by Alina Adams
"I really don't know what I can tell you, Ms. Levy." Felicia remained standing, lest Bex get too comfortable and feel an urge to plop herself down into a Louis-the-Something chair.
Bex pretended she didn't get the hint, and so plopped. She reached for her camera and said, "But aren't you curious about what happened to Rachel? Were you curious back then?"
"Back then, Ms. Levy, I was mad as hell. Rachel's running away ruined Robby's career. Now, I honestly could not care less." Felicia looked down at Bex, sitting so comfortably that even a San Francisco-scale earthquake wouldn't have dislodged her at that point. Felicia sighed deeply and, giving in, took the seat opposite. "You have to understand something. There was a time when Robby Sharpton was my whole life. We started skating together when I was fourteen. I thought he was the most amazing human specimen ever. It wasn't just his talent on the ice, although that was considerable—don't get me wrong, that man's flaws never included an inability to land jumps. I didn't merely think he hung the moon, I thought he created it. There are old tapes of us where my crush is so painfully visible, I'm amazed we didn't lose artistic impression points for my having the exact same look on my face no matter what music we were skating to. When he dumped me to skate with Rachel—"
Aha! Bex knew it! All that "Rachel was the better skater. It was Felicia's idea," was pure bunk. There were no Mother Theresas in skating.
"—I didn't mind."
Say what, now?
"That's how in love I was. I didn't mind. Robby and I were dating by that point, and I didn't care what he did on the ice, as long as I was the one who he loved off it."
"And were you?" It seemed an obvious question.
Except that it drove Felicia to a smirk. "He said I was. And five minutes later he asked me to marry him. And five minutes after that, he told me my parents would have to keep paying a share of his bills, even though we weren't skating together anymore, because the Roses were refusing to foot the whole bill until they saw some results from the new pair."
"Oh," Bex said.
"Yes," Felicia said.
"But, you did marry him. And you stayed married to him. Even after—"
"Rachel?"
"No. I was going to say, even after he... hit you."
"Oh. That. Your chronology is off. Robby started hitting me long before Rachel entered the picture. He was a perfectionist. He'd get frustrated. He never made mistakes on the ice. That was my domain. So he hit me."
"You didn't tell anyone?"
"Who was there to tell? My parents were in the stands. Our coach was standing two feet away. It was hardly a secret. Who was I supposed to tell?"
"Nobody did anything?"
"Why should they? He'd hit and I'd get in line. I skated better with him than I ever had with anyone else."
"You were scared of him."
"I didn't want to let him down. There is a difference."
"And then, after you stopped skating together... he kept hitting you?"
"Not as often. Not right away. And it was different then. I can't explain it, but it was."
Bex had the feeling they were about to enter one of those female bonding moments that would change both of their lives forever. But, she really didn't have time for that.
So, rather than following up, she nimbly jumped to, "If Robby hit you, he must have been hitting Rachel, too."
"No. He didn't. She was a much better skater. Much better in competition."
"So Robby never hit her?"
"Never."
"That must have freaked you out."
"No. I wanted them to win. I knew how important it was to Robby."
"So, he never laid a hand on her?"
"Never."
"Then why did she run away?"
"I told you, I don't know."
"Do you think she did, though?"
"Did what?"
"Do you think she actually ran away? Maybe it was something else."
"Like what, for instance?"
"Well..." Bex wondered how to tactfully phrase, "Your husband killed her and buried her next to Jimmy Hoffa."
"Rachel Rose may have been a wonderful skater, but she was ... fragile. Emotionally. Not in competition. In competition, you couldn't knock her down with a two-by-four. In the air, she could look so crooked you'd think there was no way in hell she was coming down on one foot, and then, at the last minute, there she'd be, perfect as always. But, off the ice... she was very shy. I don't think she liked the attention and she certainly didn't like the way her parents obsessed over her career. Robby actually had to run interference with her folks, sometimes. Tell them to lay off and leave her alone. Let Rachel breathe, give her some space. He was very protective of her. You know how Pairs coaches are always saying that the man is the stem, and the woman is the flower that he presents to the audience? Well, I think Robby took it a little too seriously. He saw Rachel as this perfect, delicate flower that was his responsibility to shelter from the big bad world."
