Chapter 6 Ice Is My Heaven #2
A triple Lutz. It belongs to the toe-pick-assisted jumps, like the toe loop and flip, and that’s what differentiates it from the Rittberger, Salchow, and axel—all of which belong to the edge jumps.
I can count on one hand how many times I pulled off a perfect triple Lutz in the past. My exhilaration bubbles over, and a surprised laugh escapes my lips.
“That was good,” I hear a voice say. Blades scrape across the ice as the skater pair comes to a stop next to me. One of the two—Aaron or Levi—gives me a thumbs up. “You’re the newbie, right?”
“Yeah.” My arrival at iSkate had already made the rounds, it seems. “Paisley.”
“Levi,” the darkhaired one responded. He is tall, lanky, and reminds me of Harry Potter. He points at his broad-shouldered partner. “That’s Aaron. If we had a sword, we’d knight you for what you just pulled off.”
I laugh drily. “That was just a Lutz. I’m sure you can do that, too.”
“We can,” the smaller of the two replies.
Aaron. He brushes his red hair off his forehead.
His bangs were hiding the large brown birthmark on his temple.
With a malicious grin he nods in Harper’s direction.
“But she can’t. And the look on her face just now made my day.
” He makes a sweeping gesture as if removing a hat from his head and bowing. “Thank you for that.”
Levi leans back against the stands and looks up. He wrinkles his brow. “Who is that?”
Aaron and I follow his glance. A woman is sitting on one of the red folding chairs in the first row.
She is wearing a fur coat, the collar of which is covered by the strands of her rust-brown bob.
She is looking at us with a concentrated expression, her legs crossed, playing with her scarf. Her lips are a thin line.
“No idea,” Aaron mumbles. He scrunches his nose, which causes the freckles on his pale skin to dance. “My goodness. It’s not even eight and she’s making a face like she just came from the funeral home.”
Levi nods. He is about to say something when a pair of blades comes to a stop next to us.
Harper. She shifts her weight to her left leg and crosses her arms across her chest. “What’s Polina Danilov doing here?”
“Polina Danilov?” Aaron looks askance.
Harper emits an annoyed groan. She rolls her eyes and is about to say something, but I beat her to it.
“In 1988, she was the Olympic winner in ice dance. 1992 single skating and again in 2006. You didn’t hear a whole lot about her after that.”
Harper shoots me a glance. She looks over me disdainfully. “You’re the newbie,” she says curtly, then, without awaiting an answer, adds, “Your leg warmers have holes. You should take care of that.” She whirls around and rushes off in the opposite direction.
With a tight chest, I watch her go. Her movements are more elegant than mine. Softer.
Levi sighs. “Don’t even try to understand Harper. That’s just how she is.”
“Umm, folks.” Aaron points his chin in Polina’s direction. “Cruella de Vil has stood up.”
“She’s moving over the railing,” I say.
“And now…she’s waving?” Levi squints. “Is that supposed to be a wave?”
“That or she’s got a cramp in her hand,” I mumble.
“Carpal tunnel syndrome,” Aaron agrees. “Terrible thing.”
Levi furrows his brow. “Paisley. I think she meant you.”
I had the same idea. I just didn’t want to say it out loud.
Aaron gives my back a quick two pats. “Go see her. Before she gets mad and takes off to steal some sweet Dalmatian puppies.”
I’d laugh if my pulse wasn’t 180. Polina Danilov is waving me over.
The Polina Danilov.
I slowly push off from the side and glide over the ice toward her.
Gwen swishes past me and wiggles her eyebrows.
By the time I’m in front of Polina, I have no idea what I should say.
At that moment, even the way my arms hang off me seems weird to me.
I decide to put my hands behind my back and wait.
This woman has won Olympic titles! Multiple times! And now she’s here, not even three feet away from me, staring right into my eyes. Me! Paisley Harris, the trailer-park roach from Minneapolis. I feel like I could fly.
“Your technique is no good.”
Bang! Right back down to earth. My smile dies. “Umm… What?”
“One says ‘Excuse me?’ So, one more time: your technique is no good. Close your mouth, girl. I’m not a zoo animal.”
Oh my God. I cannot believe it. This just cannot be the Polina I had posters of as a kid in my room back home.
“I just completed a triple Lutz,” I counter. “You can’t pull that off without technique.”
“I did not say that you had no technique, rather, that it is no good. Listen to me when I tell you something.”
I blink. Multiple times in a row.
“Communication and openness are two important prerequisites between trainer and student,” she continues. “If you want me to get you to the Olympics, you are going to have to trust me.”
Trainer and student? Hold on a second…
“You’re my trainer?”
“On the condition that you trust my abilities. When I tell you that you are unable to do something just yet, I don’t want to hear you respond that that’s what you’re doing already.
I want you to see that and for us to work on your weaknesses so hard until there aren’t any left.
That’s the only way it’s going to work, you hear?
I demand discipline and ambition. In return, I will belong to you unconditionally and will bring you all the way to the top. ”
Polina scrutinizes me for a moment before continuing.
“You’ve got fire, girl. What a lot of figure skaters lack is in your blood.
You can learn technique, not passion.” Her eyes get caught on the swelling on my face.
It’s like she can see right through Aria’s makeup.
“It won’t be easy. A lot of sweat, a lot of tears.
Which is why I want you to answer a single question, right here, right now. ”
I nod.
“Are you strong enough for this?”
My hands unfold as my fingers seek out a handhold on the side of the rink.
Am I strong enough? There were times in my life when I could no longer remember what it felt like to be happy.
I was broken. Maybe I still am. The truth is, I don’t know how much power the past still has over me.
Every day it feels like it will grab hold of me again and drown me in its swamp of awful memories.
And I know, deep inside, there, where nothing is good anymore, I’m still fighting with that swamp.
But that’s the point, isn’t it? I’m fighting.
Despite its strength I’ve never given up.
And in order to drive it off, I have to create new memories.
Better memories. The kind that will warm my heart and allow me to feel happiness.
Aspen gives me the feeling that I can find it here.
The ice is all I need. It’s keeping me alive.
“Yes,” I answer at long last and look right into Polina’s eyes. “I am strong enough.”