Fighting for the Edge (4 page)

“My
Project Runway
commentary isn’t entertaining enough for you?” Nick asked.

“I don’t want to be accused of being anti-social.” She pushed back her chair and stood. “Do I have anything in my teeth?” She gave Nick a wide-mouthed grin.

He stood beside her, less than a head taller since she wore four-inch heels. His eyes squinted as he examined her face and then swept down over her strapless, royal blue silk dress.

“You look magnificently gorgeous as always.”

He held out his arm, and she smiled and hooked hers around it.

They made their way to the group of Japanese skaters, and Nick whipped out his small digital camera, insisting they pose for photos with each athlete. As Aubrey vigorously nodded thanks to the reigning ladies’ world champion, she spotted Damien heading in their direction. His long strides would have him in her face in about five seconds.

She gripped Nick’s elbow and turned him away from the crowd. “Walk.
Now
.”

He gave her a quizzical look. “What’s up with–”

“Aubrey!” Damien came up alongside and then circled in front of her. His dark eyes did a quick head-to-toe appraisal of her as he opened his arms. “You weren’t going to say hello?”

He pulled her into a hug, and a whiff of his sweet cologne brought her back to the night she wished had never happened. She lightly pushed on his jacket to regain her personal space.

“Lots of people to see,” she said crisply.

Damien turned to Nick and slapped his arm. “How’s it goin’?”

Nick gave him a smirk. “Peachy.”

“We need to catch up to Em and Chris, so…” Aubrey tried to step around Damien, but he blocked her. He wasn’t a big, muscular guy, but his confident posture made him just as imposing.

“Anytime you wanna hang out this weekend, I’m game,” he said, his gaze wandering to her chest before reconnecting with her eyes.

Her face burned, and she took a deep breath. Fighting to keep her voice quiet, she said, “I told you that’s never going to happen again, so get out of my face.”

She brushed past him without any opposition that time. Nick fell in step with her and leaned his head close to hers. “Tell me again how much tequila you had that night?”

“If you hadn’t left me in the bar to go to sleep at such an early hour, you would’ve been there to stop me from making the dumbest mistake of my life.”

“How was I supposed to know you were going to hook up with that jerk? You can’t stand him.”

“Well, after six tequila shots, I guess his cockiness somehow became appealing.” She looked anxiously at a nearby group of coaches. “Can we not talk about this anymore?”

Nick was the only person who knew about the unfortunate incident at the Grand Prix event in Paris four weeks ago, and the only reason he did was he’d caught her doing the walk of shame the next morning.

“I’m taking it to the grave.” He pretended to zip his lips.

She snuck a look back at Damien. What were the odds
he
would take it to the grave? He’d probably already blabbed to the whole Canadian team.

Em and Chris walked up, and Em noticed where Aubrey’s attention had been. “Did you see what Damien said in an interview today? It was ridiculous even for him.”

Chris fiddled with the knot of his burgundy tie. “I don’t know why you’re surprised by anything that punk says.”

“Because he’s reached an all-time high in delusion. He said he and Maddy are the favorites here, and they’re setting a ‘new artistic standard’ in the sport.” Em mimicked him with a snooty voice. “Seriously? First of all, we’ve beaten them at Worlds the last two years, so I think that makes
us
the favorites, and second, what’s so artistically special about skating to
Swan Lake
? It’s only been done a gazillion times before.”

Aubrey pretended to scrutinize her candy-apple-red-painted nails. Em would be appalled if she knew she’d hooked up with Damien. Even with the alcohol excuse.

“He’s just going to look like a fool when you guys win again,” Nick said.

“We
have
to win. I cannot sit next to him at the press conference and listen to him gloat.” Em scrunched her face in disgust.

“What’s worse?” Nick asked. “Him being a public jerk or Maddy, who acts all sweet with the media but is a total witch to everyone else?”

“I can put up with Maddy,” Chris said. “She just flirts with me, and I ignore her.”

“She’s not a witch to the guys,” Em said. “Only the girls. She hardly talks to us and when she does, it’s to say something ugly. She and Damien really are perfect for each other. They both think they’re all that.”

