Walk on Water (22 page)

Everything just feels kind of hollow today,
she thought.
Maybe I’m depressed.
Thanksgiving wasn’t that far away, and the holidays always made her more aware of the schism in her family. Trying to shake off her malaise, she skated beside Eric in the setup to their long program’s lasso lift. With a backward toe takeoff and one-handed dismount, this was the lift of highest difficulty in their current arsenal. Boyd had dropped her on a far easier lasso lift, but Lexa skated now as if that had never happened, her timing automatic, her takeoff right where it should be. The old flutter of fear as she maneuvered hand-to-hand over Eric’s head was completely absent, and so were any bobbles. She hit every position perfectly, as if the outcome were inevitable.

At least I’m skating well again
. Weston had been right to send her home during sectionals; her lack of focus then had made her a danger to Eric as well as herself. But two weeks had passed since and she hadn’t had a single bad day. If anything, she made visible progress at every session.

Weston called them to the rail. “So much improvement!” he said happily. “Lexa, you look like an angel up there. And Eric, don’t feel unappreciated. Your partner couldn’t shine if you weren’t the candle supporting her flame. She’s incredibly lucky to have you.” He turned to Lexa. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I do,” she replied, mustering her first genuine enthusiasm of the day. Whatever bad mood had gripped her had nothing to do with Eric. “You are a god among candles, E-Money.”

They laughed as they headed off the ice. But in her grandmother’s car on the long drive home, Lexa fell silent again, and for once Beth didn’t badger her or try to cheer her up. She seemed lost in thought herself.

“Hop out and get the mail, will you, kitten?” she said when at last the silver Mercedes reached the bottom of their drive. “Save your old grandmom a trip.”

Lexa roused herself enough to climb out. A bitter wind was blowing, swirling dead leaves through the iron gates. Yanking the mailbox open, she snatched out a handful of envelopes and hurried back to the warmth of the car.

“Anything good?” Beth asked, continuing up the hill.

“I didn’t look.” She flipped through the envelopes. Her grandmother was fascinated by snail mail, but Lexa couldn’t understand why; all it ever seemed to bring was ads and bills. “I don’t see—” She went silent at the sight of a stiff white envelope addressed to her in a familiar spiky scrawl.

“What?” Beth glanced over, then braked hard outside the garage. “Is that from
Blake
?” she asked, her tone becoming accusing. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he tell you he was sending something?”

“When would he have told me that?”

Beth parked in the garage and cut the engine. “Are you going to open it?”

Lexa stared at the envelope, her pulse skipping. Even Blake’s handwriting had the power to twist her gut into knots.

“It looks like some sort of card. I’ll open it,” Beth said, reaching.

“No.” Lexa yanked it back. “I will.” She had obviously missed her chance to take the thing to her room to deal with privately. Reluctantly, she ripped open the envelope and extracted its contents.

A greeting card met her baffled gaze. No words, just a winter landscape featuring a pair of cold-looking geese on an icy pond. Two photos tucked inside slipped down to reveal one handwritten line:
Thought you might like to have these.

No other message. Not even a signature.

“He just sent me some pictures,” she said, relieved but even more mystified.

“Pictures?” Beth tried to grab again, unsuccessfully. “Let me see! I want to see what he’s up to this time.”

“Who says he’s up to something?”

Beth sighed impatiently. “The man is always up to something.”

Lexa looked down at the pictures. The one on top didn’t surprise her—a photo of Bry and Ian receiving their sectionals medals—but the second one made her gasp. A heavily pregnant Kaitlin grinned for the camera while a much younger Blake stood smiling behind her, his arms encircling his teenage wife’s waist and both hands cradling her belly.

I’m in this picture,
she realized, mesmerized by her parents’ glowing faces.
I’m in there and Blake
wants
me.

She had never before seen a photo of her mother pregnant, hadn’t even known one existed. Considering the drama surrounding her entry into the world, she had never been surprised that no one had run for the camera. But now, out of the blue, here were her parents, about to have a baby they definitely shouldn’t be having and undeniably thrilled about it.

Beth finally succeeded in snatching the photo. “This old thing?” she said, grimacing at the sight of her pregnant daughter. “Where did he unearth this? What’s the other one?”

