Chapter 10 Drew
Drew
THE DAY OF THE OPENING CEREMONY
Drew liked to delude himself into thinking he could gain people’s respect with talent and hard work.
But Luiz knew that the quickest way to win over the other journalists in the press office was through good coffee and free pastries.
So, when he mentioned that he was going to the café to pick up snacks for them, Drew immediately decided to tag along.
He’d spent that morning out on the slopes with a group of Ukrainian snowboarders, taking photos of them midair, then sitting in the snow as they shared the moments that had led them to the Olympics.
So, by the time he took his final photo, he was more than ready to get his freezing cold hands around a hot cup of coffee.
He spent the walk to the café quizzing Luiz about that evening’s opening ceremony and asking him about all the people he’d worked with in the press office.
Luiz was in the middle of telling him a story about how he’d accidentally ended up as a guest on a Tanzanian news channel when Drew saw a familiar face in the crowd.
“Wait, is that Hans Leitner?” said Drew, turning his head at the man who’d just walked into the café. The seventy-two-year-old documentarian had an old Olympus film camera around his neck, a notebook in his hand, and a vintage Lake Placid 1980 Winter Games jacket resting on his shoulders.
“The man himself,” said Luiz with a nod. They watched as he ordered a flat white.
Hans Leitner had spent decades making Academy Award–winning documentaries about athletes, politicians, and public figures, including one of Drew’s favorites: an early 2000s film about one of the first Black Winter Olympic medalists.
“Should I go up to him?” he asked, thinking about how bizarre it was to see someone he idolized waiting in line for coffee like a regular person.
Luiz looked horrified at the suggestion. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I love his work.”
“Don’t meet your heroes. It never ends well.”
Drew knew that Luiz was probably right. But he couldn’t help but glance over at Hans and the film crew surrounding him with cameras, microphones, and matching LEITNER PRODUCTIONS coats.
Drew had always been drawn to taking photos, not videos, but there was something about the way Hans made his films that inspired Drew.
He never took the obvious route when it came to the stories he told.
When he’d made a film tracking the activity behind the scenes of the Oscars, he’d told the story through the walkie-talkie radio communications between the staff instead of filming regular camera interviews.
When he’d made a documentary about a famous restaurant in the final week before its closure, he made the film from the point of view of regular diners.
Telling the restaurant’s story through its most loyal customers and their favorite meals.
“You want to meet someone like that when you have something to show him, a conversation starter,” said Luiz knowingly.
“And all I have now are standard press shots,” Drew agreed, knowing that there wasn’t anything close to spectacular on his camera’s memory card.
He was grateful for his assignment at Zeus.
Working with a brand as big as theirs was the kind of opportunity that his freshman-year self would have dreamed of.
But he didn’t want to just send Zeus folders of competition photos.
With the right technique, anybody could get a shot of a snowboarder midair or a figure skater midspin.
It was the intimacy of his New Year’s Eve photos that had made them so special.
People craved the chance to get a behind-the-scenes look from the perspective of an insider.
It’s what made celeb mirror selfies at the Met Gala and biopics of elusive musicians so compelling.
Drew needed to fulfill his assignment and get the photos the team at Zeus had asked for.
But he knew he would have to capture something more impressive if he wanted his temporary press pass to resemble anything that looked like a job.
So, after he and Luiz collected the coffees and dropped pastries off at the press office, Drew grabbed his headphones and pressed PLAY on Songs in the Key of Life.
It was his favorite album, the one he played whenever he needed to get out of a creative rut.
He’d gone to college with nothing but creative excitement and blind ambition, striving to make the kind of art that filled the walls of his favorite galleries.
But as the semesters went on, he became acutely aware of the gap between the kind of work he wanted to make and the level of skill he actually had.
He could take a good photo, but he struggled to truly capture the character, emotion, and tension of a moment.
He’d struck gold a few times. A candid photo of a local hero that won a campus photography prize, a photo diary of a ballerina in recovery featured in a citywide newspaper, and the NYE photos for Zeus that had led him to the Olympics.
