Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3
Love Spiral
by Alina Adams
PROLOGUE She was going to fall. And she was going to do it in front of 8,000 spectators. Gabrielle cursed her rotten luck.
Usually, compulsory dance events at the World Figure Skating Championships rarely attracted more than a few thousand fans. But, this year, the Championships were being held in Canada, where even fans came armed with calculators, ready to factor placements faster than the official score-board. But, Gabrielle wasn't worried about audience reaction to her stumble. This was her first Worlds. Most devotees were still trying to figure out who she was. At practice sessions, she heard them flipping program pages, ruminating, "Was she at Jr. Worlds last year? Skate America? Trophy Lalique?"
The only judgement that mattered, was John's.
John Ramsey had been Gabrielle's coach since she was twelve. The first time he saw her, when she and her mother traveled from L.A. to his training center in Northern California, John watched Gabrielle skate for five minutes, then told her she wasn't ready yet to take lessons from him. Her mom was so disappointed by their dismissal, she sobbed the entire six hours driving home. It was only after Gabrielle won Pacific Coast Sectional Novice Dance that John invited her to join his program. Six years later, with her partner, Todd, Gabrielle was competing the Tango Romantica at the World Championships. And she hit a rut. The toe-pick at the front of her skate-blade got caught in the ice. Gabrielle's body moved forward. Her right foot did not. She felt herself falling, and grabbed Todd's shoulder to stay upright.
The scrape of her missed edge echoed across the stadium as, in unison, 8000 fans winced and nine judges looked down at their score sheets, chopping 5/10ths of a point from their final score.
Gabrielle groaned, "John's going to kill me."
He watched all competition from the left barrier, skating the programs along with his students, swaying to the music, duplicating hand-gestures, holding his breath during tricky jumps or steps, and clenching his fists, as if sheer will could keep his protegees up. When Gabrielle stepped into the kiss-and-cry area following her Tango, he simply shook his head in disgust and walked away.
But Gabrielle knew there'd be no escaping his post-mortem.
As soon as final standings were posted, she knew where she was supposed to be. When she raised her arm to knock on John's hotel- room door, she was trembling so much, it sounded like Morse code.
But John wasn't the one who answered.
It was Chris Kelly.
He looked at Gabrielle and pronounced, "John's gone searching for you, you know. You're in serious trouble."
Briefly, Gabrielle wondered if Chris was always this rude, or whether he believed his recent coronation as crown prince of men's figure skating included an exemption from practicing good manners?
In Chris' defense, she supposed it was kind of hard for him to act humble while newspapers proclaimed nineteen year old Christian Kelly the future of skating. As last year's Junior World Champion, he'd made headlines snatching England's Senior Men's title from its four-time defending champion, then following that up with a second place at the European Championships and a Bronze Medal at Worlds. With the Olympics ten months away, John was already predicting a surprise upset at next year's Games. And the war to keep Chris' ego in check was certainly not helped by the fact that, on top of his athletic ability, he was also annoyingly handsome. Every time Gabrielle ran into Chris at the cafeteria or in the ballet room, he appeared another step closer to completing that tricky shift from awkward adolescent into dashing leading man. He'd finally adjusted to the growth spurt that left him standing six feet, one inch tall, moving now with the debonair fluidity of a tiger. There wasn't a drop of fat on Chris' slender frame. It was pure muscle. His long legs and narrow hips were mandatory for a skater, but his washboard stomach, according to one overwhelmed television commentator, was flat enough to serve tea on. He wore his ginger hair short in the back, with bangs that inevitably splayed across his forehead during a sit-spin. He'd developed an on-ice gesture for brushing them in place, throwing his head back, then running his fingers through his hair, peeking flirtatiously at the audience from underneath his arm and winking. Female fans went nuts over it. They started cheering in anticipation before Chris even finished his spin.
