Skating on Thin Ice
Page 2
“Why’s that?” he asked. “He’s never been a popular sort. He’s moody and mistrustful and squeezes the last drop out of a dime if he spends it at all. I imagine that’s why he hasn’t made an appointment for his physical in years. Doesn’t want to pay for it.”
“I suspect it’s a case of the devil you know being better than the devil you don’t know,” I replied. “They don’t like the idea of someone coming from out of town to take over one of our few winter recreational opportunities. And that’s assuming that whoever buys it would keep it an ice arena.”
“ ‘Few winter recreational opportunities?’ What’s wrong with ice fishing, and sledding, and cross country skiing, or just taking a walk? There’s plenty to do when there’s snow on the ground.”
“I should have said organized recreational opportunities, something our youngsters and teens can do indoors when it’s cold outside.”
“Seems to me young people’s time is too organized as it is. They all need someone to tell them what to do. When I was a boy, we left home in the morning and didn’t get home until suppertime. There were no cell phones, and our mothers never worried where we were. If we weren’t in school, we were playing with our friends. Simple as that.”
“Well, evidently it isn’t that simple anymore,” I said, hoping to head Seth off before he launched into one of his tirades on how spoiled today’s young people were. While I didn’t always disagree, his rants raised his blood pressure and upset his stomach.
“Anyway,” I said, “the last time I spoke with Eve, she told me that Eldridge Coddington had stopped fixing up the arena, at least for now, and Mayor Shevlin heard it, too. Eve thinks he’s changed his mind about selling.”
“I bet the coaches were none too happy to hear that,” Seth said.
“To hear what? That he changed his mind about selling?”
“No! That he’s stopped fixing up the place.”
“Both Jim Shevlin and Eve said that Devlin was furious. He’s been counting on the renovations to draw more top-ranked students into his program.”
Seth pointed to the second Snickerdoodle.
I broke it in half and put the rest back on the plate. “I’m wondering what all this is going to mean to the girl from California and this Russian partner of hers who came here to train with Devlin.”
“Well, all they need is a pair of skates and ice, and Devlin’s got plenty of that.”
“He must have promised a lot more than ice to convince her father to move them across the country,” I said. “Devlin has a lot to live up to for that pair. They’re both supposed to be good, but they haven’t skated together for very long.”
“If Devlin’s as all-fired wonderful as everyone claims, that pair should be on their way to the Olympics in no time.”
I shook my head. “Pairs skating is more complicated than that, Seth. It’ll take time for them to adjust to each other’s styles. They need to see how they measure up in skills, and work together to match their steps so their movements are in unison.”
“How do you know so much about pairs skating?”
“Television, of course,” I said. “I love watching the competitions on TV. It’s more than a sport; it’s also an art. Everything I know I learned from Dick Button. And from Peter Carruthers. He and his sister Kitty were Olympic silver medalists.”
“You going to finish that cookie?”
I shot Seth a look. “Go ahead,” I said, taking my coffee cup to the sink. “It’s your diet.”
“I have a theory about that.”
“About what?”
“Diets. If you starve yourself, you lose a little weight at first, but then your body adjusts to the new regimen and stops burning calories as effectively as it did in order to conserve energy. You stop losing weight. But if you give your body a jolt by eating something sweet, like this cookie, it says, ‘Oh, it’s all right to burn those calories again,’ and you continue to lose weight.”
“Did they teach you that in medical school?”
“You don’t learn everything in medical school. You hone your knowledge with years of experience and practice.”
“Exactly why pairs skaters need to skate together for years before they’re ready for competition.”
“We’re back to them again, are we?” Seth rinsed his mug in the sink. “I had a hunch you’d feel you’d have to go down there to look around once you heard the rumors the rink was having a run of bad luck.”
“Running out of money to fix up the rink may be bad luck,” I said, “but a strange man hanging around the girls’ locker room is not.”
Some of the casual female skaters had complained to staff that a young man had been lurking near the entrance to the ladies’ room. No such person was seen when the staff and a security guard went to investigate, and the incidents, two of them, were quickly forgotten.
“It was probably just some hormonal adolescent with a crush,” Seth opined. “You know how these things get blown out of proportion.”
“Perhaps. But what about the person who scattered screws on the ice? That is something else entirely. There are a lot of children who skate there. Wasn’t the young woman from San Francisco injured?”
“Her fall was not the result of a screw on the ice,” Seth said. “Her father claimed that someone purposely pushed up the rubber mat in a place where she would trip on it. But if you ask me, that’s just the overreaction of an overindulgent parent protecting his coddled youngster. I suggested as much.”
“Seth, you didn’t.”
“ ’Fraid I did.”
“I’m sure that went over well.”
“He already thinks I’m a dinosaur. Said so, in so many words. Referred to Cabot Cove as a ‘hick town.’ ”
“That must have been quite an office visit.”
“I got my licks in. Bottom line is, apart from a couple stitches, the girl wasn’t badly hurt. Just to be sure, I recommended she take it easy for a day or two, but I’m told she was back on the ice that afternoon. So much for following my good medical advice.”
