Picks and Sticks Page 12

  Later on that evening, after their arrival in Moncton, Jane managed to breathe through severe spasms and get her skates on. She and the other senior skaters practised their routines, judges lurking in the stands. Leonard stood at the side of the rink, checking out the competition. Don’t notice, don’t notice, Jane prayed. He called for Jane to attempt her trademark delayed axel. She skated backwards into the jump’s entry and turned it into a tiny waltz jump, grimacing on the landing. Jane saw Leonard lock eyes with Deb in the stands and shake his head. Jane skated to him, trying to mask the injury. She faked a smile.

  “That was kinda pathetic. Let me try it again.”

  “Come off the ice.”

  Jane stared at him. He gestured her off angrily. Leonard led her to a quiet area at the end of the dressing room corridor. Deb followed behind. Her coach was barely able to look at her.

  “Why didn’t you tell us you were hurt?”

  Jane hung her head. He had figured it out the moment she stepped on the ice. “I … I was too scared,” she whispered. Leonard looked to Deb for confirmation and said, “We have to take you out of this competition. Senior or not, we’ll have to wait until next year.”

  “No way!” Jane fought back. “You can’t take hockey away from me and make me quit this, too! You’re the ones who wanted this!”

  “What is it? Your ribs, obviously. You’re protecting your left side as you go up.”

  “Are they broken, Jane?” Deb asked softly.

  “No. They are not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Ivan checked them.”

  “I knew it,” Leonard fumed. “Hockey injury.”

  “Look. It’s figures first,” Jane begged. “How hard can that be? I won’t practise my routines, and I’ll have another day to recover. I’m already better. Please, Leonard, please. Let me try.”

  “The judges like to see what you’ve got in practice,” Leonard retorted. “We won’t be able to show them anything!”

  “That’s right. They’ll have to wait for it.”

  “How can we work on the new choreography?”

  “On paper. I’ll listen to the music over and over and picture it.”

  Leonard hesitated and looked to Deb. Jane looked to Deb, too. Her face was curiously blank.

  Around midnight, Jane came out of the bathroom of her hotel room, wet from a hot shower, and found the standing lamp on. Her mother was curled up on her twin bed, already sleeping. Ice cubes wrapped in a towel rested on the backboard of Jane’s bed. Hung on the shade of the standing lamp was the beautiful, yellow skating dress from her mother’s trunk. Jane looked at it for a long moment. She went to touch it.

  “Thanks, Mom,” she whispered.

  Lugging her heavy skate bag and a dress, Jane entered the dressing room and went straight to the bench. She needed to rest already. She reached up to hang the dress and dropped the bag at the same time, inwardly reprimanding herself for insisting on carrying the stuff in the first place. She nodded at her fellow competitors. Her chief rivals among them were Geneviève Côté of Québec, and Stacey Mueller from British Columbia, who claimed Karen Magnussen as her mentor. They barely looked at her. Geneviève had just completed part of the figures portion of the competition, and she and Stacey spoke in hushed tones about Geneviève’s tracings. Unusual, thought Jane. Why would top level figure skaters talk to each other about things like that?

  Jane tried to bend down. She managed to unzip and rummage through her skate bag in an attempt to avoid conversation. She discovered black hockey tape inside. Grimacing, she lifted it out. Attached to it was a note: “For sore ribs, love, your admirer, George.” Jane smiled. He was definitely persistent.

  Exhaling and bending again, she reached deeper inside the bag and found her dad’s Kelowna Packers hockey puck. Her discovery was worth the pain. She took it out and laid it on the bench. Then she stood up and nodded again at her now staring competitors. Jane unbuttoned her blouse, peeled it off, and stood in her bra, the nasty bruise exposed. She unraveled some tape and wrapped her ribs with it countless times as the two healthy skaters looked on in astonishment. Her task complete, she stepped into the plain skate dress and shrugged on her sweater. Then she sat, reached in for a skate, loosened the laces, and bent cautiously to put it on. She stopped abruptly, a murmur of a scream escaping her. There was no way. She was incapable of reaching her foot. She lifted her leg up onto the bench, and tried to bend just enough to tighten the laces. The tape was too tight; she could not reach.

