by Alina Adams
Toni was ready to give up, to tell Daddy that maybe, like her friend from next door, she'd like to try dance lessons, after all. There was a lady on Hamilton Heights who gave classes, and those were for colored girls only, so there would surely be a space for Toni if she asked.
But that was before the boy that came right up to her at the rink as she was taking off her skates after another fruitless day of attempting to master backward crossovers and asked, "You got a lot of money?"
He was about twelve, maybe thirteen years old, with hair so blond he might have been a ghost and eyes so blue they looked like mirrors reflecting the summer sky. His chin had a point at the end, and with every word he spoke, it looked as though he was jabbing it right in Toni's direction.
"What's it to you?" Toni asked, knowing that she sounded common, and happy that Mama wasn't around to hear her.
"I heard you going around asking everybody for lessons. You got money to pay for them?"
"Not that it's any of your business, but yes. Yes, I do."
"Where'd you get it?"
"From my daddy, of course."
"Ha! Never heard of a rich colored man."
"That is likely because you are ignorant" Toni heard Mama's voice coming out of her mouth and decided that made up for sounding so cheap earlier.
"Where'd he get all his money? He a thief?"
"Of course not! For your information, my father runs the Wright Funeral Homes of New York City. Two in Harlem, one in Queens, two in the Bronx, and we're opening another in Brooklyn next month!"
"So he's a vampire!"
Toni knew she should be offended. But the image of her daddy with bat wings and sharp teeth just made her giggle.
"So you're really rich, then?"
Toni shrugged. Well-brought-up young ladies didn't discuss money in public. It was even more common than bad grammar.
"I have an idea," the boy said. "About how you can take skating lessons."
She knew she shouldn't be listening to him, but Toni couldn't help it. She said, "How?”
"Okay, well, see, here's the thing: I could teach you."
"You're just a boy!"
"I'm almost thirteen! And I've been skating, well, since I was a baby almost. See, my ma and dad, they run the Arthur Murray Dance Studio on West fifty-ninth — that's practically right down the street, in Hell's Kitchen. So I've been dancing since I was a baby, too. I'm good. Ma says I could be a ballroom champion, maybe. But dancing, that's nothing like skating. Skating is everything you do in dance, but harder and faster and... and... better. It's just better, you know?"
"I know," Toni said softly.
"Now, my folks, they can afford a lesson for me here and there, but if you want to be a champion, you need lessons every day. My folks don't have the money for that. So I thought, it's like this... I thought I could give you lessons on what I know and you don't, but since I can't take money or I wouldn't be an amateur skater anymore, your daddy can pay the money for my lessons to my coach for her to teach me. Then I take what I learn and teach it to you, you understand?"
Toni thought she did. But... "Your coach doesn't want to teach me."
"No, she doesn't. But I bet she wouldn't mind taking money from you for me, especially if she knows it's the only way I could afford it."
When Toni later told her daddy what the boy had proposed, he chuckled, but he didn't look particularly happy when he agreed, "No, I suspect she wouldn't mind, at that."
"So can we do it, Daddy? Can we do it this way?"
"Well, I would like to speak to this boy first. What did you say his name was?”
Toni had to sheepishly admit she had no idea.
The next day, Daddy came to the rink in person. Toni pointed out the boy with the pale hair and mirror eyes. He was on the ice, running backwards at top speed, then leaping into the air and splitting his legs so high, his toes were nearly up to his shoulders when he touched them with his fingers.
Daddy beckoned him over and the boy came instantly. He said his name was Lucian Pryce.
"Lucian, huh?" Daddy noted. "That's quite the mouthful."
"My ma is French, sir. Well, first Russian, then French. She's from a long line of ballerinas that ran away from Russia between the wars and ended up first in France, then America. Dad's just a regular mick, though. Nothing fancy there."
Toni wasn't sure if Daddy actually heard the gist of Lucian's explanation. He still seemed a bit dumbstruck that a white boy had called him "sir."
