Gold Medal Winter

by Donna Freitas

  “While I’m chopping vegetables and grating tubs full of mozzarella?”

  “I can help.” I love being in the kitchen at Luciano’s helping with prep. Though it’s possible I eat more than I prep.

  “But you have other things to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Studying, mija. You’re supposed to be in a self-guided program?”

  “You think I’m really going to get anything done before the Olympics?”

  “Espi —”

  “Everyone at Luciano’s is like family and I need to see my family before going away and if I don’t it will be really hard on me!” I say all this in one big breath. My voice turns up high and thin at the end of my sentence, showing all my stress and anxiety.

  A big sigh from my mother. “Fine. Go get your coat. Betty’s outside in the car.”

  I give her another peck on the cheek. “Give me one minute and I’ll be out,” I tell her, then put on my coat, hat, scarf, and mittens. At the last second, just before I go out the door, I run to my room for my Team USA jacket, carefully folding it into my bag. I can’t resist doing show-and-tell at the restaurant.

  “Good morning, Betty,” I say when I get into her big boat of an old Chevrolet.

  “Good morning, sugarplum,” she drawls. “How’s the training going?”

  “Oh, you know. Intense. But okay, I think.”

  She backs down the driveway, then we squeal away down the street.

  Inside Luciano’s, Marco is setting up the tables for lunch. Half the place is still bare of silverware and glasses since it’s early. Anthony, the head waiter, is nowhere in sight, and neither is Luca, but a lot of clanging and activity comes through the door of the kitchen, which is propped open to the main dining room. Gino and Marcela must be hard at work already. They sometimes arrive as early as 5:00 a.m.

  Marco makes his way over. “Hello, bella. How’s our little Olympian?” He gives me the typical Italian two kisses, one on each cheek.

  “You know,” I say. “Nervous.”

  He runs a hand across his bald head. “Me too, me too. It’s a nerve-wracking thing, this Olympics, isn’t it?”

  Marco’s worry is so sweet. It makes me love him even more. “It will all be okay no matter what, Marco,” I say, and wish that I could so easily console myself.

  He nods and grabs the dish towel hanging from his pocket to wipe his face. “Marta gives us daily updates on your progress. Your new spins. Your Vera Wang dress for the ice skating.” He holds up a short, thick finger for each thing he names. “That cute ice skater that keeps calling you.”

  Seriously? I put my hand over my eyes, like this might help me hide from the embarrassment I feel. “Mamá,” I yell in the direction of the kitchen, where there are many chopping-against-a-cutting-board sounds. The chopping comes to a halt.

  “What did I say?” Marco asks.

  “It’s not your fault,” I tell him.

  My mother peeks her head through the doorway. “Yes, mija?”

  I have a feeling she knows what’s coming from the extra-innocent tone of her voice. She must have been listening to my chat with Marco. “Have you been spying on my cell phone?”

  “No,” she says quickly, then runs back to her vegetables. Chopping ensues again.

  “Uh-oh,” Marco says. “I did say something I wasn’t supposed to.”

  “It’s okay,” I call back over my shoulder since I am already marching into the kitchen. The lights are bright, the walls white, and all the fixtures other than the cutting board countertops are silver metal. Gino is behind the line where they plate and put up food. Marcela is in her pastry corner rolling out dough.

  But my mother is nowhere to be found.

  “Where is she?” I ask.

  Gino jerks his head in the direction of the giant fridge.

  “The walk-in?”

  He shrugs. Then gives in and nods.

  I open the tall door to find my mother standing there, red pepper clutched in one hand, between a big bucket of sliced onions, some tubs of butter, and an entire shelf of fresh broccoli. “You realize the fact that you’re hiding makes it seem like you are guilty of something,” I tell her.

  “Oh, Espi, mi amor, mi vida, mi cielo, mi niñita —”

  “Ma,” I interrupt. “Terms of endearment aren’t going to help. You told the entire staff that Hunter Wills has been calling me — a fact that I have not shared with you previously — which means that the only way you know this is because you have been spying on my phone!” I wrap my arms around me for warmth. It’s worse than an ice rink in here. “Can we go back into the kitchen?”

