Chapter 28 2006
“Ready?” he asked, his bushy left brow flexing upward with excitement that matched my own.
We were about to watch the women’s long program finals.
Sasha Cohen had performed a near-perfect short program and had the lead going into the long program.
She was my favorite. Like me, she had started in gymnastics, and because of that, she skated with bold athleticism and fearlessness that was thrilling to watch.
We pulled our chairs close to his small television. Twenty-four of the thirty skaters from the short program had advanced to the long program. First up was an Italian skater, Silvia Fontana, and since the Olympics were in Torino, Italy, the crowd went wild when she skated onto the rink.
“We won’t be able to watch the whole thing,” Mr. Jeffries said. “It’s four hours long.”
It was a Thursday afternoon, and study period was only two hours.
“Let’s just watch this performance, then the top five?” I said, knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep not knowing whether or not Sasha had won.
Silvia was very beautiful. She had straight dark hair to her shoulders and a body so wispy and lithe she looked like a ballerina.
I held my breath as she went into her first pass.
She nailed it, and I whooped along with the crowd.
Mr. Jeffries smiled as I bounced in my chair with excitement.
She was giving the performance of her life at the Olympics in her home country.
I could only imagine what that must have felt like.
She finished, her chest heaving and her smile spreading out her cheeks.
“Someday, that will be you,” Mr. Jeffries said without an ounce of sarcasm, stating it as if it was a foregone conclusion and he truly believed it.
Sometimes, when I look back on my life, I think about that moment, wondering if that’s all it takes for a dream to take hold, for a single other person to truly believe in it as well.
Bouquets rained down on Silvia from the stands, and as she skated around the rink collecting them, tears streamed from her eyes.
Mr. Jeffries fast forwarded.
“Sasha’s up first,” he said, revealing that he’d already watched the finals without me. I couldn’t blame him. If I had a TV, I’d have watched it live as well.
“Sasha Cohen is on the ice,” the announcer said.
Sasha skated to her coach, and he took her hands over the dividing wall.
“There’s that tape under her tights,” the announcer went on in a somber tone. “Her left leg wrapped because of a groin injury.”
Sasha nodded to something her coach said.
“And she had that dreadful warm-up and looked entirely out of sorts.”
I wished he’d stop talking. He was making me mad. It sounded as if he was rooting for her to do poorly, almost gleeful at the idea that she was nervous and possibly injured and had been struggling moments before the biggest performance of her life.
“Not the way you want to go into an Olympic program,” he continued, his voice hushed like he was building the suspense.
“Shut up!” I yelled at the TV.
Mr. Jeffries looked over, and as soon as I saw the sympathy in his eyes, I knew Sasha wasn’t going to do well.
She didn’t. Her performance was just short of a complete disaster.
She fell on her first jump, and on the second.
All I could think was how brave she was to get up and keep going.
She managed to finish without falling again, but her dream of getting gold was over.
The audience clapped politely, but you could tell they knew it as well.
“I still love her,” I said.
“Of course you do. You don’t stop loving someone over a silly thing like a couple of missteps. Love needs to have more staying power than that, or if you ask me, it wasn’t true love to begin with.”