"Felicia?" Bex wasn't sure how to ask this. Somehow, it seemed even more personal than the question about Robby whacking Rachel. "Was your husband in love with his partner?"
"No." Felicia's answer came so quickly, she could only have been waiting for it. And if she was waiting for it, then she too must have known what a natural question it was. "I said he was protective of her. She was his partner. She was half of his ticket to the top. Of course, he wanted to protect her and make sure she was at her best when they skated."
Bex wondered if now would be the time to point out that, when he skated with Felicia, protection had been the last thing on Robby's mind.
Felicia insisted, "Rachel Rose was great on ice and a mess off of it. She couldn't handle all the crap her parents heaped on her, and she bailed out. It happens all the time in skating."
"So you never thought that she and Robby..."
"No." Again, with the quick answer. "Look, Ms. Levy, I know this is hard to believe, but Robby and I really did love each other. Skating crap aside, we loved each other. I loved him so much that I stayed with him even after he began hitting me again, after Rachel left him, because I knew that he didn't mean it. I knew he loved me. He just had a hard time managing his temper sometimes. It's not even really his fault. He had a horrible childhood. Neither one of his parents gave a damn about him. They were drunks and drug addicts and who knows what else. They'd lock him out and he'd have to sleep on the street when he was maybe four years old. Skating saved his life. I don't know what would have happened to him otherwise. He practically lived at the rink from first grade on. We all hoped he would forget his past. But, you don't forget something like that. It flared up. He'd get frustrated on the ice and he'd start to worry that he was about to lose everything he'd worked so hard for and he would get angry. Too angry. He couldn't help it. And he was always so sorry afterwards. He loved me. I know he did. Rachel Rose... Rachel was nothing to him. She really was nothing to any of us, in the end. Just a three-year blip in both our lives. She didn't matter. She was nothing."
Bex nodded her head fervently. She kept nodding even as she thanked Felicia for her time, and even as she got the hell out of her apartment as fast as skidding on the plush carpet could carry her. Because now, thanks to Felicia's oh, what should she call it—fervent? intense? just a teensy bit over the top?—tone, Bex had a new suspect in Rachel Rose's possible murder.
And it wasn't Robby Sharpton, at all.
She called Lucian Pryce as soon as she got back to her office at 24/7. She asked, "Did Felicia Tufts know that her husband was in love with Rachel Rose?"
"Well, let's see, the girl had two working eyes and a pair of working ears and it was all anyone at the rink ever talked about, so, just taking a wild guess, I would have to say, yes."
"How did she feel about that?"
"Now it's your turn to take a guess, Bex. How do you think she felt about it?"
"I just talked to her, Mr. Pryce. Felicia Tufts denied that Rachel was anything but Robby's partner. She said Rac
hel meant nothing to either one of them."
"Well, then Felicia Tufts lied. You put yourself in her position: First, she lost Robby as a partner, which had to sting, even though he and Rachel were obviously the better match, and if it wasn't Rachel, eventually it would have been someone else—he and Felicia weren't Senior champ material. And then she married the guy, supported him with her own money, only to have to watch him and Rachel hanging all over each other—"
"Wait a minute, wait!" Bex piped up. "I thought you told me Rachel couldn't stand Robby. That she wrinkled her nose or whatever whenever he touched her, that she treated him like garbage. How do you get from that to their hanging all over each other?"
"Rachel did treat Robby like garbage. She certainly looked down on him like she was a princess and he was some kind of peasant. But, she also knew that she needed him. There was no way in hell, even with all her money, that Rachel would ever find herself a better partner than Robby. You can buy a lot, but you can't buy talent. Or perfection. So Rachel knew she had to keep Robby under control. Her parents did it with money. But Rachel did it the same way girls have been keeping boys under control since the beginning of time. I saw the faces she made when she thought he wasn't looking. But she seduced him just the same."
