Chapter 19
MATEO
She’s different.
I clock it the second I step onto the ice - she’s standing at the blue line with her chin up and an expression I haven’t seen before.
She seems - lit up. That’s the only word for it.
Skelly.
“Something different today,” she says to the group. “We’re going to work on an X stop.”
Barrett raises his hand. “A what?”
“An X stop,” she replies. “It’s a figure skating technique - one blade perpendicular to the other, full weight on the lead edge, the trailing blade dragging to create resistance and control the stop.
” She demonstrates it slowly - the glide and positioning of the feet and then the clean controlled deceleration.
Her skates stop in an ‘X’ shape as she stops.
“It’s not a technique you’ll use in a game.
This isn’t functional for hockey in the way your normal stops are.
What it is, is a precision exercise. It requires exact edge control, exact weight distribution, exact timing.
Everything sloppy in your skating shows up in an X stop. It’s a diagnostic as much as anything.”
“More figure skating,” Mercer mutters, under his breath.
“You’re doing edge work,” she says pleasantly. “The fact that it’s from figure skating is your problem, not mine.”
She demonstrates it again, full speed this time. Her stop is precise and silent.
“Your turn. Don’t try to rush it. Don’t try to make it fancy. Find the edge.”
We all push off. It’s comically difficult.
Barrett overshoots on his first attempt. Two freshmen collide trying to find the positioning and end up in an undignified heap that she skates past with a helpful smile.
“Keep going,” she says cheerfully. “It’s going to feel wrong at first.”
I test out the technique and I watch her cheerfully correcting someone else. There’s a quality to her today that I can’t stop noticing - it’s almost like a quiet elation.
Whatever happened, something has changed.
I think about the text I sent.
You deserve good things, Elida.
I meant it.
But I didn’t think it would feel quite like this to watch it happen.
I try the stop again but somewhere across the ice I hear her say yes, exactly like that enthusiastically to someone. I pull myself away from listening to the brightness in her voice and try to focus on my technique.
ELIDA
I find Calloway after.
He’s in his office with the door open, reading files. I knock on the frame and he looks up. Something in my face makes him put the papers down immediately.
“Got a minute?”
“Always.”
I hesitate in the doorway. “Can I grab Tara as well? I’d like her to hear this too.”
He nods and picks up his phone and two minutes later Tara appears in the corridor breathless and still in her physio jacket. She follows me into the office and closes the door.
We sit - Calloway behind his desk, Tara beside me.
“I’m going back to Sweden. As soon as I can arrange it. I’ve been in contact with a coach - Brita Fiske - and I’m entering a regional qualifier in four months. What I’m trying to say is - I’m going back to competitive skating.”
Tara makes a sound that is somewhere between a gasp and a laugh and grabs both my hands in hers, squeezing hard, and she’s beaming.
“Elida!”
“It’s not certain,” I say quickly. “The qualifier, all of it - nothing is certain yet. But I’m trying. I’m going back and I’m trying.”
“That’s enough,” Tara says firmly. “That’s more than enough.”
“I’m happy for you,” Calloway says simply. “Genuinely.”
“I’m sorry to leave the program. The women’s team especially - Dani and the others, they’ve come so far and I-”
“We’ll find someone good,” he says. “Don’t carry that.
You’ve done more for this program in the short time you’ve been here than we expected.
Both programs. It’s been a privilege having you here, Elida.
Whatever comes next. If there’s anything you need - anything at all.
A reference, a phone call - you call me. I’m not just saying that, I mean it.”
I nod. I don’t trust myself to say much.
“Thank you,” I say finally. “Both of you. For all of it.”
Tara pulls me into a hug, and I hold on for a moment longer than I mean to.
“You were always going back,” she says into my shoulder. “I think we all knew that.”
MATEO
Calloway runs our next pre-game briefing on Friday morning.
Eastlake. Away. Their defensive structure, their transition patterns, the things we need to exploit and the things we need to avoid. I’m listening and taking notes in the margins of my playbook the way I always do.
And then, completely in passing, like it’s just another item on the list:
“-and try to implement the skating work Elida has been running with you. The edge transitions especially. We won’t have her for much longer - she’s returning to Sweden as soon as she can get it arranged - so I want to see it embedded before then. Now, Eastlake’s power play-”
He moves on.
I sit very still with my notebook on my knee, and I think, what the fuck.
Calloway is talking about Eastlake’s power play. Someone asks a question. Everything is already continuing as normal.
We won’t have her much longer.
I catch Chen’s eyes.
