Gold Medal Winter

by Donna Freitas

  “My mom said there were leftovers in the fridge.”

  Coach Chen eyes me. “Salad and healthy grilled chicken, I presume?”

  “Of course,” I say with a laugh as the two of us skate toward the exit. Coach Chen knows that I live on a diet of Luciano’s and my mother’s delicious Dominican cooking.

  “Do you need Bax’s help with your math lesson tonight?”

  I mull this over. It would be nice to have Mr. Chen’s help, but I think I’m too fidgety for trig today. “Maybe tomorrow?”

  She nods. “I’ll see if he’s free. Be back here at two p.m. okay? We’ve got a lot of work to do. Dance class to start. And your programs are great, but we’ve got to up your level of difficulty if you’re going to be competitive for gold, and we’ve got to do it quickly. Mai Ling can do a triple axel in her sleep — she’s like a machine — and Irina Mitslaya’s footwork is killer. Plus there’s Stacie to consider. They’re what that quad sal is for, and these two weeks of practice are going to fly.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I say, and step off the ice, thoughts of quad sals and competitive for gold dancing in my head, along with the intimidating images of Mai and Irina and Stacie. I need to not let this happen. Confidence and focus, Espi, I tell myself while I unlace my skates and slip them off. Coach Chen is already out the door and on her way up to the house.

  After pulling on my sweats and bundling up under my coat, I leave the rink and take the path Mr. Chen keeps shoveled between our two houses. About a year after Coach’s offer of private lessons, when it was obvious my training was becoming serious, the little cottage next door to the Chens came up for rent, and my mother and I moved in. This meant I could get to practice easily without anyone driving me — a pretty essential convenience, since my mother works so much at the restaurant and I’m not old enough for my license here in Rhode Island.

  When I arrive at the house, the midday sun peeks out from the clouds and hits the pond in a way that sets the ice shimmering. With the rays of light coming through the trees and the hush of the snow, and despite the fact that I’ve been at practice all morning, my mother’s homemade rink calls out to me. Instead of going inside for lunch, I find myself heading across the yard toward the frozen pond.

  My mother first froze a pond over for me when I was eight and we were living at our old house a couple miles down the road. That way I didn’t have to go to the public skate all the time and I could feel like I had my very own rink. It was maybe the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. But my mom is like that. I get to do whatever I want on my rink, and no one competes with or judges me when I’m here. Plus our backyard is really beautiful, so it makes skating feel magical. It might be my favorite place on earth.

  As the sun emerges into this gray winter day, the ice shines. I sit down on a tree stump and quickly lace up a pair of my old skates, the ones I always keep in my bag for when I’m out on this pond. Before I know it, I’m back on the ice, flying across a pool of golden light.

  And this time I’m skating for no one but me.

  Libby shows up after school. I’m in the kitchen, just back from my afternoon practice. (Dance class, check. Circuit training, check. Quad sal, no check. But tomorrow.)

  Libby’s hair is pulled back in a ponytail that makes her blue eyes look huge. “So,” she says, going into our fridge to see what’s on offer. “Dish.”

  “Dish what?” I ask, deciding to play dumb.

  “You know. The latest scoop.”

  “Scoop? Um, the ice cream is in the freezer and the bowls are in the cabinet.”

  Libby turns and gives me an eye roll. “I want the full update on the post-announcement press frenzy.”

  “No, you don’t,” I say, because I know exactly what Libby is digging for, and I’m going to make her work for it. This makes me feel slightly evil, but she does the same thing to me all the time. I pick at my leftover pesto pasta, but pasta really needs to be eaten right after it’s cooked, so I don’t make much headway.

  Libby retrieves a bowl of pinto beans from one of the shelves, then the Tupperware container of rice and another of stewed Dominican chicken. She goes to work putting it all onto a plate. “I’m waiting,” she says, while spooning the beans into a careful pool that won’t touch her rice. It’s okay for them to touch once they’re in my mouth, but not before they get there, she always says.

  “Be careful or the sauce from that chicken thigh might contaminate those beans,” I warn, watching as a stream slides in the poor unsuspecting pintos’ direction.

