Gold Medal Winter

by Donna Freitas

  Gently, I lift up my Team USA jacket. Underneath it are my Team USA warm-ups.

  “I can’t believe these are really for me.”

  “Try on the jacket,” Coach says, still in unofficial photographer mode. “Go, go, go,” she urges, waving me on with her free hand.

  I slip one arm and then the other into the sleeves and shrug it up over the white costume I have on today, glad I didn’t wear something that would clash.

  It fits perfectly. I can’t stop smiling.

  “Beautiful,” Coach Chen sings, and walks behind me to get a shot of the back. “My Olympian!”

  “Our Olympian too,” Joya calls out on her way into the rink. “You can’t have her all to yourself.”

  Libby is close behind her. “Nice costume,” she says.

  My friends sometimes come to watch me at skating practice after school gets out. Today will be one of our last opportunities before the Games. My mother should be arriving soon too, since she’s not working tonight at Luciano’s.

  “I’m so excited,” I say.

  Joya runs a finger across the fabric. “You should be.”

  Coach Chen puts her phone away. “Has Espi told you about the Vera Wang costume?”

  Both my friends gasp.

  “What color?” Libby asks.

  “Red,” I say with a shrug of my shoulders. I’m still a bit nervous about the wardrobe change.

  Coach Chen gives my arm a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “Our Esperanza is superstitious about not wearing one of my old skating costumes.”

  Libby shakes her head. “But it’s Vera Wang!”

  “You sound like Betty,” I say.

  She clamps her mouth shut.

  “Okay, ladies,” Coach Chen cuts in. “Time for us to get back to work.”

  My friends heads over to the spot on the bleachers where they always sit, drinking from their thermal mugs — coffee for Libby, tea for Joya — and eating whatever snacks they managed to steal out of Libby’s kitchen cabinets. Libby’s house is always full of cookies and other things my mother and Joya’s parents are not inclined to stock. We love going over there for sleepovers.

  Alas, sleepovers are a thing of the past these days. Maybe post-Olympics they will become a regular occurrence again.

  Coach Chen puts her hand on her hip and eyes me. “Today we’re going to work on your quad sal.”

  I laugh a little maniacally. “Sure, why not?”

  “Come on, chica!” Joya yells.

  Libby’s clapping. “Woo!”

  “Espi, don’t forget that you’ve done these before. I wouldn’t be asking you to go for it if I didn’t think you were ready.”

  “Uh-huh. Sure.”

  You have to understand: Even doing a triple axel is kind of insane for a girl, so a quadruple salchow is close to unheard of. While male skaters like Hunter Wills have been doing quad jumps for ages as easy as eating a nice sandwich, we ladies have struggled with this particular move, mostly because it’s hard for us to get up the power and momentum to do four full turns in the air.

  The quad jump in competition is the Holy Grail of US ladies’ figure skating.

  When I started going for quads, Coach and I used what’s called a pole harness for help. Imagine a giant fishing pole — but with a person at the bottom of the line. Coach acted as the fisherman, holding the pole up in the air, while I wore the harness that dangles down from the end. Coach and I skated around the ice together, and she could help support me during the jump so I had more height and therefore more time to rotate once I was in the air. It also helped protect me from a couple of bad falls.

  I’ve been off the harness for ages now. In fact, I’ve been landing quad sals on my own and in the privacy of this rink for well over a year. I would just never dare one in a competition. I’m too inconsistent. When I say I’ve been landing them, I mean that about 30 percent of the time I come out on my feet. Which means that the other 70 percent of the time I am skidding on my butt across the ice. Why risk a fall at a championship? At the Olympics, for that matter! Especially when you can do all the triple jump combinations that I can.

  I am the Princess of Spin. The Spiñorita, even. Not the Quad Queen!

  “Espi?”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  “It’s not like you’ve never done them before.”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  Then she says, “Picture yourself quad sal-ing past Stacie Grant and Mai Ling toward gold.”

  “You said the magic words,” I respond this time.

