by Alina Adams
"Actually, Amanda, I'm here to shoot Jeremy Hunt."
Somehow, Bex suspected that if it were at all possible, Lian's mother was about to ask Bex to start calling her Mrs. Reilly again.
Naturally, she didn't. But, she sure did look like she wanted to. Instead, she managed to sputter out, "But—but, Jeremy Hunt, he's one of Toni Wright's students."
"Yes, I know."
“Toni Wright doesn't coach champions."
"I'm sorry, what?" Bex turned around, giving the woman her full attention for the first time since this sycophantic dialogue began. Apparently, her Universal Skating Translator was on the fritz again.
"Oh, you didn't know. Well, that's all right."
"Didn't know what?"
"That Toni Wright is strictly B-level. I mean, don't get me wrong, she seems to be a lovely woman, and I'm sure her life has been full of all sorts of challenges and handicaps and restrictions—I understand that sort of prejudice, myself, of course, because of my own situation."
Bex considered Mrs. Reilly's strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. "You do?"
"Naturally, I do. And I relate to it wholeheartedly. My own Lian, she's Asian, you know."
Bex resisted the urge to point out that it was sort of hard to miss.
"My husband and I tried to have children for years, and then we tried to adopt domestically and that never worked out. Finally, when we adopted Lian from China, it truly was the happiest day in my life. That's why I named her Lian. Lian means, 'my joy,' you know."
Bex resisted the urge to point out that Mrs. Reilly had already told her all this last year. Instead, she asked a question that had actually been nagging at her since the last time she'd heard the story. "Does it mean 'my joy,' in Chinese?"
"Well, no. I didn't like the Chinese word for joy. Too hard to pronounce. And it was too foreign sounding. Lian is actually Hebrew for 'my joy.'
"Are you Jewish?"
"Irish. But, I liked how it sounded. You know, sort of Chinese, without actually being—"
"Chinese?"
"Exactly."
"Ah."
"But, you see, because of Lian's being Asian and all, I like to think myself particularly sensitive to issues of prejudice. I understand that while it was most likely racism that probably kept Toni from reaching her full potential—"
Toni Wright single-handedly broke the color barrier in American figure skating and went on to win several U.S. titles plus headline a half-dozen ice shows. What was it with these people and their bizarre definition of reaching one's potential?
"—But, the fact is, Toni is a fine coach for beginners and for people who just want to skate for fun or whatever. But, when it comes to training champions, anyone with any kind of potential eventually gets noticed by one of the elite coaches. Gary Gold, or Igor Marchenko. My own Lian, she was five years old when I took her out of lessons with Toni and put her with Gary. I mean, she wouldn't have gotten anywhere taking lessons from Toni."
Bex couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Have you seen Jeremy Hunt skate?"
"It doesn't matter," Mrs. Reilly waved a dismissive hand in the boy's direction. "Everyone knows he isn't champion material."
"Really? And why is that?"
"Well, for one thing, he hasn't hit his growth spurt, yet. No one can judge what kind of skater anyone is going to be until they finish growing and we see the body God has given them."
Well, okay, she did have a point there. Adolescence did tend to wreak havoc with a skater's timing and agility. But, why did Bex think there was more to this than just that?
"And then there's that father of his."
All right, now Mrs. Reilly had Bex's full attention. "What about his father?"
"Well, I'm not one to gossip...."
"Oh, come on," Bex did her best to rein in the irony currently dripping from her every word like a superfluous coat of wet paint. "Just this once."
Mrs. Reilly narrowed her eyes and looked around her, first right, then left, then right again. She was either being very conscientious because she was about to cross the street, or she expected Craig Hunt to suddenly materialize out of thin air, like a Count Dracula of the skating world.
Once she was satisfied that neither was about to happen, Mrs. Reilly stood on her tiptoes so she could reach Bex's ear, and whispered, "There is something seriously wrong with that man."
Oh, that was very helpful. Talk about a lot of drama for absolutely no information. Bex couldn't help thinking of her father, a high school science teacher, who used to lob such bromides both at work and at home as, "Lots is not a number." Bex used to roll her eyes whenever he said it. Except that now she felt a mad urge to tell Mrs. Reilly, "Seriously wrong is not an actual piece of information."
