ON THIN ICE by Alina Adams CHAPTER ONE

          "He is the best young skater in the United States," the voice on the other end of the phone receiver unequivocally pronounced. "And you are never going to see him."

          As the Senior -- alright, only -- researcher for the "24/7 Sports Network," Rebecca "Bex" Levy was used to out-of-the-blue phone calls praising this or that previously unheard of athlete.

          What she was not used to however, was being told that she wouldn't be allowed to see him. After all, the point of said phone calls was usually to convince Bex to convince the "24/7" top brass that said athlete was worthy of a "24/7" up-close-and-personal feature, preferably in prime-time. Rarely was the point of the phone call to taunt her about a feature she wouldn't be able to do.

          Which was why, rather than following her first instinct, which was to politely offer, "Well, thank you very much for sharing that with me," and hanging up, Bex, instead, stayed on the line, waiting for the explanation that she could only hope would be forthcoming.

          Oh, and Bex had another reason for continuing to listen. The voice on the other end of the telephone receiver belonged to one Mrs. Antonia Wright.

          Bex had met Toni a year ago, before Bex started working as the "24/7" researcher, back when she was just another struggling, free-lance sports reporter, newly out of college and still barely earning enough to simply get by (granted, she was trying to do the getting by thing in Manhattan, a borough where "simply" and "get by" couldn't even acquiesce to sharing a Central Park bench), much less begin making any sort of substantial dent in paying back her rather substantial student loans.

          Bex had written a cover feature for "Black Maturity Magazine" (she refused to let a little fact like being neither Black nor Mature stand in her way; Bex's other free-lance clients included  "Boy's Life," "Parents," and "Cats," and she wasn't any of those things either), chronicling Toni's struggle as the first African-American ice-skater to attempt competing within the United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA). It truly was a fabulous and inspiring story, ranging from the first time seven year old Toni tried to pay her admission to a local ice-rink and was told, "No niggers allowed," to her breaking the color barrier by joining a skating club so that she could perform at a local competition, to her triumphant win of a U.S. Pair title with -- oh, the scandal of  it! -- a white Pairs partner. Afterwards, Toni went on to a rather successful professional career in a series of splashy and sequined-full ice-shows before settling down to coach at the Connecticut Olympic Training Center in Hartford. These days, she was past sixty years old and still lacing up her skates to get out onto the ice with her students. The woman was a marvel. And, when she talked, Bex listened. Even if, at the moment, Toni wasn't making a heck of a lot of sense.

          "I have this student," Toni backtracked. "His name is Jeremy Hunt. He is thirteen years old, and he's terrific, a prodigy. He started skating at eight -- most people will tell you that's too late, I know I thought it was. But, then, he got all of his double jumps in six months, started landing triples within a year, passed his Senior test at eleven, and now he's doing quads! Quads, Bex! Good ones, not cheated - fully rotated. The Salchow, the Toe Loop, and even the Loop three out of five times. A Quadruple Loop, can you believe it?"

          A year ago, Toni's words would have sounded like gibberish to Bex. A year ago, she hadn't been able to recognize an Axel on the ice from the one on her ten-year-old car. But, in researching and writing the article on Toni, she'd paid careful attention. And the older woman was an excellent teacher.

          So excellent, in fact, that Bex had no trouble running her current words through the "Skating Universal Translator" in her head, to come up with the following interpretation: "While eight years old would still seem to be a rather young age on most normal planets, in the world of competitive skating this Jeremy Hunt might as well have been named Grandpa Moses. Popular wisdom dictates that, in order to succeed at the sport, the potential Olympic and World Champion ought to begin his serious, daily training by the age of preferably eighteen months, private lessons by age three, and lessons with a top-ranked coach by no later than five. A boy who only takes up the discipline at age eight might as well scrape "Loser" onto his forehead with a rusty skate blade and prepare for a future as Eeyore's fuzzy rear end in the European company of "Disney on Ice." However, it seems that Toni's student, Jeremy, has beaten the prognosticators by being somewhat of a talented fellow, and precociously mastering his double jumps -- meaning he could take off from the ice, rotate twice in the air, and come down on one foot without his other foot, hand, chin or chest also slamming into the ground beside him. Mastering the double jumps -- Salchow, Toe- Loop, Loop, Flip, Lutz, and especially Double Axel, which, in spite of its name, actually required two and half revolutions in the air -- was a process that some skaters took years to perfect. The fact that Jeremy did it in under six months was impressive. But, not as impressive as the fact that he then went ahead and mastered all his Triples, as well -- meaning he could take off from the ice, rotate three times in the air, and come down on one foot without his other foot, hand, chin or chest also slamming into the ground beside him. Mastering all of the triple jumps -- Salchow, Toe-Loop, Loop, Flip, Lutz, and especially a Triple Axel, which, in spite of its name, actually required three and half revolutions in the air, was a process that took some skaters -- well, never. Most skaters never mastered all of their triple jumps. And they especially didn't do it in one year. At the age of eleven. Of course, when it came to quadruple jumps, there were only a dozen men in the world who could actually land one successfully, much less land two-almost-three of them (and at least half of those who claimed to be landing Quads cheated them somehow, either taking an extra half turn on the ice before they jumped, or after they'd landed). When it came to men doing clean quads, that is, four full revolutions in the air -- no cheating -- there were only a handful. And none of them were thirteen years old, that was for sure.

