"Prodigy on Ice"
by Melanie Lynne Hauser
It is only now, now when I finally have the time. When I finally have the strength and the stamina, the desire, the heart. Not to mention the money to accessorize properly.
It is only now, when I am steadier, more resilient, when I am disciplined enough to see my goal clearly, to narrow my eyes and chase it down with a single-minded purpose. It is only now, finally, when I have a plan.
My plan is so simple, so beautiful. Inspiring, even.
My plan is to become the world's oldest Olympic ice skating champion.
Now, I'm nothing if not realistic. I realize I cannot, in all probability, win the gold. I believe there is a rule about being young and cute enough to be featured on a box of Wheaties; I believe that I don't quite qualify.
But I can still become a champion - no! Make that a prodigy. I will become an ice skating prodigy, and they will make up a special category in the Olympics for me, and I will be interviewed on all the morning shows, and I will try to teach Katie Couric how to skate, but she'll fall down, and we'll laugh in front of a nation-wide audience and become best friends.
I will be coached by an expatriate Russian, a man who will see me take my first tentative steps out on the ice and proclaim, "Leeetle girrrl! You I will make champion!"
I will learn to glide effortlessly, to twirl and jump and float and land with sweet, serious purpose, my eyes closed to all but the movement, the music, the ice. I will salchow and lutz and toe-loop. I will swirl like a snowflake, my feet small and white and twinkling, alone on a pond made of glass, the stars my only audience.
I will eat low-fat, high-protein meals, work out with weights, run up and down gym bleachers to increase my stamina. I will learn the difference between good carbs and bad carbs. I will start drinking bottled water.
Now, all I need to do is begin.
- - -
I asked for skating lessons for my birthday. I could have asked for a hair-removal system, or a gift certificate to the Gap, or a special night out with just my husband. But I didn't.
"You want what?" my husband asked when I told him. He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes - the better to see me with, I suppose. Then he put them back on and fixed me with a husbandly look - indulgent, amused. Already picturing me in my little ice-skating skirt, leaping into the air and touching my toes in a soaring split. He leered like a dirty old man and I giggled like a young virgin and we sealed the deal with a little mattress Olympics later that evening. I attempted a death spiral somewhere in the middle; he awarded me an 8.7 in the technical category but a perfect 10 for artistry, after.
And so today I start. I dressed in black leggings and a cute sweater, and I wish I had new white skates slung over my shoulder, the laces tied in a jaunty bow. But I decided not to buy skates yet; I'll wait and ask my Russian coach which ones he recommends.
I open the door of the skating school. I know this school. I pass it almost every day on my way to the grocery store. I wave to my neighbors, lined up in their minivans, dropping off their children.
It is a place for the young; the benches are arranged low to the ground, the bathrooms are impossibly tiny. It is a place where the adults only make sense in herds, gathered around the coffee machine and gossiping about their neighbors, comparing their children. The adults get fat, sitting around drinking coffee and munching candy bars. While the children get all rosy-cheeked, their leg muscles strengthening, stretching, propelling.
I am - in between. Candy bars, even stale ones out of an old machine, are tempting. Coffee is a necessity. But my leg muscles ache with anticipation; my cheeks are already rosy with desire, to push, to learn, to discover. To be discovered.
I walk past the coffee machine with a superior air.
"Excuse me? I'm in the ten-thirty class?"
A round woman looks up from behind a counter. She puts down a doughnut, wipes her fingers on her sweatshirt, and squints at me.
"What size?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"What size? For your skates?"
"Oh." I smile foolishly and nod. "Six."
She reaches down and grabs a pair of skates, flings them up on the counter. I'm disappointed. They are brown. They are dirty and smelly. Somebody probably died in these skates.
"Thanks," I say anyway, and take them over to a bench. I step out of my tennis shoes and into these ancient skates, my toes curling up in protest.
But as I lace them up, as I tie the frayed laces into a brave bow, I start to like the way they feel. I like the way I can feel, through the sole of my foot, the strong, unyielding blade. I like the way the laces hold my ankles, embrace my ankles, reassure my ankles that they won't buckle or twist or break off from the rest of my leg. My ankles feel loved, in these skates.
I stand up, take a few steps. So far so good. I open the door to the ice and join the other three women in the 10:30 adults-only class. I put my foot out, the ice is white and slippery and unpredictable, but my other foot follows it and before I know it I am skating, little tiny baby-steps, towards the other end of the ice. I try to slow down as I see the wall approaching, manage this only somewhat successfully, and put my arms out to protect me from the approaching concrete. I land, with a soft "whomp," against the wall, and by some miracle, stay on my feet.
