Chapter 8 #2
I then started the painstaking process of getting ready.
I didn’t need to put as much effort in as I would before a show, but if I didn’t put on my makeup, it would be weird.
Dom had jokingly called it war paint, but he wasn’t that far off the mark.
When I had my face done up, it was another step to becoming Hazel the performer instead of just me.
Making sure my hair was completely slicked and pinned was just good sense.
There wasn’t much more annoying than having hair in your face.
On the ice, getting distracted pushing it away from my eyes or mouth meant I ran the risk of ruining my next steps.
My mother used to help me get ready. I would sit on a stool in my room while she reached for an assortment of bottles and brushes on my dresser.
When I started travelling more for competitions, it had become important that I be able to do it on my own.
My mother wasn’t able to drop everything and come on all my trips, especially at this level.
She had accrued plenty of vacation days over the years, but even they wouldn’t cover all the days she would need to take to follow me around.
Even so, my mother pushed my half-open door open the rest of the way and watched as I pinned my hair back.
She didn’t say anything as she walked over to my desk and pulled out the battered chair I’d used throughout high school.
I sat on it obediently. She took over, slicking the stray strands down against my scalp.
Her touch was gentle and brought back so many memories of my childhood.
After finishing, she rested her hands on my shoulders. “You look lovely.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I had taken the time to do a full face of makeup, layering on foundation and concealer and using several shades of eye shadow.
I wanted to walk the line between being performance-ready and not going too over-the-top before heading out to a restaurant.
If I put on as much makeup as I did for competitions, I would look like I had used my entire makeup bag.
I followed her downstairs, where we found my father sitting on the couch and watching an action movie he must have seen a million times.
Isaac was sitting in the armchair opposite him, half paying attention to the TV and half focused on the videos he was scrolling through on his phone.
He looked up and asked, “Hey. Are we going soon?” He didn’t react to my skating getup, having seen it all so many times before.
“Whenever you guys are ready,” my mother said. To my father, she said, “Turn that off. I don’t know why you need to watch it every time it’s on.”
My father clicked the TV off. “I was just killing time until you were ready.”
“Where are we going to eat tonight?” my brother asked.
I rolled my eyes. He was eighteen and supposedly out of his never-ending growth spurt, but he was still always wondering where his next meal was going to come from.
When I told him we were heading to a local Italian place, owned by somebody Dom’s parents knew, he seemed satisfied.
“Cool. I’m going to grab another snack before we go. ”
He was off to the kitchen before any of us could protest and came back with several fig bars in hand. I watched as he slipped his shoes on, not bothering to untie the laces, and shook my head. “What?” he said. “It’s going to take a while for you to finish, then to get there, then order.”
“I just don’t get how you’re still so skinny.” He may technically be an adult and a university student, but he was still lanky. Somehow, I was the only short one of my siblings. I had found it deeply upsetting as a child, but at least I’d found something I loved where being short was a benefit.
We piled into the car, my parents taking the front seat while Isaac and I sat in the back like when we were children. My father lifted all my things into the trunk, insisting that he do it even though I spent most of my days carrying them around myself.
The parking lot at the arena was much emptier than it had been when I left.
Most of the other skaters had called it not only a night but a week, heading home to relax.
Of the cars that were still around, I could place most of them as belonging to people I knew.
Brandon’s car wasn’t there yet, so I sent him a text asking where he was.
My parents followed me in, walking closely on my heels.
Dom’s parents were already inside, waiting.
All four parents greeted each other with questions of how they had been and exclamations that it was nice to see each other again.
They used to spend hours together every week, watching as Dom and I fumbled our way through pretty basic moves.
They had long since moved to a more relaxed form of support, only coming for special events.
“Hi Richard, hi Debbie,” I said. His mother pulled me into a tight hug, being careful not to mess up my hair. “Where’s Dom?”
“He went to get dressed and to get warmed up,” she said affectionately.
“I should, too,” I replied. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I waved as I walked off to the locker room, checking the text as I walked.
