Bravo, Mia

by Laurence Yep

  “And a hearty welcome to you, equally beloved spouse, and offspring.” Mom set the cookie sheet on the stovetop as she looked at me. “I guess I don’t have to ask you how your afternoon went.” She paused and then added meaningfully, “Zuzu.”

  I wanted to empty the leftovers from the paper bag in my hands and put the bag over my head. “How did you know?” I asked in a small voice.

  “The phone’s been ringing off the hook,” Mom explained, “after people figured out you had to be Zuzu. I never knew I had such a talented daughter.”

  Suddenly the talk show was cut off abruptly by a sign on the television that said “Breaking news.”

  “And now we bring you an urgent news bulletin from Lillian Chin on location at the Lucerne Ice Arena,” a voice said excitedly.

  The next moment we were staring at Lillian Chin in front of the Lucerne. “Today,” she said in a breathless voice, “Mayor Chuck Weyberg was viciously assaulted. Police are asking you to be on the lookout for a giant gray rodent with a large, fluffy tail and a huge overbite. She is considered quite dangerous.” She suddenly smiled and added, “But only if you are a politician. The rest of us needn’t worry.”

  I looked in horror at the television screen while the station kept replaying my fall, making it look as if I were hopping up and down on the mayor as on a trampoline. The caption at the bottom of the screen read in big, bold letters: “Zuzu Debates the Mayor.”

  Then the camera panned to the skaters chanting, “Zuzu for Mayor.”

  Oh, yes, I would definitely be wearing that paper sack over my head when I went to school.

  Monday morning, I was looking forward to putting Zuzu and the mayor behind me by getting on the ice to practice for Regionals. At first, when Coach Schubert told me I would be going, I’d been thrilled—for all of one evening—and then the reality had set in.

  We’d added one extra coaching session each week, which my family was just managing to handle. For the last eight months since getting the news, my stomach had been constantly in knots, my whole body ached from practice and training, and sometimes I had to sit at a tilt because my behind was bruised from all the falls.

  With only a month to go until Regionals, I was still making a lot of mistakes, so I was feeling anxious enough without having my boots give me problems, too. It was hard to put them on, so I figured they had shrunk somehow. Frustrated, I just crammed my feet into them, determined to make the leather stretch again.

  I got them on, but it hurt a little to walk in them. I didn’t forget about the ache in my feet until I heard the swish-swish-swish of Coach Schubert’s nylon pants. I turned and saw that she was in the center of the rink, gliding effortlessly along the ice, her hair pulled up into a ponytail.

  When she saw me, she skated over, stopping in a small shower of flakes. “A skater should be able to learn from any experience.” A corner of her mouth turned up. “Like, how did it feel to be a celebrity for a day?”

  I felt my face turning red with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to mug the mayor,” I blurted out. “It was fun up until the mayor got into the act and we both went down. But the kids were great. You should have heard them when they met me. At least once in their lives, I hope everyone gets to feel what it’s like to be Zuzu.”

  “Good,” she said, clapping her hands together in approval, “because if you feel special, sometimes you skate special. The right audience can make you rise above your normal level. But that’s not what I meant to ask. I’ve done my share of choreography for ice shows. What was it like inside the Zuzu suit?”

  “Hot, stuffy…” I paused as I hunted in my memory. “The worst thing, though, was that it was hard to see—almost like skating blindfolded.”

  She fed me the next question, clearly already knowing the answer. “If you could have taken the head off, would it have been easy to skate?”

  I shook my head. “No, the rest of the suit threw off my balance. And it only got worse when kids tugged on me.”

  The coach nodded. “Ever see those runners who train with weights on their ankles? They do that because when they take the weights off for an actual race, they feel so much lighter and can run faster. Let’s see if it’s something similar for you. Don’t worry about skating the choreography when you hear the music. Just have fun with it.”

  I took the guards off my blades and stepped onto the ice as the coach put my music into the portable stereo system we use for practices. It always sits on top of the boards near the doorway.