Daddy told Lucian he would speak to his coach, but if she agreed with Lucian's idea to pay for his lessons, then Daddy was for it. Lucian grinned and winked at Toni. She knew that winking was very common. But she couldn't help winking back.
Lucian's coach did Daddy the great favor of taking his money. She hesitated a bit before actually, physically accepting it but in the end, like Daddy always said, "The color green wins out over any other."
And Toni began taking lessons from Lucian.
Their first day, he taught her the backwards crossovers.
Their first year, she had mastered every single revolution jump, up through the Axel (which was actually one and a half turns in the air). By the second year, she could spin so ferociously, Daddy said it was like seeing a spool of movie film slip out of its projector. By the third, Lucian told Toni he thought she was ready for real U.S. Figure Skating Association competition. There was only one problem. In order to compete, she had to join the USFSA. And the USFSA did not — Lucian had actually called their headquarters and asked; he would apply for her father to cover the long-distance bill later — have any colored members.
Toni asked Lucian for a copy of the form to join the USFSA. She read it closely. She said, "It doesn't ask anywhere if you're colored or not. It just says what the dues are to join."
Lucian read the form, too. "You're right," he said.
At eleven years old, Toni was a dues-paying, official member of the U.S. Figure Skating Association. Now she could take the necessary figure and freestyle tests to qualify for competition at the Regional, Sectional, maybe even the National Championships. When she filled out her paperwork to take the test, it didn't ask whether or not she was colored, either. But when the three judges assigned to mark her test arrived at Wollman Rink, they could see for themselves. One refused to look at her figures at all. The other two simply marked her "Failed" before she was even through demonstrating.
"This is a problem," Lucian said.
"Is it a problem that can be solved with money?" Daddy asked him.
"Maybe..."
"Then I expect you to let me know how to solve it."
Lucian called the USFSA headquarters — this time, he simply used the Wrights' phone, to make the reimbursement easier — and asked for a list of every qualified judge in the country, plus their contact information. He then proceeded to call over two hundred of them, until he found three willing to judge a little colored girl's tests.
On a warm April morning a few weeks before Toni turned twelve, as the outdoor rink's ice was beginning to melt in the spring thaw, three USFSA judges — one from Maine, one from Vermont, one all the way from the aptly named Great Falls, Montana – arrived in New York City — plane fare courtesy of Wright Funeral Homes — to judge one Antonia Wright's figure and freestyle tests.
Daddy told her, "I don't plan to do this regularly, so you best make sure you get this right the first time, you hear me, Antonia?"
"Yes, sir," she said.
"That goes for you, too, Lucian."
"Yes, sir," he said. And Lucian made sure that when Toni took her tests, they were loop and bracket and Choctaw perfect, so that, in the space of that one morning, she passed all of her tests up to the Junior level.
"That means you're qualified to compete at Nationals!" he told her excitedly.
"Don't I have to place at Regionals and Sectionals first?"
“Technicality," Lucian said. "I'm going to go to Nationals in Senior Men, and you're going to go in Junior Ladi
es. It's all over but the medal ceremony, really."
Toni was the fifth girl in her group of twelve at the Regionals. She skated in a purple velvet dress and white tights to music from Broadway's Showboat. Lucian had picked and edited the tunes himself on a special record. The first, fast part was to "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," the slow middle section was to "Ol' Man River," and then for the big, dramatic finish she skated to a Charleston. Toni landed all of her double jumps and wrapped up with a change-leg camel/sit/scratch spin. She placed twelfth out of twelve in the free skating, just as she had in the figures.
"This is a problem," Lucian said, looking at her scores.
"Is it a problem that can be solved with money?” Daddy asked.
"I don't know, sir," Lucian admitted.
"Then you'd best figure it out and tell me. Soon."
"Yes, sir."