Lexa flashed her a peek without letting go. “Nothing. Friends. He just thought I’d like to have them.”

Beth snorted. “As if they’re some random photos he ran across in a drawer? I’m not buying it, kitten, and neither should you. There’s nothing random about those photos—they’re both symbolic as hell.”

“Symbolic,” Lexa repeated skeptically.

“You bet.” Beth handed back the photo of Kaitlin and Blake. “He’s telling you he hasn’t forgotten: those times, your mother, what they gave up to have you.” Her finger stabbed at the picture in Lexa’s other hand. “And that one—sectionals, am I right? He’s telling you that you should have been there.”

“I
should
have been there!” Lexa snapped, provoked into losing her temper. “I should have and you know it!” Pushing the car door open, she jumped out still clutching the photos.

“You’re angry at
me
now?” Beth called at her retreating back. “That’s exactly what he wants!”

Lexa pounded up the stairs to her room, only then realizing she had left Blake’s card in the car.
Good luck seeing that again,
she thought bitterly. She called up the image of those two cold geese surrounded by a world of ice and gripped her photos tighter.

Symbolic as hell.

Lexa stared past her laptop screen, out through her bedroom window. A layer of pure new snow blanketed the estate, softening stripped branches and whiting out the dirty slush of the day before. She wished she could invite Bry over to try riding their river tubes down those pristine slopes. Instead, she had to finish a history essay then help cook Thanksgiving dinner.

The herbs Beth had used to season the turkey were already wafting up the stairs, so the bird was in the oven, but there were still pies and side dishes galore to tackle, even though their only guest that day would be Weston. A lifelong bachelor, he’d apparently had nowhere better to go.

“There are only going to be three of us!” Lexa had protested when Beth unveiled her dinner menu: roast turkey, chestnut stuffing, mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, candied yams, cranberry relish, Waldorf salad, green beans almandine, homemade dinner rolls, savory corn pudding, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. “That’s enough to feed a town!”

“Three is two more than I got to cook for last year. A person spends her entire life learning how to make a proper turkey dinner; then suddenly, when her skills are at their peak, they’re not needed anymore. I’m cooking,” Beth had insisted. “We can use the extra rolls to make turkey sandwiches later. With the other leftovers, we won’t have to touch the stove for a week.”

“More like a month,” Lexa said, right before adding a chocolate cream pie to the menu. If her diet was taking a week off, she might as well make the most of it. Sighing now, she closed the laptop on her unfinished essay. There was no way she’d be able to concentrate on history with chocolate tipping the scale. Ditching her pajamas, she put on jeans and a sweatshirt and headed down to the kitchen.

Beth was peeling potatoes, an apron on over her bathrobe. “There you are, kitten!” she said with relief. “I could really use some help here.”

“Okay, but don’t start getting panicked. We’ve still got three hours before he even shows up.”

“Three hours is barely enough. We need to get our pies in now, to give them time to cool. Thank heaven I baked the rolls last night! That’s one thing out of the way.”

“And the turkey’s already cooking. Is it stuffed?”

“Of course.”

“That’s two more, then. Stop stressing—we’ve got this.”

Beth smiled gratefully. “Would you mind taking over here while I run and get dressed?”

Lexa had finished the potatoes and was starting on the yams when her grandmother reappeared wearing a fuchsia velour track suit and a head full of hot rollers.

“Bold fashion choice,” Lexa teased. “Put that apron back in the mix and you’ll have the full ensemble.”

“Very funny. This is just my cooking outfit. I’ll shower and change before Weston gets here.”

And the rollers?
Lexa wanted to ask. Her grandmother’s usual hairstyle was as tailored as her clothes. Lexa was afraid to see the bouffant resulting from that sort of wattage.
More holiday insanity,
she decided, letting the rollers pass without comment. They’d made up their fight about Blake’s card, but they’d probably both be off kilter until after Christmas.

Beth put the potatoes on to boil. “We’ll mash them now and reheat them later. Where are we with those yams?”

“I’ve got them peeled. I don’t know how to make the candied part, though.”

“Zest an orange for me, would you? I’ll put the rest of that together.” Soon the yams were in a covered casserole awaiting their turn in the oven.