"How would you know something like that?"
"I was their coach," Lucian replied, almost insulted. "I knew everything about them. We used to practice late at night. It was the best time to get private ice all to ourselves before a big competition. It was just the three of us in the rink and, after the practice, it was just the two of them in the changing rooms. Those rooms have very thin walls."
Ewwww ... Bex thought. Helpful, but, ewwww....
"So Robby cheated on Felicia with Rachel? He wasn't just in love from afar, they actually had a full-fledged affair?"
"How many pictures do you need me to draw for you, Bex?"
"And what was Felicia's reaction?"
"What could her reaction have been? She didn't dare interfere. Robby and Rachel breaking up off-ice might have led to their breaking up on-ice. And no one wanted that. Robby's success was more important to Felicia—to all of us—than any personal problems they may have been having. Which is how it should be, of course. Felicia understood what really mattered."
"So she bit her tongue, and then Rachel ended up betraying her and Robby, anyway."
"Yes. Selfish little bitch. Yes."
"So, in a way, Felicia had more of a reason to hate Rachel than Robby did?"
"Women are always more catty about such things, certainly."
"Well, what I actually meant was," Bex tried to defend her own sex while also furthering her latest burgeoning theory. "Rachel only cost Robby his career. But she humiliated Felicia, had an affair with her husband, which the whole world apparently knew about, and, in the end, ended up running out on Robby and their career, anyway."
"She ran out on all of us. We all suffered. Do you know that, after Rachel disappeared, I didn't have a championship pair to take to the Olympics? First time in over twenty years I didn't have a student at the Games. I actually ended up staying home, watching it on television like some... like some... outsider! Like some…. regular person. You can't imagine the humiliation. I poured my heart and soul into that team. I put all my eggs into one basket. Well, I never did that again, I can assure you!"
"But, didn't Robby continue skating Singles? Weren't you his coach?"
"No!" Lucian barked. "That was another thing. After Rachel left and Robby decided to skate Singles, Felicia convinced him he needed better coaching. Better coaching! I was the number one ranked trainer in the country, then. Won the Professional Skater's Coach of the Year Award five times in a row. Five times! No one had done it before and no one's done it since, either. I think Felicia poisoned Robby's mind against me. He said he didn't blame me for Rachel's leaving, but I'll bet you death spirals to doughnuts, Felicia managed to convince him it was all my fault. She'd always hated me."
"For pairing up Robby with Rachel instead of her?"
"Oh, who knows why. That girl always overreacted to everything, that's what made her so high-strung in competition. Sure, I bet she blamed me for Rachel and Robby. Like I had any say over what my skaters did in their private lives. And she wanted to stick it to me after Rachel left. So she convinced Robby he needed a better coach. A Russian one, no less. She convinced him the Russians were better than we were, that only a Russian could put him on top in Singles. Right after Rachel left, Felicia used her parents' money, pulled some strings, paid off some bribes, you know how they do business over there; got Robby a spot with some fancy Russian coach in Leningrad—that was before they changed the name, you know. I think he ended up spending maybe two years over there. And what did it get him? Sure, he made the Olympic team. But no medals. He and Rachel would have been champions. Alone... it was too late. Too late to change disciplines. If he'd given me a chance, I could have found Robby another partner. Not as good as Rachel, sure, but we'd have had a fighting chance. Felicia's way, everybody lost. Her, too."
Bex felt like she had a pretty good picture of what Felicia had lost. And whom she might have blamed for it. But, she also had one more question for Lucian. "Mr. Pryce?"
"What?"
"Mr. Pryce, you do know what happened to Robby and Felicia after he finished skating, right? I mean, his going to jail and—"
"Of course I know. How could I not know? Day the news broke, practically every person I'd ever met in skating felt obligated to call me to ask what I knew about it. I didn't know a damn thing. Hadn't talked to either one of them in years."