Calloway said it and moved on like it was a scheduling note, like it was a footnote to the actual business of the morning. And maybe for everyone else in this room it is a footnote - just the skating consultant leaving at the end of the season, these things happen, next item…
The pen in my hand has stopped moving.
Barrett leans over. “You getting this power play stuff?”
“Yep,” I say.
I scrawl something in the margin that makes no sense when I try to decipher it later.
ELIDA
I set up the laptop at the side of the rink on a stand and angle it toward the space where I can skate in view of the camera.
Brita appears on screen - silver haired, sharp-eyed and warm - and we exchange hellos. She asks about the rink access and I tell her I have a key and can use it whenever. She nods approvingly.
“Good. We can be flexible around this. Now, I want to address something. Before we go any further.”
“Okay.”
“What happened with Lindqvist. I want you to know that the people who matter in this sport - the people worth working with - they know what he is. They’ve known for a long time.
You were not the first. I suspect you were not the last. And what was done to your reputation was deeply, deliberately unfair. ”
I don’t say anything.
“I’m not going to ask you to talk about it. Not today, not ever, unless you want to. But I wanted you to hear that from someone in this world before we go any further. You didn’t deserve what happened. And you don’t have to keep paying for it. You should never have been paying for it.”
“Thank you.”
“Good,” she says briskly, moving on in exactly the right way. “Now. I’ve watched the extra footage you sent through.”
“And?”
“And you’re extraordinary,” she says, matter-of-factly, like she’s telling me the weather. “But you know that. What you don’t know yet is where the rust is, so let me tell you.”
I like her enormously.
She pulls up the video on her end and shares her screen. She talks through it methodically.
The entry to the combination sequence - rushing it slightly, she’s right, I’ve always rushed it under pressure. The back outside edge on the second pass - dropping the shoulder, old habit, my old coach used to correct it constantly and without him it’s crept back in.
We work through it section by section - her calling corrections, me moving through the relevant sequences in the space I’d set up - the laptop camera following me as best it can. It’s strange and kind of makeshift.
“Better,” she says, after the third run of the entry sequence. “Much better. You’re trusting it more.”
We work for another twenty minutes, and then she sits back.
“One more thing before we finish.”
“Okay.”
“Partner work. I want to assess it before you get here. Lifts, holds, and the basic partnered sequences - I need to see how your body responds to working with someone again. Of course, I’ll find you a proper partner when you’re in Sweden - I have a few names in mind, but for the video sessions.
Well. You’re coaching a team of athletes.
Surely there’s someone who could help? It doesn’t have to be a figure skater.
Any competent person who can follow instructions and stay on their feet. Someone you trust.”
“I think I know someone.”
“Good. Next session then. Arrange it.” She closes her notebook. “You’re doing well, Elida. Better than well.” She peers at me through the screen, her expression kind. “We’re lucky to have you back.”
We say goodbye and I close the laptop.
I pick up my phone and open Mateo’s messages.
Free for a call?
I send it before I can think about it.
MATEO
I pick up on the second ring.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey. Good session today.”
“Thank you. Did the X stop feel any different by the end?”
“Marginally less catastrophic.”
She laughs. “That’s progress.”
I’m lying on my bed staring at the ceiling and I should say it - Calloway told us, I know you’re leaving - but she’s already talking, bubbling almost, which is a word I wouldn’t normally associate with Elida Eriksson but which fits her perfectly right now.
She tells me about Brita. About the video session, the routine breakdown, the qualifier. She sounds happy and I think about how long she hasn’t been.
“Elida,” I say, when she pauses for breath.
“Yes?”
“I’m really glad. That you’re going back.”
“Thank you, It feels - it feels right. Finally.”
“Yeah. It does.”
“Jake must be gutted. Long distance is tough, but you’ll figure it out?”
Silence.
“We haven’t talked about it yet,” she says, finally. “I actually called you because I need a favor.”
“Okay.”
“Brita wants to see my partner work in the video sessions. Before I get to Sweden. She says any competent skater who can follow instructions will do. And emm, well, I thought of you.”
“You thought of me?” I repeat, stupidly.
“You’re competent. Mostly.”
“High praise.”
“And you can follow instructions. Sometimes.”
“Also high praise.”
She laughs, slightly nervous in a way I haven’t heard from her before.
“Would you? It’s just for the video sessions. Once, maybe twice, I know it’s-”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to-”
“Elida. Yes.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there.”
We set a time and wind down the call. I’m about to say I have something to tell you too, about scouts, when she says, “I should go. Brita sent homework.”
“Homework?”
“New sequences to run through before the next session.” A smile in her voice. “Don’t be late.”
And then she’s gone.
And she’s really leaving.