“Pies!” Beth exclaimed. “Those have to be next.”

The two of them worked side by side, blind baking the shell for the chocolate cream and mixing pumpkin custard. The kitchen gradually filled with so many good smells that Lexa could hardly keep track: rosemary, sage, garlic, orange, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and—her special favorite—the dark rich scent of cloves.

“I love this stuff,” she said, inhaling over the bottle.

Beth smiled nostalgically and handed her a measuring spoon. “You always have, ever since you were itty bitty. You and Kaitlin both.”

“Blake likes it too.”

Beth’s smile turned brittle. “Perhaps it reminds him of better times. If so, he knows who to blame. Let’s not think about Blake today. I want us to have fun.”

Lexa had been having fun. Now those warm feelings evaporated like the steam off the potatoes. What was he doing for Thanksgiving? she wondered. Eating at someone else’s house or nuking a turkey pot pie by himself?

You already know the answer,
she thought guiltily. Blake received dinner invitations from single moms at the rink every year and never accepted any of them. This year, with everyone aware she was gone, he’d probably received twice as many.

And still not taken any.

“Thanksgiving’s not about food,” he always said. “It’s about family being together.”

Which was why Lexa usually ate early turkey with Beth and late Chinese take-out with Blake. The year before had been different, though. She’d stayed home and tried to cook him a turkey herself. Nothing had turned out the way she’d planned: Beth’s feelings had been hurt and the bird had come out dry. Blake had seemed to like it, though, toting desiccated turkey sandwiches to the rink for days.

I hope he’s still ordering Chinese,
she thought, filled with remorse by the realization that she might have made another day sad for him. She remembered the photos he’d mailed her the week before as she stirred chocolate pudding on a low flame. Whether he’d intended the message Beth had read from them Lexa couldn’t guess. Maybe every photo was a Rorschach test, revealing nothing so much as the contents of the viewer’s own mind. If so, those pictures said more about Beth than Blake.

And what do they say about me?
she wondered. Because from the instant she’d seen them, she’d been obsessed with thoughts of returning home, moving back in with Blake and skating at Ashtabula Ice surrounded by friends again. She was even starting to worry she was missing out on something by not being at Erie Shores High.

“That pudding is thick enough!” Beth said, yanking the pan off the heat. “Check the bottom. Did it scorch?”

Lexa scraped the pan. “It feels fine to me.”

“Better taste it,” Beth said, smiling as she handed Lexa a dessert spoon. “We wouldn’t want to poison anyone.”

The flavor of deeply chocolate pudding exploded in Lexa’s mouth, but her craving for chocolate had passed. “Grandmom, do you think—” She cut herself off abruptly, horrified by what she’d been about to say.

“Do I think what, kitten?”

“Um, do you think we really need to make whipped cream from scratch?” she asked instead. “The canned kind tastes so good that nobody can tell.”

“
I
can tell. Don’t worry,” Beth added with a smile. “I’ll whip up that cream while you and Weston are still trying to digest enough dinner to make room for pie.”

Beth began the savory corn pudding, leaving Lexa shaken. She had almost just asked if it would be a big deal if she moved back in with Blake.

Would that be a big deal?
Going back to Blake would also mean going back to singles, a double betrayal of everything they’d worked so hard for. Lexa could practically hear her grandmother’s reply: the magnitude of the mistake she’d be making, the list of people she’d be letting down.
The worst part is, she’d be right. How could I disappoint them all now, after everything they’ve done for me?

Beth had devoted countless hours and dollars to making Lexa’s pairs dreams come true. Weston, a coach most skaters would give a kidney to train with, had come out of retirement for her. And Eric . . .

How could I abandon Eric?
The mere thought raised a lump in her throat. Eric was everything she could ask for in a partner, everything and more. And yet . . .

Something’s still missing between us.

Did she have the courage to say so? Or was courage even the word for what was holding her tongue? Maybe what she wanted to call courage was just more selfishness.

“Oh, dear lord! Is that the time? We need to kick this into warp speed.” Beth ticked off the remaining dishes on her fingers. “Cranberries, Waldorf salad, green beans, and gravy. Would you mind rounding up these dirty pans while I get the relish simmering? I’ll do the other sides right before we eat.”