And his favored-skater status was cemented by an assignment to share John's hotel suite. Their coach booked a penthouse at every competition and invited select students to move in, based on John's estimation of their potential. He liked keeping an eye on his most promising pupils. John wanted to know what they were eating, when they were eating, how much they were eating. He wanted to know who they went out with, where, and for how long. If they were invited to a U.S. Figure Skating Association or International Skating Union reception, John selected their wardrobe -- jackets and ties for his men, prim dresses for his girls. At this Championship, John chose seven students, including Chris, to share his suite. Gabrielle's room was two floors down.
Of course, thanks to Gabrielle's slip in the Tango, she and Todd were ranked nineteenth after the compulsory dances, one spot ahead of the team from Hong Kong, who trained without a coach and only had access to practice ice a half-hour each day.
Chris told Gabrielle, "Nice job this afternoon. How long you been skating then? Couple of months?" His English accent made the insult seem even more snide than it actually was, and the way he smirked while delivering it hardly helped matters.
He closed the door behind Gabrielle and padded barefoot across the room, easing back down on his bed. He rolled his sweatpants up over both knees and sat gingerly pressing an ice-pack against first one, then the other, until his skin glowed an uncooked red, tinged with blue around the edges. Bruises dotted his feet, starting with scabbed abrasions on the front of both ankles, and ending at his toes, where each digit had been rubbed so raw, callouses the size of marbles protruded from every joint, like extra toes. His shirt read Cougar AthleticWear in orange across his chest.
Chris reached for the aerosol standing on his bedside table, and sprayed both knees with pain-numbing novocain. He blew on the salve to hurry its drying, and helpfully informed Gabrielle, "You really biffed it big time. What's the matter with you, anyway?"
She'd expected abuse from John, but Chris' disparagement took Gabrielle by surprise. One part of her flared, resentful, at his presumptive arrogance. Chris had obviously been spending much too much time with John. His words, his gestures, his demeanor were now mirror images of their mentor. In fact, Chris' impersonation of John proved so uncanny that, instead of biting his head off like he deserved, Gabrielle could only stammer in pathetic defense, "I -we did better on the second dance, the Yankee Polka." But even she could hear how lame that excuse sounded.
Chris snorted. "This is ice dance, for Pete's sake."
He had a point. Although, allegedly, judges were supposed to score each dance individually, everyone knew that your first mark all but locked you into a standing for the rest of the competition. Because of Gabrielle's fall, she and Todd saw 5/10ths deducted from their Tango. In theory, their error-free Yankee Polka should have been marked at least 5/10ths higher. They should have moved up. But, as Chris pointed out, this was ice dance, for Pete's sake.
The door slammed behind them, and Gabrielle and Chris jumped, snapping to attention in front of their coach; a beefy, polar bear of a man in his sixties, wrapped in a fur-lined parka and mink hat. Fifty years on ice had frozen his features into a perpetual scowl, hardly leaving space between his lips for John to jut his pipe. He grumbled out of the corner of his mouth, swallowing his words. But God help any student who failed to understand him on the first try.
John peeled off his gloves, flinging them aside. He brushed past Gabrielle, and hovered above Chris sitting on the bed. John slid the ice-pack off Chris' leg and poked his swollen knee with one finger. Chris winced and stiffened, but didn't say a word. John asked, "Still hurt?"
"Just a little."
"Ready for the practice session this afternoon?"
"Of course."
John patted Chris' ankle. "Good boy."
Despite his obvious pain, Chris beamed, flashing a triumphant look at Gabrielle, as if he'd just come out ahead in some unnamed contest between the two of them.
John turned to Gabrielle. She braced for the worst.
He sighed, infusing the gesture with enough disappointment and frustration to convince Gabrielle that she was, no question about it, the most worthless person on Earth.
He rubbed his chin between his thumb and fourth finger, then demanded, "What the hell happened, Gabrielle? Where do you think we are? Regionals? Sectionals? Do you think this is Juvenile Dance, where the judges give bonus points for cute mistakes?"
