Walk on Water (3 page)

Lacing her skates quickly, she strapped on her iPod and hit the ice. The air inside the rink felt nearly as cold as the frozen water beneath her feet, making each breath visible. She stroked brisk laps to warm up, pumping her arms with the music, dispersing the swirling fog. In an hour the furnace would cycle on, taking the edge off the chill before the paying students arrived, but fiddling with that timer was a sure way onto Blake’s blacklist. In ten minutes she’d be sweating anyway.

Lexa’s muscles loosened gradually as she skated lap after lap. Unzipping her parka, she let it flap before peeling it off and tossing it over the rail. Nothing else in her life competed with the freedom of these solo sessions—no one there to judge her, correct her, or tell her what to skate next. Striking out to center ice, she strung together three single axels, stepping from one directly into the next, leaping as high and as far as she could. Single axels were dead easy for her now, playing around, pure joy. She stepped from the back outside edge of her third landing into a spread eagle and swooped around the curve at the end of the rink, her arms thrown wide to the empty risers.

She had two programs to practice, short and free, and her triple lutz was seriously unreliable. Pushing all that out of her mind, Lexa simply skated, spontaneously interpreting the music as it flowed into her ears, jumping, spinning, and gliding straight from her heart. She remembered learning every move she knew: the thrill of her first successful attempt, who she’d been skating with at the time, the song on the PA, even the gloves she’d been wearing. Her life from the age of four on could be measured in the skills between Freestyle 1 and senior ladies, the competitions she had entered, the skating dresses she’d outgrown. Those milestones meant more to her than birthdays. She’d fought hard to achieve them. She was proud of every one.

But sometimes she just wanted to skate.

The playlist in her ears that morning wasn’t competition music. Songs with lyrics, songs with hard edges, songs she would never get past a judge played one after another as she gave herself an entire half-hour of improvisation, throwing down spontaneous footwork and gliding now and then to catch her breath. At the start of each new song, she gathered herself, launching into laybacks, spirals, and triple-double combinations. When the music synched perfectly with the moves she saw in her head, she didn’t feel her muscles ache or her lungs burn—all she felt was magic. Skating free was dancing, floating, and flying all rolled into one.

The only thing better,
she thought,
would be to skate this way with a partner.
She longed to cover heart-stopping stretches of ice in the assisted throw jumps of pairs, to soar aloft in lifts that would make her truly weightless.

With a sigh, she skated to the boards and wiped the sweat from her face. There wasn’t any joy in her father’s methods for skating well, but if she didn’t want him all over her later, she needed to practice her short program.

Then her long.

Then her short again.

Heaving another sigh, she got down to the joyless business of competition singles skating.

The rest of March ticked by in relentless blocks of skating, school, skating, work, conditioning, dance class, tutoring, and homework. The only break in Lexa’s routine came on weekends, when she worked additional hours and skated an extra session too. She knew she ought to be grateful for three on-ice sessions with a world-class coach, but trying to satisfy Blake was even less fun than mopping the rink’s bathrooms. At least when she was mopping, she had Jenni for company.

“Can you believe Brittany Woodson is running for senior class president?” Jenni asked, simultaneously applying lip gloss in the cracked mirror over the sink. “That girl thinks an election is something to call the doctor about if lasts longer than four hours.”

“Not exactly the brain trust,” Lexa agreed. Standing the mop in its bucket, she began loading a fresh stack of paper towels. “Still, you’ve got to give her points for courage.”

Jenni shook her head. “Stupid people are never as scared as they should be. Hurry up! Bry must be here by now.”

Lexa didn’t bother mentioning that she could move faster if Jenni helped. Jenni Kim did not mop. She also didn’t stock paper products, wipe counters, or take out trash. That’s what maids were for, she’d say, and Jenni would know—the Kim family had a staff of them. Jenni
might
fill the soap dispenser, but only to make sure it got the cherry-scented soap she liked, and only if it was her idea.

“I can’t wait to hear how Everly looked in Civics today,” Jenni continued with relish. Unlike Lexa, she lived for her half days at Erie Shores High, the drama Lexa found draining her favorite soap opera. Neither of them doubted that if Jenni’s skating schedule allowed her to attend all six periods, hang out during lunch, and be active in school events, she’d be a queen of that social scene. As things stood, however, she had to content herself with obsessing from the sidelines and predicting the next big rumor.