          "Oh, and Bex, this is the best part," Toni sounded almost religiously ecstatic as she unveiled her piece-de-resistance. "He can actually skate!"

          Come on, Universal Skating Translator -- Bex cheered on her brain -- do your stuff! Sure enough, after a moment, it kicked in with the code-breaker. What Toni actually meant to say was: "When Jeremy Hunt gets on the ice, he doesn't look like he is trudging from place to place through gravel, and he doesn't just perform like an acrobatic monkey, he actually knows how to stroke, to glide with a semblance of smoothness, to float the way you're supposed to if we're to keep this sport from becoming tumbling on ice, instead of the art it was always intended to be."

          Alright, so maybe Bex embellished a little on that last part. But, it was exactly what Toni meant. She could tell from the excitement in her voice.

          Still, Toni wasn't as over-the-moon excited as Bex would have expected a coach to be when talking up a supposed find of this boy's caliber. There had to be a catch. Something Toni intended to tell her, but couldn't quite find the right words.

          Bex tried to guess, offering up her version of "Skating Twenty Questions." She asked Toni, "So, what's the problem? Does he leave it all on the practice ice?"

          In human language, what Bex meant was, "Is he good in practice, but then can't deliver in competition?"

          "Not at all," Toni assured. "If this boy can do it, he can do it, doesn't matter when or where."

          "Meaning he doesn't freeze up under pressure?"

          "Nope. Solid as a rock. Two minutes before competition, he's grinning and waving to his friends and clapping for the competition and jabbering about which little girl he's planning to invite to his eight-grade dance. Nothing fazes him. I swear, when results went up at Sectionals last week and we saw he'd placed first, the smile he had is the same one he'd have had if he finished last."

          Translation: Sectionals were a qualifying competition. There were three in the country, divided into geographic regions -- Pacific Coast, Midwestern and Eastern. The top four skaters from each discipline advanced on to the U.S. National Championships. If Jeremy Hunt won his Eastern Sectional, it meant he had a very good chance of winning a medal -- even a gold one -- at Nationals. And a U.S. National Champion, traditionally, had a very good chance of going on to win a medal at the World Championships, or even at the Olympic Winter Games.

          "Not bad for a thirteen year old," Bex noted.

          "Except that there's a problem."

          A-ha! Chalk one up for Bex's instincts. Of course, there was a problem.

          "It's Jeremy's father."

          Oh, yes, here it came. Bex took mental bets with herself on exactly what sort of cliche "problem" parent Mr. Hunt would prove to be. There was a limited number of types, and none of them were a barrel of monkeys. "What's wrong with him?"

          Toni took a deep breath and, in a voice that suggested she couldn't believe it herself, revealed, "Jeremy's father won't let him compete at Nationals."

          "What?" Bex sat up in her office chair, rubber wheels scraping the floor with a squeak equal in volume to her dismay.

          This was certainly a new one for her. Usually, when one said there was a problem with a skating parent, one meant that Mommy Dearest (and it was usually a Mommy Dearest, though a Daddy or two did sneak into the party once in a while) was beating her Skating Sweetie in the back bathroom with a hairbrush while screaming that Skating Sweetie messed up her combination jump on purpose. Or it meant that Mommy Dearest was keeping her Skating Sweetie on a diet so strict, gaunt Ethiopian children were sending Skating Sweetie humanitarian relief, or, at the very least, that Mommy Dearest had taken to calling up judges at their regular place of employment to demand an explanation for why Skating Sweetie hadn't qualified for Nationals, when anyone could see that she was the superior child in her flight, if not in the entire world.

          Although Bex had only been in the formal research business for a little over one season (last year had been her first and she was just three months into her second), she'd been writing about sports of all kinds for almost ten years now, going back to her high-school paper. And she'd never, ever heard of parent trying to keep their child OUT of a competition.

          "Does the dad say why?"

          "He says that he has no problem with Jeremy skating for fun, but he doesn't want it consuming his life."

          Oh. Well, that certainly was a new one. Bex almost didn't know what to say. She stammered, "I, well, Toni, he's not exactly wrong in that, is he?" This was truly unprecedented. On the other hand.... "But why did he let Jeremy enter Sectionals if he wants him to do it just for fun?"

          "I asked him the same thing. Mr. Hunt -- his first name is Craig -- he said to me that local competitions are still fun. Nationals are where it gets crazy."

          Well, he was right and he was wrong about that. From where Bex sat, she'd seen some pretty crazy behavior at local inter-club competitions for skaters between the mature ages of five and five-and-a-half, but, okay, let Mr. Hunt have his opinion.