  Under that high roof, Swan Lake sounded tinny. But it didn’t matter. I’d been living the music for the last eight months, and I knew it by heart.

  It even scared me a little because I could never forget that the coach had been skating to it at the Olympics when she’d fallen and lost the gold medal.

  I’d associated Swan Lake so much with working on my routine that I’d forgotten how lovely it is on its own. The music seemed to tug me out onto the ice, as if by invisible strings. And as I glided along without the weight and darkness of Zuzu’s costume, I felt almost like I was flying. So I bent forward, spreading my arms like wings, as if I were a real bird. For a wild, heady moment, I felt like I could do anything, so, lifting one leg behind me, I balanced on just one thin steel blade.

  I thought of hawks I’d seen swooping gracefully first to the right and then to the left—not to hunt but just for the sheer joy of it. I cut elegant arcs in the ice as I surged forward, leaning to one side and then the other. I had never felt more in control of my balance, now that I didn’t have the outer skin of a squirrel shifting in unexpected ways.

  All too soon, the music ended, and I straightened again and stopped with a grin.

  The coach asked, “How do you feel?”

  “Like I could do anything,” I said cheerfully.

  “Good. Try to keep some of that confidence when you skate your routine now,” she said and motioned for me to take my place. “Sometimes you look like someone doing long division rather than skating.”

  “I’m just worried about messing up,” I said as I got into position.

  “You’ve got too vivid an imagination. Don’t worry. Don’t even think. Just let the music and your body do it all for you this time,” she instructed.

  I tried to shut out all the imaginary calamities and just listen again. Don’t worry. Don’t think, I told myself.

  As soon as I heard the first sweet notes, my muscles knew what to do before my brain could tell them. I was starting to enjoy myself when I tried to go into a flying camel spin and wound up doing a nosedive into the ice.

  “Get back up,” the coach urged. “Keep going.”

  My double lutz is my other major problem. It always gives me trouble, and although I’d done it successfully in the winter show, I still wasn’t landing it consistently. It didn’t help either that my feet suddenly began aching inside my boots. It made me pause just a fraction of a second, but that was enough to throw off the timing of my jump, so I didn’t leap high enough and I was barely through my second rotation before I started to descend. I fell hard and swept forward like a human dust rag.

  “Up!” the coach ordered. “Finish the routine.”

  I once again rolled over onto my knees and turned as I rose. I was sure I had a bruise on my hip now, but I tried not to let all my aches distract me. I completed the rest of my routine, feeling less like a graceful hawk and more like a wallowing hippo.

  The coach came over to brush some of the ice flakes from me. “Let’s talk about the flying camel first. Do you know what a sweet spot on a baseball bat is?”

  I knew that from P.E. class. “If you can hit the ball with that part of the bat, you make the ball go farther and harder.”

  The coach raised one boot and pointed at the curved skate blade near the front. “There’s a sweet spot on a blade, as well, that lets you jump and spin better. It’s just about beneath the ball of your foot. We’ll work on helping you find that spot more often.”

  “Would that help wit
h the double lutz, too?” I asked hopefully.

  “Somewhat, but you’ve got to keep your head to the right at takeoff and pull your arms and legs tighter,” the coach explained. “If you do that, you’ll be able to complete your rotations.”

  I managed to find the sweet spots on my blades, and true to the coach’s word, it was easier to spin. Even so, I kept making other mistakes on my flying camel spin. And I continued to flub the double lutz.

  At the end of practice, the coach had me skate my entire routine again, and I tried to recapture the wonder of those first few minutes of the day. However, it was as hopeless now as a groundhog trying to catch a jet plane. Even when I managed to stay upright, I made so many mistakes that I felt like the newest rookie.

  “Sorry,” I panted.

  “If you tried your best, you have nothing to be sorry for,” the coach called as she waved me off the ice.

  “It felt so good at the start,” I said as I moved toward her, “but then I lost it when I fell, and I never got it back, no matter what I did.”