“Youngsters are resilient, but I’m not sure I like how these athletes play with pain,” I said. “It can’t be healthy.”
“You’re changing the subject, Jessica. We were talking about your skating, not Christine Allen’s.”
“Well, I’m going to do it. I want to see if I can still skate.”
“You may say that you want to take up ice-skating again, but I know better.”
“You do?”
“You want an excuse to spend more time at the rink and poke your perpetually curious nose into what’s happening down there.”
“Well, maybe a little of both. All the news articles about the arena have inspired me. I want to see the pairs skaters train.”
“You don’t need your ice skates to snoop around, Jessica. Besides, don’t you have a book to write?”
“Seth, aren’t you always telling your patients to get lots of exercise?”
“Of course, but exercise appropriate to their age and condition.”
“Well, I’m not going to argue with you about my age, but I’m in pretty good shape. I still jog when it’s not too cold, and I certainly get in plenty of walking and bike riding.”
“You do. I never said you were out of shape, just too ... let’s say ‘along in years’ to begin skating again. You’ll fall and give yourself a concussion, if not a broken bone. How are you going to write with your arm in a sling?”
“My goodness, you are certainly predicting dire consequences if I get back on the ice. But I’m willing to take the chance. Besides, I think it’s going to be fun.”
“If you fall, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I won’t,” I said.
And I didn’t. But he found out anyway.
Chapter Two
“All right. Do it again. This time focus on soft, deep knees; feel like you’re sinking into the ice on that outside edge. I want to see a long ride-out. From the back crossovers. Let’s go. Deep knees.
That’s better. On three, the double axel. Hold that back outside edge. One . . . two . . . three.”
Brian Devlin clapped his gloved hands and pivoted on the ice as the two skaters passed him and executed a side-by-side jump. “Better! But check that rotation, Alexei. You have to be in control of your shoulder. Chris, watch when his right leg comes around, and match your timing to his. Let’s try it with music.” Devlin pulled a paper from his pocket and consulted its contents. “Cue the exhibition program, Lyla,” he yelled to his assistant coach, who was in a booth beside the rink.
The two members of the pairs team Devlin was coaching had arrived in Cabot Cove separately several months ago. Christine Allen was a pretty eighteen-year-old with a halo of curly black hair that she’d inherited from her African-American father, and dark almond-shaped eyes, a legacy from her Korean mother. She had moved from San Francisco to train with Devlin. According to a feature article in our local newspaper, she’d skated at the Yerba Buena Ice Skating and Bowling Center, training home of famed Olympic gold medalist Brian Boitano. She now was living with her father, William Allen, a banker, who had taken up temporary residence here in a rented house downtown, at least until he was confident that his daughter had settled in. Her mother, who had stayed home with a younger daughter, planned to visit at a later time.
Christine was lithe but muscular, and she looked petite standing next to her partner, who was broad shouldered and at least a foot taller. With a shock of blond hair falling in his eyes, Alexei Olshansky seemed the more self-assured of the pair. The newspaper had quoted him as saying he was from Moscow and had come to Cabot Cove after he and his previous skating partner Irina Bednikova had parted ways. I had never seen the Russian pair interviewed on TV, but from what I gathered in the article, Alexei’s English must have been more than adequate, which was fortunate for him. As far as I knew, no one in Cabot Cove spoke fluent Russian. Certainly, Coach Devlin didn’t.
I leaned against the boards, watching the young couple practice. They had been skating together for only a short time and were working to develop the seamless unity required to compete at the highest levels.
Alexei skated a circle around Christine, showing off with fancy footwork. He pretended to lose his balance, rocking back on his skates and wheeling his arms, catching himself at the very last moment to lean forward into a low bow. I couldn’t hear what they said to each other, but their laughter carried over the ice.
Strains of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade” came over the loud speakers.
Alexei smacked his palm to his forehead with exaggerated exasperation. “Nyet! Nyet! Not that again,” he cried.
Devlin ignored his histrionics. “We’ll listen to new music this weekend,” he said. “Please, Alexei, let’s not get into a squabble over the music. I want to see you skate around the rink together.” They took off across the ice. “Switch sides, please. Alexei, you have to be on the outside. She’s on the inside. That’s it. Match your strokes. Signal to each other when to start the crossover. I want to see you in unison.”
“Isn’t he dreamy?” a voice to my left said.
Marisa Brown leaned her elbows next to mine on the railing and stared out across the rink.
“Which one?” I asked.
A puff of air escaped her lips. “Brian Devlin, of course,” she said, her brows disappearing under her brown bangs as her eyes met mine. “You couldn’t think I meant Alexei.”
“Well, he’s attractive, as well,” I said, smiling at the teenager who’d been hired to staff the front desk. A homegrown skater with a lot of potential but not a lot of capital to support her passion, Marisa was paying for her lessons by working part-time at the rink.
“I suppose Alexei is nice-looking in an adolescent sort of way,” she said, “but Brian is gorgeous. He has such sultry eyes. Doesn’t he remind you of George Clooney? Everyone says so.”