          Bex said, "This Jeremy though, he sounds to me like the type of kid who can handle big-time competition. Especially if he's got no pressure coming from the home-front."

          "Personally, I don't think it's that at all. Personally, I think Mr. Hunt is afraid of Jeremy losing. He dotes on that boy, he's afraid to see him hurt."

          "Again, Toni," Bex, as a civilian, was treading carefully now. You never knew with these skating people what exactly would set them off. One time Bex watched a skater go mental because someone mistook his teal costume for being blue. There were certain things these people took extra-special seriously. And you'd darn better take them seriously too, if you wanted them to keep talking to you.

          Still, Bex bravely pressed on, "Is that so wrong?"

          "When you've got a boy of this talent, yes!" The fervor in Toni's voice reminded Bex that no matter how generally reasonable the older woman sounded, she was still a skater down to the freon in her veins. Of course, to her, Craig Hunt was spouting heresy. "Jeremy Hunt is the most talented male skater I've seen since Robby Sharpton. Do you want him to end up throwing his potential away the same way Robby did?"

          Actually, Bex had no idea who this Robby Sharpton was. She made a mental note to act out her job description and actually go research it. How hard could it be? She already had a pretty big clue. Apparently, the said Robby Sharpton never lived up to his potential.

          Toni went on, "What if someone had kept Fred Astaire from dancing? Or Caruso from singing? What if someone had taken away Van Gogh's paint brushes?"

          "He might have ended up with better hearing?" Bex was being flip, she knew she was being flip. But, she just couldn't help it sometimes. Not when it was this easy.

          Toni said, "This boy could be the star of the next Nationals. Doesn't "24/7" want to be the first ones to tell his story?"

          "Not if he's not going to be there, Toni, which, right now, it sounds like he's not."

          "I need you to do something for me, Bex."

          Ah, only sixteen digressions later, and here they were, finally arriving at the point of this conversation. Bex immediately felt more comfortable. This was an arena where she was the star, where she knew what to do. As "24/7's" only researcher, anyone who had a story to pitch had to come to her first. Only after Bex decided whether or not it had any merit or dramatic potential, would she take it to her Executive Producer, Gil Cahill. If Gil agreed with her assessment, he would dispatch a producer to shoot the story, based on her research notes. If Gil disagreed with her assessment -- which was usually -- he made her feel like she was exactly three centimeters tall and ready for the bird-brain remedial classes.

          Bex did not enjoy that sensation. Which was why, before Gil had the chance to shoot down the ideas she brought him, Bex took the time to shoot most ideas down herself. She was a sort of Gil in training. God, but that was a horrifying thought.

          Still, Toni wasn't just any coach trying to sell Bex on a story. She was a classy lady who deserved to be listened to and treated with respect. Before she was shot down.

          "What can I do, Toni?"

          "I think you should send a camera crew here to the Training Center to shoot Jeremy practicing. Once Mr. Hunt sees that a major sport network like "24/7" thinks his son has enough potential to be profiled as an up and comer, I think he'll realize just how truly exceptional Jeremy is, and he'll agree to let him live up to his full potential."

          Unlike, apparently, this Robby Sharpton person.

          "I.e. he'll let him go to Nationals?" Bex just wanted to make sure they were all on the same page here.

          "Where he'll steal the show, I guarantee it. And "24/7" will have gotten the first exclusive with him!"

          Leave it to Toni to do her homework. She was up on all of her TV buzz-words. Still, Bex truly doubted that Gil could be talked into shelling out the expenses for a producer and two man crew, camera and sound guy, to travel to Connecticut to shoot footage of a boy who, in all likelihood, wouldn't even be at Nationals. And, even if he was, Bex still suspected Toni was doing a bit of the overhype dance. No thirteen year old boy could be as good as she claimed this one was. Jeremy Hunt may have had a ton of potential he was in danger of not living up to, but Bex doubted a thirteen year old at his first major competition had a chance in hell of qualifying for the top five at Nationals. And, as far as the always compassionate television world was concerned, if you weren't in the top five, you were never even entered in the event.

          Toni must have sensed Bex's hesitation. Because, before Bex had the chance to purse her lips in anticipation of, politely but firmly, offering up a "no," Toni interrupted to say, "How about if I send you a tape of Jeremy skating? You can see for yourself how special he is. Just watch him skate for a couple of minutes. Then tell me whether or not you'll go to Gil Cahill with the piece."

          She'd been all set to say "no." Bex's lips were all pursed and everything. See?

          But, Toni was a sixty-year-old sports pioneer. Bex was just a twenty-three year old figure skating researcher whose mother had taught her to be polite, especially with older people. And, oh, yes, Bex also suffered from a terminal gastro-condition known as gutless.

          "Sure," Bex sighed, knowing that she was merely putting off the inevitable task of saying "no" for a few days at most, and feeling both like a first-class coward and yet oh so relieved at the same time. "Go ahead, Toni. Send me the tape."

          "It's already in the mail, honey."

          Oh, great, now Bex was not only gutless and a procrastinator. She was also predictable.

         

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