  “Not every skater gets to experience that nice part,” she said, “so count yourself lucky. And try to remember what it was like. It’ll give you something to strive for.” She suddenly looked up at the stands. “Well, what do you think, Nelda?” she called out.

  “Not bad,” Nelda said. As always, she was a vision in pink as she came down the steps. “She reminds me of someone else when she was this age.”

  “You were always there to encourage me, Nelda,” the coach said. “And don’t think I didn’t appreciate it.”

  I still felt bad about the other day. “I hope I didn’t ruin your anniversary party,” I said once again to Nelda as I stepped onto the rubber mat behind the boards.

  “Will you quit that?” she said, handing my skate guards to me. “I didn’t come here for an apology. Zuzu and I like to keep tabs on our girls. You’re part of a very exclusive club now: Once a Zuzu, always a Zuzu. You were the highlight of our party. In fact, you were the highlight of the news all across the country.”

  I felt as if my blood had just been replaced by ice water. “What?”

  Nelda spread her hands and wriggled her fingers with their bright pink fingernails. “The local station fed that bit to stations around the country. I couldn’t have bought that much publicity. Zuzu and I have invitations to do all sorts of talk shows on TV and radio.”

  “The mayor’s going to hate this.” I was sure he was going to close Nelda’s Notions out of revenge.

  “I’ve known Chuck since he was knee-high and coming in to the shop with his mother and getting his sticky fingerprints all over my fabrics.” Nelda winked. “He knows a good thing when it happens. He’s even asked to pose with Zuzu for some campaign pictures.” When she saw my panicked expression, she held up a hand. “Don’t worry, hon. The regular actor’s going to play Zuzu, but she’ll never match your version.”

  “The mayor should feel relieved about that,” I said with a small grin.

  Now that I had finished practice and we were just standing there, my feet were starting to hurt again. I had to leave for school, but as I took a couple of steps, the coach stopped me. Bending, she pressed so hard on the toes of my boots that I winced.

  “They shrank a little,” I said hastily. “They’ll be okay when I stretch them out.”

  The coach shook her head. “I should have noticed it before. You’ve grown out of your boots, and your cramped feet are throwing you off a bit. That might explain some of your hesitation. Better get a new pair right away so you can break them in before Regionals.”

  I think in the back of my mind I had known that, and I had just been pretending that it was a problem that I could fix by myself. I just didn’t see how my parents could afford a new pair of boots for me right now.

  Zuzu’s hind paws had been roomy enough. Maybe I could borrow them for Regionals.

  After school, I went back to the Lucerne to restock the shelves of the Snack Shack. While I was there, I looked at the used skating boots. Bob’s wife, Mona, is the shop manager, and she helped me search. Unfortunately, there was nothing my size—and nothing I could have afforded anyway.

  Still, Mona took my measurements and promised to keep an eye out for a pair. “I don’t care how old or worn they are,” I said, figuring that I might be able to scrape up enough cash for beat-up boots.

  Mona gave me an indignant look. “Do you want to look scruffy at Regionals?” And then she promised, “I’ll see that we do better than that.”

  Then I headed for the boardroom, where all the skaters who were going to Regionals were gathering for a meeting. As I slipped dejectedly into the seat next to Anya, she whispered to me, “What’s wrong, Mia? You’ve been moping around all day.”

  “Money’s tight, and so are my boots,” I whispered.

  She knew my family’s problems. “Maybe you could borrow a pair of mine.”

  I’d thought of that, but Anya’s a lot smaller than I am. “Thanks, but if I could fit into yours, I could fit into mine.”

  “Well,” Anya joked, “my mom has a recipe for pickling cucumbers. You ought to see how that stuff shrinks them.”

  I jiggled my shoes. “I’m sure my family would love it if I smelled like pickles. But hey, don’t worry. I’ll figure out something before Regionals.”