I look around the ice to see if anyone noticed. But two of the women are huddled in a corner, talking - I hear snippets of conversation hang in the empty air, like cartoon balloons. "-but not like second grade," "-it's always a battle," "-is it worse than when we were kids?"
The other adult-only is out in the middle of the rink skating carelessly, lazy swoops and insolent turns. Her eyes are open but they don't appear to see, as she traces and retraces her steps.
Then I begin to notice something else. I begin to notice that it's cold. I mean, really, really cold. My fingers feel damp and stiff, my ears tingle, and I am foolishly outraged. I mean, I know it's ice, somewhere in my brain it registers that it has to be at least 32 degrees, but I didn't think it would be cold. All those ice skaters on TV, in their scanty little dresses, smiling and sweating - I never thought it would actually feel like winter. But it does, and I try not to shiver. It would seem so very unprofessional.
Then our teacher comes out. She's about forty, small and neat and cheerful. She teaches the children's classes, too, she tells us, and the two chatting women nod and smile and look superior. Their children are in her class, they say. The other woman doesn't look superior, but she greets the teacher by name - Trish.
"You're new!" Trish informs me. I smile modestly.
"Have you ever skated before?"
I shake my head.
"Oh, well. We do all levels in this class - beginners, too!"
And so I begin.
And I'm not bad, for a beginner. Trish says so. I learn to start, to stop, to fall. Really. I am taught how to push myself back up from the ice, in case (or, as Trish smugly predicts, when) I ever fall.
I learn to glide on one foot. My right foot is better. That's because I'm right-handed, Trish informs me. So I work harder on my left foot.
Then the lesson is over. Trish says I did very well. She didn't have to tell me. I know I did. And I didn't fall, not once.
I take off my skates and walk to my car. I try not to walk like John Wayne, but I can't help it. My inner thighs hurt. Or, rather, burn. That's it - they burn.
On my way home, I stop at the drugstore for a candy bar.
- - -
We get eight hours of practice time a week. I use every one of them, slipping into the rink in the early morning, before most people are at work, before anyone else but the round woman is awake enough to face the cold hard fact of ice. I prefer it that way. I'm training.
"What's this?" My husband inquires at dinner one night. "Chicken again? Brown rice?"
"I'm in training," I inform him, as I cut into my boneless skinless chicken breast.
"So why am I suffering?" he asks, poking at his rice.
"Eyes on the prize, honey, eyes on the prize," I remind him, and I get up and show him my new little practice skirt, and he perks up and eats his dinner.
- - -
Next lesson, I'm there early. I open the door to the ice and it's just me and the other woman, the one who's pretty good. She's in the middle, on the smoothest part of the ice.
This time she sees me and skates over.
"Hi," she offers. "You're new."
I admit that I am.
"How do you like Trish?"
"She's nice," I say, and start to practice starting and stopping.
She nods in agreement and does a neat little turn.
"You've been skating for a while," I am reluctant to acknowledge.
"Oh, yes. My oldest daughter skates, so I thought I'd learn, a little. Plus, it gets me out of the house. I have a sick child. Chronically sick, you know." She looks apologetic when she says this, as if sorry to impose sadness upon the world.
"Really?" I say, and now I smile at her, the smile we who are healthy and happy bestow upon those who are not. "I'm sorry. What's wrong?" And I steel myself for the dreaded words. Cancer. Brain tumor. Leukemia.
"Migraines," she says, and I do a horrible thing. I laugh. I immediately cover my hand with my mouth, trying to force the laugh back inside. But she must get that a lot, laughter, because she adds, only a little defensively, "They can be very debilitating. She hasn't been out of bed for years."
"Oh, I'm sure!" And I nod just a little too vigorously. Then we both go off to separate corners, to concentrate on something else - the ice.
Soon the other two ladies join us. They are younger than I, and thinner than I, and so I hate them.
"Hi, you're new, aren't you?" They speak in unison, like the Doublemint Twins.
I just smile.
"Do you have any children in lessons?"
"No."
"Oh. We do. That's why we're here, to catch up with our children!"
Then they look at me, daring me. To say why it is I am here.
"Oh! Well, I, just wanted to, you know, skate," I murmur, feeling, for the first time, just a little bit foolish. "But I have children, too. Two girls. Six and eight."
And then I skate off, because that's all I'm going to say about them. That and the fact that they are small and soft and perfect in every way, except for when they are not. But this is my story; not theirs. I am not here to catch up with them. Let them try to catch up with me, for a change.
Trish arrives, and she works with us individually. I learn yet another way to fall and then get up. I learn how to cross-over, right to left, shifting my weight, balancing on the inside edge of my skate.