  My mother’s eyebrows go up. “I thought you might like to talk about this with some privacy?”

  “Privacy? Why would we need to have this conversation in private? Everyone already knows everything anyway.”

  “I’m just proud of you, mija. I can’t help myself.”

  This softens me a bit. But not completely. “You’re proud that Hunter Wills is calling me? Why is that any of your business?”

  “Because it’s exciting! He’s very cute. I think you’d look good together.”

  “Mamá!” My cheeks would turn red if it wasn’t so cold in here. “That’s not the issue. The issue is that you were looking into places that are private.”

  “But you left your phone on the table and it lit up with a call and I saw his face on the screen. It was an accident. Then the missed calls list came up and I noticed he’s called more than once. He’s a nice skater, Espi.”

  I take a deep breath, inhaling the freezing air, which is not terribly helpful. “Okay, Mamá. But try not to tell everyone else about that particular stuff next time? I know you’re proud of me. The Hunter Wills thing is private, though.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry. I understand.” She zips her lips with her fingers.

  Then we walk back into the kitchen, where warmth happily greets us. I shut the fridge door behind us and clamp it tight.

  “All better?” Marcela asks.

  My mother looks at me.

  “Yes,” I sigh.

  Gino is still filleting chicken. “You should call him back.”

  I open my mouth to protest, but Marcela gets there before I can.

  “You really should,” she says. “We’ve been eager for more updates.”

  I seal my lips into a straight line. Then I grab my bag, head back out into the dining room, and pull up a chair in the farthest, most private corner of the place. I take out my phone and stare at the dark screen like it might talk at any moment.

  I look both ways and behind me, then find Hunter’s info and send him a text.

  Hey. Sorry I hvn’t calld.

  Then I set my phone on the table.

  It immediately lights up with a message.

  Call now then is all it says.

  So I do.

  He picks up on the second ring. “Hi, Espi.”

  “Hi, Hunter.”

  “How’s things?”

  “Oh, you know. Training. And more training.”

  “I do know.”

  Then there is a pause. The silence makes me a little panicky. What does one say to the famous Hunter Wills, male skater phenomenon? But suddenly I think of something relevant. “I got my team jacket yesterday,” I say, all eager and excited because I can’t help sounding that way when I talk about it.

  “Isn’t it the best?” he says, which is the perfect response.

  “It is,” I respond enthusiastically, and somehow with just this little tidbit, we fall into a real conversation. I tell him about my mother probably not going to the Games and how bummed I am and he commiserates. He tells me about a disagreement he had with his coach and I sympathize, even though Coach Chen and I never fight, so it’s hard for me to imagine. We talk about life pre-fame and post-fame, and he reminds me that I’d better get ready to be famous myself. Then we talk about dumb stuff like our favorite bands and television shows and apps and what our non-skater friends think of havin
g a friend going off to the Olympics, even though all my friends are non-skater ones, which I have to explain to him.

  Hunter Wills talks to me like he’s just some regular guy, talking to a regular girl.

  It’s kind of awesome.

  Just before we hang up, I say something to try to impress him. I do it without thinking, because Hunter has eased me into the kind of intimate conversation that makes me feel like we’re already close and I can trust him, and it seems like the most natural thing in the world that I would tell him this detail.

  “So I’m adding a quad sal to my free skate,” I say.

  There is a long silence. “You could win gold with that,” he says.

  “I know. That’s the idea. I was hoping you might have some pointers.”

  “Let me think about it. I’ll text you a list.”

  This makes me smile. “That would be amazing.”

  Hunter Wills is going to help me with my quads!

  When we say good-bye, I think to myself that maybe Hunter’s support is just the kind of boost I need to survive the Olympics. Maybe with his advice I could take home gold. And he is really cute, just like everyone says.

