Being Sloane Jacobs

by Lauren Morrill

  Then there are our coaches, Katinka and Sergei Bolosovic, former Russian national champions turned husband-and-wife coaching duo. Sergei doesn’t speak much English, so his coaching is mostly relegated to raised eyebrows, grunts, and strategic eye rolls. Katinka does her best to be supportive, but every piece of advice she offers sounds like it’s coming straight from the Cold War.

  I can skate and spin, and I’ve been practicing all those arm-swishing movements in my room whenever Ivy’s not around to give me the evil eye. But when it comes to letting someone lift me over his head? That I’m not so good at. I have trouble putting my trust in a pair of arms that have roughly the density of a cooked piece of linguine.

  “Sloane! You must go with dee lift!” Katinka skates over to center ice, where I’m flat on my butt, my legs out in front of me in a V shape. Roman is towering over me, sighing.

  “You keep saying that, but I still don’t know what that means.” I mean to say it under my breath, but Katinka hears me.

  “I know dis ees first time you do pairs. Ees not easy, I know dis. But you must try.” Katinka offers me about one-eighth of a smile, which in Russia is practically a hug. “When Roman lifts, you must lift. Breathe in with dee lift, yes?”

  “Yes,” I say. I stand up on my skates and turn, eye to eye with Roman. Looking at his lanky arms and narrow hips, I’m thinking the lifting problem might not be only with me.

  “Roman, you lift.” Katinka nods and crosses her arms behind her back. I’d feel more comfortable if she prepped herself to catch me, because it looks like the last thing Roman lifted over his head was his Han Solo action figure as he positioned it above his bed. No joke, the kid brought his dolls to summer camp.

  “I’ll do my best,” Roman says, with another gargantuan sigh.

  Katinka counts off, and Roman and I take off side by side. The move, which three couples before us all completed without incident, calls for me to drop back a stride. Then Roman is supposed to grab my right hand, pull me toward him, then wrap his hands around my waist and use the momentum to lift me straight up. It’s an “elementary lift,” as Katinka keeps saying, in that Roman uses both hands and I’m not upside down or anything, thank God. He isn’t even supposed to hold me up very long. It’s supposed to be a fluid lift, my arms artfully over my head. Afterward, he’s supposed to deposit me gracefully back onto the ice.

  So far he’s deposited me onto my butt. Three times. Thanks a lot, Roman.

  At the required speed, I drop back. Roman grabs my hand with his sweaty palm, and pulls me in. His hands are around my waist. I breathe in and try to go with the lift, like Katinka says, but as I feel my skates leave the ground, I hear Roman let out a grunt the likes of which I haven’t heard outside of a Wimbledon tennis match. It does not inspire confidence. And so I do what comes naturally. I try to catch myself. I grab onto his hands, which are holding on to my waist so tight I think his bony little fingers are going to leave bruises. I feel his arms buckle, his grip slip.

  I yelp, and then I flail, as if I’m trying to hoist myself back up into the air like you would if you were falling out of a piggyback ride. This causes Roman to just sort of let go. And then I’m tumbling again. I swing my legs to get them down before my butt, but it’s not the ice they make contact with. It’s Roman, or, to be more accurate, Roman’s groin.

  The impact is so hard, my knee actually hurts. Katinka yips, the other skaters gasp, and I think I actually hear Sergei say “Oh my God.”

  The only person who doesn’t make a sound is Roman. He’s on his knees, doubled over, staring at some invisible point on the ice, his face red and getting redder. He looks like a pressure cooker about to blow with the loudest, longest stream of profanities.

  “Roman, I’m so sorry,” I say. Even though it was mostly his fault. I went with the lift. Where was he going?

  Roman looks up and focuses his angry stare on me. His beady little eyes narrow. “You,” he finally says. “You are the worst partner ever. No one could partner you. No one!”

  Sergei and Katinka speed over to him. Sergei helps Roman to his skates and starts leading him off the ice. But before he goes, he looks over his shoulder and shouts, “No one!”

  Jeez. Drama queen much, Roman?

  “I think I need a new partner,” I say to Katinka, who offers me what I think is a sympathetic nod. That or she’s considering shipping me off to a gulag.