Brandon had responded, saying he was just leaving work. His work was pretty close, but that didn’t mean there weren’t several places traffic was known to slow to a crawl. He should still have plenty of time, though.
I described where everybody would be and told him to introduce himself.
Once I was preparing to go on the ice, I couldn’t pay attention to my phone.
I shoved it into the pocket of my old team jacket before hurrying through getting ready.
I stripped out of my regular clothes and pulled on my thick skating tights first. Once they were on, I pulled my dress overtop, the stretchy fabric slipping on easily.
I pulled my jacket back on and slung my skates over my shoulder.
The rest of my things could stay in the locker room.
Dom was where his parents said he would be, stretching and getting limbered up. “Hey.” His grin lit up his face. Mid-stretch, he asked, “Are you ready?”
“As ready as you are,” I said as I placed my skates on the floor gently. “I saw your parents.”
“They were excited to see you tonight,” he said. He stretched out one of his arms, muscles flexing under the thin fabric of his shirt. “Frankly, I think they’re more excited to see you than they were to see me. It was Hazel this and Hazel that. I’d be offended if they didn’t see me so often.”
“Is your sister coming?” I asked, facing the other way as I leaned over towards my toes.
“She can’t. My nephew has something on tonight. How about your brothers?”
“Isaac is here, Levi isn’t,” I said. My older brother went to school several hours away, so it wasn’t a surprise. “Brandon’s coming too. He’s on his way from work. Alexis and Kendra are going to come too.”
While the three of us had been close in high school, there had been some distance in the last couple of years.
Their lives revolved around university. They had been enjoying their time living in residence, with copious amounts of alcohol and sleeping in.
I’d had fun when I’d joined them, but that couldn’t happen very often.
Their school year was almost the same as my skating year.
That meant that when I was actually free on a regular basis and not treating my body like a machine, they were off and trying to earn money for the next school year.
Even so, they’d always been supportive of my skating.
Outside of our families, they had been the most convinced that we would reach this point in our skating career.
“Wyatt, Ethan, and Zain said they’ll try to come.
It may be because they know my parents will pay for their dinners, but I’ll take what I can get.
” Dom sounded like he was joking, but I knew there was a kernel of truth to that.
His friends were impressed that he was a national champion and the level of athleticism needed to get there, but they weren’t interested in the skating itself.
He had never said that the stereotypes of male figure skaters bothered him, but I knew they did.
The taunts about figure skating being a girl sport irritated the shit out of me, and the jabs weren’t even aimed at me.
I’d seen the way the muscle in his jaw twitched as he ground his teeth through them.
He may act like he is impervious to that sort of thing, but he is only human.
“Is Emma coming?” I asked. For all the questioning he’d done about me not telling Brandon about this tradition until recently, he hadn’t mentioned her at all yet.
“That would be awkward, since we aren’t dating anymore,” he said.
If it were anybody else, I would curse myself for putting my foot in my mouth. Since it was Dom, I just said, “Sorry. Your call or hers?”
“Mine,” he said. “I got the sense that she was interested in Dom, the national champion and Winter Games hopeful, more than me as a person.”
A wave of guilt washed over me. With the argument Brandon had started after the amusement park, texting Dom that evening to tell him had completely slipped my mind. “I got that sense too,” I said.
“And you didn’t tell me?” he said. He sounded surprised rather than angry.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “But I’d only seen her that one time. There was a chance she was asking about our skating to be polite. I didn't want to say anything if she was just trying to bond. I was going to keep an eye out for you, though, I promise.”
Dom chuckled. “You think I need you to protect me? There are a lot of good things about you, Hazel, but you are neither scary enough nor strong enough to intimidate somebody.”
I wanted to argue that, but I had to admit that he had a point.
When you were short, people were too confident that they could overpower you to be afraid of you.
There weren’t many times in my life I had wanted to intimidate somebody, but it would have been nice to have the option if the situation were to arise.
Like now, for instance. The butterflies flapping around in my stomach might stop if people were too critical to say something to my face.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost time. I had to get stretching if I didn’t want to push the schedule for the whole night back.