Bravo, Mia

by Laurence Yep

  I heard the click of a camera and saw that it was Yvette Polk, leaning over a railing in the nearby stands. She held up a little digital voice recorder in her other hand. “Yoo-hoo, Anya, remember me? Can I interview you and…and…?”

  “Vanessa Knowles,” Vanessa said.

  “I want to get some of your thoughts for my fanzine,” Yvette explained.

  Suddenly shy again, Anya asked Vanessa, “Do you want to?”

  “Sure. Let’s enjoy our moment while we can. So wave,” Vanessa urged.

  When Anya was a little slow to obey, Vanessa raised Anya’s hand for her, and Yvette immediately snapped another picture.

  Anya and Vanessa were lucky to have skated so early. Their work was now done and they could sit back and enjoy themselves, because everyone was figuring that at the end, it was going to be Paige and her group on the podium anyway.

  Even so, people both in the seats and in the waiting area were talking about Anya and Vanessa. I overheard Paige’s friend, the blonde girl, ask, “I didn’t expect those Lucerne skaters to place so high after I saw their practices, did you?”

  “Some skaters save their best stuff for the competitions,” one of the girls said.

  Paige was chewing a nail. “I just hope I’m one of them. There’s nothing like it when you win at figure skating, and there’s really nothing like it when you lose.”

  Yesterday at practice, Paige had seemed confident enough, but now I wondered how much of it was just an act, like Vanessa’s. But I told myself that that was impossible. Super Skater had nothing to be scared of.

  What I had to hope was that I hadn’t left my “best stuff” at the practice myself. “Do you want me to help you stretch?” Coach Schubert asked.

  I shook my head. “Isn’t it great about Vanessa and Anya? It’s a real feather in your cap.”

  But with her typical unselfishness, the coach was thinking about her skaters and not herself. “Please don’t worry about me,” she insisted. “Think about what you have to do.”

  This was my job right now. It was what I’d been working on for these past two years. I felt myself brimming over with nervous energy, so I straightened like a soldier at attention and snapped off a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Save the attitude for the rink,” the coach laughed as she handed me my MP3 player.

  I put its buds into my ears, listening to the music and feeling how my arms and legs were almost twitching to respond.

  Finally, it was time for my group to warm up. After the long wait, I was glad to get out on the ice. As I glided outward with the five other girls, I breathed in the cold, chill air as gratefully as a fish would take in the water of a lake. This was my real home. This was where I belonged, where I could leave all my worries behind me.

  We’d had only that one chance to actually perform in the arena, so it was nice to be able to do the brief versions of our programs. At least that’s what you’re supposed to do, but it’s hard to concentrate fully on your program because of all the other skaters. There’s no official etiquette for avoiding collisions on the ice, but the coach had told me that if I saw someone going up into a jump, I should steer clear.

  So when I saw a blonde girl begin a double toe just ahead of me, I broke off my own routine and curled around her. It was only when I thought I was in an open space that I started to get ready to do my double lutz. But suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a blurry something barreling toward me fast. I’d played so many games of hockey with my brothers that I didn’t stop to think but reacted instinctively, twisting away so that Paige narrowly missed me.

  At first, I thought she had just made a mistake, but from the way she grinned at me over her shoulder, I realized she had done it deliberately.

  I wound up doing just a single, but then I got ahold of myself. I couldn’t let something like that throw me off. I’ve learned from competing against my brothers that you lose if you let their antics get to you. Instead of getting angry, you keep on with your plan, using that emotion as an extra boost.

  When the warm-up time was over, Coach Schubert was waiting for me as I exited. Mom had come over to the railing in the stands next to the waiting area. As the coach handed me the guards for my skates and my warm-up sweater, Mom fumed, “That Paige girl practically threw a body check at Mia. Can’t we file a complaint?”

  “Why? She just told everyone, including the judges, that she’s scared of Mia,” the coach announced.

  I blinked my eyes. “No disrespect, Coach, but it’s definitely the other way around.”

