Chapter 5
CHAPTER
FIVE
Mara turned to Kirby with murder in her veins. Janette seemed equally surprised.
Comparison was supposedly the thief of joy, but Mara had learned early on that her job was to measure up to her competition. Judge them. Analyze. Evaluate. And win.
By her analysis, there were two objectively gorgeous, dynamic women sitting in front of her, ready to take her down in whatever arena possible. It wasn’t a fair fight.
And Kirby made Mara want to brawl.
Or run away.
Fight or flight.
She couldn’t do either during the interview, though. Instead, she’d planned to keep her conscience and hands clean, unlike last time in Beijing.
To freeze. And lie.
But Kirby had blown that plan to smithereens.
“It sounds as if someone asked you to play nice for this interview,” Janette said. “Was it Mara?”
“No!” Mara said.
“Of course not. Mara would never,” Kirby said with a laugh.
“Well, then who?”
“It wasn’t Coach Wu or any other ski team staff. People can connect the dots from there, but that’s all I’ll say.”
“We were simply asked to be professional,” Mara ground out.
“Potato, potahto.”
Mara had suspected Kirby might not play along, but she hadn’t expected her to make it seem like a whole ridiculous and underhanded scheme.
“Well, since we’re not hiding that you have bad blood, let’s get to the elephant in the room,” Janette said.
“Four years ago, during the cross-country skiing press conference before the Olympics, Mara, you said something very out of character about Kirby.
My team and I went back and scoured the Internet.
We never found another interview quite like that one. What happened?
Mara had known this was coming. And she’d thought it through. She’d practiced. Thank God, because her mind was spinning. “I regret that. The Olympics are a pressure cooker. There’s a lot of intensity. We’re competitive, and we all care a lot. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I crossed a line.”
Her voice sounded thin and rushed, but she held it together.
“What? No,” Kirby said. “I loved it.”
Mara bit the inside of her cheek and tried not to outwardly react.
“Really?” Janette said. “It wasn’t very sportsmanlike.”
“So?” Kirby said. “It got so many more eyes on our race. I like the attention. And it put this enormous chip on my shoulder. Which worked out well for me.”
“Okay, let’s talk about that race. The thirty-kilometer mass start.
The one that changed everything for both of you,” Janette said.
“One of the headlines about Mara after the Beijing Olympics was ‘always a bridesmaid, never a bride,’” Janette said, directing her calculating gaze to Mara.
“How would you describe your history of silver and bronze Olympic medals, Mara?”
There was an awkward silence as Mara tried to figure out how to respond. She didn’t thrive under the spotlight like some people.
“I’m proud of my silver and bronze medals. I—”
“Wait,” Kirby interrupted. Enter some people. Kirby had been stepping all over her answers from the beginning of the interview, and Mara was tired of it. “Am I the bride to Mara’s bridesmaid in this scenario? I like that,” Kirby continued. “A bride. Better than what I’m usually called.”
“And what’s that?” Janette said.
“A thief. I robbed the sport’s precious star of her gold medal in her best event. Snatched it right out of her hands at the finish line.”
Mara sent Kirby another what-the-fuck look. “You didn’t steal anything. I lost gas at the end. You made the right move at the right time to beat me. That’s part of competing.”
That was what Mara was supposed to say. And on the surface, it was the truth.
Almost the truth.
Mara had thought she’d had the gold in the bag until the very end.
She’d slowed down because she’d been gassed, yes, but also because she never expected Kirby to be able to challenge her on the final climb and straightaway.
When she’d realized it was Kirby who she was drafting with, she’d immediately thought, If it’s just us at the end, I’m a gold medalist. They’d come into the stadium together, and Mara had already been celebrating in her head.
She’d expected Kirby to drop off. Anticipated it.
She’d been unable to readjust when it didn’t happen.
It had been a photo finish. She’d gotten silver. And it had absolutely been her fault.
That had been Mara’s medal to win. Olympic gold was all she was missing.
And if she didn’t get gold this time… Mara didn’t want to let her mind go there.
“Mara’s too nice. I wouldn’t be that nice if I were in her place.”
“What would you say in her place?” asked Janette.