But, seeing as how she was still hoping that Mrs. Reilly might actually bring forth a relevant bit of knowledge, Bex once again restrained her natural tendency toward irony and sarcasm to offer the more neutral, "For instance?"
"Well, for instance," Mrs. Reilly lowered her voice again. "I think he hates skating."
"And this qualifies as something being seriously wrong with a person?"
"With a person whose son is a skater? Yes."
Okay, again, Mrs. Reilly had the beginning of a point.
"What makes you think he hates skating? Have you observed him burning effigies of St. Ludwina?"
Mrs. Reilly stared at Bex strangely. Fortunately, Bex got that sort of thing a lot, so she knew that it meant, "What the heck are you babbling about now, Bex?"
She explained, "St. Ludwina is the patron saint of skaters."
"Oh."
"You can look it up in a book. I'll send you a copy. But, anyhow, you were saying?"
The woman clearly needed another moment to get over her Bex experience. Once she had, though, she promptly launched into, "Mr. Hunt isn't like the other skating parents. For one thing, it's so rare seeing a father bringing his child to the rink. Usually it's the mother mostly. Now, I understand him being a widower and all, what with Mrs. Hunt dying from breast cancer like that, so tragic, really, I understand—"
"Jeremy's mother died of breast cancer?"
"That's what Mr. Hunt told me. But it was many years ago, before they moved to Hartford. I always got the feeling that's why they moved, actually, to get away from the bad memories."
"Where did they come from?"
Mrs. Reilly looked like she'd been blind-sided. "What?"
"You said that Jeremy's mother died before the Hunts moved to Hartford. Where did they move from?"
Mrs. Reilly actually had to stop and think about that. Bex could tell she was thinking because her brow was furrowed and also because, for once, she wasn't talking. Finally, she said, "You know, I don't think he ever mentioned it."
"Okay," Bex said. "I was just curious. Go on."
"Right. Well, anyway, like I was saying, he's a very peculiar man. He brings Jeremy to the rink, but he takes no interest in skating. He never asks questions or talks to the coach about how Jeremy is progressing. It's like he doesn't care."
"Maybe he doesn't."
"Well, it's unnatural. And so is the way he behaves toward the other parents. It's always a polite hello and nothing more. He never stops to chat, he never carpools, he never asks how our children are doing—"
"Do you ever ask him about Jeremy?"
"What? Jeremy? No. How could we? It's not like Mr. Hunt behaves like a normal parent. A normal parent comes in, has a cup of coffee at the snack bar, a little chat, a little conversation. No, it's just in and out with Mr. Hunt, in and out, like some kind of factory time-clock. That's why Jeremy, no matter how talented he is, is never going to make it in skating."
"Because his father doesn't drink coffee?"
"Because his father isn't a part of the community, Ms. Levy. Skating is a very small world. Word gets around when a parent is surly or thinks he's better than the rest of us. Word gets around, and judges take that sort of thing into consideration."
"It can't matt
er that much. Jeremy won Sectionals."
"Oh, that. That was simply because he skated better than the other boys."
Again, Bex felt like her translator was in the shop. "That's not the name of the game?"
Mrs. Reilly looked at Bex as if she couldn't decide whether to enlighten or pity her. She apparently settled for a combination of both. "Reputation matters in our sport. That's something Mr. Hunt doesn't seem to understand. Keeping Toni as Jeremy's coach when he could have Gary or Igor—I know they've both asked about Jeremy, but Mr. Hunt refuses to switch—is not good for his boy. Plus, there's that patronizing attitude, the aloofness, the indifference. If I didn't know better, Ms. Levy, I would swear that Craig Hunt is deliberately going out of his way to sabotage his son's chances for success in skating. That's why I say Jeremy isn't championship material. He's never going to make it. His father will see to that."