But he still didn’t think his track record was impressive enough to be capable of the kind of work Hans made.
However, if he was going to be back in Wisconsin in a few weeks scrambling for opportunities, he needed to come up with a way to impress the team at Zeus.
It would take something big to stay on their radar and be at the front of their minds the next time an opportunity came up.
So, he spent the journey from the press office over to the hotel his grandparents were staying at trying to come up with photo diary ideas compelling enough to stand out.
When he walked into the lobby, he immediately noticed a girl wearing a blue winter coat embroidered with stars.
She turned around and waved at him. It was his sister, Thandie.
“How does it feel to officially be an Olympian?” Drew asked, giving her a hug.
“Exciting and terrifying,” she said, thumbing the Team USA logo on the sleeve of her coat. “It’s been such a long time coming.”
Drew smiled. There was nobody who deserved a moment like this more than his sister.
Thandie had been playing ice hockey her whole life and was one of the best players in the world.
So, when the 2022 Winter Olympics had come around, she was automatically placed on the Team USA roster.
But a few months before she was due to fly to Beijing, an injury had left her bedridden in Wisconsin.
The heartbreak of missing out on something she’d spent her whole life working toward had been devastating.
But Thandie was one of the most resilient people he knew, and she leaped straight back into action the minute her doctor signed her off.
“But how about you: Are you ready for your weekly interrogation?” she asked knowingly.
“I guess I don’t have any other choice.” Drew grimaced, bracing himself for their pre–opening ceremony family lunch.
As they turned the corner of the lobby, they spotted their grandparents walking in, their grandpa in his standard three-piece suit and their grandma wearing a glamorous deep red coat.
“Look at my baby! All grown up,” Grandma said as she and Thandie ran toward each other and into a hug. Thandie had been so busy with hockey training that they’d only seen her for a few days in December before she was off to pre-Olympic training camp.
“Grandma, you have to let me borrow that necklace,” Thandie said, squeezing her tight.
They’d always been close, but with Thandie spending the majority of her year training in Colorado, Drew knew they hadn’t spoken much.
He was grateful for the temporary distance between them, because if Thandie had been present enough to spend time with their grandma, she might have noticed some of the signs, started asking questions, and figured out that something was wrong.
Finding out about their grandma’s Alzheimer’s this close to the most important tournament of her life would have distracted her from her number-one focus: ice hockey.
So, Drew and Grandpa had decided to do what they could to make sure that Thandie and Grandma didn’t spend enough alone time together for Thandie to connect the dots.
“And my favorite grandson, come over here,” Grandma said, hugging Drew as if she was seeing him for the first time in months, even though he’d been living with them since December.
“This is so much nicer than USA House,” said Thandie, glancing at the luxurious furniture and chandeliers. Their grandma believed the most important part of a vacation was where you slept, so she’d booked a gorgeous mountainside hotel in St. Moritz.
“I don’t know why you’re not just staying with us, Drew,” Grandpa said as they walked from the lobby into the restaurant.
It had floor-to-ceiling windows that gave them the perfect view of the snow-coated mountains of St. Moritz, dazzlingly white against the bright blue winter sky.
Grandpa gave the name of their reservation and then the four of them made their way across the restaurant to a beautifully laid-out table in the center of the room.
As they ordered their drinks, a pianist on the other side of the room began playing a slow, gorgeous jazz medley.
When Drew’s grandparents had found out that he would be taking photos for Zeus and traveling to the Games on his own terms, they’d immediately offered to include him in their booking.
But Drew didn’t want to stay in a fancy hotel room paid for by his grandparents or be spotted with his Olympian sister in the middle of the Village.
He didn’t want the other journalists and photographers to think his family connections were the only reason he’d gotten the job. Even if they kind of were.
“That’s the issue with you kids,” began his grandpa as he leafed through the menu. Drew glanced over at Thandie, who was covertly holding three fingers up as she counted down to their grandpa’s infamous origin speech.