Blade

Chapter Thirty-Two Ana

Chapter Thirty-Two

Ana

Before—One Year and Ten Months at The Palace

Ana glanced across bowls of pasta and bread laid out on the Cunninghams’ dining room table.

Patrice was at one end. Indy’s father, Paul, at the other.

Next to Ana was Indy’s little sister, Sally.

None of them were talking. Not one word.

Just forks and knives scraping plates, chewing, swallowing, shifting in seats.

Indy gave her a quick wink before looking into her plate of food. She wasn’t really eating, Ana noticed. Just twirling strings of spaghetti round and round with her fork.

Earlier that day, Ana had skated her free skate at the Midwestern Sectionals, held in Minneapolis that year, at the rink where Indy had trained before coming to The Palace.

The same rink where Bobby Stark coached.

Ana had been invited to stay at Indy’s house, with the Cunninghams, so she didn’t have to be alone at the hotel.

She’d landed two triple-triple combinations, earning a silver medal in the junior division—which meant she was going to Nationals for the first time.

Dawn had pulled her into the puffer coat so hard she thought she might actually break some bones, causing a euphoric swell of emotion, tears of relief that felt distinct from the joy of her success.

She could feel the need for Dawn, right alongside the hatred for herself for having it.

But that was only part of the ache she now felt at the Cunninghams’ table in mid-November of her second year at The Palace.

It was also about Indy—who was in first place after the short program.

The free skate was tomorrow, and Indy could now land the triple Axel!

Mio had fixed it, showing Indy how to punch the sky with her right arm.

She’d landed three more before they went home that night.

And the next day, Indy landed it again for everyone to see on the seven a.m. session—including Dawn, who was giving a lesson to Ivan.

Mio had made Indy promise not to tell Dawn how this miracle had happened. “She won’t like it,” Mio said. “She’ll find a way to punish you.” Indy had protested the whole way home, and again as they brushed their teeth.

“Please!” Ana begged her. For once, she said, they needed to do what Mio told them. Indy said she wanted to “shove this down Dawn’s scrawny old throat and watch her choke on it.”

But in the morning, Indy kept her promise.

She landed the triple Axel like it was nothing.

Emile let out a holler and skated over to her.

He was joined by a handful of skaters pretending to celebrate her accomplishment, but Ana had felt their stomachs sink.

Like someone had just pulled the plug from a drain, and now they were all going down it.

The ones at Indy’s level would never stand a chance against her now.

The ones below knew what Ana did—the bar had just been raised.

Ana stood at the boards, watching the bleacher bees shrivel, finding glee in their misery. She didn’t care what it said about her.

Her eyes turned to Dawn, standing at the far end by the entrance to the lockers, beside Ivan.

She pretended not to see any of it—the triple Axel, the celebration.

But when the session was over, she remained by the boards where everyone had to exit the ice.

Ana skated over to Indy and was there when Dawn stopped her.

“You see?” she said. “I told you it would come.”

Ana shot Indy a look, another plea for her to keep their secret. Indy complied, pursing her lips into a tiny, rigid smile. And as she skated away, Dawn raised the hand holding her guards, and swung them down. Right across Indy’s right hip. Into the bruise.

Anyone else seeing this might have thought it was an affectionate gesture, like a pat on the shoulder. When Indy looked back at her, shocked by the sudden pain, Dawn winked and said, “I knew I’d get you there!”

Indy held herself together until they reached the locker room. But then she raced into a bathroom stall with her bottle of DMSO and rubbed it into her hip. She didn’t cry, though Ana knew she wanted to. Maybe needed to.

But that was the end of it. Five weeks later, here they all were.

Back at Sectionals. Indy poised to win and ride into Nationals that January as the favorite—likely to win there too.

Certain to place, making the Olympic team.

It was an incredible journey back after last season, when she’d placed ninth.

Ana knew how happy this would make Indy.

Not just because of the Olympic team. Patrice had promised her two years ago that she could return home if she landed the triple Axel in competition.

Which meant after tomorrow, Indy might leave The Palace for good.