  My parents weren’t sure if they could make it to Regionals for the whole time, so Anya and her mother had offered to take me with them and have me stay in their room. “I’m counting on having you there for moral support,” Anya whispered.

  Anya can skate as well as anyone in practice or in an exhibition like the last winter show, but she seems to fall apart in competition.

  Before I could reassure Anya, Coach Schubert strode into the room and took a moment to survey the ten of us. We were the first group she was taking from the club to Regionals, and we ranged from senior-level skaters like Chad and Izumi to Anya and me—and Vanessa—on the bottom rung. The skaters on the levels above us would move on to Sectionals if they placed in the top three, but our event was nonqualifying, so there was no next step in the competition. We were going just to gain experience.

  “Excited?” Coach Schubert asked.

  The other skaters nodded their heads and murmured, but I just sat there, my stomach doing somersaults at the mere thought of Regionals.

  “Well, you’re not as excited as I am,” the coach insisted. “First of all, I want to thank you.” We glanced at one another, puzzled, as she went on. “I feel so lucky having skaters like you.”

  Grinning at one another, we began to relax in our seats and the coach smiled, too. “So let’s enjoy every moment together. But I also want to warn those of you who are going for the first time: you’re going to be on a much larger stage than you are here at the Lucerne, so you’ll have a lot to adjust to.” She glanced at Chad and Izumi. “Those skaters who have been there before, I hope you’ll help the rookies.”

  Izumi merely nodded, but Chad turned to look around the room. “Sure, feel free to ask me anything.”

  “What’s your cell phone number?” one of the older girls called out.

  Chad blushed as the rest of us laughed. The coach waited a moment before she held up her hands again for quiet. “Everyone in this room has the physical skills needed to stand on the podium. Those are the skills that you’ve developed here and that have made you stand out.”

  She paused significantly before she resumed. “However, at Regionals you’re going to go up against other skaters who are every bit as good as you are physically.” It was silent in the room while we all chewed on that.

  “So what’s going to separate you from the pack?” She tapped at her temple. “It’s here inside your head. It’s how you handle the enormous pressures you’re all going to face during that competition. You’ll develop those mental skills faster competing at Regionals than you can here at the Lucerne. That’s a big reason to go. Just remember your training, and keep your focus on your routine. Competition is as
much about mental toughness as it is about physical strength and grace. The lessons you’ll learn at Regionals will serve you well, whether you pursue skating as a career or go into other things.”

  She straightened. “But I repeat: I wouldn’t take you if I didn’t think you could win.” She rapped a knuckle on a table to emphasize each word. “What’s really important is that you learn from this experience so that you can be even better the next time. Because—” she turned so she could look at each of us in turn— “you’re all excellent skaters, so there will be a next time. And that’s a promise.”

  As the room started to buzz, she went on. “One more thing. Be aware that you’re going to be judged off the ice as much as on it. So please be sure to dress and behave appropriately at all times.”

  “Better stay away from the sequins, Vanessa,” a boy called Tyler snickered from the back of the room. At our winter show, Vanessa’s costume had shed beads and sequins all over the ice, causing her to trip and fall.

  Vanessa whipped around in her chair to scowl at him. “That wasn’t my fault. It was…” Her voice faltered.

  Everyone looked nervously at the coach, because Vanessa and her parents blamed the coach for not having checked Vanessa’s dress first—even though Vanessa’s self-designed outfit had arrived only hours before the show. Vanessa’s influential parents had been against hiring Coach Schubert in the first place, and they were still trying to find an excuse to get her fired.

  Vanessa said nothing more, but you didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what she was thinking as she stared back at Coach Schubert.

  The coach ignored her, though, so that she could fasten her gaze on Tyler. “You will treat each other with courtesy and respect at all times. Or you will stay behind. Do you understand me?” He sank in his chair, looking as if he wished he could hide somewhere. “Even though you’re competing individually, sometimes against one another, you are still part of a team. Together you represent the Lucerne Skate Club. Never forget that.”