Dana Mentink - Race for the Gold

He felt someone next to him. Jackie Brewster, Beth’s coach, stood there with her impeccably perfect posture and gleaming silver hair. Coach Stan Chung was the lead coach of the U.S. national team, overseeing all the girls, but most competitors like Beth had the means to employ private ones.

“Does Laney have it together?”

“Absolutely,” he said, bobbing his chin at Jackie’s athlete. “And Beth looks like she’s in good form.”

Jackie nodded without taking her eyes off her own skater. “At this point, it’s all mental, as we both know.” She paused. “There is a gentleman hanging around out front, asking for Laney.”

“What gentleman?”

She shrugged. “He said he’s a reporter. I told him he could be the King of Siam and he wasn’t going to get into the arena without an appointment.”

Max nodded. “Thanks. She doesn’t need any distractions right now.”

“This is true. Security is lax around here. I already shooed away a kid who was hanging around last night.”

Max had seen him, too, a skinny red-haired kid with a sweatshirt too small for him.

“See you after the race.” Jackie patted him on the arm and went to take her place on the ice, stopwatch in hand, creased slacks an odd contrast to her clunky skate-clad feet. She was the only person he knew who could walk gracefully in skates.

Max saw Laney get into position. It was time for her to prove to herself that she had that heart of a lion, the ability to put everything and everyone out of her mind and go as fast and hard as she could for the five hundred meters it would take to win.

After some last-minute activity, the coaches took their places and everything went quiet. Max tensed with Laney as she raised her arm in front of her and crouched low, her blade tip dug into the ice. He realized he was taking slow, measured breaths, the same way she would be doing, bringing her mind into focus, preparing her muscles for the grueling challenge.

The bell sounded and Laney exploded from the start line so quickly she was a blur. After the initial chopping steps, she settled in to longer pushes, tucking into second position, the place where she was most comfortable as she waited to break away for the win. She leaned forward in the perfect crouch, gloved fingers skimming the ice as she rounded the turn, hands folded behind her on the straightaway.

“You’ve got this, Laney,” he whispered.

“Are you Max Blanco?”

Max jerked. He’d been so intent on Laney that he hadn’t noticed the lanky man come up next to him. “Who are you?”

The stranger regarded Max seriously, chewing on his thick mustache. “I asked you first.”

Max scanned his shirtfront and found no identification tags. “You have permission to be in here?”

He smiled, one eye drooping slightly. “It’s skating, not a nuclear missile test.”

Max looked back at the ice. “What do you want?”

“A story.”

Max offered him a momentary glance. “I’m busy.”

“I want a story about Laney.”

“She’s busy, too.”

“I’m patient. I can wait.”

Max rounded on him then. “Look, man. Laney’s racing, if you can’t tell. She needs to concentrate, and so do I. Call and make an appointment like everyone else.”

“I’ve called. No reply from any of the people I’ve tried. Almost like someone doesn’t want me to talk to her.”

Max looked at Laney as she completed another turn and he saw something there, something hesitant, a tiny flicker of uncertainty that was probably only visible to him. Instinctively, he moved for the entrance to the ice, eyes riveted on her.

The man took Max’s arm. “I’m writing about the American team hopefuls. Want to follow a skater from here all the way through the Winter Games.”

Max shook off the touch. “Good for you. Call again. Maybe you’ll get an appointment.”

“Maybe I’ll stay and talk to her anyway.”

With effort, Max controlled his rising temper. “Get out,” he said over his shoulder as moved.

The man shrugged. “All right, but you’re not her keeper off the ice.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Max received no answer as the guy ambled in the direction of the exit. Max knew he should follow and make sure the man was truly leaving, but he could not walk away, not then, with Laney skating this critical race, her sides heaving with the effort, bits of ice exploding from under her blades as she rounded the turn with two laps to go.

Tanya was in first position but fading, he could tell. Beth was in third, looking for the gap on the inside to pass Laney. From his perspective the skaters were packed together, but he knew they would see it differently, waiting for an opening, that fraction of space to slip into that would change everything.

And then, as if in slow motion, things did change.

Something upset the dynamic of the flying pack.

Laney spiraled out of control.

* * *

She felt the blade give slightly under her right boot, but there was nothing she could do to stop her momentum. The break in the rhythm, an odd shift of her weight over her forward skate told her brain what her body already knew: a crash was coming.

At forty miles per hour the only result of skidding out was hitting the wall. Hard. Even cushioned by the thick blue pads, it was going to hurt. She prayed she could keep from taking out any of the other skaters or cutting herself open with her razor-sharp blades. In a blur of motion she went down on her right hip and slid at breakneck speed, the wall coming at her. One second more and she crashed into the pads, helmet first.

The impact knocked the wind out of her and she felt the pain of bones hitting ice; the recoil bounced her off the pads and sent her limbs spiraling in an unruly tumble. For a moment, there was only the harsh sound of her own breathing; the arena noises all faded away as she spun helplessly on her back. When her vision cleared, she was looking up at the ceiling of the oval, sparks dancing in front of her eyes. She lay still, feeling the shock of the impact shuddering through her body as she sucked in deep lungfuls of oxygen before she tried to move. Then Coach Stan was there, peering down at her, and behind him, Max’s anxious face.

“Laney?” Coach Stan asked.

She realized what he wanted to know, but she wasn’t sure herself if she was injured or not. Max squeezed her hand. “Hey, Birdie. Tell me how you feel.”

She closed her eyes. Birdie. The nickname tickled something inside her. She forced her eyelids open and managed a grin. “I guess the eagle has landed, but not very gracefully.”

The coach seemed to relax a little, and Max squeezed one more time before he let go and the team medic took his place. She was checked and helped to her feet. Looking back across the ice, she was in time to see the racers finish, Tanya first, Beth in second place. Beth glided to them, chest heaving, along with the other girls.

“Are you okay?” she puffed. “What happened?”

“Dunno,” Laney said as she made her way to the edge of the ice, put the guards over her skate blades and sat heavily on the wooden bench. Her father materialized there, and she knew that though he’d probably wanted to run right down on that ice, he would never have done so.

He clutched her around the shoulders, and she felt his heartbeat vibrating through his skinny chest. When had he lost so much weight?

“Baby girl, you know how to crash with style,” he said.

She laughed again, though it set off some pain in her rib cage.

“What hurts?” He asked it in that soft voice that always soothed her.

He’d asked when she’d come home from school in tears because the grade-school kids had found out her mother had abandoned them. He’d crooned it when years later she got a fat lip defending her younger sister from the unwanted attention of some teen thugs. He’d repeated it when she’d lain in a hospital bed crying for something she could not name. The loss of her chance at gold? The grief at knowing Max was suffering his own agonizing recovery? Or something else that would not come clear in her pain-fogged mind?