  “You don’t waste time intimidating your opponents unless you think there’s a real chance they can beat you,” the coach explained.

  I wasn’t sure who was crazier, the coach or Paige, but I made sure to smile and nod at Paige when I saw her, again pretending to be more confident than I felt.

  Then all I could do was kill time, pacing to work off some of my nervous energy.

  “Here,” the coach said, handing me a note. “Your mom told me to wait until now to give this to you. Maybe this will take your mind off the competition for a while.”

  The envelope and paper had the embossed acorn of the hotel stationery. Mom had written:

  I just want you to know that you have been a source of joy and pride over the years as you’ve grown from a stumbling infant into such a fine young lady. Every day, I marvel at how fortunate I am. XOX

  I wished Mom could have been there with me so I could tell her that I am the lucky one, but instead all I could do was smile and wave the note at her where she had rejoined the Sorokowskis in the stands.

  The coach held out my music player to me again, but I shook my head. I was curious about how the other skaters in my group were going to do, and yet I didn’t want to watch them.

  I probably checked and rechecked my bootlaces a dozen times before the blonde girl came back with her coach. “How could you lose your nerve like that?” he asked, shaking his head in exasperation.

  “I just knew I didn’t have the double jump,” she defended herself. “It was safer to do a single.” But she was almost in tears.

  And the black-haired girl actually was crying after she was done because she’d fallen twice. Even if she had snubbed Vanessa, I felt sorry for her. After all, that could be me in just a short while.

  I glanced at Paige, but she was biting her nails again. For all the notice she gave her friends at that moment, she might have been the only person on earth. I don’t think she even heard the advice that Coach McManus was giving her.

  So maybe Coach Schubert was right. Paige really could feel nervous and scared just like me. That meant she was human after all. And if she was human, I had a slim chance against her.

  Another girl went out, but from the disappointed expression on her face when she came back, she must not have skated all that well.

  And then Paige was handing her bottle of water to her coach and heading toward the ice.

  As I sat on a chair, gripping the seat, I tried to think only about my routine, but I could hear Paige’s music start. And then the applause grew louder and louder until the crowd was roaring. I’d seen Paige’s routine during practice, so I already knew the different elements she was performing. But today she must have been sensational to wow the crowd like that.

  Even before she came back beaming, I knew she must have skated a dazzling program, maybe good enough for first.

  And that scared me. How was I supposed to compete with her?

  I looked down at my hands. My knuckles had turned white from clutching the seat. And I was so frightened that I didn’t want to let go.

  Coach Schubert touched my elbow. “It’s time.” She was already on her feet.

  I was so used to doing what Coach Schubert said that even though I had intended to stay put, my hands released their grip on the seat and my body got up and followed her before my brain could stop it.

  As we neared the door, the arena was buzzing like a giant beehive about Paige’s performance. Now
that they had seen the Superstar, the spectators were stretching or getting snacks, impatient for the remaining skaters to finish so that the scores could be posted and the official medal ceremony could begin.

  I felt like obliging the audience by skipping my turn and hiding backstage instead—say, for the rest of my life. I had been so distracted by Paige’s tantrum the other day that I hadn’t really noticed how vast the ice in the arena was. It spread before me now like a shining white sea, making me feel like a tiny, insignificant bug. I had no right to be here with skaters like Paige. The odds were stacked against me.

  Then I thought of how hard Mom and Dad work every day to beat the long odds stacked against our whole family. And then I remembered a hockey game where Perry had battled his way with the puck through the opposing team. With the tournament on the line and the score tied with thirty seconds to go, he had made the goal. And what about that time when Skip was a goalie and he had three opponents bearing down on him with the puck during a power play? He couldn’t have been any less scared than I was now—and yet he’d shut them out.

  So what if I was the underdog here? I should be used to it after years of playing against my brothers. If it meant I had to skate better than I ever had before in my life, then that’s what I’d try to do.

