Walk on Water (2 page)

“
Focus
, Lexa! Damn it!” Blake turned his head away, disgust etched in the lines of his face. “If you can’t land a triple toe loop, how in hell are you going to land the lutz?”

“My boots—” she began, pushing herself up off the ice and back onto her skates.

“Don’t even start with the boots!” Her father’s gaze snapped back to hers. He shuffled a few feet closer, yelling for the whole rink to hear. “Everyone gets new boots. They all hurt. If you want to cry about luxuries most of the world can’t even afford, do it off my ice.” He pointed to the nearest gap between shabby boards, his eyes steadier than his hand.

“I’m not crying,” Lexa said, barely holding back tears. Her hip was wet through from her latest fall, but mentioning that could only make things worse. Stroking away from him, she skated around the curve at the end of the ice, setting up her next attempt with a long backward glide on her left foot. She coasted past Blake nearly to the boards before her right toe pick slammed down, propelling her up and into a tight triple jump. Her landing was clean and completely rotated—full points, no deductions.

“Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus!” Blake waved his arms overhead like a gospel singer. “Now, if you could possibly get one off without telegraphing it the length of the rink . . .”

Lexa stroked crossovers through the curve again, resenting him silently. She knew why he was acting this way. If things had gone according to plan she’d be packing for March worlds instead of having barely earned an invitation to compete in next year’s nationals. But he didn’t have to be so nasty.

“I want to see air,” he shouted as she reached back with her right leg to launch another jump. “Fly it!”

Lexa flew. The rink spun around her as she rotated, but she let the scenery pass without trying to track it. Her body knew instinctively where she was in the air.

“Better,” Blake conceded grudgingly as she held her landing position. “But if you have any interest in winning nationals next year instead of battling for fifth place, you’ll need to take it higher. And bigger. Right now you just look average.”

Lexa stroked around the oval again, tears still fighting to rise. Her temper was rising too, though, keeping her eyes dry. She wanted to tell her father that “average” skaters didn’t land triples of any height, that he knew damn well her boots were a problem, that the margin between first and fifth at nationals had been so slim she could easily have taken the title. Blake might refuse to admit it, but luck played a part in figure skating too, especially in competition. A draw too long after the warm-up, an edge-catching rut, camera flashes, head colds, fluke falls, a rival’s personal best—there were plenty of reasons the favorite didn’t always win. Not that Lexa was anyone’s favorite. . . .

Her free leg thrust down savagely, skewering the ice. She popped the jump, launching herself well airborne but aborting after a single rotation to avoid losing control.

“I’m done,” Blake announced, shuffling off the ice in his battered Sorels. “Maybe this afternoon you’ll remember why we’re out here.”

That would be fantastic,
Lexa retorted silently, glaring after him.

When she was a little girl, figure skating had been an all-consuming passion, the thing she had most loved to do.

But she’d been sixteen for two months now. And it had been a very long time since she’d remembered why she was out there.

“Play this one,” Jenni said, shoving a CD at Lexa.

“I just put in the other one.”

“And it sucks. Will you
please
get an iPod dock?”

Ignoring both of them, Bry picked up the office mic and pressed the PA button. “Attention, patrons,” he announced smoothly, “the next song will be for left- or right-footed skaters only. Left- and right-footed skaters, please proceed in a counter-counter-clockwise direction.”

All three of them laughed at the resulting confusion, even though Lexa knew she would hear about it later. Anytime Bry and Jenni “helped” her in the office, there tended to be consequences. “Don’t you guys have to practice?”

“In that?” Jenni pointed through the steamy window to the chaos Bry had caused. “I’ll wait until public is over, thank you very much.”

“My pleasure.” Bry’s grin accentuated his rosy cheeks. Short, compact, and naturally blond, he had a pale yet perpetually flushed complexion that girls loved and he loathed.

“Never complain about a crowd,” Lexa said. “If this keeps up, we might finally be able to paint the boards.”

“Forget the boards,” Jenni said. “Put better doors on the bathroom stalls.”

“Snack bar,” Bry voted. “Keep it open during privates.”