Aubrey shifted from one heel to another. She wanted to get out of this conversation. Just hearing a certain name made her stomach turn as if she was downing the tequila all over again.

“Let’s go get some more pictures for your MySpace.” She looped her arm through Nick’s to urge him along. “People might start leaving soon.”

Nick saluted Em and Chris and followed her toward the French delegation. “Is Damien the reason you hid out in your room the past two days? Or did you really not feel well?”

“I didn’t feel well because I knew I was going to see him,” she muttered.

Nick stopped and faced her. “And now you have seen him, and he got his little innuendo in, and you told him where to shove it. I think he got the message.”

Over Nick’s shoulder she caught a glimpse of Damien staring at her. He winked, and she quickly turned her head. Shooting him down once wasn’t going to be enough. Not with his ego. He was going to keep making comments and giving her those stupid knowing looks.

She was never going to drink another drop of alcohol again.

****

I rolled my skate bag through the revolving glass door and entered the packed hotel lobby. Japanese skating fans were among the most enthusiastic in the world, and large groups of them occupied the lobby at all hours, waiting to take photos or give us gifts. They treated us like rock stars. It was unlike anything we experienced in the U.S.

“Emily! Chris!” voices exclaimed from multiple directions.

Females of all ages descended upon us, offering us congratulations on winning the short program earlier that evening. I still wore my small gold medal since we’d hurried from the backstage ceremony to the shuttle bus.

“We take photo?” one lady asked as she held up her camera.

“Sure,” Chris and I answered at the same time.

“Em, I’ll take your bag upstairs.” Sergei reached for the handle.

The lady frantically waved her hand at him. “You get in photo, too.”

“No, no, they’re the stars.”

I curled my arm around Sergei’s waist and nudged him to my side. “Get in here. You deserve the love.”

He chuckled, and the three of us smiled through an endless stream of camera flashes. Between the bright bursts of light, I saw Damien and Maddy enter the mayhem, and the fans that had gotten their mementos of us drifted over to them.

After the last flash popped, we moved through the crowd, collecting gifts and doing our best to converse with everyone who approached us. With my arms full of gift bags and flowers, I stuck my pinky out to press the elevator button, and Chris and Sergei broke through the masses just as the doors opened.

Sergei rolled my bag inside and pulled a folded packet of green papers from his coat pocket. “I was looking at the protocols on the bus. You only got level two on the footwork.”

Ah, the protocols, the tell-all document of our scores in the new Code of Points system. The paper showed both our technical and presentation marks, now called “Program Component Scores” or PCS for short. It gave the nitty-gritty detail of each element we performed – the difficulty levels the technical panel determined we achieved and the grades of execution awarded by the judges. Since the scoring system had been instituted two years ago, we’d had to become mathematicians to choreograph our programs.

I leaned toward Sergei and studied the lines of numbers as he flipped between our page and Maddy and Damien’s. Only one point separated our total scores.

“Their PCS are higher than ours?” I narrowed my eyes. “We had more than a point higher than them at Worlds.”

Sergei licked his thumb and paged to the third-place team. “As much as the system has changed, the judges still play the same games.”

The elevator dinged for our floor, and we exited into the hallway. Modern light fixtures guided our way down the quiet, spotless corridor.

Sergei stopped in front of Chris’s door and folded the protocols in half. “We need to talk strategy for tomorrow.”

Chris fumbled with his gifts as he extracted his room key from his back pocket. He slid the card into the lock and pushed open the door with his shoulder. “Come in before I drop all this.”

He piled his loot on the desk while I set mine on the king-sized bed. I’d hung out in Chris’s room at competitions many times, so the mess surrounding us didn’t faze me, but it always amused me. The open boxes of PowerBars spilling onto the TV cabinet, the clothes thrown over the chair and ottoman, the half-empty water bottles all over the nightstand and the desk… it was as if the maid hadn’t visited in a week.

Sergei pushed aside the jeans and T-shirts on the ottoman to clear a space to sit. He bent forward slightly and rested his elbows on his knees as he looked up at Chris and me. “I think we should put in the quad Salchow.”

I sat on the bed, and Chris dropped down beside me. “We’ve been completing it about what… seventy percent in practice?” he asked.

