Chapter 1: Words said in Haste
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" Elayne, you will never guess who's right inside that dressing room getting ready for practice! Three guesses."
"Scott Hamilton."
"No."
"Dick Button."
"Be serious."
"Camilla, I really don't care. I've got to get my stretching done before Stephen is ready. He won't let me forget Nationals for as long as I live. I've got to work three times as hard just to stay in place now."
"Well then I won't tell you! just see for yourself."
"Then I will, or I probably won't, I don't have time for kids stuff."
"So, I'm a little kid now! Your head's gotten far too big for your body. I didn't think anything could be that big."
"Yeah, well, at least I don't try to vamp every new guy with my scrawny child's body. I may be fat, but at least I've got breasts. No one mistakes me for a child."
"Which one is it this time, Camilla?" I shouted after her as she stalked away.
There went my best friend. I was so angry. How could she has twitted me about my weight. She knew I was sensitive about it.
I practiced angry. It made me even worse than I had been since... since... ever. I even got into a fight with Stephen. We stood out on the ice almost screaming at each other. He had never been a very supportive person, but when he said that I was washed up, I told him to go find a better partner.
In bed that night, I mulled over the fight I had with Stephen. I went over and over my mistakes and I was deathly afraid that he was right. I was washed up. I wasn't able to keep up anymore. My jumps were gone. My spins were going. I fell on everything. Even the double flip which had never failed me was a memory. I could barely even manage a spiral without doing a woetzel. It was utterly humiliating to go to practice.
That horrible day was only the beginning. I had grown 6 inches and gained 18 pounds in the 6 weeks between the holidays and Nationals. I was feeling funny all the time. My balance was off, my timing was off. Our debut at Nationals was a complete disaster. I couldn't stop falling. I cried all the time. I couldn't control the wildly swinging emotions that threatened to overwhelm me at every turn.
I fought with Stephen constantly. We had been partners for 5 years, but we had never fought like this. I'd be fine one moment and screaming the next. There was only one word to describe what I was going through. It's the one thing every female figure skater fears most... puberty.
Camilla and I were on the worst of terms. I thought that when she started "growing" about 6 weeks later that we might reconcile... it only made her more bitter. We did not speak again. She had a new "best friend," a new skater, Shannon Miles. Their whole relationship seemed to built on hating me. What she had said that day, and since, cut me to the quick. Obviously I had hurt her pretty bad too. We had been friends for all the years that she had skated. Now we weren't. It was a constant irritant in a sea of irritating days. It hurt like hell.
I was so drowned in my own misery that I never really even noticed that skater who had precipitated the argument. He practiced during the best ice hours, midday. He was a very visible member of the club. He did not speak much to anyone. He came in late, often bleary eyed. The rumors about his lifestyle were rampant. He smoked and couldn't get through his long. He drank too much, the other girls said. He had slept with just about every attractive woman in Newport, which I thought unlikely. It is a pretty big city after all. You never saw him with the same woman twice. He was a terrible flirt with the club girls. I decided that if he tried to flirt with me, I'd cut him dead. I must have been the only girl who didn't have a crush on him.
"Him" of course, was Alexandre Klukov. Klukov was the best thing to come out of Russia in many years. Even at 19, as young as he was, he had an incredible grace to go with his incredible athleticism. Much as I might not respect his lifestyle, I had to respect the amazing athlete which practiced in our midst.
I had known he was here, even before Camilla had tried to tell me. He had been here for months, even if Camilla hadn't. I just didn't care. Mama never had very nice things to say about him, or any Russian man for that matter. I avoided everything to do with that Alexandre Klukov. I might watch his practices for the textbook jumps, but not for any other reason.
It was just that reason that I joined a small group of girls sitting in the back rows at the practice ice. Klukov really did have perfect jumps. I had forgotten what a jump even looked like, so badly was my skating going.
"Wow, What a skater." One of the girls sighed.
"You mean what a stud." Camilla corrected. "just makes you want to go and do something wildly sexual when you see him, doesn't it Elayne... Oh, I forgot, you're still a virgin." The girls all giggled, looking embarrassed. Shannon snickered.
"If he paid any attention to you. I guess you could convince him, you 'convinced' Stephen, well enough." Stephen had ignored her. I knew it still rankled.
"I don't see that he pays any attention to you either."
"Yeah, well the difference is, that I don't want him to. He can stay a whole rink away and it wouldn't be far enough for me."
"You couldn't get his attention if you tried."
"Sure I could."
"No you couldn't."
"So much for what you know."
"Okay, then I dare you. I dare you to get his full attention. I dare you to go up to him and say the filthiest thing you can think of."
"I'll do you one better. I'll get his attention from here."
"You couldn't."
"I can." I did. For all the years I had known Camilla, I had never shared one secret with her. It hadn't actually been a secret, there just wasn't any reason to say anything to anyone. Mama was Russian and I had spoken Russian ever since I was a baby. I didn't speak it well, but I did speak it well enough to say something rather filthy. I stood up on the seat of the bleacher and shouted it at the top of my lungs. I knew that it was something raunchy, but I had little idea what it meant.
Klukov stopped practicing a run of footwork and looked up. I waved. Camilla was having a hysterical fit. I had shown her up. The only problem was that Klukov was coming towards us. He had heard and understood and the looking on his face was interested and wicked. I didn't wait to hear what he had to say. I lit out for the girls lockers as fast as I could run. I heard him ask in his broken English.
"Who was that?"
"Elayne Smith." Camilla had answered." She meant every word."
I left the rink like dragons were on my tail. I felt like dragons stayed on my tail for the weeks until the rink closed for the summer. Klukov didn't stop being interested and didn't stop looking at me with that wicked look in his eyes, much to Camilla's chagrin. He actually started to pay attention to the groups of younger girls who idolized him. It was insanely easy to slip away from any group he joined.
The night that the rink closed for the summer, I got a call from my coach. Stephen had found a new partner in Pensacola, FL. He was leaving immediately. The coach was going with him.
I slunk into bed and when the morning came. I did not get up. I spent the months of June and July like that, holed up in my room. The ice was closed. I grew another 2 inches and gained 5 more pounds. There was no reason to get up and there was little reason to live.
Text Copyright © 1998-2003 Mary E. Tyler