  Suddenly, becoming the Quad Queen doesn’t sound half-bad.

  In my post-call delirium I don’t even get mad when I turn around and see the entire staff eavesdropping on me. Instead, I model my Team USA jacket for them, basking and smiling in all this love.

  “Go Ravens,” I scream. “Go Libby!”

  Libby turns and gives me a look that says stop shouting my name.

  “Go Libby!” Joya yells anyway. She smiles sweetly and waves.

  On Friday and Saturday nights, our whole town turns out for high school hockey games. Coach and my mother thought I should have a night out with my girlfriends as though the Olympics are not just on the horizon — even though they totally are.

  So here I am, sitting in the bleachers of Holt Arena with Joya, waiting for the game to start. Joya and I haven’t really come for the game, though. We’re here to watch Libby cheer for our school’s hockey team.

  “Let’s get started, are you ready?” she is yelling right now, smiling big, those blue eyes wide and her blond ponytail bouncing high up on top of her head. She claps her mitten-covered hands alongside a long line of girls from our school who are also clapping and yelling in the very same way while wearing very short skirts with tights.

  “Woo!” Joya yells. “Go Libby!”

  I cover her mouth, trying to stop her. Libby gets mad when we cheer for her while she’s cheering.

  Joya turns to me. “Is it weird being here tonight?”

  “No. Why?” I ask.

  “Because of what this place means. And, you know, like, where you’re headed in a week.”

  I think about Joya’s comments a moment. Holt Arena is where Coach Chen “discovered” me during a hockey game just like this one. It’s also the same place where I spent years going to the public skate every single day it was offered before Coach came into my life. Me and Holt Arena go way back, in other words.

  I shake my head. “It’s not weird. It’s kind of nice. In a full-circle sort of way.”

  “That is some circle you’ve made,” Joya says.

  I’m smiling, but then my smile falters. “My mother’s visa still hasn’t come through yet.”

  Joya reaches over and squeezes my hand. “There’s still time.”

  I nod like I believe this, but my confidence wavers with every passing day. Then I turn my attention back to Libby. “Look at her chatting up Marty O’Connor.”

  “She could win a gold medal in boy conversation,” Joya says.

  Libby is the biggest flirt I know. She bats those eyelashes of hers like she was born doing it. I cannot bat my eyelashes at all. Whenever I try, it’s like I’m sending a message with Morse code or my allergies are acting up.

  And Marty O’Connor is falling for Libby’s tricks hook, line, and sinker.

  Go Libby, I cheer, but only very quietly inside my head.

  The stands are filling up, and pretty soon our entire school plus the rest of our town squeezes onto the bleachers. Joya and I say hi to people I remember from freshman year as they pass and find seats around us. Matt from Lit class. Sarah Ann from Chem. Noel, also from Chem. Jason from American History. Mr. and Mrs. Altman from down the street, whose son is a first-year on the hockey team. They’re all acting sort of normal around me, but also sort of weird. I am tempted to go to the bathroom to see if I have a large piece of spinach from that salad I ate with dinner stuck across my two front teeth.

  Then Marianna, Hattie, and Norah, an inseparable trio who make up the absolute tip-top of the popular crowd — so popular they generally ignore everyone else who is not as exclusively royal as they are, which is basically everyone else at school — actually make their way over just to say hi to Joya and me.

  Once they are out of earshot, Joya turns to me. “What was that all about?”

  I shrug. “No idea.”

  Then something even weirder happens.

  Jonathan Mays, a really nice senior who plays on the soccer team, comes over with a paper and pen in his hands. “Hi, Joya, hi, Esperanza,” he says, a little awkwardly and a little nervously too. His eyes keep darting around the rink, looking pretty much everywhere but at us. “Congratulations on the Olympics and everything.” He holds out the paper and pen to me. “Um, can you sign this for my little sister?”

  Joya covers her mouth, maybe with surprise, maybe to stop herself from saying something ridiculous to Jonathan or me, or all of the above.