“Everybody’s saying Jacob dumped her for hooking up with Will Baker at Lucy Winston’s party,” Jenni reported happily. “I totally saw that break-up coming, remember? Head cheerleader, football player . . . can it get any more boring? If I were Everly Brooks, I’d have been looking out for some garage-band hottie action too.”

“You’re looking out for some garage-band hottie action anyway.”

“Ha! Guilty.” Jenni laughed and zipped the lip gloss into a pocket of her tight-fitting skating sweater. “Let’s get out there already. Maybe today we’ll witness the miracle of something cute walking in on public session.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Lexa advised, only to feel her own breath catch as they left the restroom together. Ian Wilde was on the ice, throwing warm-up triples.

“You have a thing for Captain Cranky!” Jenni exclaimed, following Lexa’s gaze.

“No,” Lexa said, embarrassed.

“You don’t have to deny it. He’s damn fine to look at.” Jenni’s eyes twinkled in a way that always made Lexa fear what might happen next.

“I’d just like to skate with him, all right?” she said, trying to head Jenni off. “Skate, not have his baby. Don’t get any of your crazy ideas.”

Jenni’s brow crinkled, then stretched into something like horror. “Skate with him . . . as in
pairs
?”

Lexa cringed. “Can you maybe yell it louder so Blake can disown me?”

“But. Lexa.” Jenni, rarely speechless, had to work to find a word.
“Pairs?”

“Stop saying that like it’s dirty.”

“But—”

“Stop saying it, period, okay? It’s never going to happen. It was just a random thought.”

“It’s
not
going to happen! Forget about your dad’s issues—Ian’s even more Olympics-obsessed than Blake. He’d never risk an injury to fool around playing pairs with you.”

“Didn’t I just say that?” Lexa didn’t bother clarifying that she hadn’t meant playing. Any talk of pairs was wasted breath, even with her best friend. “Look, there’s Bry. The Everly saga continues.”

“Bry!” Jenni squealed.

Lexa watched them run to each other on the toes of their skate guards, camping it up like B-movie lovers. People stared openly, which was the whole point. With a full-time audience of hero-worshipping younger skaters tracking their every move, Jenni and Bry liked to put on a show. Air kisses complete, they grabbed seats on a riser at rinkside and the gossiping began. Jenni was supposed to be warming up for her session with her longtime coach, Stella Peters, but lately she’d been postponing skating until the last possible second. Lexa watched them only a moment, Jenni’s dark pixie against Bry’s blond brush-top, before rolling her mop bucket toward the back storage area.

The music for Ian’s short program started. He began skating his first run-through, giving even this unimportant practice performance all of the intensity Blake could only beg for from Lexa. The few other skaters allowed on ice during Blake’s privates cleared Ian’s route as much out of self-preservation as courtesy. His body language promised he wouldn’t hold back even to avoid a collision.

Lexa paused to lean on her mop. Everything about Ian fascinated her. The two of them were so different: he dark, powerful, intense; she blond, petite, and trained to smile no matter how she felt. As a pair, they’d have it all, the full complement of opposites that made the best partnerships more than the sum of their halves.

Maybe Jenni’s right,
Lexa thought with a sigh.
Maybe I do have a thing for him. It’s not like I’d
mind
having a boyfriend.

There were lots of guys she’d be happy to date, though, and only one she fantasized about doing star lifts with. If by some miracle she ever got to choose between Ian as a boyfriend and Ian as a pairs partner, her decision was already made.

Lexa hit Pause on the ancient VCR, her body tensed to listen. The sound of crunching gravel outside her bedroom window faded, then disappeared. The tires she’d heard weren’t Blake’s, just those of some lost car turning around in their driveway. Heart rate slowing to normal, she pressed Play.