Ana refused to be sad about this, even though it meant she would be alone.

So she sat quietly as the Cunninghams scraped their plates and chewed their pasta—until, finally, Paul broke the silence with talk about Indy’s little sister, Sally.

It was directed to Ana, this information about their family, because she was the only one who didn’t already know that Sally had quit skating after just a year of lessons when she was five, and that she now played lacrosse because that could “buy her a ticket to college” if she practiced and played all year on her middle school travel teams and summer leagues.

He told Ana other things the rest of them knew, but that he apparently wanted to say out loud. Things about their home. It was modest, he explained. And the guest bathroom needed updating. And that they couldn’t put in a swimming pool, apparently.

“Skating is expensive,” Patrice said. “It’s a sacrifice the whole family has to make.

Everyone has to be committed. Indy started skating as soon as she could walk,” Patrice laughed.

She said this as if Indy had discovered the sport on her own.

As if it had nothing to do with Patrice being a former Olympian.

“It’s important to start young.”

Ana could picture Patrice shoving Indy’s little feet into doll-size skates, then dragging her around in circles at a public session.

She looked at Indy across the table, wondering if she had cried because it was cold and her feet hurt.

That was what they said had happened when they tried to get Sally on the ice.

But Indy didn’t look up from her plate. Spinning the pasta around and around with her fork.

“Sadly, she wouldn’t have any part of it,” Patrice said, glancing briefly in Sally’s direction. “But we already had our skater.”

Patrice was the only one left talking, like she had started down a road they all knew not to travel—but once on it, Patrice couldn’t steer away and was now pedal to the metal.

“My parents didn’t know any of this—about starting young, finding the best coaches. I’ll always wonder what might have been. But not you, sweetheart.”

And with this, Paul picked up his fork and speared a meatball so hard it split into pieces.

Then Patrice passed the bowl of pasta and the plate of bread, suddenly quiet. Maybe she was thinking about Indy’s free skate tomorrow. Her first attempt at the Axel in competition.

Or maybe she was having memories of the year she made the Olympic team, beating Dawn Sumner, but then didn’t make the podium.

The photo of her with Team USA hung on the wall above the stairs with the worn carpet, next to the family portrait taken by a lake, and then Sally and Indy when they were little girls.

When he’d swallowed the meatball, Paul said, “It’s a shame you outgrew Bobby. We miss having you around.”

Indy looked up from her plate at the mention of her old coach. She smiled at her father. “I’ll be back soon enough.”

And then Patrice cleared her throat and looked in a disapproving way at Paul, who seemed confused, like maybe he had no idea about anything that was happening between his wife and daughter. Promises made. Maybe about to be broken.

It left Ana totally confused. And she thought, as terrible as life was for Indy being an Orphan at The Palace, maybe things would be worse here, even with Bobby as her coach again.

In this modest house with an outdated bathroom and no swimming pool, and where they couldn’t send their kids to college—all because of Indy, and the dream she had to finish for her mother.

The senior ladies’ free skate began in the afternoon. Indy was third to skate and now circled the ice near the door while they announced the score of the girl who’d just finished, having fallen on one triple, but landed the rest, three in combination.

Indy seemed focused, her mouth reciting the mantra she’d chosen with Dr. Westin, the repetition meant to stimulate her vagus nerve, calming her fight-or-flight response, which was clamoring to take over, and for good reason.

Because it all came down to this: four and a half minutes in a yellow sequined dress.

Ana prayed Indy was better at the Fear Training than she was; she’d skated with a surge of adrenaline she hadn’t been able to contain.

She’d somehow landed the jumps anyway, but two had been shaky and one had felt stiff.

Indy couldn’t afford one disconnection between mind and body.

The triple Axel was too new for her to rely on muscle memory.

Every cell in her body had to follow orders.

“Punch the sky.”

Ana was in the stands with three skaters from The Palace who’d made it to Sectionals in the novice and junior divisions.

Patrice, Paul, and Sally were down several rows to the right, close to the boards and behind the row of judges.