To Toni, Daddy said, "Now, the only solution I personally can see to this problem is for you to get yourself twice as good, three times as good, whatever it takes, so that those judges can't keep on ignoring you like this. You think you can do that, Antonia?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Then you'd best figure it out and tell me. Soon."
After a few days of thinking about it, Lucian said, "I think I may have a solution."
"What is it?"
"You're going to skate Pairs." It wasn't a question. It was a pronouncement.
"With who?"
"With me." Another pronouncement.
"You know, Lucian, even in a Pair, I'll still be colored."
"Yes. But it will matter less. Trust me. Plus, the judges have already shown they like me. I won my group on all seven cards, and by a wide margin, too. If they like me by myself, they'll like me with you."
"Why would you want to give up skating Singles to skate Pairs with me?"
"Because I'm good by myself, but I can be great with you." Lucian smiled. "What do you say? Have I ever steered you wrong before?"
Toni hesitated. "I... Let me talk to my father."
"Of course." He appeared utterly unconcerned about what her answer would be. Toni wished she knew her own mind as well as he seemed to believe he did.
When she told Daddy about Lucian's plan, he thought about it for a moment then observed, "You've told me all the reasons why young Master Pryce thinks you should skate Pairs. But I have yet to hear whether this is what you want Antonia."
"I... I.…" Toni stammered. So many contradictory fireworks were going off in her head simultaneously, she felt as though she couldn't quite articulate anything that she wanted — or didn't want — at the moment. "Lucian thinks — "
"Lucian thinks. Lucian thinks. Lucian says... Tell me, Toni, do you do everything Lucian tells you to?" Her father's voice was gentle. But also, for the first time ever, Toni heard an edge in his tone that had never been there before. He seemed to be asking her more than what he was simply asking her. But, under the circumstances, it just became another bottle rocket in her head, and she let it go without following up.
"No, of course not. Daddy," Toni said, knowing it was exactly what he needed to hear. "But he's smart. He knows a lot about skating. And that he's willing to give up his Singles career for me, well, it must mean he really believes we can be good as a Pair."
"Lucian Pryce is smart. Smart enough to understand that if you were to grow frustrated as a result of your poor placing and quit skating, then there go his own prospects as well. I highly doubt he can convince another parent to assume the financial responsibility I have these past few years. By suggesting that you switch to Pairs, he is acting in his own interests, no one else's. You'd do well to remember that, Antonia, for the present and future. Ultimately, everyone acts only in their own interests. Especially those who spend a great deal of time explaining how they are acting in yours."
"I want to skate Pairs with Lucian, Daddy." Toni made up her mind on the spot. She hoped her tone didn't reveal just how fresh the decision was.
"You're certain?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right then. I wish you all the luck in the world."
His words proved prophetic. A year later, thirteen-year-old Toni and eighteen-year-old Lucian were competing at the World — well, the Junior World — Championship as the number-three Pair out of the United States. They were not expected to win a medal, and they didn't. But that wasn't the point. The point was — even Daddy had to admit it and he was happy to do so — that Lucian had proven himself right. Again. Pairs was the way to go. For both of them.
It took them two seasons to win a Junior medal internationally, and then another before they made the World Team as Seniors.
At the Nationals where they finally won their first Senior U.S. title, a vocal group of spectators in the stands made monkey sounds when Toni stepped on the ice for warm-up. In the front row, directly across from the judges, another handful of people made a point of turning their backs to the rink as soon as Wright and Pryce were announced as taking the ice. In her hotel room at that Nationals and at several subsequent ones, Toni got scribbled notes slipped under the door, threatening both her and Lucian with all sorts of anatomical tortures she hadn't even known were possible. Toni dutifully turned each of the missives over to the police in whatever city they happened to be visiting. And then proceeded to never hear from the authorities again.
She didn't care.