“Yeah, that’ll happen.” Lexa had been too young when Blake bought Ashtabula Ice to remember a time when they hadn’t been struggling to keep the rink open. Despite the apparent windfall of a crowded public session, the rink made most of its money off the skating lessons and hockey leagues coached by the few other pros that Blake allowed on his ice. What didn’t go directly to the mortgage and insurance went into maintaining aging equipment and keeping the lights on. Even with Lexa working for free and Blake coaching a handful of elite students, they barely covered expenses.

“Ooh! Tall-Dark-and-Cranky just walked in,” Jenni said. “I think it might literally kill that guy to smile. One day the corners of his mouth will turn up and he’ll, like, drop dead right on this ice.” She turned away from the window, her hand over her mouth. “Oh, God! Sorry, Lexa.”

Lexa shrugged, her eyes on Ian Wilde. Ian had been training with Blake for the past three years, ever since his parents had scraped together enough to move to Ashtabula and give him a genuine shot at the top. He was the best male singles skater in Ohio now—top five in the nation—and he radiated a single-minded determination and confidence that Lexa ached to share.

“Blake wants him to skate regionals in October too,” Bry said, making a face.

“You’ll both get through,” Lexa said. “You did last time.”

“Yeah, and then he wiped the ice with me in sectionals.”

“Why would he skate regionals and give up his bye?” Jenni asked. “That’s crazy. You’re not doing that, Lexa?”

“Do I look insane? My statement of intent is already signed and ready to go. Still . . . you know Blake.”

The invitation Lexa had earned to the next nationals would be forfeit if she chose to begin her season by competing at regionals. There were advantages to competing early—working out program kinks, getting a handle on competition nerves, letting the judges see you—and Blake liked to pretend that anyone with a legitimate shot at nationals had nothing to fear at regionals. As far as Lexa was concerned, though, it wasn’t worth the risk. If the goal was to win nationals, why chance slipping off her edge on a fallen sequin or some equally random disaster before she even got there?

A kid in a Halloween tutu and rental skates knocked on the office window, startling Lexa back to her job. “The vending machine took my money,” she whined.

“Fantastic.” Lexa held up a finger for the girl to wait and pushed the PA button. “Attention, skaters, this ends our public session. Please leave the ice by the nearest exit and return rental skates at the counter. Thanks for skating with us today, and remember: Ashtabula Ice is always nice!”

Bry and Jenni chimed in with her on the rink slogan. Lexa released the button before the whole rink heard the mocking laughter that followed.

“You know I have to say that,” she griped. Fishing quarters from the petty-cash drawer, she took off after the tutu.

Outside the heated office, the air smelled of wet rubber. By the time Lexa forced the vending machine to cough up a stuck pack of gum, Blake was driving the Zamboni in shiny swaths around the ice. Ian was out there too, taking advantage of Blake’s favoritism by using the otherwise empty oval to warm up. Lexa leaned against the pay lockers and watched him stroke back crossovers into an easy double axel. His landing was beautiful: upright posture, shoulders level, leg turned out perfectly. Everything Ian did was textbook. Of the few skaters Blake deigned to coach—herself, Ian, Bry, and a couple of junior boys—Ian was the only one as intense as Blake himself.

He and I would make the perfect pair,
Lexa thought, as she had countless times before. Ian was a foot taller and two years older than she, strong enough to lift her like a doll. She’d imagined it all: the grace with which she’d pose in his uplifted hands, the thrill of a throw triple axel with Ian’s full power behind her, the two of them on Olympic ice with gold medals around their necks.

Not that Ian had any experience skating pairs either. He was a singles skater all the way, and Blake became a jerk for days any time she dared to mention her longing to skate with a partner. No one skated pairs in Blake’s rink. He didn’t coach pairs, didn’t follow pairs, wouldn’t even watch them at competitions. The topic of pairs was more off-limits with him than drugs or pre-marital sex.

Lexa sighed as Ian pushed into a camel spin, his posture still gorgeous. He was wearing all black, as always, his every line sharp against the ice. His hair was black as well, a thick, wavy mop that rippled and flowed in the wind his motion created. From where Lexa was standing, he looked like a minor god.