“I don’t know if it’s worth the risk,” I said.

I’d landed the four-revolution throw jump on two shaky feet at the Grand Prix event in China, but I’d splatted on it at Skate America. No pair had ever done it cleanly in competition. The top Chinese team was the only other couple attempting it.

“Even if you fall, with the crazy way the system is, you’d still earn enough points to make it worthwhile,” Sergei said.

I pulled my legs up onto the bed to sit Indian-style. “A fall disrupts the program, though. I just think it might be better to leave it out and focus on skating clean.”

“I don’t know, Em.” Chris scratched his hand through his thick hair. “I’m with Sergei on this. We need to show we’re not afraid to take the risk when we’re facing our toughest competition. Let them know they have to step it up to match us.”

“Exactly.” Sergei pointed at Chris. “It’s all about setting the tone right now. If you land it or even just come close, then when you face them at the Olympics, they’ll feel that extra pressure. They’ll know they need to be perfect to have a chance to beat you.”

Everything they said made sense, but we didn’t have as much room for error in the free skate as I’d expected. I stared at the diamond pattern on the carpet. “I thought we weren’t going to do the Sal here unless we had a bigger lead after the short.”

“You’re getting more consistent every day.” Sergei’s encouraging voice lifted my head. “You’ve only fallen three times this whole week of practice. I want you to do it again in competition so you’ll get even more comfortable with it.”

“The way I see it is go hard or go home,” Chris said. “Maddy and Damien’s scores are creeping up on ours. We can’t sit back and let them pass us. We have to put it all out there.”

I was clearly outnumbered. Sergei never made decisions about our skating without careful deliberation, so I had to believe he was making the right call. I just couldn’t shake the thought that this one element might cost us a victory, and I hated losing. Especially to Maddy and Damien.

Sergei stood and leaned against the desk in front of me. “Do you feel good about it, Em?”

I looked back and forth from him to Chris. They were both watching me with expectation in their eyes. I was the one who had to spin four times in the air and land on a thin piece of metal, so my confidence was key. Any self-doubt needed to be squashed now if we were going to make history.

I slowly raised my hand toward Chris for a high-five. “Go hard or go home.”

Chapter Four

A steady hum of noise buzzed around Aubrey as she paced backstage, but she was totally tuned into thoughts of her upcoming skate. Only a few minutes remained before she and Nick had to take the ice for their free dance. Sitting in third place after the original dance, they were right where they’d hoped they’d be – in position to claim their second consecutive Grand Prix Final medal.

“Hey, soon-to-be roomie,” Chris said as he came out of the skaters’ lounge. He squeezed her shoulder. “Good luck out there.”

She inhaled and exhaled a long breath. “Thanks.”

“You guys are gonna kick ice. No question.”

She smiled and patted the front of his navy Team USA jacket. “That’s the plan.”

She turned to pick up her water bottle from the chair behind her and found herself caught in Damien’s gaze. His eyes wouldn’t let go as he sauntered across the corridor.

Aubrey whipped around and faced Chris. “You and Em need to kick some
major
ice tonight.”

Chris’s brown eyes darkened as he shot a glare toward Damien. “That is most definitely the plan.”

Nick emerged from the locker room, where he’d gone to do one last hair check. He and Chris tapped knuckles and exchanged good luck wishes before he followed Aubrey toward the ice entrance. Their coaches Peter and Natalia waited with encouraging smiles.

“Can you hold this?” Aubrey handed Natalia her water bottle and removed her warm-up jacket, revealing her glittering purple dress.

Natalia swapped the bottle for the jacket and draped it over her arm, continuing to give Aubrey a quiet smile. Peter and Natalia were demanding but not cruel like their former coach Viktor. When Viktor had been banned from coaching after trying to force himself on both Emily and her, Peter and Natalia had moved from California to take his place. They’d shown Nick and her that coaches could be both strict and nurturing.

“It’s time,” Peter said, letting Nick and Aubrey go ahead of him to the ice.

They stepped out into the arena, and the bright lights hit them. Aubrey’s pulse rate ramped up a few more notches. There wasn’t an empty seat in the building, and the crowd was on its feet for the German team currently in fourth place.