  I take the pen and paper from him. “Sure, Jonathan,” I say, though my voice is anything but sure. This happened after Boston, but then I was still at the TD Garden, and the people asking were part of the crowd there to watch the figure skating — not people I’ve grown up with in town. “What’s her name again?”

  “Jennifer,” he says, his eyes still not meeting mine.

  When I look down, getting ready to write, I see that it’s not just any paper he’s handed me. It’s a photograph that his sister must have printed out.

  A photograph of me doing one of my spins.

  It’s all official looking and everything. My name is written across the top in fancy bubble font, and across the bottom it reads, ESPERANZA FLORES, AMERICA’S HOPE FOR GOLD!

  “Where did you get this?” I ask, and when Jonathan gets a panicked look on his face, I add quickly, “I mean, where did your sister get this?”

  He shifts from one foot to the other. “I think on one of your fansites.”

  “My fansites?” I ask, eyes wide.

  Joya is tugging on my arm. “I’ll explain later. Just sign it,” she whispers.

  So I do: To Jennifer, Best wishes, from Esperanza Flores in cursive. I hand it back and he goes running off. “Explain what?” I ask Joya.

  But she doesn’t have time to answer. A line has formed next to us on the bleachers that curves down the stairs toward the cheerleaders.

  “Hi, Mrs. Formicola,” I say to one of our neighbors.

  “Congratulations, Esperanza,” she says, her made-up brown eyes blinking behind the big leopard-print framed glasses she wears. “Would you sign this for me and the mister?”

  “Sure,” I say, and take a postcard from her that she must have gotten from the rack near the bathrooms. It’s for Luciano’s and it has a picture of chicken parmesan on the front. When I give it back to her, the next person steps up. Then the next and so on and so forth. Joya helps by asking each person what they’d like written. I sign all sorts of things. Napkins. Lots of postcards. Some notebook paper. Definitely more than a few photos — an exact copy of the one Jonathan had of me spinning, and others too. One of me on the podium in Boston getting my silver medal, and another of me doing one of the triple axels in my program. There is even one of me holding a bouquet of roses and waving at the crowd.

  Where did people get these things? I mean, have they been walking around town with pictures in their backp
acks and purses in case they ran into me? Tonight marks the first time I’ve been to a school event in a while, probably since Joya’s performance in the fall musical back in November. I wonder if this is just a fluke or if it would happen if I came to another game.

  The experience makes me both giddy and weirded out.

  The line goes on and on, and I keep signing until the announcer comes over the loudspeaker to ask people to take their seats for the national anthem. There are a few more Congratulations, Esperanzas before Joya and I settle down and pretend like that didn’t just happen.

  But it totally did.

  I catch Libby’s eye but she quickly looks away. The pep has gone out of her clapping and cheering. Ugh. Libby, Joya, and I have always done a good job of supporting one another’s various activities and sharing the spotlight. Tonight was supposed to be all about Libby and not everyone in the stands making a fuss over me and asking for autographs.

  “Libby’s mad,” I say to Joya.

  “She’ll get over it. It’s not like you planned what just happened.”

  “Definitely not.” I try to catch Libby’s eye again, but she’s expertly avoiding looking in our direction. “When you said you’d explain later about the photos people had and all that — what did you mean?”

  Joya bites her lip, then releases it. The very bottom of her front tooth is edged with shiny red lip gloss. “I’ll explain after the Olympics.”

  “Why?”

  “Um, it has to do with stuff online and Facebook, et cetera. I don’t want to be in the doghouse with Coach Chen,” Joya adds as we all stand for the national anthem.

  “Okay, sure, I understand,” I say, trying to stem my curiosity. But it’s not easy.

  During the entirety of the national anthem, I try to look my patriotic best, but my mind is spinning. This sort of anxiety is exactly why Coach Chen bans me from going online. Normally I just put the thought out of my head and block the temptation. I don’t even check email. I’m so busy anyway, it’s not like I have time to go tooling around online. But now I’m starting to get really worried.