And this time, she wasn't just pretending not to care, like she had that day over ten years ago at Wollman Rink, when she waited until an opportune fall gave her the chance to cry with honor. This time, she really, truly, utterly didn't care. Because at this point, the only thing that genuinely mattered was the skating, the progressing, the winning. And Lucian.
Lucian mattered. Of course, he always had before. But it was different now. Toni wasn't sure when she had fallen in love with him. She only knew that when she asked him if it was a problem, he grinned and said, "Now this isn't a problem at all."
They never talked about keeping their relationship a secret. They simply did. Because neither one of them was an idiot. Lucian's parents liked Toni well enough, and Toni's parents, she suspected, actually even respected Lucian quite a bit. But both knew that like and respect were a long way away from tolerate or condone.
Toni suspected her father knew something was going on. Because, all of a sudden, he would out of the blue tell her, "Those folks down in Virginia, those folks called Loving — isn't that the name? Dragging their miscegenation marriage nonsense all the way up to the Supreme Court What did it get them but heartache? All well and good that they can get married now. But I ask you, where do they think they're going to live? In Narnia? In Nod? In Oz, maybe?"
Sarcasm was rarely her father's weapon of choice. Toni had to presume that he was trying to tell her something, without flat out asking her something. Because if he asked, he knew his daughter well enough to understand that she would tell him the truth. And then he would have to hear it.
But Toni didn't need her father's lectures on the wisdom of the Loving v. Virginia decision of 1967. She was perfectly well aware of the court case. Mainly because she had recently made Lucian perfectly well aware that fun was fun and laughs were laughs and love may have been a many splendored thing, but if they intended to progress beyond the fun and the laughs and the basic splendor, they would need to get married first.
"Is that a problem?” she asked him.
"Not at all," he replied.
They decided to wait one more season. It was an Olympic one after all, and both agreed they needed to focus all their energy on defending their U.S. title — and pretty spectacularly at that — if they intended to make any kind of challenge for a Gold medal on the international stage. So far, they'd finished sixth in the world, then fourth. A Gold medal wasn't a given, but neither was it an impossibility.
That year at Nationals, a petition no one would admit to starting or signing, yet one everyone claimed to have seen, circulated in the arena, asserting that assigning a team like Wright and
Pryce to the Olympics would send the wrong message to the world about what America stood for. For a petition everyone swore not to have signed, it reached three single-spaced pages by the start of their Free Skate.
Lucian and Toni still won it. But the judges split five to four in their favor, with four of the votes going to a brother-and-sister team that had previously finished no higher than eighth. Only one season earlier, Toni and Lucian had won every judge. This was not a good sign, and they both knew it. At the Olympics, when even the Soviet judge put them in third place, their own U.S. judge had them fifth. Toni and Lucian understood it was over. They'd been humored long enough, but now that America had an adequate replacement team — she was blonde and he was blonder — ready in the wings, it was time for Toni Wright and Lucian Pryce to move on.
So they did. No complaints, no press conferences, no finger pointing. It wouldn't have occurred to either of them to act in such a manner. Toni because it was hardly a classy way to behave, and Lucian because he knew that aggravating skating's powers that be was an excellent way to insure never having a professional career. And both he and Toni had agreed they wanted one. For a few years at least.
As reigning U.S. Pairs champions, they expected they could have, if not their pick of the touring, high-profile skating shows, at least a decent offer or two to consider.
None came.
Granted, it probably didn't help matters any that, when choreographing their audition exhibition piece, Lucian seemingly went out of his way to put together a routine highlighting everything some thought wrong with the pair team of Wright & Pryce.
It was provocative, it was sensual, it was aggressive and, perhaps worst of all, it made no attempt to hide — or apologize for — Toni's blackness.
As far as Lucian was concerned, however, the number demonstrated precisely what was right about them.
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Ice Capades simply passed without explanation. Holiday on Ice conceded that there were "issues" but declined to articulate what they might be. The Tour of World Figure Skating Champions offered them a dozen dates over the course of the year — but all of them outside of the United States.