  Here goes everything. As I get going across the ice, picking up speed in that way that I love, going as fast as I can as gracefully as possible, my legs pump and the bleachers on either side become a blur in my peripheral vision. The image of me in my Team USA jacket appears in my mind, with my new Vera Wang skating costume underneath it, the red fabric and accompanying sparkles peeking out at the neck. But most exciting of all is the gold medal dangling from my neck, completing the ensemble. The gold medal I’ve just won at the Olympics because I landed a quad sal.

  Maybe even two!

  This is what’s going through my brain the very second I head into my jump, my body shooting up, up, up, my arms pulled tight, spinning once, twice, three times — three and a half — until gravity starts pulling me back to the earth. And I … and I …

  … crash in a total girl heap on the ice.

  Huh. Well, that little fantasy didn’t help at all.

  “Ouch,” Libby calls out from the bleachers, her voice carrying high into the cavernous rafters of the rink.

  “Yeah, thanks, Lib,” I call back as I pick myself up.

  Then I hear clapping. “Let’s go, mija!” my mother is shouting. “You can do it, mi cielo! Land that quad, mi vida!”

  Cheers rarely heard at skating competitions in the past, I’m certain. She must have walked in just before my jump.

  Coach Chen smiles as she pulls her long black hair up into a new ponytail. “Listen to your mother,” she says. “Now go again.”

  Attempt number two gets me double ouches — from both Joya and Libby this time — and some loud Vamos, Esperanzas from my mother. Try number three is more of the same.

  But try number four … a quad for a quad?

  This time, I pump my legs even faster, whizzing by Libby, Joya, and my mother so fast that my eyes start to tear, and suddenly I’m heading into the jump with more height that I’ve ever had, spinning so fast I almost can’t see. One, two, three, three and a half …

  … and I land it perfectly.

  This gets me whistling and shouting from my cheering section and a big throaty Yeah, mija! from Mamá.

  I can tell Coach Chen is pleased too.

  But all she says is, “Again.”

  This pretty much sums up today’s afternoon practice. Quad after quad after quad until I’ve gone for six. They’re exhausting to do. A couple of them I land, but the rest land me on my butt.

  “I don’t know about this,” I tell Coach as the two of us skate toward the other end of the rink, where everyone is waiting for us. “If I risk even one quad in my free skate, it could be all over in an instant.”

  “Exactly. You could have the gold just like that,” she says with a snap of her fingers. “I told you, you have to have faith in yourself, Esperanza.”

  “It’s more that I have faith in gravity,” I quip, “and gravity does not want us ladies doing quad jumps. Gravity tends to say a big, fat no sorry when we try them.”

  Coach eyes me as we wait for my mother, Libby and Joya to join us. “We’re not giving up. Not just yet,” she says. Then the four of us make our way up to her house where we’ll be having dinner tonight.

  After we finish eating, my mother starts talking. “So Luca offered to throw viewing parties at the restaurant during your programs at the Games. Isn’t that wonderful?” she says while picking at her tiramisu. I notice she’s not looking at me. “He’s going
to have big drink and dinner specials. It will be the kind of event Rhode Islanders love. You know how people here are about the home team.” She spoons some tiramisu into her mouth quickly before going on. Nothing to see here. “Everyone will be so excited. And I’ll get to watch you with all the people who love you, Espi.”

  Her spoon gets placed upside down at the edge of her plate. She is still refusing to look at me. Her eyes are boring a hole into Coach Chen’s enormous handcrafted rustic knotty kitchen table. “It will be really nice.”

  No one moves. Joya and Libby have frozen still, Libby’s spoon in midair and Joya’s in the process of scooping. Coach Chen is staring at my mother while she picks at the top button of her blouse, something she does when she’s worried or nervous.

  I blink a few times. “Mamá,” I say in a small voice. “You’re not coming to see me skate at the Olympics?”

  Chairs scrape against the shiny white tiled kitchen floor as Joya and Libby murmur something about having to go home and study. They give me quick, awkward one-armed hugs — awkward because I am still sitting in my chair, not moving or speaking, tears welling in my eyes.

