Walk on Water

by Laura Peyton Roberts

  He more shuffled than skated off the lake. She watched him high-step through the snow to his truck and jump into the driver’s seat. As the door slammed shut behind him, his head disappeared, dipping down below the glass.

  He’s taking off his skates, she guessed. A warm seat out of the wind . . . I’d do it in there too.

  The mercury had dropped even lower while she’d been outside, and the clouds that had spit snow earlier were gearing up to dump. She stood to leave, then hesitated, waiting for Blake to pop back up. She could have taken off three pairs of skates in the time he’d been out of sight.

  What’s he doing? Is he okay? The questions propelled her feet forward without a conscious decision to move. Blake had just skated to his physical limit after years of abusing his health, and he wasn’t that young anymore.

  Do people his age have heart attacks?

  Abandoning her hiding place, Lexa burst out of the trees and rushed toward the truck. Snow rose to her knees as her boots broke through its crust and wobbled on the rocks and roots underneath. A distance she could have run in a summer minute stretched impossibly long as his head still didn’t reappear.

  She first made out the curve of his back through the distant driver’s side window. Blake was slumped into the passenger seat, facedown. She was still twenty feet away when he sat up abruptly, a bright pink pillow clutched to his face.

  She froze. Her father was sobbing into the pillow, completely unaware of her presence. His shoulders shook and heaved as he buried his face in the pink fabric. Except . . .

  A sickening rush of recognition rocked Lexa back onto her heels. That was no pillow. Blake was crying into Kaitlin’s pink parka, the one in all the photographs. The one she’d been wearing the day she died.

  He took another shuddering breath, pressing the parka hard to his face. With a clarity that made her weak, Lexa realized what he was doing. He was trying to breathe in Kaitlin’s scent. Her perfume, maybe. Her sweat. Her skin.

  Blake wasn’t ill.

  But he wasn’t all right.

  For the first time Lexa understood the profound difference in the grief they shared. Kaitlin’s death had cost her the chance to know her mother. Blake had lost who he was.

  When you get your heart broken that badly, you must also grieve yourself, she realized, the person you were before the loss and can never be again.

  Kaitlin and Blake had both died that day. Blake had just gone on living.

  Backing rapidly through her footsteps, Lexa turned and ran for the tree line, tears freezing on her cheeks. She wasn’t supposed to have seen this, she knew.

  At that moment it was hard to believe she would ever see anything else.

  —58—

  “You’re so lucky!” Jenni said. “You have hardly anyone to shop for!”

  “That seems lucky to you?” Lexa asked, an edge in her voice.

  “Yes! No. I just meant—” Jenni glanced away in frustration, over the tinsel-decked railing to the ground floor of the packed mall. “I’m going to be completely broke is all. Nobody likes being broke.” Then, miraculously, “Sorry.”

  Lexa nodded, not trusting her voice. Ever since she’d seen her father sobbing into her dead mother’s coat, she’d been walking around with a permanent lump in her throat.

  “Look at that mob.” Jenni pointed down to a snaking line of parents and children waiting to see Santa Claus. The mall had erected a throne-like chair in front of a candy-cane-covered gingerbread cottage—more Hansel and Gretel than North Pole. “Half of those kids will probably cry when they finally get up there, too.”

  “I wouldn’t mind petting the reindeer.”

  “I don’t think they’ll let you. If they did, everyone would be petting it.” The mournful-looking solitary reindeer was enclosed in a small pen separated from the public by bales of hay. “Maybe Beth will buy you one—you guys have the land for it. Want to get in line and ask Santa?”

  “Funny. No.”

  “I’ll give you twenty bucks if you get your picture taken in Santa’s lap.”

  “That’ll probably cost me twenty bucks. Besides, I thought you were broke.”

  Jenni sighed. Her decision to leave skating had come with a major unanticipated cut in allowance. “I will be, after today. Being the black sheep’s a bitch.”

  “Did you expect your parents to be thrilled? After everything they’ve invested in—”

  “Please!” Jenni held up a hand. “I’ve heard that song in every key. I didn’t think they’d be thrilled, no. But the last thing I expected was for them to tell me to get a job. The whole point was to have a life!”