  Jane sensed they were staring at her. She looked up at Geneviève. Geneviève glanced away. Jane looked down and spoke to her skate.

  “Do you think one of you could help me get these on?”

  Stacey hesitated, and then stood up. She strode over to Jane, her blonde, bobbed hair bouncing, and took the skate. “Here,” she said, “let me.” She loosened the laces more, then fought to fit Jane’s bare foot into the boot. “Easy. Easy,” Jane puffed. Once on, Stacey tied it up.

  “That tight enough?”

  “Yeah. That’s good.”

  “Let me grab this one.” Stacey reached in for the second skate and repeated the process. Jane stood and tested them.

  “Perfect. Thank you,” Jane said. Stacey smiled at her. “Gonna compete no matter what, eh?” she asked with concern. Jane smiled wanly. “What’s with the puck?” Stacey continued, curious.

  “Nothing. Could you just … hand it to me?”

  “Sure. Do you need help walking out there?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine,” Geneviève whispered just loud enough.

  “Maybe I should take your skate guards off?” Stacey offered, with a cold look at Geneviève.

  “Good idea.” Jane carefully sat again, and Stacey crouched down and pulled them off. “Thanks,” Jane said as Stacey placed the guards in Jane’s bag. Stacey looked up at her, then stood, took her arm, and helped her off the bench. “Please,” asked Jane, standing steadily now, “don’t tell my coach about the tape.”

  “Coaches,” Stacey lamented.

  “Coaches,” Jane agreed.

  “I think I should help you out there,” Stacey insisted.

  “No. I better walk to my doom on my own.”

  Jane ducked out of the dressing room, certain she’d be the target of gossip the minute she cleared the door. At least one of them is a decent human being, she thought. She made her way cautiously down the corridor to the ice. Leonard was waiting at the side of the rink, glaring. Judges were standing on the ice waiting for her, too. Freezing. Jane had missed her warm-­up. Jane placed the puck on top of the boards and stroked over to the judges’ referee. He announced the figure she was to perform, and she skated to the section of ice reserved for her. She glided up the side of the patch and into its centre, tiptoeing on her picks to place herself. She made a tee with her feet, concentrated, and began.

  There was utter silence in the arena. Jane traced her first circle, a delicate figure eight, with precision, somehow managing to stay on a single edge. Usually Canadian skaters were weakest at this mundane aspect of the sport, even though it was worth forty percent, but in its exactness Jane thrived. Skating backwards around the second circle of the figure eight, she concentrated on keeping her left side high, fearful of tracing two lines: a dreaded “flat.” At the centre, she turned her body, winced, and stepped forward precisely on the tee. On her second journey around, she concentrated on making an exact copy of the original, maintaining the same edge, tracing the exact same line, forming the precise bracket at the top of the circle.

  Figures demanded complete concentration on detail, and therefore complete escape — usually from Leonard’s nagging presence, but this time from pain. It was like meditation, and Jane, trance-­like, somehow completed the required three tracings with ease. After she concluded the third, she glided on one foo
t straight out of the centre. She waited at the side of the patch, squinting to see the result until the referee thanked and dismissed her. In their boots, the judges moved in on top of the figure to examine it. They dusted the snow from the traced edges with their clipboards, and marked up their damp pages.

  Jane joined Leonard at the boards. “Easy,” she said.

  “Good.”

  Leonard looked up to the near-­empty stands. Jane followed his gaze. She waved to her mother, skated to her puck, picked it up, and left the ice. She glanced over at a shadowy figure beside the glass. It was Stacey. “How’d it go?” she asked.

  “Okay, I think,” Jane answered. “You doing the loop-­de-­loop next?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Me, too.”

  “We all are, silly.”

  “Right. Brain’s not working … Where’s your coach?”

  “My coach is my mother. I told her she’s not allowed to come near this.”