Bex was thinking about what Mrs. Reilly said—the stuff that made sense, not the self-centered rambling, though her Universal Nonsense Sorter was working double-time to make sure she assigned each utterance to the correct group—when Jeremy waved to her from center ice, signaling that he was ready to begin his long program. Bex waved back, to show that she got the message. She noted where his starting pose was, and got into position to film. Bex raised the camera to her face, centering Jeremy in the middle of the frame, taking care not to chop off either the top of his head (very amateurish) or the bottom of his skates (there was nothing more frustrating than trying to watch figure skating when you couldn't see the performer's feet). After all, this might very well prove to be her first piece of professional camera work. This could be her shooting and directing and producing and editing debut. The least she could do was make sure it didn't look as inexperienced as she actually was.
Toni flicked the switch on the tape player, filling the arena with the Warsaw Concerto. As soon as she did, the other skaters got out of the way. It was rink etiquette that whoever's music was playing got the right of way. Although Bex did notice that some skaters did the skedaddling thing a bit quicker than others. Ms. Lian "My Joy" Reilly, for instance, did it only at the very last second, when it looked like Jeremy was literally about to skate on top of her, and she did it so slowly that she looked liked she was being dragged off by a giant hand against her will. As it was, while Lian did ultimately move, her taking so long to do it forced Jeremy to slow his speed to make sure he avoided hitting her, and it messed up his timing entering the quadruple Salchow. Still, there was something catlike about the boy. Even though he went into the quad slower than usual and tilted at a precarious angle, some feline instinct prompted him to straighten out in the air so that, by the time his right foot touched the ground, he was in perfect position again.
If Bex hadn't been taping the program for posterity, she would have allowed herself an impressed, "wow." But, as it was, she never even got the chance to suppress it.
Because, the instant Jeremy flung both his arms out to their sides to stop the rotation of his quadruple Salchow jump through a technique called "checking out," Bex felt a strong, masculine hand grab her wrist and, without warning, yank it so hard that she not only lost Jeremy in her shot, she practically dropped the expensive camera, as well.
Furious, Bex spun around to demand an explanation for this inexcusable interruption, only to come face-to-face with a total stranger in his mid-thirties, dressed in a neatly pressed black suit and tie, his olive complexion darkened by anger, a lock of sienna hair from his bangs falling haphazardly into his face—the better to emphasize the absolute fury in his mahogany eyes.
"What the hell," he wasn't shouting, but the quiet steel in his voice was somehow more frightening, "do you think you're doing shooting video of my son?"
CHAPTER FIVE
Bex’s traditional, premeditated, spontaneous response to such rude interruptions was, "Mr. Craig Hunt, I presume?" Or, at least, it would eventually be her response if said rude interruptions didn't traditionally, and in an utterly unpremeditated manner, discombobulate her to the point of not being able to saying anything at all, witty or otherwise.
"Um ... I..." Bex stammered.
But, she was thinking, "Mr. Craig Hunt, I presume." So that had to count for something.
"Who are you?" Craig held Bex's digital camera in both hands. Was it her imagination, or was he actually squeezing it ever so slightly? Not unlike Clark Gable, whose idea of foreplay in Gone With the Wind was to tell Scarlett that he could squish her skull between his palms.
"I... uh ..."
"Dad!" Jeremy called out, interrupting Bex's train of thought. And right when she'd been asked a question that, if given a bit more time to collect herself, she probably could have answered, too. Bex usually got her name right. Especially after a few tries. "Dad, this is Bex Levy."
"Bex Levy!" she repeated. There. She knew she'd had the answer to that one.
"She's with 24/7 and—"
"The network?" Craig demanded.
"I called her, Mr. Hunt." Toni skated up and joined the conversation at the barrier. Craig looked from her to his son, seemingly undecided about whom to glare more at first.
“Toni thought that if Bex saw me skate—"
"Bex is the 24/7 researcher, Mr. Hunt. She knows world-class skating when she sees it."
“Toni thought maybe Bex could convince you to let me skate at Nationals because I'm just as good as anyone else who's going—"
"He really is, Mr. Hunt. In fact, like I keep telling you, our Jeremy is actually better than a lot of the boys who'll be at that competition."