  “Talk later, ’kay?” Libby says before they slip away for the night.

  Which leaves my mother, Coach Chen, and me alone to discuss my mother apparently staying behind while I go off to fulfill my dreams at the Winter Olympics. Except here’s the thing:

  In my dreams, my mother is watching me compete.

  In my dreams, my mother is waiting with a hug, regardless of what happens.

  In my dreams, if there is celebrating to do, my mother is part of the celebration.

  How could she not come?

  This answer is, she has to.

  “Is it the money?” I ask, sniffling again. “Because you can take everything in my bank account.” I glance sideways at Coach Chen through my blurred vision. I can’t help it. Coach Chen has given us so much already, but I know if she wanted to bring my mother to see me at the Olympics, she could do that too. Guilt bubbles up inside me for even having this thought.

  My mother reaches across the table and takes my hand. “Querida mía, this isn’t about the money. I wouldn’t miss you at the Olympics for all the money in the world.”

  “Then what is it?” I cry.

  Coach Chen takes my other hand. “Espi, there seems to be a problem with your mother’s visa. Since she’s not a citizen, there are … complications. USFS is trying, but so far it hasn’t come through.”

  “I wish I’d been less stubborn and jumped through all those hoops for citizenship years ago,” Mamá says. “Then this wouldn’t even be an issue.”

  I say through tears, “But this is once in a lifetime! Can’t the government make a stupid exception?”

  “I wish they could, mija. It doesn’t work that way, though.”

  I try to blink away some of the tears. “I don’t understand. How can I skate on behalf of the United States if they won’t even let my mother watch me do it?” I turn to Coach Chen. “Isn’t there anything that can be done?”

  She sighs. “I’m doing my best, Espi. I’m pulling every string I have to pull. So is USFS.”

  “What if I can’t skate well unless she’s there? What if I don’t medal because I don’t have her support?”

  “Esperanza!” my mother says. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “You’ve done it before,” Coach reminds me. “At Worlds.”

  My voice is so tiny, it almost doesn’t exist. “But I didn’t medal at Worlds. I just showed up on people’s radar. The Olympics are different. They mean everything.”

  “There’s over a week left,” my mother is saying, but I can barely hear her. “You never know. The visa could still come through. And you are going to be fine no matter what, mi cielo. I will be with you in spirit. I promise.”

  “I don’t want you there in spirit,” I whisper. “I want you there.” Not only am I not being courageous or brave, I am making the two people who love me most in the whole world feel terrible, which is more bratty than anything else. I can’t seem to help it, though.

  “And I want to be there too, Esperanza. We’re doing the best we can to make it happen. You just need to be prepared that it might not.”

  I take my hands back from my mother and Coach Chen and get up from the table, leaving behind my half-eaten dessert. I stare out the floor-to-ceiling wall of windows in Coach’s kitchen, which looks onto the woods behind her house. The glass reflects my mother and Coach behind me, lit up by the bright chandelier at the center of the room. I can only see Coach’s profile, but I see my mother’s face straight on, which means I can also see that she’s trying hard not to cry. Her nose has that shrunken-up look to it, and she’s blinking really quickly, like I was just a few moments ago. By now I’ve stopped trying not to cry and tears are streaming down my face.

  I wipe them away.

  Time to stop weeping and whining.

  So I turn around. “Mamá,” I say, going to her. I bend down and give her a big hug, and now the tears really start to flow down her face. “Please don’t cry. I’m sorry I’m being difficult. You are always there for me however you can be, and you’ve spent your whole life working to provide for us and to support my skating however you can, and I am so grateful for that. I know you and Coach Chen are doing everything you can to make this right. If the visa doesn’t come through, I’ll miss you at the Games, but I’ll carry you in my heart. It will be okay. And that’s so nice that Luca is going to throw those parties! He cares about you very much.”

  “He loves you, mija,” she sniffles.

  This actually makes me chuckle just a little. Mamá is in total denial about Luca’s affection for her. “Yes, but he loves you too.”

