Chapter 20 Drew
Drew
Drew didn’t have imposter syndrome. The trepidation he felt when he walked into the press office wasn’t a belief rooted in self-doubt, nor was it the nagging feeling that he didn’t fit into his surroundings. Drew was an imposter in the Village.
He was surrounded by photographers who’d spent decades building up their careers and young hotshots whose careers had ascended at record speed.
And while he knew that Zeus wouldn’t have hired him if he was completely talentless, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed to do something spectacular to prove himself every day.
Which was why he’d walked into the Village that morning in such a good mood.
The content team at Zeus had sent a message saying they loved the photos he’d taken so far.
Especially the photos of Lukas, the ski jumper who’d unexpectedly finished in last place.
The photos Drew had taken of him after his race had a devastating but alluring quality to them.
So, the social media managers at Zeus took his photo and posted it alongside a quote from Drew’s conversation with Lukas.
One about how, despite his disappointment, he was never more motivated than he was when a competition brought him to his lowest. A bunch of other high-profile athletes reshared his post and the photo made its way into a bunch of news articles reporting on the first day of the Olympics. But he still had a long way to go.
“Are you sure this is safe?” Ari asked as she placed a tentative skate on the ice.
“Trust me,” said Drew as he took his camera out of its case and looped the strap around his neck.
“Trust you, based on what? The three days and twentyish minutes we’ve known each other? For some reason, I trust you with my secrets. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to trust you with my life,” Ari said uneasily.
She reached down to tap the ice below her with her thick hockey gloves. When the sound made it clear that it was rock solid, she finally relented and placed both of her feet on the ice. After a moment she pushed forward and began to skate, gliding across the ice in the low early-morning light.
Drew had spent the day before scoping out potential photo shoot locations for his and Ari’s photo diary.
He knew the obvious spots with the backgrounds that would make for the biggest impact.
The main stadium, the competition venues, and the various Olympic rings dotted across the Village.
But he wanted to find a quieter location, somewhere away from the crowds and TV cameras.
He’d spent hours walking through the cold until he’d stumbled across an unexpected spot.
At first, he’d thought it was just a frozen lake.
It was on the outskirts of the Village, in the quieter section that housed the athletes’ accommodation blocks.
And it was surrounded by enough trees to obscure it from people walking by.
But it wasn’t a lake. Luiz told him that it was an outdoor practice rink in the shape of a lake specifically built for athletes who wanted to blow off steam on a rink that didn’t resemble their training grounds.
So, he’d suggested it to Ari as the location for their first shoot.
She had a packed schedule, so they’d agreed to meet up at 6:30 a.m., just in time to see the dawn turn to sunrise.
It proved to be the perfect location. The lake rink was lit up by warm bulb-shaped fairy lights that brought a gentle glow to the perimeter, an ethereal contrast to the deep blue early-dawn sky.
As Ari glided across the ice, Drew played around with the settings on his equipment, adjusting the shutter so he could capture sharp stills on his digital camera and dreamlike blurs on his film camera.
“Is this the kind of movement you want?” Ari asked as she zigzagged in precise, straight lines.
“Or do you want something more dramatic?” she said, speeding across the ice, leaping up into the sky and landing into a twirl as Drew raced to capture it all.
He hit RECORD on his voice memos app to make sure he captured their conversation, too.
“Where did you learn to do that?” he asked, carefully walking across the ice to capture her hockey-uniformed pirouette.
“My mom wanted me to be a figure skater. She said, and I quote, ‘You’ll scare boys off if you’re always walking around with a hockey stick.’” Ari grinned.
“Did her warning work?”
“No, it had the opposite effect. I started going to hockey practice every day, instead of just twice a week. But I did convince an older girl who practiced at my local rink to teach me how to twirl. It’s fun. You should have a go.”
“I can’t skate,” Drew admitted.
“You’ve never tried?” she asked, eagerly gliding back toward him. “I could teach you.”
“Oh, I tried. But I think I did six months’ worth of lessons before my grandparents agreed the injuries weren’t worth it.” He smiled as he recalled the memory.
Thandie was graceful like their grandmother, so she had taken to it like a duck to water.
But Drew was kind of clumsy like his grandfather and never quite found his feet.
He was at his best in stillness, he preferred to capture the moment than to be in it.
The mention of his childhood made him wonder whether he should bring up the topic of his sister to Ari.
While they played the same sport, he actually wasn’t sure if they knew each other.
There were hundreds of national and professional teams and, by virtue of living on other sides of the world, he knew that Thandie and Ari spent most of the year competing in completely different tournaments.
He considered mentioning it but ultimately decided against it.
His sister’s team was the current reigning champions, and he didn’t want to throw Ari off by mentioning the competition. So instead, he asked about her.
“I think I have enough skating shots, but we need some candids,” he said as she skated off the rink.
“I could pretend to tie up my laces? Act the way I would if I was getting ready for a match?” She walked over to a bench covered in snow, and Drew took a photo of the way her bright blue hockey uniform stood out against the brilliant white snow.
The sun was slowly coming up now, a warm light rising from the horizon.
“Quickfire questions?” he said as he replaced the battery in his camera and tried to find the right angle to capture her from.
“Shoot.”
“When do you usually wake up on a competition day?”
“Six a.m.”
“What song do you listen to when you’re heading to training?” he asked, taking a photo of her gloved hands intertwined with the laces of her hockey skates.
“Something like ‘Airplane’ by Cleo Sol if I need to calm down, or an upbeat Tyla song like ‘SHAKE AH’ if I want to get myself hyped up.”
“And what stresses you out on game days?”