"Bex thinks I'm really good, Dad. She thinks I could win. Or at least get on TV. And I wouldn't have to go crazy or anything. I promise. I double promise."
"I see," Craig said. He was still calm. He was still squeezing the camera.
Bex had nothing to add. So she just nodded. Fervently. And wondered if it was too late to answer the question about what her name was.
"Ms. Wright," Craig decided Toni would be the first proud recipient of his glare, "Jeremy's lesson is over. Jeremy," he shifted his gaze over an inch and down four, addressing his son. "I will see you in the parking lot in five minutes. Ms. Levy," he flipped her camera over, gently tapping the red release button and popping out her tape. He placed it in his pocket and politely returned the camera to Bex. "Have a nice drive back to New York."
And then, without another word or a single raised syllable, he turned around and walked out of the ice rink.
Bex stared at his retreating back.
And she was out in the parking lot, already calling his name, before she realized that she'd followed him.
"Mr. Hunt, Mr. Hunt, wait!" Bex shouted, even as she wondered what she would actually say if he, in fact, heeded her request.
He heeded her request.
Craig Hunt paused, one palm resting on the trunk of his several-years-old blue Toyota. He turned around. "Yes, Ms. Levy?"
"Wait," she repeated.
"I'm waiting."
She caught up to him, also resting her hand on the trunk, facing him. She'd read that this was called "mirroring." It was supposed to make people like and trust you more. She wondered how it was working.
"Your son," she said, "he's a really good skater."
"Thank you."
"He has an excellent chance of medalling at Nationals."
"Not if he's not there."
"I don't understand," Bex wondered if whining made her mirroring more or less effective. "I mean, Mr. Hunt, I really would like to know why you won't let Jeremy go to Nationals."
"I'm sure that's true. I, however, don't have to tell you."
A valid point. With not a lot of leeway for a rejoinder. So, instead, Bex said, "Jeremy's a great kid."
"Thank you, again."
"You've done an excellent job raising him. Especially all by yourself."
Craig crossed his arms and just looked at her. Apparently, she'd reached the end of either her flattery or his politeness rope. “Toni said you w
ere a skating expert, Ms. Levy. Is that true?"
"Um ... yes?"
"Answer me this, then, from an expert's point of view: How many of the skaters that you interview, on average, would you say are happy? And I mean honestly, truly happy, not just temporarily appeased by a piece of gold hanging around their anorexic necks?"
"I... I don't know. I mean, that's not really my judgment to make, is it?"
"I walk into this rink here every day, and I see a baker's dozen of daytime talk show guests waiting to happen. Lian Reilly walks around like a zombie, mumbling, "If you believe it, it will happen" to herself every moment that she isn't on the ice. She has to say it exactly a hundred times every day and if you interrupt her she has to start all over again. Jordan Ares sued to be legally emancipated from her parents so she could skate more. She's been living alone since she was twelve. Our defending Novice national champions in ice dancing have given each other, in no particular order: a severed finger, a dislocated shoulder, a broken jaw, and two concussions. And that's off the ice, Ms. Levy, not on it. The Junior World Champion is on Prozac, but that hasn't kept him from ripping his hair out of his head and eating it. He says it relieves stress. And I presume I don't have to tell you, of all people, about what happened to our National Champion from last year? Erin Simpson?"
No. No, he didn't have to tell Bex about it. She'd actually been the one who broke that story, live on 24/7, during their broadcast of the World Championships. It was her first attempt at a murder investigation. Bex would even say it had gone rather well. Except for the number of lives destroyed in the process.
"And that," Craig continued, "that's the snake pit you want me to let Jeremy triple-jump his way into? You just told me what a great kid he is. How long do you think that will last once big-time skating gets its paws on him?"
Mrs. Reilly had accused Craig Hunt of knowing nothing about their sport. It sounded to Bex like he knew quite a bit more than he needed to.
"But, it doesn't have to be that way," Bex insisted. "Some people leave this sport very happy and well adjusted."
"Like who?" Craig smirked. "Robby Sharpton?"