  Lexa fought back a smile at the indignant way Jenni said job. “Welcome to the way the rest of us live.”

  “Used to live, you mean. I’ll bet Beth gave you plenty of shopping cash.”

  She had, far more than Lexa had ever had for buying gifts before. She should have been enjoying herself, but . . .

  “Are you going to buy something for Blake?” Jenni asked, reading her mind.

  “I want to, but I don’t know what. Or when I’d give it to him. Or if he’d even want something from me. He’ll know where the money came from.”

  Jenni rolled her eyes. “You’re the one picking the present, and it’s not like you couldn’t spend those dollars on yourself. Your grandmother wouldn’t mind.”

  She’d probably prefer it, Lexa thought, although Beth had been in an exceptionally good mood lately, so maybe her holiday spirit would extend as far as Blake. “What are you getting Adam?”

  Jenni threw up her hands. “I wish I knew! I haven’t seen anything good yet. Not anything I can afford, anyway.”

  “Maybe you have to get more creative. What does a college boy like?”

  “Besides his high school girl?”

  “Unless you’re planning to wrap yourself in ribbon.”

  Jenni’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “I’ve heard worse ideas. A little bit of ribbon, a whole lot of skin . . .”

  “Jenni!” Lexa gave her friend a playful shove.

  “No, but listen,” Jenni persisted. “What if it was really nice ribbon?”

  “Turtlenecks are on sale,” Lexa said, pointing.

  “Killjoy.”

  They both laughed the way they’d once laughed all the time. They were different girls now, though, and while Lexa was starting to understand the changes were permanent, that didn’t feel tragic anymore. It felt like growing up.

  “If someone had told me last nationals that neither of us would be skating singles by Christmas, I wouldn’t have believed him.”

  “If he’d told me, I’d have kissed him,” Jenni said.

  “Really? All the way back to January?”

  “Back to last January.”

  How had she never guessed her best friend was so unhappy? “So your decision to leave skating . . . Adam really wasn’t a factor, then.”

  “Thank you!” Jenni exclaimed. “And would you please tell that to my parents? If they could Google up a nunnery with an ice rink, I’d already be living there.”

  Lexa laughed. “They spoiled you for so long that you forgot what parenting looks like. They’re worried about you, that’s all. They want you to be happy.”

  “I want them to be happy too. But I carried their dreams for as long as I could—it was time to start living my own. You, of all people, ought to understand that.”

  “I . . . well . . . It does make more sense when you put it that way.”

  Jenni’s smile held a sort of wonder. “Why, Lexa Walker. Are you finally getting onboard?”

  “Maybe. I mean, if you’re truly happy with the way things are now, then I guess I get it. If skating isn’t your passion anymore, you can’t do it just for your parents.”

  Jenni linked her arm through Lexa’s, steering her around a pack of middle-aged shoppers wearing matching green sweatshirts and antler headbands. “I am totally, thoroughly happy,” she said. “Except for the allowance thing. That part blows.”

>   —59—

  “I have to tell you something.” Bry dropped onto the end of Lexa’s bed without breaking his gaze. “Something huge.”

  The fact that he’d just shown up at Maplehurst for the first time ever seemed pretty huge to Lexa. The fact that he was still wearing warm-ups trumped that, though. Something had to have happened at the rink to send him straight to her.

  “Something bad?” she asked apprehensively.

  “No. Your dad is awesome.”

  Lexa blinked and reached for the chair. “My dad,” she said, sitting heavily. “I thought you were terrified of Blake.”

  Bry smiled. “He’s scary, all right. Listen, something happened at the rink tonight.”

  “I got that far on my own.”

  Bry hadn’t even called ahead, just shown up pressing the gate intercom. Beth had buzzed him through, delighted that one of Lexa’s friends, even a sweaty and unexpected one, had finally made the drive. “Invite him to dinner, kitten!” she’d whispered before Lexa took him upstairs. “We’ll call for take-out.”