Ice filled Lexa’s TV screen. The couple near its center resumed a synchronized blur of perfect side-by-side spins. The tape was old and jerky, its resolution poor, but Blake and Kaitlin shone through the outdated technology, their smiles conveying their happiness all the way to the back of the packed arena. Lexa’s breath caught as her parents joined hands for a famously tough footwork sequence, stepping through it flawlessly, their eyes never leaving each other’s. The crowd surged to its feet as Blake launched Kaitlin directly from her last rocker into a throw triple loop so huge the camera missed the top of her arc. She shouldn’t have been able to land it, but she did, Blake right at her side to catch her hand and show her off to their cheering fans. Kaitlin’s smile was incandescent, otherworldly.

A tear rolled unnoticed down Lexa’s cheek. She knew every step of each senior program her parents had ever competed—had secretly practiced them all herself, to the extent she could as a single—and she still always cried at this part, the moment Lennox and Walker clinched their first national championship before the music even ended. Lexa hadn’t been conceived of yet, let alone conceived. Blake and Kaitlin were so young, far too young to be as accomplished as they were, but already there was that obvious connection between them, the undeniable chemistry that made their wins seem almost beside the point. They were there for the competition, the glory, the opportunities . . . but most of all, they were there for each other. With all her heart, Lexa longed to connect with somebody that way. As her parents hit their final pose—Blake’s arms enfolding Kaitlin, her lips brushing his jaw—their future daughter watched them with an ache that never went away.

The camera zoomed in tight on flushed faces and heaving chests. Kaitlin’s cross and skate pendants glinted through the flesh-colored mesh filling the neckline of her dress. Lexa reached to touch those charms, hanging from her own neck now, as the ice on her television screen became a sea of tossed flowers and toys. The camera pulled out to show Kaitlin and Blake waving broadly, still hand in hand as they skated off. Lexa fast-forwarded through the kiss-and-cry and old-school scores of perfect 6.0’s, freezing the stuttering tape at the moment her parents first heard it confirmed that they were national champions. Kaitlin didn’t look to the judges, the stands, or even their coach, the legendary Weston Kirk. She looked directly to Blake, and the love in his eyes in return nearly broke Lexa’s heart. She had never seen that expression on her father’s face anywhere but on tape.

Headlights swept across her window. The front door slammed. Blake was home for real this time.

Ejecting the video in a rush, Lexa stashed it with the rest of her collection in a box at the back of her closet. If Blake found it, he’d throw it out, and she didn’t want to explain to her grandmother why she needed yet another copy. She’d asked Beth more than once to have the master tapes digitized, but so far that hadn’t happened, if it ever would.

Closet closed, Lexa paused in her bedroom doorway, assessing the situation before she went downstairs. Blake was home earlier than usual, which could mean that nothing had gone wrong at the rink that day and he’d be sober and reasonably cheerful. Or it meant that everything had gone wrong and he’d given up in disgust to spend his night chain-smoking by the light of the TV. He always chose the worst movies—ancient black-and-white westerns, cheesy crime-boss stuff—as if the smoke alone wasn’t enough to drive her from the room.

She found him in the kitchen, unloading groceries into the refrigerator. “Seriously, Lexa,” he said, shaking a partially eaten tube of cookie dough at her. “You’ve got to quit living on garbage. You think Dmetriyev lets his girls eat this crap? You’re not doing yourself any favors.”

“You’re advising me as my coach, then.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her dough hit the trash can. “Look. I bought us a vegetable lasagna at Organic Foodstuffs. All we have to do is nuke it.”

“Vegetable? Have you been talking to Grandmom?”

Blake snorted. “Yeah. Over tea and crumpets. Put some dressing on that,” he said, pointing to a bagged salad.

They ate side by side at the counter, the crunch of pre-cut lettuce filling in for conversation.

“Are you liking school any better?” he asked at last.

“Are you serious?”

He rolled his eyes. “Are you passing your classes?”

“Yes.”

“Is anyone beating you up?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go. It’s high school. What more do you want?”

“I wouldn’t mind graduating early.”

Blake laughed. “It’s a little soon to be planning that. Besides, you’re already growing up too fast.” His gaze skimmed her, as if to measure how fast, and then flinched away again. “High school’s not that bad.”

Compared to what?
Lexa almost asked, but she was afraid he’d tell her. “How’s Bry skating?” she asked instead. “He’s scared to ask you himself.”

“Good,” Blake said ambiguously, smiling as he speared one last chunk of carrot.