“The answer I would give to a journalist, or the answer I would give to a friend?” she asked, looking over at him as she tied her knot. Drew didn’t quite know where he stood on that spectrum.
“The answer you would give to your fake boyfriend.”
She smiled at that.
“My teammates. I love them, they’re like my sisters.
But they stress me out just as much as my family does.
” She looked out into the distance for a moment, noticing the way the early-morning sun gently shaded the sky with a lilac haze.
The color dusted the snow-coated mountains.
Drew swapped out his digital camera for his film, silently framed Ari on the left side of his viewfinder, then pressed the shutter.
More focused on her than the photo he was trying to take.
“Do you ever get the feeling that you’re not cut out for the thing you always wanted?” Ari asked. “As if it’s all been placed at your feet but you have no idea what to do with it?”
“Is that how you feel about becoming captain?”
“Oh, I’m asking you. You’ve been tossing questions over all morning, so it’s my turn,” she said, relaxing against the bench. Drew had been crouched down on the ice to get a good photo, but his knees were getting tired, so he walked over, brushed some snow off the bench, and sat beside her.
“I felt that way all through college,” he admitted, thinking back to California.
All the best photojournalists knew that one of the easiest ways to get someone to open up was to do the same, so he told her the truth.
“Classic case of big fish small pond as a teenager in Wisconsin, you know? I got it into my head that I could go all the way and take photos like the greats. So, I applied to USC. And at first, I loved it.”
“But…” she nudged.
“I went to college in Los Angeles, where pretty much everyone is on their way to becoming somebody. My second-year roommate did an internship at CNN, a girl I met on the first day of my freshman year got a book deal at nineteen. Everyone I met at USC was extraordinary in some way and I was just … Drew.” He shrugged.
“But you still got in,” she reasoned.
“I did, but it felt like a fluke. And while I would ace an assignment every once in a while, or land a really good freelance gig from speaking to interesting people at parties, as time went on, I began to realize that I was average at best. So, it didn’t make sense to stick it out on the other side of the country if all I was ever going to be was just okay. ” He shrugged.
“Drew, you’re working at the Olympics. You have to be more than just okay,” she said.
Drew appreciated the compliment, but he knew it wasn’t true.
It was just a case of being in the right place at the right time.
Pure luck. But if he could get this photo diary right, he might be able to ride the wave a little longer.
As they sat there, he noticed the sky getting lighter, the purplish haze becoming a light blue streaked with wisps of rose and lavender.
The bulb lights were still on, rivaling the sun with their brightness in a way that he knew would make for the perfect backdrop.
So, he got up from the bench, walked into a thicket of snow, and took a photo of Ari looking out at the sky, the GB on the back of her jersey glowing as the sunlight touched the shimmery white fabric.
“Your last name, Shumba, what does that mean?” he asked as she stood up to let him get photos of her uniform against the snow. He made sure to capture the embroidery of the badges and the delicate silver-threaded outlines.
“The best translation is ‘lion.’ The women’s football team back home are called The Lionesses, and I loved watching them when I was younger.
It’s the main reason I decided to keep his name instead of taking my mother’s,” she said.
Drew opened his mouth to voice a question, then decided against it. But Ari must have sensed his curiosity.
“My dad’s not a bad guy, he’s just disappointing in the usual ways. Unfaithful husband, mostly absent father.” She shrugged like it was nothing, but for the first time since he’d spoken to her, she sounded detached. “It could have been worse.”
Drew knew a smarter journalist would have pushed.
The unwritten rule was to press until you either got to the root of the story or your interviewee shut it down.
But he wasn’t sure where he stood on the spectrum of photojournalist or friend.
So, he tried to stay on the topic without digging too hard.
“So, is the rest of your family coming to St. Moritz for the Games?” he asked, thinking about how his grandparents had flown in for the occasion.
“They wish.” Ari smiled. “They wanted to, but I don’t let them come to games. I get distracted looking for them in the crowd, so the deal is they can only come if I make it to the quarters.”
“Well, I can be your cheerleader until then.”
“Only if you get a T-shirt with my face on it. A Team GB cap and jacket while you’re at it, too.”
“If I were your real boyfriend, I’d paint your initials on my face, dye my hair red, and learn the British national anthem,” he joked.
“But would you learn how to skate? I can’t imagine myself with a guy who slips on the ice,” she teased.
“I’d take lessons. You like grand gestures, right?”
“Only if I actually like the guy.”
“Then I would learn how to skate and glide onto the ice after a big game, holding a bouquet of flowers.”
Ari laughed. “Not roses, though.”
“Oh, never that, I’m not basic. I’m a real lover. I already know you favorite flowers are … dee … taa…”
“Raa … nun…” she laughed.
“Ranunthur … eo … sie … remind me again?” he joked.
“Ranunculus.”
“That sounds fake, but for you, I’ll make them real.”
“Good, because I’m definitely getting to the quarterfinals,” she said, sounding self-assured. But then her face scrunched up. “Did that sound believable?”
“I hear that if you keep telling yourself something, you can trick your mind into believing it.”
“Well, in that case, I’m definitely going to make it to the quarterfinals. And you’re going to realize you’re cut out for this,” she said. This time she sounded certain. Drew tried to let her belief rub off on him.
She picked up her hockey stick and flashed him a smile the second he went to press the shutter on his film camera.
They locked eyes the moment he put it down.
By that point, dawn had broken to reveal a bright blue sky, golden rays of light touching every surface, including the dark brown curves of her cheek.
He’d taken the photo, but she was still smiling.
“Your mom was wrong,” he said after a moment. She tilted her head to the side.
“About what?’
“The stick. Nothing about you would scare me away.”