  Libby blocks the potential pollutant with a cleverly poised knife. “Spill.”

  First dish, then scoop, now spill. “Can’t you just ask me a direct question about what, exactly, you want me to spill?”

  “Someone is stubborn today,” she observes.

  I look down at my green-flecked pasta. “I’m not trying to be stubborn. I just get nervous about boy-related topics, and I don’t have any to speak about anyway. You know that.”

  “I didn’t ask you about boy-related topics.”

  I cock my head, giving her a come on look. She’s always interested in boy-related topics.

  “I didn’t!” But then her focus is diverted to the endangered rice on her plate, which she must valiantly save from the onset of beans with a spoon. Crisis averted, she goes on, “Okay, fine. I am curious about your assessment of Danny Morrison.” Before I can open my mouth, she adds, “In comparison with Hunter Wills, if you were asked to make one. Or pick which one you like better. Which I am. Asking, I mean.”

  “One of your best friends just found out she’s going to the Olympics and you want to discuss boys?”

  She puts a hand to her chest, her blue-manicured nails the same color as her eyes. “How long have we been friends?”

  This makes me laugh. “I have noticed that you can be boy-crazy.”

  “Boy-crazy? Moi?” Libby asks, batting her eyelashes in such an exaggerated way that we both are laughing now. Libby’s precious rice goes unprotected for a good long giggle session, and I almost forget the Olympics are barely two weeks away.

  I love how my friends do that to me.

  Most career skaters seem to have friends mainly within the sport. Stacie, Meredith, and Jennifer, for example, have famously become best friends over the years. The three of them are always walking around together backstage at competitions, doing press together, and whispering to one another in this way that must be nice if you’re on the inside of their little clique. But to an outsider, like me, it feels kind of exclusive. Even though their friendship is rumored to be rocky because of the jealousies and hurt feelings that come up when one beats the others — “one” almost always being Stacie — for the most part they seem inseparable.

  Except for now, when an injury has broken Jennifer Madison out of their pack. I wonder how Stacie and Meredith are handling it. It must be disappointing for them. Which also means they must be disappointed to be going to the Olympics with me.

  I’ve never had a good friend who is also a skater. My friends and I are more your average high school girls first and the activities we each do second (singing for Joya, cheerleading for Libby, skating for me). Maybe it’s because of the way I came to elite competition — no formal training before Coach Chen entered my life, and zero affiliation with one of the bigger, more famous skating clubs. Or maybe it’s simply the way my mother and I live that has landed me a relatively normal middle and high school existence. I only started homeschooling at the beginning of this school year. One thing is sure: What I think of as “normal” in terms of my life and friends is totally abnormal for your average Olympic-level skater.

  And I can now apparently count myself one of those.

  “I can’t believe you’re, like, an Olympian now,” Libby says as though she’s read my mind, while extracting her beans from the advance of a nearby onion. “I’m friends with an Olympian! Maybe that will get me some dates.”

  “I’m not an Olympian yet,” I say.

&nb
sp; “But you practically are.”

  “I think that technically I become an Olympian during the Opening Ceremonies. Or maybe I become one the first time I skate to compete.”

  “Wow. That will be both a historic and also horribly nerve-wracking moment.”

  “Um, thanks for that.”

  Libby pops a forkful of chicken into her mouth and swallows. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe. Probably.” I sigh. “Let’s go back to the boy topic.”

  Her face lights up with a smile. “That’s fine by me.”

  The kitchen door at the back of the house swings open to let a rush of cold air inside, along with Joya. She’s bundled up in a hat, gloves, and big red wool winter coat. If my color is lilac and Libby’s is blue, Joya’s is definitely red.

  “Hey, J,” Libby says. “You’re just in time for boy-related conversation.”

  Joya’s eyebrows go up as she unspools the long scarf around her neck. Then she pulls off her gloves, shrugs off her coat, and places them in the living room, which is divided from the kitchen by an ugly old green coach. She joins us at the table. “And Espi is into the boy talk?” she asks Libby, before turning to me. “Are you?”