"But," Bex's tongue tiptoed tentatively. "You did know something. In a way. I mean, Robby didn't just start beating Felicia after he stopped being your student. Felicia says... Felicia says he was hitting her while they were skating together. And that you knew all about it."
A pause on the other end.
The pause turned into a caesura.
And the caesura into a gap worthy of a "We interrupt this programming….”
Bex wanted to say something. She really, really did. Alas, she also knew that saying something would blow whatever advantage she'd acquired by catching him off-guard like this. And so she struggled to suppress her basic instinct to shoot off her own foot, then stick it jauntily in her mouth, 1940s, Dorothy-Parker cigarette style.
Finally, Lucian Pryce told her, "Like I've said before, Bex, Felicia always had a problem with overreacting to things. She had no sense of proportion, everything was a major tragedy to her. The girl spent more lesson time crying and making up excuses for why she'd made a mistake, than actually trying to fix them. She was, and probably still is, a hysteric of the first order. She doesn't see the world the way it is, she sees the world the way she thinks it is—which, by the way, is convinced that everyone is out to get her. You can't believe a word she says. She changes stories the way some girls changed hair ribbons. It was excruciating coaching her. I never knew how that child would react to the exact same feedback—stand up straighter, check your arms out faster, that sort of thing, run-of-the-mill training—from one day to the next. Frankly, she's such a piece of work, I wouldn't put any vindictive accusation or action past her."
"So you're saying you didn't know that Robby was hitting Felicia while they were both your students? You're saying Felicia lied about that?"
"I'm saying that the World According to Felicia is not a happy place. And God help anyone who finds themselves trapped between what really is and what she thinks it should be."
Bex didn't even bother hanging up the phone after saying good-bye to Lucian. She simply kept the receiver tucked between her right shoulder and her ear, pushed the twin buttons in the cradle to disconnect, and promptly re-dialed Toni. Her ear felt red and swollen from being pressed against hard plastic for so long, but Bex didn't even care (well, she cared, but not enough to do anything about it; even shifting ears would somehow dilute the purity of the moment). She was so excited, she was amazed Toni could ev
en make out what she was saying—Bex certainly couldn't.
"I've got it," she babbled. "I've got it, Toni. Robby would never have killed Rachel. She was too important to him as a partner and, besides, he was in love with her. It was Felicia. She was jealous of Robby's feelings for Rachel. It all makes sense, Toni. Felicia killed Rachel!"
There was a pause on the other end. A very, very long pause. Even longer that Lucian's. It was so long, it gave Bex time to wonder what the two had been like as Pairs partners, if both took a lifetime to articulate a thought. She imagined practice sessions where they did nothing more than stare at each other mutely, both pondering their next utterances. The pause was so long that Bex figured Toni hadn't understood her after all, and was about to repeat her babble, exclamation points and all. Except that was when Toni, speaking very, very, very slowly, as if Bex were one of those foreign skaters who came for the summer intensive program with a vocabulary no broader than "Axel," "Lutz," and "Beer, please," gingerly asked her, "Bex, what in the world made you think that Rachel Rose is dead?"
CHAPTER TEN
Bex said, "Um..." And then she said, "She's... um... not?"
"Goodness, no, honey! Whatever gave you that idea?"
"Well, I—you said she disappeared, and I assumed ..."
“I said she disappeared from skating, I never said she was dead. After she first left, no one heard from her for about a year or two. But, she eventually got in touch with her parents and some other folks. She didn't want them to worry. She's not that kind of young lady. But, believe me, Rachel is perfectly fine. She's doing rather well, as a matter of fact, from what I understand."
"You've talked to her?" Bex could feel her face getting redder and redder. She imagined if she had a handy bowl of water to duck her head in, she could generate enough steam for a sauna.
"Not recently, no. But we spoke several years ago on the phone. I believe she runs a high-end travel agency in one of those fancy vacation towns. It's her own business, she started it herself and she's very proud of what she's accomplished. She doesn't miss skating or competing at all, she told me. She's very happy doing what she's doing."