“‘The twenty-fifth best skier won that day.’ I hadn’t even qualified for that event until I earned the discretionary spot during training the week before.
I wasn’t expected to hit the top twenty, much less the podium.
I knew I could, but no one else believed in me.
She wasn’t worried about me. She had to have been thinking about Svea Solberg—”
“From Sweden,” Janette clarified. Someone had done their homework.
Kirby nodded. “Who is one of the strongest finishers our sport has ever seen, or Lakyn Lopez from Canada who had won the World Cup Crystal Globe for distance races the year before.”
Never mind that Mara had won every distance Crystal Globe since. Mara had also hit the podium for every fifty-k she’d raced since the new distance had been implemented. But she couldn’t unclench her teeth fast enough to get the words out.
She started going through her checklist to calm down.
Seven days to the Opening Ceremony.
Eight until her first event, the skiathlon, where she would race twenty kilometers, ten in classic style and ten in freestyle. Twenty-three days until the fifty kilometer and the end of her Olympic career.
“She wasn’t worried about little Kirby Bonham from Bumfu—Bumfiddle, Minnesota,” Kirby said.
Mara’s brain felt fuzzy. “That’s not true.”
It was so true. Mara hadn’t given Kirby a second thought before that race.
She’d literally said so during the press conference.
She’d said she didn’t see Kirby Bonham. Kirby didn’t matter to her in the least. She hadn’t paid attention to her teammates’ successes or failures as long as they didn’t affect her.
Well, Kirby’s success had certainly affected Mara.
“Mara knows to watch for me now. I’ve beaten her more than once since then.”
Mara’s face distorted into something ugly against her will.
The interview had gone so off the rails.
She struggled with interviews under peak conditions.
How the hell was she supposed to make it through an interview unscathed when she was getting pressed by Janette Collins and provoked by Kirby Bonham.
She wasn’t supposed to make it through this. That was Kirby’s goal.
“Three times. You’ve beaten me three times. And you haven’t won a race, any race, against me in two years.”
Not the best comeback, but it felt so satisfying to say exactly what she was thinking. A wild whip of adrenaline shot through her.
Mara wasn’t looking at the camera or Janette. And neither was Kirby. They were staring at each other instead. Kirby was flushed and her eyes were a striking, bright blue.
“Underestimate me again, Mara,” Kirby said, her voice dangerously soft.
Mara had had it. She’d spent four years trying to be polite and bland and boring. But she was also competitive. And everything in her rebelled at losing to Kirby, even if the only thing she was losing was a verbal sparring match.
“Or what? You’ll trash me in a confessional on Celebrity Temptation Paradise Hotel or whatever it’s called. You’ll make a mean video about me on TikTok? I’m not scared of you.”
The shocked silence should have made Mara snap out of it, but instead, it made her feel like she was soaring.
It felt amazing to fight with Kirby. To finally take out some carefully controlled anger on her.
To see that smile from Kirby again, the one that had rolled her four years ago in that godforsaken press conference.
Because saying what she’d said four years ago had felt amazing too. Until it hadn’t.
“Oh meow. I love when you prove you actually have a personality, Mara.”
“You peaked in Beijing. I’m still climbing.”
Kirby was breathing fast. Mara was too.
A lock of Kirby’s short, wavy hair was stuck to the side of her neck.
Her throat was glistening with sweat. Mara’s mind whited out, and her heartbeat exploded in her chest. She was sure she’d turned red.
It felt like anger, but it was more complicated than that.
Anger mixed with something messy and pulse-pounding that Mara wasn’t willing to name.
“Speaking of reality TV,” Janette said, and both Mara and Kirby jumped. Mara had forgotten Janette was there. “What do your teammates think about your turns in the television spotlight, KB?”
Kirby was still staring at Mara when she answered. “Ask them. Not me. I like being on TV. I like making money.”
“Fair enough,” Janette said. “Mara, what do you think about Kirby doing competition reality shows?”
“I’ve done two dating shows as well,” Kirby said, and for some reason, that made Mara even angrier. “Neither one is Celebrity Temptation Paradise Hotel, but I’d go on that show too if it existed.”
“Bonham can do what she wants with her free time.”
“Oh, should I translate that for you too, Janette?” Kirby asked.