  But dinner was clearly the last thing on Bry’s mind. “So, I’m in the locker room after practice,” he said, not missing a beat, “and that puckhead Sam Wellington walks in with his crew. Blake put me though extra run-throughs today, so I’m late getting out of there, but all these morons have to do is suit up and leave me alone.”

  “Which exceeded their abilities,” Lexa guessed. It wouldn’t be Bry’s first run-in with hockey players.

  “Maybe if I were taller, or didn’t have these stupid pink cheeks—”

  “I love your pink cheeks!”

  “Anyway, Sam starts in: ‘Hey, Pinky. How’s it going with those pirouettes?’ All his guys pile on: ‘Where’s your tutu, Pinky?’ ‘You skate so pretty, Pinky.’ ”

  “Only a hockey player could make skating pretty sound like an insult.”

  “Right? I’ve heard it all before anyway. But there’s this new guy . . .” Bry hesitated.

  Lexa’s gut clenched. “What happened?”

  “He grabbed the towel off my neck—junior high crap. He’s dancing around: ‘You want this, Pinky? Come and get it, Pinky.’ The thing is, Sam and those idiots know I skate for Blake, so things only ever go so far. This new guy’s trying to impress them, though, and he doesn’t have a clue. I stand up to get my towel, and he pushes me back off my feet right into the lockers.”

  “Bry!”

  “Whatever. It didn’t hurt much, but it sounded like a bomb going off. And I’m wearing unlaced skates, which made it an extra cheap shot. I’m planning to let him just have the damn towel, except as soon as I’m back on my feet, he’s right in my face. ‘Want this, princess? Let me see you take it, homo.’ ”

  Tears of rage filled Lexa’s eyes. She picked up her phone. “What’s his name? Do you know it? I’m calling Blake right—”

  “Whoa, hold up! Blake already knows. He heard the crash and came running to see who he needed to kill for denting up his lockers.”

  “I hope you told him.”

  “Didn’t have to. That jerk was still in my face, waving my towel, calling me gay every way he could think of. His back was to the door, though, and that was his second mistake. Blake grabbed the guy’s belt and yanked him right off his feet.”

  Lexa’s mouth fell open. She had never seen her father lay a hand on anyone. “Did he fight back? Was anyone hurt?”

  “For a second, I thought that moron might take a swing.” Bry grinned. “For a second, I’m pretty sure Blake hoped he would. But Sam and those guys jumped in to cool things off. They didn’t want to lose their hockey privileges. Which they did anyway.”

  “Serves them right,” Lexa said, still shaking.

  “Blake told them to grab their crap, get out of his rink, and never come back. He waited while they did it, too. I thought he’d follow them out to the parking lot, but he stayed behind to make sure I was all right.”

  “Wow. So Blake to the rescue, huh?”

  “I guess you could say that, but I didn’t need to be rescued. I’ve been in fights before and I’m still here. That’s only the first part.”

  “There’s more?” she asked in disbelief.

  “After everyone else was gone, Blake told me not to care what some puckhead says, that they’re all idiots. But he’s being so nice and I’m so amped up that I just throw it out there: ‘He’s an idiot, but he’s right. I’m gay.’ ”

  Lexa’s mouth dropped open again. The only three people who had known that up till then were her, Jenni, and Bry.

  “I didn’t plan it,” he said, reading her expression.

  “What did he say?” she finally got out.

  “He said it meant a lot that I trusted him with that. He said he was proud to be my coach and that anytime I needed him he’d always have my back. He didn’t even care!”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying! Why should it matter?”

  “It shouldn’t, but you know it does, even to people who ought to know better. There’s a reason so many men don’t come out before they turn pro, if then. All I want is the same shot at a career as every other guy, to be judged for my skating and nothing else. So when Blake . . .” Bry blinked hard and fought to control his voice. “I didn’t need to be rescued. I just needed someone like your father to tell me it’s all going to be all right.”

  —60—

  Lexa hesitated at the door to the garage with a round silver tin in her hands. The bow she’d taped to the lid made her simple gift look fancier, but she still wasn’t sure she should take it with her. Last chance, she thought. Make up your mind.