But Jenni had called it. He
was
cranky. Not only had he always kept to himself at the rink, he had just finished high school a semester early, too driven to bother staying to graduate with whoever he’d hung out with there.

Lexa heaved herself off the lockers. Blake had privates with Ian then Bry for the next two hours, after which he would close up, count the register, and take his sweet time coming home. Some nights he pulled the Zamboni apart, others, the refrigeration. She couldn’t hang around any longer, though. On Sundays she always had a mountain of homework due the next morning.

Having a tutor was supposed to fix that!
she thought, knowing she couldn’t complain. If her grandmother hadn’t stepped in, she’d still be pulling a full load of classes at Erie Shores High in addition to thirty-six hours of training each week and helping out at the rink. At least now she was out of school when the lunch bell rang—even if that did mean making up schoolwork in the middle of the night.

Bry had begun lacing up on the bench outside the office. “You out of here?” he asked as she grabbed her keys from behind the door.

“The joys of homework await. Text me after you skate. Better yet, text me every hour and keep me from dying of boredom.”

“I will.” He flashed his most winning smile. “Think your dad will go easy on me today?”

“That’s why I love you, Bry. You’re not afraid to dream big.”

“G-mom!” Lexa was happy to abandon her math assignment as Beth Lennox let herself in through the kitchen door, bringing the cold night in with her. Lexa smelled the frigid breeze off Lake Erie, then something far more delicious. “Ooh, what’s in the bag?”

“Orient Express. I figured you probably hadn’t eaten a vegetable in weeks.”

Lexa tried to look innocent with fingers still sticky from half a tube of chocolate chip cookie dough. Blake was always telling her that an athlete ought to eat better, but between his drinking and smoking, he was in no position to have his lectures taken seriously.

“How’s school going?” Beth asked while she filled two plates with cashew chicken and stir-fried vegetables. “Are you caught up yet?”

“More or less.” Lexa shoved her homework aside to clear eating room at the counter. “I still hate it, though.”

“Naturally.” Beth cocked an eyebrow over an expression that couldn’t hide a trace of a smile. “If teenagers liked what was good for them, adults would be out of a job.”

“I do appreciate the tutor, Grandmom. I’m in, I’m out . . . so much less drama.”

“Hell hath no fury like jealous teenage girls. And the more good things come your way, the pettier they’ll get. I pulled Kaitlin out of school. I could do the same for you.”

Lexa looked down at her stir-fry, painfully aware that any comparison between herself and her mother was ridiculous. When barely older than Lexa, Kaitlin had been a world champion. She’d been passionately loved by an older guy who, hard as it was to believe now, had been an international heartthrob. Of course, she had also gotten pregnant at seventeen, which should have evened the scales, but somehow she’d risen above even that. Lexa wasn’t envied and picked on; she was invisible.

“My offer stands, you know,” Beth said. “Anytime you want to move back in with me . . .”

She always said
back
in, as if Lexa had just left instead of living with Blake for the past eleven years.

“Thanks, but I can stick it out at school. Besides, Blake needs me.”

“Do you need him? That’s the question.”

Lexa sighed. “Grandmom.”

“You’re here by yourself all the time. You’re not eating right. And why can’t he get home at a normal hour? Is he drinking again?”

“I don’t know,” Lexa lied, pushing the last of her dinner away. “Can we please talk about something else?”

Her plate came back like a boomerang. “We can when you finish those vegetables, kitten.”

Two hours of darkness remained when the headlights of Lexa’s Explorer raked through the parking lot. Parking behind the rink, she hurried through the freezing pre-dawn, setting off the motion-sensing security light Blake had installed for her. He’d griped the entire time, saying how unsafe it was for her to be skating alone, not to mention at that hour, but once she’d gotten her license and inherited his old Ford, there was no keeping her off clean ice in her own rink. Fitting her key into the well-lit back door, she ducked inside and locked the bolt behind her.

The clock in the office read 4 a.m. when she flipped on the main lights. The ice they illuminated lay shrouded in thigh-high mist. Lexa’s excitement rose the way it always did at the sight of that flawless surface. Her blades were brushes, the ice her canvas. Until she stepped onto that blank sheet and carved her first edge, everything was possible.