  “Probably smart.”

  “Brilliant. That your mother up there?”

  “Yup. That’s her. Ever-­present.”

  “She’s pretty. Was she a skater?”

  “Weren’t they all?”

  They laughed together. “OW,” said Jane, grimacing. “Can’t even laugh. Want my puck for luck?” She held it out to Stacey.

  Stacey guffawed: a joyful, infectious sound. “No, thanks,” she said as her name was announced. “Won’t do me much good, I’m pretty sure. I’d better go.” She paused before she stepped on the ice. “What the heck happened to you anyway?”

  “I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Jane said. “Please. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “I wouldn’t. How ’bout I watch out for you today? At the very least, I can help you get out of your skates when we’re done.”

  “Thanks. You’d better go and concentrate,” Jane suggested.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Stacey straightened, became focused, and skated toward the judges.

  Over that long day of figures competition, Stacey hovered near Jane, helped retape her ribs, and retightened her skates. She asked no further questions. More than any instruction from Leonard, Stacey’s kind support motivated Jane. Slowly, the soreness in her ribs abated. Or, at least, she learned to ignore it.

  By the end of the compulsory figures, Jane was in third place.

  Jane stumbled late into a dressing room filled with the five other top skaters, all ready for their flight’s warm-­up. Jane’s two-­minute short program was moments away. This component was new in competition, just this year, worth twenty percent overall. The skaters were nervous. Geneviève’s eyes were closed, her back ramrod straight against the wall, and she hummed her music to herself, disturbing the concentration of the others. Stacey was applying blue eyeshadow to match her dress. She looked up as Jane entered and immediately came over. She grabbed Jane’s skate bag and put it on the bench. Jane stripped down. Stacey reached into the bag, took out the tape, and began to wrap it around Jane’s ribs. The skaters who had not seen this routine stared, bewildered.

  “That okay?” asked Stacey when she had almost completed her task.

  “I won’t know ’til I jump.” Jane squeezed her friend’s hand as Stacey helped her into Deb’s vibrant yellow dress. Stacey did up the zipper. The dress was too sheer; the black tape showed underneath.

  Looking up at the other skaters, Jane smirked and shrugged. They averted their eyes and got on with their own private rituals.

  “Pretty dress,” remarked Stacey. “It’s vintage, right? Looks fine. Kinda pretty … kinda odd … nice skirt.” She made a face.

  “Don’t make me laugh,” Jane cried, trying to choke back her giggles. “It’s from the ’50s.” They calmed down and smiled at one another as Jane put on a warm-­up sweater and reached for her puck.

  The six girls trickled out to rink side. The coaches lined up along the boards now included Stacey’s mother, the famous German coach, Katya Mueller Lehrer, who operated out of North Vancouver’s swanky North Shore Winter Club. Glancing at her stern face, Jane wondered how Stacey maintained her sunny disposition. The girls took off their skate guards, Jane managing her own, and glided out onto the clean, wet surface. Jane drifted over to Leonard and handed him her puck. He looked down at it, then up at his skater.

  “Your good luck charm?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” said Jane, waiting to be judged.

  “I’ll lift it up so you can see it as you skate past.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  Leonard showing a glimmer of humanity? Jane thought. He must be more nervous than I am.

  Jane stroked around slowly, steadying her legs. She hadn’t tried any jumps or spins for six days, much less any routines. In the day off between figures and the short program, she perfected her stroking, backwards and forwards, working out the kinks and stiffness in her midriff, working up to the point where she could lift her arms with grace. She was certain she was the talk of the town, and she nervously peeked at Katya Lehrer again. The woman was watching her rather than her own daughter. Jane rounded the corner, and realized the German coach’s eyes were still fixed on her. All the officials turned their heads as she went by. Jane tried to ignore them. She focused her attention on the other skaters. Mistake. As she watched Geneviève and Stacey jumping with easy abandon, she realized she was envious. She turned backwards and attempted an elegant waltz jump. She landed it a little forward on her picks.