  Walking into the garage, she stashed the tin in the Ford’s cargo area. If Ian showed up with a gift for her, she had the situation covered. If not, his could stay right there.

  Or I could give it to him anyway, she thought, rolling out through Maplehurst’s gates. It’s cookies, not diamonds.

  Ian’s latest call had left her in the same anxious sweat as the others, but at least this time she’d had the presence of mind to ask if it was a date.

  Sort of.

  “Tomorrow?” she’d stalled in answer to his invitation to meet him downtown. “That’s Christmas Eve. What did you want to do?”

  “Nothing in particular. Check out the last-minute chaos, catch a movie, whatever. I’d just like to see you. If you can.”

  So this time it was definitely a date.

  Maybe.

  Lexa sighed and made the turn toward downtown. She’d spent hours obsessing over whether a maybe-date on Christmas Eve was a gift-giving occasion, hours she could spare now that she and Eric were on a training break through New Year’s day. Her grandmother was the one who had finally suggested making cookies.

  “Baking shows you care enough to go to a little effort, but you won’t end up looking foolish if he shows up empty-handed.” Beth had smiled knowingly. “Cookies are the teenage equivalent of a bottle of wine.”

  The shopping district was packed with procrastinators trying to finish their gift lists in the last hour of daylight. Store windows glowed through the growing twilight, their displays a multicolored wonderland of clothing, toys, and gifts. Lexa spotted Ian on a corner, surrounded by people in holiday-themed mufflers and knee-length coats. He waved over their heads, his gloved hands as empty as her own. She had left his cookies to freeze in the car.

  “You made it!” he greeted her. “Do you think it’s going to snow on us?”

  The steel-gray clouds scudding overhead looked capable of anything. “Maybe. I hope it holds off, though. My grandmother will want me home the second the first flake drops.”

  “I hope it holds off too, then. What do you want to do? Window shopping? Movie? Early dinner?

  “I promised to come home for dinner. It’s Christmas Eve,” she reminded him.

  “Oh. Right. My family’s never been big on the Eve thing. We’ll celebrate tomorrow.”

  “We’re not eating until seven. That might leave time for a movie, if it starts soon.�
��

  “Are you a traditionalist? The Ashatabulian is showing It’s a Wonderful Life.”

  “Yeah, not that traditional. Every time a bell rings, I want to smack that icky-sweet little girl upside the head.”

  Ian stared, then burst out laughing. “Tell us how you really feel, Lexa.”

  “Sorry. I . . .”

  He was still laughing—no apology required.

  “Have you ever seen Scrooged?” she asked. “The Ghost of Christmas Present? That’s more my type of thing.”

  “I have seen Scrooged. Your obsession with slapping is alarming.”

  “Very funny. Is it my fault I prefer humor to tearjerkers? I get my drama for free.”

  “Fair enough. Although I’ll probably never watch It’s a Wonderful Life again without remembering what you just said.”

  Lexa smiled. “You’re welcome.”

  They started walking down the block, more pushed along by the crowd than headed anywhere in particular. Shoppers rolled in and out through doorways like a happy human tide.

  “I don’t care whether we see a movie,” he said. “They’re supposed to have live entertainment in that courtyard a couple blocks over. Carolers, food vendors, that sort of thing. If you want, we can go see if that’s any good.”

  “Yeah, let’s do that. It’s fun just walking around out here.”

  The sky was darkening by degrees. Colored lights sparkled off store windows and miles of tinsel garland strung in zigzags overhead. Shoppers bustled. Couples dawdled. Carols rang out through unseen speakers. And an oven somewhere nearby filled the air with the scent of baking cinnamon.

  Lexa’s empty stomach growled. “If they’re selling warm cinnamon rolls at this thing, I may have to cheat on dinner.”

  “I’ll split one with you,” he offered, taking her hand as if it were the most natural move in the world. All she could feel through their two sets of gloves was the pressure of his fingers wrapping hers, but her heart fluttered against her throat anyway. She glanced up just as the first flakes fell, lodging in his dark hair. His gaze caught hers and held. They stopped in the middle of the packed sidewalk, traffic splitting and surging around them.