Chapter 10 Oh, What a Plot Twist You Were
Oh, What a Plot Twist You Were
Paisley
“Dad’s got the music for my free-skate program already.” Gwen stretches down to touch her toes.
Gwen’s dad is her trainer. She told me that he used to skate himself before starting to work for iSkate.
One of the reasons why one of her childhood dreams was to be accepted to the school.
On the one hand, it has its advantages, because they know each other and trust each other one hundred percent.
On the other, she said, training’s the reason they get in each other’s hair a lot.
“‘Castle on a Cloud’ from Les Misérables.”
“Oh, that’s going to be a melancholy program,” Levi says, standing in the fitness room behind Aaron who’s stretching his back. Aaron has done the splits on the floor and is stretching out his palms in front of him.
“Gwen’s programs are always melancholy affairs.” Aaron’s voice sounds muffled, as, thanks to his stretch, his nose is pressed against the ground. His red bangs streak the floor. “Like Natalie Portman in Black Swan, but on the ice.”
“Bullshit.” Gwen tosses Aaron a scathing glance. “I’m not disturbed.”
Her reply is acknowledged with a mocking laugh. Not from Aaron or Levi, but Harper, who is pushing her hands into the wall next to us and has lifted her right leg into the air. “That’s news to me.”
Gwen snorts before giving Harper a fake smile. “Apropos new, Harper. Pay attention to your fake boobs. Otherwise they’ll burst the next time you’re lying on the ice after trying another Lutz. It’ll be all over the news.”
“That did it,” Levi murmurs.
I look from Gwen to Harper, who is staring at the wall, her nostrils flared.
“I think ‘Castle on a Cloud’ is nice,” I say in the hopes of taking down the temperature in the room a bit. “The melody is so pleasantly soft.”
Gwen doesn’t respond. Her mood unnerves me. Has something happened? She closes her eyes and leans her forehead to her shins. Suddenly she shakes her head and straightens back up. “Excuse me.”
“Gwen.” I am already halfway up and ready to go after her when Levi’s fingers softly take hold of my wrist and stop me.
“Don’t.” His eyes are sympathetic. As if he knows what’s going on with Gwen.
Confused, I return his glance. Even Aaron turns his head toward him and frowns.
Harper emits a nervous groan. “What a drama queen.”
Now she’s really getting on my nerves!
“What’s your goddamn problem?” I hiss.
A provocative smile appears on Harper’s face.
Instead of looking at me, she lifts her leg a little bit higher and touches the wall with the sole of her foot.
“I don’t have any problem, Paisley.” She lowers her leg, turns to me, and shakes it out.
“I’m just not afraid of making enemies for being honest.”
“Paisley!”
I whirl around. Polina is standing in the doorway to the fitness room staring at me with narrow eyes. “Follow me.”
I take a deep breath, shoot Harper one last disparaging glance, and follow my trainer down the hall into the ice rink.
“Where are your skates?” she asks, her head tilted halfway over her shoulder.
“Umm. Still in the stands, I think. Why?”
“I want to practice something with you.” Polina nods to the second folding chair in the first row where I’d left my skates after training. “Put them back on.”
“But training’s over,” I reply sheepishly, with the uncomfortable feeling that I’m going to miss Gwen. She wanted to take me to the Winterbottoms’. “Can’t we do it tomorrow?”
Polina’s look is that of a beast of prey. “Your second day and you want to give up already?”
“What? No! Why would I…”
“I told you it wouldn’t be easy. Discipline and ambition, remember?”
“Yeah, but…”
“You agreed. And so you either stick by your word or pack your things and go.” Her eyes flit across my face. “Anyone can go the easy route. But none of them makes it to the Olympics.”
Gritting my teeth, I cast a glance over my shoulder into the hallway with the changing rooms. I am disciplined and ambitious.
On any other day I’d have no problem training into the night.
But today of all days…I need this job. Otherwise I can say goodbye to iSkate quicker than Polina can impale me with her eagle-like eyes.
There’s no trace of Gwen. Is she back with the others?
I bite my lip, give a curt nod, and reach for my skates. The last few years have taken their toll; the leather on the sides is faded and thin, the laces frayed.
But I love them.
“Okay,” I say once I’m standing in front of Polina out on the ice. “What do you want to practice?”
“A double axel.”
My shoulders sink. “But we practiced that all day long. I can’t do it. It’s impossible.”
Polina leans her forearms on the edge of the stands and gives me a hard stare. “You can’t do it because your technique is wrong.”