Dawn stood by the door, now closed, in her blue coat and thick makeup, her hair sprayed into a tight bun at the back of her neck.

And what was going through her mind? She’d been neutral toward Indy these past few weeks, impossible to read. Before Mio had gone home to Japan for the season, she’d told Indy to be careful, but neither of them knew for sure what she meant.

Whatever Dawn felt about Indy and her path to the Olympic team, and possibly a medal, part of her had to be pleased now.

Everyone knew Indy had the triple Axel, including the judges, who were waiting with great anticipation for her to skate.

And Dawn was the one standing by the boards, an even greater coach than before—taking credit for the jump even though she had tried to sabotage it by not showing Indy how to fix her arm.

The announcement came over the speaker. “From The Palace Skating Club, please welcome Indy Cunningham.”

Then applause, hoots, and hollers from Ana’s row. “Let’s go, Indy!” Paul and Sally shouted. Patrice, jaw clenched, grabbed the back of the seat in front of her like she was in the first car of a roller coaster.

The opening notes from her music—Phantom of the Opera—bled from the speakers, and Indy pushed off onto her right blade, arms by her side, fingers extended, free leg pointed, before reaching down to the ice, sending herself into motion.

The program was simple, focused on the jumps, and the first one came.

The double Axel, which Indy could land in her sleep, was flawless.

More applause, but muted this time because everyone knew, as she rounded the boards at the far end, then cut into the middle, that this was the moment.

History in the making if another American woman landed the triple Axel in competition.

Ana chewed her lip, her heart in her throat, as Indy stepped onto her left blade, the forward outside edge. Both arms peeling back behind her hips, then sweeping forward, punching the sky, the way Mio had showed her.

She flew into the air, then began to spin, making the rotations. One, two, three and a half turns, and then catching the right toe pick, the back edge.

“Perfect,” Ana said with a gasp, wiping a tear as everyone jumped to their feet. Years of falling, injuring her body, longing to go home—and now she’d done it!

Patrice buried her face in Paul’s shoulder and wept, actual tears, while Sally bounced up and down. Ana held a hand to her mouth, the relief about to explode out of her.

Indy skated as the buzz quieted, people taking their seats. Holding their collective breath. Waiting to see if she could pull off the rest of the program.

Dawn crossed her arms and tilted her head, a slight smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, and this time not a smile that took great effort to make. This one seemed to come in spite of efforts to contain it.

Ana followed Dawn’s gaze across the ice, where two women in the judges’ row stood and walked away from their seats and then down the stairs to the boards. They wore officials’ badges around their necks and jackets from the USFS. What were they doing here?

The music played on, blending “The Music of the Night” and “All I Ask of You” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” until Indy had landed all but one of her jumps.

She doubled out of the last triple toe after a triple flip, but it was still a completed combination, and at the end of her program, giving her more points.

And then her final pose, a big smile, and a wave to the far end of the arena, where Bobby Stark had been watching the program with some of his students.

Ana saw her face tremble because now that it was over, and she’d landed the Axel, and no doubt won the senior division, paving her way to Nationals, and from there a chance at the Olympic team, an Olympic medal, her family’s sacrifice and commitment not going to waste, her mind gave way.

Calm, focused concentration melted into a flood of emotions that caused her to collapse into Dawn’s arms, because those were the only arms available.

Ana knew Indy would hate herself for it later.

But Ana also knew how powerful Dawn’s embrace could feel.

The giant weed with all its roots and branches.

But their embrace was interrupted by the two women with the badges, who led Dawn to the side, speaking gravely with lowered eyes, causing Dawn to listen intently, a mask on her face.

But then she turned toward Indy with a look of—what? Shock? Disgust? Betrayal? Indy, eyes wide, face almost melting, shook her head in disbelief.

And then Dawn turned her back away from Indy and the women. Ana stared at her face as it changed again to a smile, the same kind she had seen just that one time, when Dawn had smacked Indy’s bruise with her skate guards. Only this one was even bigger. More pronounced. More definitive.

With the unmistakable look of revenge.