  Leonard called her over. “How’s it feel?” he demanded, his voice low.

  “Fine.”

  “Want to try a Salchow?”

  “No.”

  “Go stroke some more, then.” He held out the puck, cupped in his palm; Jane touched it and skated away. She lifted her arms, took in the crowd, and saw her mother. Deb was looking on from an excellent seat, always poised and stylish for public appearances, ever the ambassador for the sport. Jane pointed at the yellow flared skirt waving furiously below her red, snowflake-­designed sweater, and Deb nodded and smiled. Jane then skated past the frowning Katya Lehrer and counted herself lucky. Her mother was complicated and demanding in her own way, but she wasn’t a tyrant.

  The warm-­up ended and Jane hopped off the ice. “Well?” Leonard prodded. She gave him no answer, breezed past, and made her way to the dressing room. She found no refuge there as nervous skaters practised their routines on dry land. She left and headed for the wall at the end of the corridor. She backed down onto it, half-­squatting, breathing into her injury. She hummed her music in her head, visualizing her routine. She was halfway through when she saw Leonard and Deb approach.

  “Please. Leave me alone,” she implored. Leonard continued forward and kissed her on both cheeks. Deb did the same. “Just keep my puck for me,” Jane demanded. Leonard nodded and Jane watched them go. Then she turned inward, meditating. She heard distant applause, and focused further into herself. Within minutes, she reached a point where she was thinking about nothing. Silence and stillness encompassed her. She stood up, ready. She took off her sweater and dropped it near the wall. She began her long walk to the ice, her aching rib forgotten.

  Jane arrived at the ice surface as Geneviève Côté left to thunderous applause. The skater stepped off and hugged her coach, talking excitedly in French. Jane stood beside Leonard, unflustered by Geneviève’s energetic display.

  “You ready to try this?” Leonard breathed.

  “I think so.”

  “Don’t just think so. Know so.”

  “Know so, know so, know so,” she chanted. “Give me my puck.”

  Leonard held it out, and she weighed it in her hand and waited. Her father’s desired voice did not whisper to her. She handed it back and skated onto the ice as her name was announced.

  “Wait,” Leonard hissed at her. Jane circled round. “What’s that under your dress?”

  “Hockey tape,�
�� Jane answered.

  “Now that’s attractive,” Leonard remarked, closed his eyes, and smoothed his fur coat with the puck.

  Jane arrived at the starting position, heard the hush of the audience, and entered her cone of silence, allowing only music to enter. She stepped into the dramatic beginning of her program, establishing herself as a dancer, setting the tone. She gained speed with the music, surprising herself, and finished the opening sequence with a minimum of discomfort. She turned backwards and stroked around the end of the ice, building up speed for her first jump, the delayed Axel. Jane allowed the music to wash over her, the adrenalin to carry her. Continuing backwards, she approached the take-­off point, then stepped forward into it and soared through the air. She landed the Axel with a slight bobble, and a slight twinge of pain. So far, so good.

  She turned into the intricate footwork sequence and flowed through it with as much flair as she could muster. By the end of it, her breathing was laboured. She inhaled deeply into her backward stroking, relaxing the injury after the minute twists and turns. She was becoming aware that her body would not bend against the tape. This sit spin is going to be totally bogus, she thought. She turned forward and swung her leg around to aid the rotations. She fought to gain her normal sit spin position, but she only got halfway bent. No way am I kissing my knee tonight! she lamented. Watching the world spin by, Jane relaxed into the violin concerto, timing her spins to the beats, adding a little flavour to an inferior effort. She exited with flair, and smiled winningly at the judges. Their heads went down, and they marked up their papers.

  Jane felt herself tiring. She breathed heavily as she set up for the combination. Go for it! She turned into the backward approach and flew up, rotated twice in the air, landed the double Lutz, and took off again. She landed bumpily at the end of the double toe loop, but stayed on one foot. Suddenly, her rib went into spasm. She gritted her teeth and opened into an elegant landing position anyway, losing speed.