  “We will find you someone more … substantial,” she says.

  “Yeah, okay,” I say. “Preferably someone who can at least bench the equivalent of my weight?”

  “Muscles ees not dee issue. You need partner who control you, because you no trust. You must trust,” Katinka says.

  Across the ice, the three other male skaters seem to almost shrink behind their partners. Their body language screams, Not me! Oh please God, not me!

  “Maybe Andy could join this group?” I give Katinka my most pathetic face, in hopes that she’ll take pity on me. “I think we might be a good match.”

  “Andy ees very good skater.” She looks at me hard, as if trying to determine whether I’ll bring Andy down with me. That one-eighth of a smile reappears, one penciled-in eyebrow arched high. “Yes, I think you are right. Tomorrow we meet during free time. You need work.” I hope she means “you need to work,” but I think she means I need some serious skater renovation. With only two weeks until the final exhibition, I’m pretty sure she’s right.

  At least Ivy will be happy. I’m not giving her a run for her money—or spandex—out here. It’ll be the Cinderella story of the summer if I manage not to maim my partner.

  After practice I lie in bed, flat on my back, my arms and legs splayed out around me. It turns out falling on your butt over and over again is pretty stinking exhausting. When I agreed to the swap, I figured I’d be giving my body a bit of a rest from the body war that is hockey. I assumed that my knee might even get a little time to heal over these four weeks. Wrong, wrong, double wrong.

  I hear a drum solo coming from inside the wardrobe—my ringtone. I groan, thinking that my phone might as well be all the way back in Philly. There’s no way I’m getting up and going all the way over there.

  Who could be calling me, anyway? Dad hasn’t bothered to check in with me since I left, and so I haven’t bothered to call him either.

  Mom always used to make me call her and let her know where I was. That was the rule. In exchange for never having a real curfew, I had to agree to call her anytime I “changed location,” as she said. Even at her worst, she’d always answer the phone when I called and always expected me to check in. But ever since she’s gone away, I haven’t spoken to her at all. No phones in the first thirty days. Them’s the rules.

  The drums reach a fever pitch, and I know the call will go to voice mail soon. What if it is Dad? What if it’s an emergency?

  The drum solo starts over, and now I know I have only a few seconds left. “Aw, hell,” I mutter, then leap out of the bed with the last ounce of energy I have. I fling open the wardrobe door, reach into the pocket, pull out the phone, and click the Answer button without even checking the number.

  “Hello?”

  “Sloane?” It’s not my dad, although it’s definitely a guy’s voice.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Nando.”

  It takes me a good solid five seconds before it all clicks together. Nando, of course. Nando with his dark eyes and that confident-but-not-cocky swagger and lips close to mine and—

  “Oh, Nando! Hi! How are you?” It comes out a little more enthusiastically than I’d hoped. I wish I could swallow back the words. I sound like a greeter at Walmart.

  “I’m great,” he says. I can hear the smile in his deep voice. “I just wanted to see if you could get away. No hockey this time. Maybe food. We can hang out?”

  “That sounds great,” I reply. I collapse onto the bed, my phone pressed against my ear, equal parts exhaustion and excitement. Nando. Studly, sweet, kickass Nando. This totall
y makes up for my hippo-on-skates performance in practice today.

  But then I remember that before I finally left the rink in shame, Katinka told me that if I didn’t start improving, she’d schedule me for evening sessions on the ice. My stomach drops. Katinka didn’t say it, but I’m pretty sure this is the equivalent of after-school tutoring for the kid who can’t pass the algebra test. I don’t care if figure skating isn’t my thing, I can’t turn in another performance like today’s. No one will believe I’m Sloane Emily if I spend 90 percent of my time flat on my butt. And worse than that, I’ll be a loser. I’ll be the worst. I’ll be the bottom rung—if I’m not already; word of my attack on Roman today has probably gotten out. I can’t take that.

  If I’m going to make it through this summer without totally humiliating myself, I can’t spend my nights with Nando, even if he does have a badass slap shot.

  “I can pick you up in an hour?”