“Everyone?”
“All my girlfriends.”
Devlin was considerably older than Marisa and sported two days’ growth of stubble on his chiseled jaw—by design, I thought—and possessed the sort of dark, brooding looks so many men in Hollywood cultivate these days. I could see how he would appeal to the local teen population.
“How old is Alexei?” I asked.
“Twenty-four, twenty-five, something like that,” she said, waving a hand around. “He doesn’t even have a beard yet.”
“He’s mature enough to have traveled halfway around the world to further his skating career,” I said.
Marisa shrugged. “True,” she said. “He’s traveled a lot. But he still lives with his mother when he goes back to Russia. That’s what the skating magazines say. Anyway, travel doesn’t make him a man. From what I’ve seen, he still acts like a kid. Carries on whenever he doesn’t get his way.”
“Ah,” I said, taking another look at Christine Allen’s new partner.
Devlin’s assistant coach, Lyla Fasolino, overheard our conversation. “If he’s rude to you again, Marisa, please don’t complain to Jeremy,” she said. “There’s enough bad blood between them. Just let me know.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t you have some work to do for me in the office?”
“I already typed up the list of students for the exhibition.”
“You may have typed it up, but I haven’t seen it,” Lyla said, turning Marisa toward the door and giving her a gentle push.
“All right,” the younger woman said with a sigh. “I’ll go print it out and put it in your mailbox.”
“Along with the new hockey schedule, please. And we have rehearsal later. We’ll see you on the ice at five. Don’t be late.”
“How is she doing?” I asked Lyla as the girl walked away.
“She’s a great kid. Works really hard and has a lot of talent. She took first place last fall at the regional competition and just missed the podium at the sectionals. I’m sure by next year she’ll be ready for the junior ladies championships.”
“You must be very pleased,” I said.
She shrugged. “I am. I guess.” She nervously played with a gold chain around her neck, and I gathered she was less than thrilled with the prospect.
“Why do I hear a ‘but’ in there?” I asked.
“Marisa needs to focus,” she said, tucking the chain into the neck of her shirt. “She’s been thinking about competing in pairs. One of the other coaches, Mark Rosner, has matched her with Jeremy Hapgood. He works here, too. You may have seen him on the Zamboni.”
“I have. That’s exciting. Won’t being a singles skater help with her pairs skills?”
“Without doubt, but she’ll also be doubling her chance of injuries by participating in both pairs and singles, and she won’t be giving full attention to either discipline.”
“It’s been done before, hasn’t it?”
“That’s what Mark argues. But the decision should be based on what’s best for Marisa, not because Mark wants to compete with our star over there by coaching another pairs team.” She nodded toward where Brian Devlin continued to work with Christine Allen and Alexei Olshansky.
“Can we get a little speed up there?” I heard Devlin yell at Christine and Alexei as he clapped to set the pace. “Move, move, move, move. You’re skating on ice, not mud. The judges want to see action.”
Lyla turned to me. “So, what brings you down here, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“Just looking around; I’m planning to start skating again soon.”
“You are?”
“It’s been years since I’ve been on the ice,” I said, “but I used to be a pretty fair skater. I’m going to give it a try. We’ll see what happens. I’m hoping it’s like what they always say about riding a bike when you haven’t ridden for years, that the skill will come right back to you.”
“I hope so,” Lyla said, looking doubtful, “although it’s not quite the same. But it’s a great sport. Remember, we have skating chairs for beginners, if you need one.”
“Skating chairs?”
“That’s a new wrinkle to me. There have been so many changes here since I last skated. I was reading about them in the newspaper this morning. Oh, and here’s the man responsible for it all. Good morning, Eldridge.”
Eldridge Coddington strode past us without acknowledging my greeting, his eyes trained on the trio on the ice. He was a tall, spare man with pale blue eyes and a fringe of white hair sticking out from under his olive green flat cap. A deep vertical line was etched between his eyebrows thanks to his usual scowl, and no one would chalk up the channels that bracketed his mouth as being caused by excessive smiling. He and his wife, Bella, had been childless, and though he’d always been an irritable man, she had softened his edges and pushed him into social and civic activities. When he’d lost her to a flu epidemic a decade ago, he’d retreated into solitude, rejecting all offers of sympathy and sinking deeper into depression. Nothing seemed to interest him. The town had seen his recent efforts to fix up the ice arena as a positive sign, evidence that he was emerging from the doldrums. The word around town was that the leopard was changing his spots. But I was not so sure.
Coddington leaned over the boards, waving a copy of the Cabot Cove Gazette in the air. “Devlin!” he roared. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”
The coach didn’t bother turning around. He pointed to his pairs team and waved his hand in the air, indicating for them to continue practicing.
Alexei and Chris began skating backward.
“Devlin! Did you hear me?” Coddington boomed again.
The skaters stopped where they were, confused about what to do.
There was a moment of silence before Devlin slowly rotated on his skates. “I am giving a class right now,” he said in clipped tones. “You will have to wait.”