“I know. But what is supposed to have changed over the last hour? Only the exceptionally talented can pull off a double axel, Polina.”
She purses her lips. “You need to trust what I say and not argue. I have an idea.”
Sighing, I shift my weight to my left leg. “Good. What should I do?”
“Show it to me again.”
What I’d really like to do is throw my arms into the air and tell her there’s no point.
But the reality is that there is even less of a point contradicting Polina Danilov.
So I push off and begin skating backward-outward, just like we’d practiced all day long.
With my left foot I move forward, shift pressure to the outer edge, and make a big swing of my arms before I jump.
I attempt to focus on my right leg to use its momentum and bring it past the other at an angle.
As per usual, I manage the first spin, but the next just doesn’t want to come.
And so instead of landing in a backward movement, which is usual for the axel, I land forward, stumble, and fall onto my knees.
I wheeze and smack the ice with my palm. “It’s just not happening!”
“Tell me what you were thinking about.”
“What?”
“What were you thinking about when you jumped?”
I lean back onto my bottom, stretch my legs, and think. “No idea. About the jump, I guess. About having enough momentum in my right leg to pull off another spin plus half to pull off the backward.”
Polina laughs. She seems strangely content.
“What?”
“I knew it.”
I look at her confusedly. “Right. And how is that supposed to get us any further?”
“In that I now know where the problem is.” She pushes off the boards without removing her fingers from the strut and tilts her head. “Listen. We’re going to try again, but this time just keep on skating until you’re ready. Take as long as you need.”
“As long as I need for what?” I ask, getting back up. My knees hurt from the fall.
“Until you can feel the intense swirl of emotions in every centimeter of your body.”
“Emotions?”
Polina nods. “Figure skating is passion. You don’t pull off the best jumps with your head, but with this.” She points to her left breast. “Let your heart work for you, not your body. It knows what to do.”
“I’m not sure I understand you entirely…”
“There is too much rage in you, Paisley. Turn it into energy. Into passion.”
It feels like my eyes are going to pop out of my head. In seconds my temples are pounding, my heartrate shoots up, and my palms grow damp, which has nothing to do with the ice I was skating on just a few minutes before.
“I…” There’s a lump in my throat. “That’s… How do you know what…” I can’t finish the sentence. Instead, I try to swallow the lump back down. Unsuccessfully.
“My heart is a ghost town, girl.” Polina smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Lost souls recognize one another.”
“What… What happened to you?” I whisper.
“Everyone’s got their reasons, no?” She looks to the side.
She looks toward the scoreboard, but I doubt that she really sees it.
“But lost souls give you the task of finding your own.” She looks back at me.
From one second to the next her former expression returned.
“Use your memories. Bring fire to your movements and let the flame guide you. Try it.”
My head is spinning as I push off the boards and skate across the ice.
My thoughts are racing, I am thinking about everything, about Polina and what she’s struggling with, about Kaya, my mom, and him.
I grow dizzy, then hot, then cold. Screams, loud, far too loud, just in my head and not really there.
But if they’re not really there, why do they feel so tangible, so near, so unbearable?
I’m starting to panic, my head just wants everything to grow quiet, quiet at long last, and calm and secure.
But that fear is in me, deep down, far too deep, it’s coming back up, high and higher, it’s whispering and hissing, becoming clearer the higher it gets.
I want to drive it away, I want it to unfold and then leave me alone.
That’s when I feel it. Feel its clutches scatter in all directions, feel that it’s up to me. The air takes hold of me, lets me become part of it as I spin and allow the memories to come before pushing them away again. Two and a half spins.
I land backward-outward.
Polina smiles. And behind that smile I recognize something that warms my heart and that I believed no trainer would ever show me.
Pride.
Suddenly, I understand why Polina pulled me out of the fitness room. I understand why she had insisted we try the jump now and not tomorrow. What was going on inside of me wasn’t meant for anyone else’s eyes. She knows that. She, too, is living it.
“Come on, Gwen.” For the fourth time I dial her number, but her voicemail picks up. Cursing, I disconnect and look around outside of iSkate. No trace. She wasn’t in the changing room, either.
Levi and Aaron walk past. I look at them almost desperately. “Have you all seen Gwen? She wanted to take me with her.”
“No idea,” Levi says and presses the key to his car. Not far from us the lights of a silver Mercedes blink on. “I think she took off. Her Jeep’s not here.”
“She’s not answering her phone.”