Chapter 19

Chapter 19

You never forget your first time.

For Heath and me, it was Skate America 2001. The day before I turned eighteen.

We weren’t even supposed to be there. We were alternates—until Parry and Alcona pulled out due to injury, and Reed and Branwell withdrew, citing concerns about travel safety. The event was only six weeks after the September 11 attacks, and everyone was on edge. At LAX, Heath was pulled for a supposedly random search, the TSA agents’ eyes flicking with suspicion between his ethnically ambiguous features and his Illinois ID.

As I stood on the other side of the barricade, watching Heath get patted down, I grew more and more furious. He was a teenage boy and an American citizen—en route to represent his country in a major athletic event, no less. How dare they treat him that way? Heath endured this with his typical impassivity, but once they released him, his hand trembled in mine until well after we’d boarded our flight.

In any case, we made it to Colorado Springs—a few days early so we’d have time to acclimate to the higher altitude. By the final day of competition, we were in second place behind Olivia Pelletier and Paul McClory from Canada. Sheila’s pre-skate pep talk was all about holding off the Italian team to stay in silver-medal position.

The choreography and concept of our free dance were deceptively simple, modern Fosse-esque moves to a new arrangement of the classic torch song “Fever.” Sheila claimed the program was the perfect showcase for our chemistry, but to me it felt forced, like Heath and I were trying to playact what had always come so naturally to us. The costumes seemed on the nose too: black velvet and mesh with bedazzled flames curling up our torsos.

From our first synchronized hip isolations to the hypnotic bass line, though, I realized Sheila had been right. The audience was spellbound by every articulation of our bodies, every moment of sizzling eye contact we shared. Heath and I skated with the controlled power of banked embers that might burst into a conflagration at any second, and they loved it. They loved us. All my nerves burned off, leaving nothing but determination and desire. Desire for the gold, for the adulation of the audience, for Heath—it all felt the same, flaring bright inside me.

When we hit our final pose, the crowd in the Broadmoor World Arena cheered so loud Heath had to shout in my ear.

“I think we might win,” he told me.

As we headed to the kiss and cry, the applause made me even dizzier than the oxygen-starved atmosphere. Our scores were a personal best, by far, but we had to wait until the Canadians finished their skate to find out if we’d clinched the gold.

I sat backstage between Sheila and Heath, my knee jiggling against the cool silk of her trousers. The twins were back home in Los Angeles, getting ready for the Sparkassen Cup, which would be their first Grand Prix event of the season. So for once, we were Sheila’s main focus.

When the final scores were displayed, Heath hugged me so hard my blades lifted off the floor. Sheila gave me a gentle pat on the shoulder and said, “Well done, Katarina.” Winning my first senior-level gold medal was great, but those words felt like the ultimate prize.

—

When we walked into the Academy for our first practice following Skate America, I felt like a celebrity couple. People approached to congratulate us on our win, all warm smiles and eyes frozen solid with envy. Finally, they were jealous of us.

Except of course for the Lins, who were jealous of no one.

“There’s the gold medal–winning birthday girl!” Bella called out when she saw me. She crossed the lobby to wrap me in a one-armed hug, her other hand behind her back.

“Congrats,” Garrett said. “So well deserved, both of you. How was your birthday, Kat?”

Most of the day following our gold medal win had been consumed with press interviews, performing in the exhibition gala event, and attending the skating association’s formal banquet afterward. Sheila stayed by our side the entire time, fielding everyone’s flattering comments with a sense of calm, confident entitlement I wished I could inject straight into my veins. It was the most uninterrupted time I’d ever gotten to spend in her presence.

For our final night in Colorado Springs, Heath had talked his assigned roommates into making themselves scarce so he and I could have the hotel room to ourselves. I filled the twins in on everything he’d done to make the standard-issue Sheraton accommodations seem romantic: candles lining the particleboard dresser, artificial rose petals scattered across the comforter, Portishead in the CD player. He even got a frosted devil’s food sheet cake like the ones my father used to buy for my childhood birthdays.