  I shove my barely-eaten pasta away. “Now that you’re here, we could talk about play practice instead. How was it?”

  “Oh, you know,” she sighs, snatching one of the forks off Libby’s plate to dig into the Tupperware container with the chicken. “Drama, drama, drama. Jake Manzo, the guy playing Tony?” Libby and I both nod. “He’s like maybe a head shorter than me. I think we look sort of dumb together onstage.”

  “I’m sure you look great,” Libby says, snatching her fork back and restaging her food barrier.

  Joya’s eyebrows go up again. “Yeah, right. A black girl playing Maria and an I-talian playing Tony in West Side Story? I’ve seen the movie. Who’s ever heard of a black Maria?” She goes for one of the spoons now and digs it straight into the container of rice.

  Libby watches it go a bit wistfully. “I’m sure you at least sound great.”

  “So what if you’re black?” I ask. “There’s no rule saying black girls can’t play leads in musicals.”

  Joya swallows her last bite. “You should be playing Maria,” she says. “At least you’re Latina.”

  “First of all, if we are going to get technical, Maria and her fellow Sharks are Puerto Rican. I’m Dominican-American. Nada que ver,” I say, pulling out the Spanish for effect. In this context, nada que ver is just a dramatic-sounding way of saying that one thing doesn’t have to do with the other. “And while we’re being technical about race and ethnicity and people’s assumptions about who can do what based on such things” — I look at Joya specifically — “who’s ever heard of a Dominican skater? Much less one who’s going off to the Olympics on Team USA?”

  “But that’s different,” Joya says, eyeing me.

  Libby takes her spoon back and wipes it off with a napkin. Thoroughly. “No, it’s not,” she says. “Black Marias, Dominican Olympic figure skaters — who cares? All that matters is you’re good enough for the job, right? Joya, you are by far the best singer and actress at our school, and Espi happens to be one of the top three ladies’ figure skaters in the United States. End of story.”

  “Okay, okay. I agree with you.” A grin appears on Joya’s face. “I definitely am the best singer and actress around. And Espi’s probably the greatest Dominican ice skater in all of history.” She places both hands on the table in front of her. Slowly and dramatically, she turns toward me. I did say she was an actress. “Speaking of, let’s get back to bugging Espi about boys on ice,” she says.

  “Boys on ice! I love it,” Libby agrees.

  I swallow. “There are no boys in ladies’ figure skating.”

  “But there are boys in men’s figure skating,” Joya says. “Like Hunter Wills. As one example.”

  “And there are definitely boys in men’s hockey,” Libby says. “Like Danny Morrison. As one example.”

  Joya is tapping her fingers across her chin. “And you, Esperanza dearest, are on both of their radars.”

  “I am not on anyone’s radars,” I protest. “I didn’t even meet Danny Morrison. Not really, I mean. We sat next to each other on a sofa for an interview. He was out of the studio before we could even be introduced. I’ll probably never see him again. The Olympics are huge. Team USA is huge. Tons of athletes milling everywhere …” I trail off.

  “Aha,” Libby says. “So you’ve been thinking about this Danny Morrison situation in great detail.”

  “There isn’t any Danny Morrison situation.” I feel like I’ve been caught in the act, but I’m not quite sure what act exactly. I look at Joya. “And there isn’t any Hunter Wills situation either. No radar. Nothing to see here.”

  Joya produces my iPhone from I don’t know where, since I thought it was in the other room in my bag, and places it on the table. Klepto. She has the calls list up on the screen and she’s pointing to Hunter Wills’s name. “Then what is this about?”

  Okay, time-out again. It’s possible I saved Hunter’s number with his name and photo after he called the other night. So sue me.

  “I am not on trial here,” I protest. “But you should be. What were you doing going into my bag?”

  “I didn’t go into your bag. You left it on the coffee table in front of the couch, and when I went to set my coat and things on it, I noticed it was flashing that you’d gotten a message.” I’m about to continue my protest when Joya holds up a finger. “A message with Hunter Wills’s face on it!”

  This catches me off guard. “He called?”