“By all means.” Janette gestured and smiled.
Kirby changed her posture, sat up straighter, and primly put her hands in her lap.
Kirby was impersonating her. She pretended to flip her hair over her shoulder.
“Bonham can waste her time making more money than she ever has skiing by selling her soul to trash TV, but the rest of us have to keep our hearts pure and our hands clean for athletics.”
That impression hurt. It hurt like Mara was fourteen years old and being snubbed at the lunch table, which was ridiculous. She was thirty-four. Plus, she probably deserved to be called stuck up. But a dig at that aspect of her personality pressed on a childhood bruise that had never healed.
“So your stints on TV are about the money?” Janette asked Kirby.
“A girl’s gotta eat.”
It wasn’t about the money. Or not just about the money. Kirby was a spotlight hog. She was hungry for attention. She’d milked the aftermath of her surprise gold medal with a voraciousness that would have been impressive if Mara cared about that kind of thing.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t.
She cared about winning her own gold medals. That was it.
“After I won that race, it opened doors for me, man. Doors that had money and opportunity and excitement behind them. My phone was suddenly ringing,” Kirby continued.
“‘Do you want to be on this dating show? How about a social strategy show? A celebrity cook-off? The grandmaster of the Pride parade?’ I couldn’t believe it. It changed my life.”
“And to the different networks and streaming services and events contacting you, you say?” Janette asked.
“Hell yes. Put me in everything. I’ll do it all.”
“Have you watched any of Kirby’s shows, Mara?” Janette asked.
“No.”
Yes.
“Why not?”
“I avoid empty calories,” Mara bit out. Her anger was starting to wear thin, but she didn’t want to come back to the real world. She didn’t want to face it. She wanted to live in this moment that was hot and sharp and biting.
Kirby laughed at that, which shouldn’t have made Mara feel like she’d won something, but it did.
“Reality TV is entertaining,” Kirby said. “It’s fun. And I love it. I love watching it. I love being on it. You’ll never hear me call it empty calories or a guilty pleasure. Because I don’t feel guilty about pleasure.”
Janette whipped out a sheet of paper. “This is the list of shows you’ve appeared on: Celebrity Dance Crew, Genius Academy, Celebrity BBQ Grill-Off, The Love Algorithm, and The Love Algorithm All-Stars. There is no line on what you’ll agree to do?”
“I mean, I’m not going to go to space for a bit of clout, but otherwise, gates are pretty wide open.”
“Even if it disrupts your training?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? I qualified. I made the team. I’m feeling good and gaining momentum this season at exactly the right time.”
What had Kirby said earlier?
That was true but wasn’t the truth.
The interview carried on without Mara for a few minutes. She had screwed up.
She’d been trying so hard not to make the same mistakes as last time in Beijing. She’d wanted to put her best foot forward. Maybe be a team player for once. Set the record straight by winning this time. And set herself up for after the Olympics.
Instead, she had let her own control slip through her fingers. And that would be the headline. A snippy cat fight with Kirby Bonham would be the headline. Again! It would be nothing but a distraction.
She couldn’t imagine what Coach Karlsson would say. Or her sponsors. Or Chandler Wendleton.
Or her father.
Her brain couldn’t fathom what all the strangers on the Internet might think. What they might say in disgusting, sexist comments. When would the interview be released? During the Olympics?
During primetime right before the fifty kilometer?
Right before she choked again?
Janette asked her a question, but Mara didn’t quite catch it. “I apologize. Can you repeat the question, please?”
“Oh, there she is,” Kirby whispered. “So polite. Back in control.”
But Mara wasn’t in control at all. She ignored Kirby and shaped her face into the mask she had perfected as a preteen when it had become clear she was special and gifted and going places.
Janette tried to get them back on course.
Or maybe she tried to get them back off course.
Mara wasn’t sure. She treated the rest of the interview like the suffer fest it was.
She put her head down and double-poled through to the end.
She refused to say anything interesting, giving the rote, preplanned answers she should have from the beginning.
Kirby’s heart didn’t seem in it once Mara stopped playing her game.
And that was exactly what had happened. Mara had tried to play Kirby’s game and had come out the loser.
Again.