  “I’m really sorry,” I say. “It does sound great, but I can’t.” I can feel the excitement ebbing away, the exhaustion taking over. “I’m sort of behind. I need to focus.”

  “You’re behind? Not from what I could see at the game the other day,” he says. Oh right, I’m supposed to be at hockey camp. Crap.

  “Well, you remember what it was like,” I explain. “Before you got scouted? It’s just a lot of pressure.”

  “Yeah, I remember.” Something changes in his voice. “Listen, maybe another time. You gotta relax every now and then, or trust me, the pressure is going to get to you.”

  “Totally,” I say. “I’ll call you soon, okay?”

  “Sounds good,” he says. “Night, Sloane.”

  I click the button, roll over, and fling my phone underneath the bed. I feel a twinge in my shoulder at the motion. I bury my face in the covers and moan. But I know what I’ve got to do. If I can get my act together by Friday, maybe Katinka will let me out of my detention—er, extra training.

  It takes me fifteen minutes to lace up my sneakers. That’s how tired I am. It takes me another ten to make it down the stairs and to the east wing of the building, where all the practice studios are. By the time I get there, I feel a second wind coming on. I choose a studio all the way at the end of the hall, in hopes that it’s the last one anyone will walk into.

  The room is about the size of a master bedroom. The front and back walls are mirrored. There’s a desk in the corner with an iMac and a full stereo. I pull up YouTube and click through to some how-to videos Sloane showed me. They’re hosted by a smiling Nancy Kerrigan in crisp black leggings and a fitted fleece, gliding effortlessly across the ice demonstrating salchows and camel spins. I press Play, then step back and do the moves along with her on my sneakers. And when the video is over, I do it again.

  As I work my way through a series of videos on choreography, I start to think about those brisk fall nights back home in our backyard. Okay, “backyard” might be a charitable description of the twenty square feet of broken concrete that make up our fenced-in patio. But it was my own little practice room under the moon. I’d take a ball and my stick out there and practice slap shots over and over against the brick wall until my neighbor, Mrs. Fernandez, would poke her curler-covered head out the upstairs window next door and beg me to cut it out. When I’d finally call it a night, Mom would be “asleep” on the couch, the glow of some Lifetime movie cast over her face, an empty wineglass on the floor next to her. When I was younger I’d nudge her awake and help her up the stairs to bed, but in recent years I just left her there. It was getting harder and harder to wake her.

  On the glowing screen in the practice room, Kristi Yamaguchi is skipping and spinning across the ice in a black and gold dress at the 1992 Olympics. She goes up for a split jump. The crowd roars, and I drop my arms. I just stand there, watching her while she moves into the slow section. The commentator is talking about how, if she can just land this one jump, she’ll surely win the gold medal.

  She skates backward, winding up for the jump, and I hold my breath. She goes up, wobbles, and falls out of the jump. Her hand goes down on the ice.

  She gets back up and finishes her program, an almost-convincing smile on her face. I let out a long sigh. The biggest name in figure skating ate it in front of millions of viewers.

  Then she picked herself up and finished. And she scored a gold medal.

  Maybe I should pick myself up too.

  CHAPTER 15

  SLOANE EMILY

  My nails are a disaster.

  And it’s not just my nails. My cuticles are ragged, I’ve got callouses forming on my palms, and the french tips I had done at my favorite salon in Arlington before I left are turning about six shades of gray. It’s all from having my hands crammed in Sloane Devon’s grubby gloves for five hours a day. I don’t know when the last time she cleaned those things was, but based on the smell, I’d say it was around the time Miley Cyrus was still Hannah Montana.

  Luckily, today I plan to do something about it. I used my laptop to Yelp a salon for the perfect manicure and found one on Rue St. Denis only a few blocks away.

  Today is our free morning workout. It’s a time for us to work out any stiffness or sore muscles or practice a new skill we learned in class. I plan to work out my cuticles, thank you very much.

  I gather my phone, keys, and purse and head out the door. Halfway down the hall I realize I should probably ask Cameron if she wants to come along. I pivot-turn and walk back down the hall, past my room and the bathroom. Cameron has the room on the other side of the bathroom, only hers is a single, meaning she gets her very own sitting room and no Melody.