  “I’m sorry, Esperanza,” she says. “I wish things were different for us.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry, since you’ve done nothing wrong. And regardless of what happens, I love the way things are with us, Mamá, because it’s always you and me, which means I get you all to myself. Just how I like it.”

  This gets a little smile from my mother.

  I stand up. Then I notice that Coach’s cheeks are tear-stained too, and she never cries. That’s when I know she must be really trying to fix this situation and pull every string she has. Coach Chen is like that.

  So I go over to her and give her a big hug too.

  “Thank you for doing your best,” I whisper into her ear.

  Then my mother and I go home.

  That night, when I get into bed and I’m trying to sleep, all I can think about is how terrible it will be if my mother misses the Olympics. How it will be so much harder to focus. How I’ll feel lost without her rocklike presence.

  But both Coach and Mamá are right: I have to try not to let any of this get to me. It would break my mother’s heart if my Olympic dreams were crushed because I fell apart without her. In some ways, her absence makes winning gold even more important — so I can show her she has nothing to worry about. That she has raised a young woman she can be proud of and who can stand up and stand out all on her own.

  I need to make my mother proud no matter where she is. I owe her that. Winning gold would honor how hard she’s worked and how much she’s sacrificed to give me my dream.

  I pull the covers tighter around me and adjust my pillow. When that doesn’t bring sleep my way, I roll over onto my other side.

  Coach Chen is right. To win gold, I need to nail those quads. It’s a gamble, but if I do it, I’ll really have a shot at beating all that competition. Mai Ling. Irina Mitslaya. Stupid Stacie Grant.

  Just thinking of Stacie’s smug little smile makes me want to win.

  I’ve got to do whatever it takes.

  Be creative.

  Be daring.

  Be bold about it.

  No more being afraid and resistant.

  That’s it, I decide right then, as the clock ticks toward midnight and I am still too awake for my own good. The quad sal is going into my program si
o si. It will change everything. It will make the competition shake in their skates, and not because of the cold. Nailing even just one quad will let me waltz straight on in to Medal Central.

  Okay. Maybe I’m getting carried away.

  But one thing is for sure: Once I’ve made this decision, blissful sleep finally pays me a visit, and I drop off into dreamland.

  But then I wake up the next day and in the glaring light of the winter morning I think to myself, Really, Esperanza? Being the first lady figure skater ever to land a quad sal at the Olympics? Who are you kidding? And all that courage and confidence I mustered up last night goes poof!

  Dios mío.

  I get out of bed and start getting ready for the day like it’s any other, because what else can I do? The big January-February poster calendar my mother made so I can count the days to the Games seems a little intimidating. I’ve been X-ing off each one since the US Championships, and already we’re at January 17. Coach and I leave for the Olympics on January 27. Exactly ten days from now.

  Ten days left for my mother to get her visa.

  Ten days left to make myself gold-medal-worthy.

  Actually, even less, since beginning the 23rd, the rest of the figure skating team arrives in Boston for our pre-Olympic practice. That’s less than a week away, and I can’t count on getting much serious training done during those days. There will probably be drama and a lot of acting up and showing off on the ice, petty jealousies and all sorts of other unpleasant things, just because that’s the way skaters roll.

  At least Hunter Wills will be there.

  I am calling him back today. No more chickening out. I don’t know what my problem is. He’s been so nice to me.

  “Good morning, mi cielo,” my mother says when I enter the kitchen. She’s waiting for me, house keys in hand, all dressed and ready to go to Luciano’s.

  I give her a kiss on the cheek. “Hi, Mamá. I’m coming with you this morning.” When she gives me a skeptical look, I remind her: “Coach and I only practice in the afternoon on Fridays, remember?”

  “You don’t have to chaperone me,” she says, draining some coffee.

  Tears push at the back of my eyes. “Mamá, we have only ten days left until the Games. I need to spend time with you. Especially if … you know …” I can’t seem to bring myself to say what we’re both thinking: Especially if you can’t come with me to the Games.