  Joya shows me the screen so I can see the list of outgoing, incoming, and missed calls. Then she shows it to Libby.

  “Correction,” Libby says. “He called again.”

  “It’s nothing. He’s just being nice. He said I could come to him with questions if I had them, and that he could be, you know, a resource for me at the Olympics, if I needed one.”

  Joya laughs. “I bet he said he’d be a resource.”

  My cheeks flare again. I am so not good at boy talk. I’m usually too busy on the ice to get any better at it. That there is any talk of boys in relation to me right now is pretty much an Olympic miracle.

  “Now let’s turn to the subject of Danny Morrison,” Libby says, pushing her plate toward my abandoned pasta. Her food is a lost cause to her since the edges have all run together. “Who I thought was exceedingly cute on that morning show interview.”

  “I don’t know,” Joya says. “He’s not really my type.”

  Libby looks at her. “Your type seems to be six-foot-five, star of the basketball team, and named after a former president,” she says, in reference to Andrew Jackson, the forward on our high school team, whom Joya’s had a crush on for two years. “Or else Hunter Wills.”

  “I have broad taste,” Joya defends herself. “Danny Morrison was a little aloof-seeming.”

  “You mean mysterious and intriguing,” Libby corrects her, getting up to retrieve some ice cream from the freezer.

  I’ve been looking from one to the other as though I’m at a tennis match. Now I make my way into the conversation. “Danny Morrison laughed when the announcer asked me if I felt like Cinderella, and not in a nice way, which was annoying if you ask me. But more important, can you believe she asked me if I felt like Cinderella? Hello, feminism? I’m not some little princess in a pink poufy dress. I had to work hard to get where I am.”

  Joya pulls the container of ice cream closer to her so she can dig in. “I don’t know,” she says. “Seems to me ice skating is a very princessy sport. You wear sparkly, bedazzled costumes with dainty little skirts made of chiffon or satin, sometimes embellished with other theatrical ornaments like feathers. Occasionally these costumes have matching glittering crowns. And when you finish your programs, people shower gifts at your feet like you’re royalty.”

  I take a deep breath and open my mouth to protest, but I’ve g
ot nothing, so I have to let it out in defeat. “I suppose that does sound a little princessy.”

  “There is nothing wrong with princessy,” Libby says.

  “Nobody’s doubting you had to work hard to get to the Olympics, Espi,” Joya says. “People like a good story, and your come-from-nowhere, immigrant-mom, not-your-average-figure-skater underdog tale sounds pretty Cinderella to a lot of people — not only in the princess sense, but in the Classic Sports Story sense.” She pauses to take a bite of ice cream. “You know, like Hoosiers. Or that Olympic gymnast who nailed her vault with a sprained ankle to win gold. You’re this Winter Games’ Cinderella story.”

  Listening to her words, I start feeling all tingly. You know, getting chills. The good kind. “The press has been saying that about me?”

  Joya nods. “They have. So get ready to own it.”

  “Maybe they’ll give you a nice dress to wear to the ball after you win, Spinderella,” Libby says.

  “Or even better, a gold medal,” Joya says.

  I smile at both of them. “A girl can dream. Thanks for your support, guys.”

  “It’s not just a dream anymore, Espi. It’s, like, happening,” Joya says.

  Eventually the conversation moves on to other topics, and after we clean up the kitchen, we say good-bye, since I have practice all day tomorrow and they have school. But when I stand in front of the mirror before bed, I look at myself, trying to imagine the Ice Princess everyone is hoping I’ll be. I can’t quite see it.

  Not right now, at least.

  Maybe she’s there and I just haven’t found her yet.

  The next morning, when I get up and go to the kitchen, Betty is drinking coffee at the table, waiting for my mother. Her hair is under a plastic shower cap, which she uses to cover the curlers all over her head. This is actually a totally normal occurrence in my house.

  “Hi, sugar,” she says with that amazing Georgia accent.

  “Good morning,” I say as I set my place at the breakfast table.

  She slides the orange ceramic teapot toward my spot. “It’s probably ready by now, hon.”