And when I come back the next day to practice - I mean, train - I learn something else.
I learn how ass-numbingly hard the ice is. When you fall.
Because I do. I'm going pretty fast, faster than ever before, I'm smiling and my cheeks are rosy and I'm gliding and every time I get to a corner I cross my legs over, so naturally, and then one blade tangles up with another and I fall.
And the ice is hard - unforgivably hard. Hard enough to bring tears to your eyes, hard enough to make you gasp and then whimper, "Oh! Oh!"
And I lie there, cold and numb, one leg out, the other bent, and I forget each of the two thousand ways Trish has taught me to get up, because as I scramble about for some traction, like a cartoon character, I fall again.
And then I finally make it up, and I skate, very gingerly, around a couple of more times just so I don't lose my nerve, and then I leave. And no one applauds my bravery; no one comes forward to say, "Leetle girrrl! What grit! What determination!"
In fact, no one ever says anything around here. No one has noticed how good - let's face it, how brilliant - I am at stopping and starting; no one has praised me for the dedication I show, coming every day to train, before the rest of the world has had its first sip of coffee.
No one has seen me for anything other than just another mother, trying to catch up with her children.
- - -
"You're going out running in this weather?" my husband asks, as I put on my ear muffs and gloves and about fifteen sweatshirts.
"Mmmhhfff," I inform him, my scarf already warm and damp. "Mmmm trhhhjhff!"
"I know, I know," he sighs as he starts to clear away the dinner dishes. "You're in
training."
- - -
One day I can't get to class because the cat is sick, so I take a make-up lesson at night. I notice there are teenagers in this class, which makes me tug at my sweatshirt and suck my stomach in, but when I see the teacher I feel better. He's a leprechaun of a man, with a gold earring and short gray hair sticking straight up all over his head. Duncan. He greets me warmly, tells me he'll be with me in a minute. Then he goes off to help one of the teenagers.
I start practicing what I know. Starts and stops and cross-overs. I just learned how to change direction, how to shift my weight on that sliver of metal, lean just so, and pivot - preferably without falling down. I practice this, too.
Duncan skates up to me, stops with panache, flakes of ice flying in his wake.
"Hi! Wanna learn something new?"
I giggle, grin, and nod. My heart starts to beat a little faster. This is it! This is what I've been waiting for! No coffee klatches, no Trish with her Kindergarten starts and stops. This is the real thing!
"Try this!" And Duncan pushes forward a few steps, then crouches, in a deep knee bend, his arms straight in front of him. "Try it, see how long you can hold it!"
And I push off in a trance, and just throw myself into it, my arms rise gracefully, hold themselves in a straight line in front of me, slicing through the air. I balance like on a tightrope, and I never fall, I go all the way to the other wall before I rise, just in time, and stop.
"Wonderful!" Duncan is beside me, laughing, and I laugh, too, from my stomach, from my toes, and I am so young and strong, anything can happen, my whole future is before me and I can do this, I can learn something new, something difficult, I can master it, perfect it, take it to a new level.
And then I practice and practice, faster and faster, and I never, ever fall.
- - -
One day, Trish isn't there.
"Her son is sick," explains one of the Doublemint Twins.
"It's that virus, the one going around in school. Have your kids been sick?" the other one asks.
I just shrug and look away.
Duncan flies out onto the ice, he joins us with his usual flair, ice trailing up behind him like the tail of a comet. I smirk when he greets me, and only me, by name.
"Hi, Sarah! Let's get to work!"
Oh, I love Duncan! He's so professional, so focused. He knows what's important - and it's not children, viruses, recipes; it's not how many fat grams are in a banana nut muffin; it's not wondering how many calories we're burning off during a forty-minute lesson and whether or not that means we can actually eat a banana nut muffin after, if all you girls want to go to Starbucks and grab a cup of coffee.
No, Duncan knows what's important. It's the ice. The ice, and the steel blade that can carve intricate figures into it, swoops and swirls and curly cues, and the freedom, the fearlessness that reaches out to embrace you, then set you free, like a caged bird released, when your legs, your muscles and tendons and knowledge, control that steel blade, master that treacherous ice, confound gravity and common sense and decades of a life lived very cautiously, a life lived for others, for mothers and fathers and husband and children, until it's just you dancing in the darkness, in front of the judges, and, finally, alone.
On a pond made of glass.
"Let's get to work!" And I do, I cross-over and change directions and, when I know Duncan is looking, I throw myself forward in a crouch again, and I feel the cold air rush past my face, tickling my eyebrows, and then I rise, magically, just in time. And I stop; but no ice flies up in an exclamation point when I do.