“That’s so sweet,” Bella said. “I got you something too.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” I protested.

Bella rolled her eyes. “Stop being so Midwestern. Here in California, when someone gives us a gift, we say ‘thank you.’?”

She revealed what she’d been holding behind her back: a small, professionally wrapped box. Heath watched over my shoulder as I carefully removed the metallic paper. Inside was a red plastic rectangle, covered in buttons. A cellphone.

“It’s the same as mine, see?” Bella held up her phone—blue to my red, but otherwise identical. “You can’t even get these in the United States yet. They play music files and everything; I’ve got our program music on mine so I can listen to it while we’re traveling.”

“Thank you.” I turned the device over in my hands. “I’ve never had my own phone.”

“Yeah, I know. Figured it was time you joined us in the twenty-first century.”

I pressed one of the buttons, and the digital screen lit up. Bella had already programmed her number into the contacts list, as well as Garrett’s.

“We should do dinner too,” Bella said. “I’ll text you the deets. Don’t forget to switch silent mode on, though; if that thing goes off during training, my mom will confiscate it.”

“Are you sure dinner out is a good idea?” Heath asked as soon as the twins were gone. “We haven’t gotten the prize money yet, and—”

“It’ll be fine. I can access my inheritance now, remember?”

The sum my father had left me in his will wasn’t anything approaching a fortune, but it would be enough to keep us afloat for a while. For the past year, Heath and I had made ends meet by working the various evening and weekend events held at the Academy. Some months, we were flush with tips from the affluent attendees who frequented the skating exhibitions and fashion shows and charity fundraisers Sheila hosted; other times we were left scrounging for wrinkled dollar bills and begging for extensions on our training fees. I was grateful for the gig, but it soon started to chafe. How could we ever hope to beat the Lins when we spent our off-ice hours standing in the corner in cater-waiter uniforms, watching them mingle with the Los Angeles elite?

The Lins moved through the world with such ease, getting whatever they wanted without having to struggle or strive or even ask. When I was with them, I felt caught in a slipstream. Sticking close would take me where I wanted to go.

As long as I stayed a step behind.

—

On our lunch break, I took my new phone and ducked into one of the locker rooms to call the bank back in Illinois. The device felt strange in my hand, like a child’s plastic toy—but I felt extremely adult as I introduced myself to the teller and explained why I was calling.

“Happy belated birthday, Ms. Shaw,” she replied. “Let me check on that for you.”

I gave her the account details and listened to her crisp keystrokes as she input the information. Everything was going according to plan. Heath and I were gaining on our competition. We had our first gold medals. If we performed well at our second Grand Prix event in St. Petersburg, we might make it to the Grand Prix Final—which would be great preparation for Nationals. If we maintained our trajectory, we could even qualify for Worlds in the spring.

And then, surely, the sponsorship opportunities would come rolling in. Unless you were an Olympic champion, endorsement deals weren’t going to make you rich. But combined with the inheritance money, they’d give us breathing room. No more sweating over a single dinner out. Maybe we could even move out of the dorms and into a home of our own. Most likely a single-room studio apartment in a semi-scary part of town, but it would be ours.

“Thank you for your patience, Ms. Shaw. You were granted access to the account in question as of your eighteenth birthday. However, there aren’t any funds allocated at present.”

I gripped the phone tighter. “What?”

“The account balance is zero. Well, technically the balance is negative, since several overdraft fees were charged recently. Would you like to resolve that today?”

As a professional athlete, you’re taught to visualize the exact future you want. Every step of a flawless program. The view from the top of the podium. The weight of an Olympic medal around your neck. But all it takes is a second—a slip of your blade, a lapse in your concentration, a spark of doubt in your mind—and everything falls apart.

“Who withdrew the funds?” I tried to maintain my poise, but my voice was trembling. It must have been a mistake. My father’s lawyer moved the money to another account, or—

“The primary account holder,” the teller told me. “Leland Shaw.”