  Suddenly my fear changed to extra adrenaline. I couldn’t wait to get out there on the ice and show everyone that the St. Clairs don’t know the meaning of the word quit. I headed for the ice.

  “Whoa,” the coach said, grabbing my arm. “Take off your guards first.”

  Ears burning, I snatched them off my blades.

  Chuckling, the coach took the guards from me. “Don’t be embarrassed. A coach waits her entire life for a student who loves to compete the way you do. Your parents raised a skater with a big heart—you’ve got a bigger heart than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  As I skated out onto the ice, I borrowed another tip from the coach and hummed Zuzu’s jingle, “We’re Just Nuts About Sewing,” to help calm my nerves. Suddenly I heard my brothers giving loud whoops. With them was Dad with his hands high overhead as he began to clap. They had managed to make it after all. Of course. And on either side were Bob and Mona, a bright burst of pink that was Nelda, Anya and her family…and I even saw Vanessa and her parents.

  “Sic ’em, Tiger!” Mom shouted.

  With them cheering me on, there was no way I could turn tail and run. It was just as Coach Schubert had said: the right audience can make a skater rise above what she would normally do.

  As I slid toward the center, I glanced down at the new boots that Bob and the Lucerne staff had given me. And I touched the flowing, floaty dress that Coach Schubert and Mom had made, and that Nelda had made possible.

  As I stopped and struck my pose, I realized that my brothers were wrong: I wasn’t out there by myself. I was part of a team. I’d always been part of a team. My parents, family, and friends had been helping me all these years. My coach had passed on what she had learned so painfully during her career. And the staff at the Lucerne thought of me as one of their own. I wasn’t just skating for myself but for all of them. They just couldn’t be on the ice with me. So I’d try to do my best—not only for myself but for them as well.

  As I curled my wrists, my heart began thumping crazily. Closing my eyes, I tapped out a few bars of “Lady of Spain” on the keys of an invisible accordion. It’s the song that helps me settle down and focus before skating. In my imagination, I was small again, sitting on Dad’s lap with the accordion, feeling totally safe. I knew that in the next couple of minutes, I couldn’t do anything wrong in my parents’ eyes. Or my brothers’. Or my friends’.

  In fact, I really could have come out there with the guards on my skates and plopped on the rink and they wouldn’t have laughed. Instead, they would have rushed out to pick me up. With that kind of support, how could I feel alone?

  The first notes of Swan Lake drifted down from the speakers, and my body moved forward all on its own, as it had been trained to do during all those long hours of practice. The hissing of my blades mixed with the notes in its own snakelike rhythm.

  Sure, I was nervous, but the excitement made me feel more alert rather than afraid. On the wall of the rink, I saw Zuzu beaming at me from a large advertisement for Nelda’s Notions. I took that as a sign of good luck for sure.

  Then, taking my cue from the music, I brought my right leg up at the proper time. Swinging it around, I rose into the air for a flying camel spin. Spreading my arms and legs outward, I whirled above the ice like a kite caught in a hurricane. If I had stopped to think, I would have realized that the human body wasn’t meant to be flung about like a kite, but my foot was already reaching down automatically toward the ice.

  I felt the jar as the blade bit into the surface, and for a fraction of a second I teetered, but then I managed to find the blade’s sweet spot that the coach had shown me. As I felt myself starting to turn, I knew I would be all right.

  When my leg began to twist, I felt my new boot grip my ankle, tight and solid. Leaning forward, I brought my other leg up as I spun along the ice. Beneath me, I saw the tracks of another skater, one place pitted where someone’s blades had stabbed in deep before a jump.

  It didn’t matter. Those skaters were gone. This was my ice now, and I felt as if I could do anything on it.

  It must have been a pretty flying camel spin, because I heard people applauding around the rink, strangers who didn’t know me. It was like being Zuzu all over again, but this time I wasn’t dressed up as a squirrel. This time the clapping was for me and what I was doing. No, not just for me—any more than when Rick made a goal, he did it by himself. It took a whole team to get him in place to make the goal, and it took a whole team to get me here on the ice, to this moment.