"Duncan?"
He skates up.
"How do you stop like that?"
"Oh, sure, you wanna learn that! Here, watch-" And he pushes off, then bends his knees a little and pushes his right blade off at an angle. There is an angry sound from the ice, a protest, as the blade cuts into it.
"You try," he says, his arms folded, his earring sparkling.
I smile, and I push off, and I concentrate on the blade, and all of a sudden I can hear the ice complain, feel a few little slivers, like cold fingertips, brush against my arm.
"Great!" He skates backwards a bit, as I do it again. And again, and again, until I don't have to think about it anymore, and I'm hearing the music I've chosen for my long program in my head, I'm imagining my last jump, my final spin, and then the triumphant stop, ice flying, catching the spotlight, dazzling like glitter as the crowd slowly rises to its feet, roaring in amazement -
"Normally, I'd make you learn the other foot, too," Duncan says, still skating backward, still grinning. "I make my kids. But you ladies," and he looks around the rink - the two mothers gabbing in the corner, the sad mother spinning around in the middle -
"You ladies, you don't need to learn that stuff. You're just here to-" He shrugs, then
skates away.
I watch him go. My arms drop down to my side, and I just stand on my two brown skates, gliding slowly, straight ahead, until I reach the wall, and then I put one hand out and touch it. I slide backwards a couple of feet, gradually lose momentum, and coast to a stop.
I stand there for a few minutes, feeling the cold all around me, nipping at my nose, my ears, my runny eyes, until finally it gets inside me and my bones feel as frosty and lifeless as the ice. Then I skate baby-steps over to the door and walk out into the lobby. I sit on a bench and unlace my skates. I put them on the counter, get my car keys out, and go home.
- - - -
I don't go to the rink to practice the next day.
I stay home and clean my refrigerator instead.
I don't go the next day, either.
I clean my daughters' dresser drawers. I organize their toy boxes.
When we have lasagna and garlic bread with lots of butter and chocolate cake for dinner, my husband doesn't say a word.
- - - -
The next week, I don't go to my lesson. I decide to wash the floor in the living room instead. It's been ages since I've done this, since I've really thrown myself into it, moved furniture and rolled up rugs and swept under the radiator. It takes me longer than I thought; I get the Murphy's Oil soap out and scrub and then get down on my hands and knees, wiping the floor dry with old towels, but I'm still at it when my daughters come home from school.
"Whatcha doing, Mommy?" Allie asks.
"Yeah, Mommy - oh!" Jessie cries, pointing a small finger. "Look! How shiny it is!"
And we all three look, and it is.
The old oak boards are golden, gleaming, catching the weak winter sunshine and then throwing it back, like rays of honey. It looks so smooth, so slick, so fast -
"Like ice!" Allie proclaims.
I stand up, look at my stockinged feet - small, white, ready. They know so much, they want so much; my heart aches for them. They tried, really they did; but in the end, they were attached to me, a mother - too old to be a prodigy.
But it's not fair. When I was young, I was too frightened. Too frightened of falling, of failing, of being something my parents didn't want me to be.
It's only now, now that I'm older, now that I'm a wife and a mother, that I'm not afraid anymore. Because I can't be, I have to be too many things to too many people - I have to be calm and supportive when my husband comes home from work, fretful about the economy; I have to be brave enough to slay dragons in the middle of the night when my daughters cry out, tangled in the cruelest of dreams.
But it's too late now. There was an expiration date. I wish I'd known that, before. I wish somebody had told me. Well, somebody did.
I don't know. I stretch my foot, point it, look at my girls, who are watching me with big blue eyes. I smile, loving them anyway, always, and then I push off, sliding a little on the smooth floor. It is slippery. There is no steel blade to carry me over the surface, to carve out a path, to leave a trail behind me for everyone else to see, to follow if they dare. But right now, it just doesn't matter.
I push off again, slide a little more, then a little more, and then I'm gliding, I'm twirling, I'm jumping.
Allie and Jessie giggle.
"Sing, girls," I call to them, closing my eyes, waiting for the music - my music, the music I chose for my long program.
"What, Mommy?"
"Wagner. 'The Ride of the Valkyries.' You know-" And I try to hum the tune for them but I can't hum and skate at the same time, so I stop. I open my eyes and look at my daughters, so small and soft and perfect.
"Kill The Wabbit," I finally tell them. "You know! From Bugs Bunny - Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit -"
They nod and start to sing, their voices too high and shrill, but it's all right. It's still music.
And my girls sing, and the fading sunlight shines on me like a spotlight, and I close my eyes, and twirl and twinkle like a star.
A fading, falling, fearless star.