  I knock on the heavy wooden door.

  “Coming!”

  The door swings open and Cameron is there, only instead of one of her adorable outfits, she’s got on a pair of yoga pants, a tank, and a red practice jersey.

  “Are you seriously working out right now?” I eye her ensemble.

  “And you’re not?” She stares back at Sloane Devon’s ratty jeans, which I’ve rolled and cuffed into a reasonable approximation of a trendy boyfriend capri, and a red Jefferson High hockey tee. I cut the collar out so it hangs off one shoulder. I’m sure she won’t mind—they probably give these things out like candy.

  “Uh, no,” I say. I hold out my hands. “I was thinking it was time for a manicure. I thought you might want to join me.”

  “Sloane, didn’t you see the notice?”

  “What notice?”

  She grabs my hand and drags me down the hall to the elevator and jabs at a neon-yellow flyer tacked onto the corkboard next to the Up and Down buttons.

  BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCOUT ON CAMPUS TODAY

  OPEN ICE 10 A.M.–2 P.M.

  SIGN UP AT THE OFFICE FOR AN INTERVIEW

  “Their women’s team scout is here today. How did you not know?”

  Uh, probably because I spent my morning hiding in my room letting a deep conditioner do its magic on my hair.

  The reality hits me hard, though. A scout? Here? Oh crap.

  “Manicures tomorrow,” she says. She leads me back down the hall and stops in front of my door. “There’s a hole in the schedule just after lunch; we can be out and back before anyone notices we’re gone. There’s a place close by that has the best organic products, and your nails have been looking seriously torn up. But now? We skate. Go get changed. I’ll finish getting geared up and meet you back here in ten.”

  As soon as her door is closed, I turn on my heel and bolt to my room. Inside, I whip out my phone and dash off a text to Sloane. I hope she’s not in class or something, because I need serious advice. Like, now.

  Scouts are here! What do I do?

  It takes about point two seconds for my phone to buzz a response. There’s just one word in the little blue bubble on the screen.

  Hide.

  I grab a tote, stuff my phone and wallet inside, and then run to the elevator. I have to get out of here before I see a coach, or worse, the scout. It’s one thing to lie to the staff; it’
s another to possibly jeopardize Sloane Devon’s entire future. At one point she mentioned needing a hockey scholarship for college, and I do not want to be responsible for screwing that up. If anyone asks me later where I was, I’ll just claim I never saw the notice. I reach up and snatch it off the bulletin board for good measure.

  There. Plausible deniability.

  The elevator doors slide open and I jab the Lobby button. The elevator glides down the shaft and the doors slide open. I take one step out into the lobby and see Coach Amber walk through the door with a tall, thin guy in a red polo, the words BOSTON UNIVERSITY stitched across the heart in white.

  Oh God. The scout. Amber spots me and starts to wave me over, but I quickly avert my eyes and pretend I don’t notice. I leap back into the elevator and jab the button for the basement. I can sneak out the back.

  The elevator doors open again, and I take a giant leap out onto the linoleum tile. Ten more steps to the other side of the room and I’m out the back door and home free.

  “Sloane!”

  Crap. Matt.

  Not just Matt—the entire guys’ advanced team. They’re piled on couches and chairs, and when they ran out of seating they spilled out onto the floor. There are giant, sweaty boys as far as the eye can see. They’re watching some grainy old game that looks like it’s from the Olympics.

  “Oh, hi, Matt!” I say, trying not to break stride. “I was just on my way out.”

  “Come watch tape with us!” he says.

  Eleven heads pivot back to the screen. Matt jumps up from his spot on the couch and jogs over to me. He sticks his hands in his pockets and tosses his bangs out of his eyes. I notice he looks nervous.

  “Listen, about last night … I just want to be friends, okay?”

  It strikes me as an odd change of tactic, but I’m anxious to get out of here. “Fine,” I say. “That’s fine. Friends.”

  “Awesome,” he says, smiling broadly. “So I was thinking we could go out for a bite. As friends.”

  If I say no, he’ll just try to convince me. And I need to get out of here.