  Some flakes of ice had landed on my cheek during the spin, and the cold made me feel extra alive as I headed into my double lutz. The spectators’ faces started to blur as I picked up speed and lifted one leg before I kicked off from the ice, rising higher and higher above the rink like a rocket. Snatching my arms in, I pressed them tight against me and crossed my legs as I started to spin like a human top. Once. Twice.

  And then I was spreading my arms again, one leg automatically slipping down into position, and looking ahead as I landed, knee bending under the impact and then, as I straightened, using the force to send me speeding onward.

  I wasn’t worried about making mistakes anymore, only about how I could perform the next step better than the last one. Just as I had felt at the winter show, it was like trying to herd butterflies. It was so difficult it was crazy, but this was what I wanted to do. This was what my family and I had worked for.

  So when it was time for my double loop, I leapt into the air like a dolphin for the sheer joy of being alive.

  I floated through the rest of my program, feeling as light as the lovely notes hovering in the air. If Swan Lake could have played in an endless loop, I would have skated on forever. But I knew my music and my moment were drawing to an end, and that made me feel happy and sad simultaneously. I spun one last time, head up, back straight and proud, arms reaching toward the sky.

  All too soon the last beautiful note faded away, its echo ringing around the rink.

  And then I was done.

  As I stood there panting, I heard the applause begin, rolling toward me from all sides like the waves of an ocean.

  They didn’t post the scores until thirty minutes after the last skater finished, and there was already a big crowd around the bulletin board by the time Anya, Vanessa, and I got there. It took a bit of wriggling to get to the list with the standings.

  Anya was second! I couldn’t have felt happier if I’d placed there myself.

  Vanessa was fifth. And then I blinked, not believing my own score. I’d come in fourth!

  I wasn’t surprised to see that Paige was in first place, but a mere tenth of a point separated each of the top six skaters from one another. A cleaner landing on a jump, a
straighter back in a skating move, and two of us would have swapped places.

  I’d seen so many other great skaters that day that I hadn’t really counted on finishing that high. I mean, I’d hoped a little, but I hadn’t expected it.

  Anya and I yelled so loudly that we probably cracked a few ceiling tiles, and then Coach Schubert shepherded us and Vanessa over to Coach McManus and Paige to congratulate them. There was a small mob of well-wishers around them, but they parted when they saw us, and some of them even complimented us as we passed.

  Coach McManus noticed us first and tapped his student’s shoulder so that she turned to face us. “Congratulations,” I said, holding out my hand.

  “And to you,” Paige said, taking mine. “And you, too,” she said to Anya as she shook hers. “We’re going to be bumping heads a lot from now on.” She looked past us at Vanessa. “And good job, Vivien.”

  “Actually, it’s Vanessa,” she corrected Paige, but by then Yvette Polk had already claimed Paige’s attention.

  As we walked away, Vanessa gave us a twisted grin. “Well, at least she sort of notices me now.”

  “She’ll remember your name when you beat her,” I promised.

  Vanessa laughed at that. “Well, if I had to lose to anyone, I’m glad it’s you two. But just wait until next time.”

  “You were all splendid, girls,” Coach Schubert said. She looked tired but happy, and she was already sounding a little hoarse. Since this was just the start for her at Regionals, I hoped her voice would hold up, because she had a lot more skaters to coach after us. She continued, “Now that you know you can hold your own against the competition, I’m going to push you even harder to improve.”

  “Is that a compliment or a threat?” I asked.

  “Both.” The coach grinned.

  Vanessa’s parents were waiting as we climbed up into the stands. Mr. Knowles pumped Coach Schubert’s hand enthusiastically. “It’s a great beginning for the Lucerne at Regionals,” he chirped. “Yes, sir, a great beginning. And I’m a big enough man to admit that I was wrong about you. You’re definitely the right person for the job.”