“He’s the head of public relations for US Ski and Snowboard,” Mara said. Little know-it-all.
“So what exactly are you asking us to do, Chandler?” Kirby said. She was over this. At this rate, she and Mara would be kilometers behind the rest of the team, and Kirby loved skiing with the team.
“You’re being tapped for a pre-filmed, joint interview with Janette Collins.”
“Seriously?” Kirby said loudly. “Fuck.”
Mara looked shocked. And maybe a little sick too.
Holy shit, that was a big draw. It was the type of interview that could get Kirby her next sponsorship or gig on a show. Janette Collins’s interviews were a staple of Olympic primetime coverage.
“I’m sure you’ve both got voicemails from your agents. The network and Ms. Collins’s team were kind enough to loop us in as well. We cannot control you. But I am asking you to keep the animosity low. Tell interviewers you’re friends and teammates who support each other.”
“You want us to lie?” Kirby said.
“I want you to bury the hatchet. Or if that’s beyond you, pretend to. Let the narrative be the transformative nature of forgiveness and friendship.”
Kirby laughed. “Forgiveness? And what are we supposed to be forgiving each other for? Spicy interviews? Am I supposed to ask forgiveness for winning Mara’s gold medal?” She turned to Mara. “Do you have anything to say about this?”
Mara shrugged. “It’s easy to say we’re friends if asked. I don’t feel the need to make headlines.”
Kirby rolled her eyes so hard it almost gave her vertigo. Making headlines led to making money in her experience. Yes, she loved skiing. She was good at it. But skiing alone didn’t pay the bills.
“Don’t you think a rivalry also makes people invested in our sport?
That’s why she wants to talk to us. Because of what happened in Beijing.
Viewers will see we’re competitive. And that winning matters to us.
It makes our races against each other exciting for viewers.
Gives them someone to root for and root against.”
“Do you want to be the one who’s rooted against?” Chandler Wendleton said bluntly. “Forgive me, Miss Bonham, but you can be polarizing.”
And Mara was not. It went unsaid. Mara had made one snide comment about Kirby four years ago but had kept her mouth shut since. She was undeniably the face of American cross-country skiing to anyone who actually paid attention to it.
And everyone who actually paid attention to cross-country skiing also thought Kirby had allowed herself to be distracted by lowbrow television endeavors for four years.
“We would prefer if the focus was on rooting against other countries,” Chandler continued. “Rather than beating each other.”
That was ridiculous. They were competitors. In the one event they raced together, one of them would place higher than the other. That fact didn’t change because they were both competing under the American flag.
“We’ll be nice,” Mara said. “Or I will be. Kirby can make the choices that are best for her career.” Mara very deliberately tugged her gloves on. “I’d like to start skiing now.”
“Very well. Thank you for your time, ladies.” Chandler gave Mara one last smile before spinning on his heels and leaving without a glance in Kirby’s direction.
She was used to that. Used to being dismissed. But she was also good at making people regret it.