Tears gathered at the rims of her lids. She struggled to keep them from falling by focusing on a spot above John's ear, refusing to blink. It weren't John's words that upset her so much. They weren't anything she hadn't heard before. It was the humiliation of his chewing her out in front of Chris. Any decent person would have discreetly left the room, or, at least, pretended to read a magazine, study his nails, something. But not Chris. Chris stayed right where he was, propped up on the bed, arms folded across his chest, watching their clash with the same self-satisfied smile he'd flashed Gabrielle's way earlier.
John continued, "What was going through your head? What were you thinking? At least my other students, when they decide to make mistakes that dumb, they do it at Central Pacific Championships, or at Pacific Coast Championships, or maybe at National Championships. But, I swear, you are the only one stupid enough to start screwing up at the World Championships!"
"I -- I didn't do it on purpose."
"Oh. I see. It was an accident, was it? Tell me this, then, tell me how come accidents never happen to prepared skaters?"
It wasn't true. Gabrielle knew it wasn't true. Even the best skaters slipped once in a while. She wanted to hurl the denial at John, but her throat constricted. If she opened her mouth, only a sob would squeeze out. And she refused to cry in front of Chris.
She forced herself to swallow, struggling to croak out, "I'm sorry. I hit a rut. The ice -- maybe the Zamboni missed a spot."
"Leave it to you, Gabrielle, to find the one bad patch of ice in the entire arena." John shook his head, slashing his palm along his chin, cutting off her defense. "You know, if you spent more time practicing and less time making up excuses, you'd be atop the podium, instead of at the bottom of the heap. And what was with your timing tonight? Is stepping on the beat too much to ask for in a dance competition? How hard is it for you to count to four?"
She looked down at the floor, her chin trembling against her chest. The tears clouding her vision made the ruby carpet sparkle, as if scattered with diamonds. She tried tuning out John's words, pretending they were just background noise, like people chatting on the bus, or a blaring radio. But it did her no good.
"Look at me," John ordered. He squeezed her cheeks between his palm and thumb. "Don't you dare look away while I'm talking."
She jerked her face to the side, wriggling out of John's grip. Her gesture made John furious. "I said, look at me, damn it."
He smacked her cheek with his open palm.
More stunned then truly hurt, Gabrielle opened her mouth, then abruptly closed it, unable to make a sound.
Sure, John had hit her before. He'd whacked her arm to remind Gabrielle not to drop her elbow in the Killian, or swatted her foot with a ruler when her toes drooped. But his slap, especially with Chris watching, was more than Gabrielle could bear.
John inquired, "What's the matter? All of a sudden, you don't like my coaching? Well, I'll tell you what, my dear. If you don't like how I do things, I suggest you pack your bags, and run home."
Gabrielle had long ago lost track of the number of times she'd heard John make that particular threat. He said it to anyone who dared contradict or question him. On the surface, it wasn't much. He regularly hurled more derogatory affronts during the course of an average lesson. But the power of this particular directive lay in what remained unsaid. His students knew John was the best coach in the world. He created champions with the rhythm of an assembly line. He was the closest thing their sport offered to a guarantee of success. Leaving John meant throwing away your best -- not to mention possibly your only -- chance for triumph.
But Gabrielle didn't care anymore. She was eighteen years old and fourteen of those years had been spent in rinks, hips and knees shrouded in bruises, torturing herself to please someone else.
And so, when John contemptuously flung his standard offer in her face, Gabrielle heard herself tell him, "Fine, John, I will."
He didn't believe her. He and Chris exchanged knowing looks, their mirror-image smirks framing Gabrielle like book-ends.
John said, "Well, then, perhaps we'd better call your mother. Tell her about your decision."
Right on cue, minutes later, Gabrielle's mother, Gloria, burst into John's room, demanding that her daughter explain, "What's this quitting nonsense you're bothering Mr. Ramsey with?"
Gabrielle's eyes twitched from Gloria, to Chris, to John, and back again. Under her breath, she begged, "Please, Mom.... Can we talk about this back in our room?"
Beside her full-time position as Skating Mother, Gloria worked as an attorney. Whenever Gabrielle threatened to get out of hand, her mother instinctively shifted into a tone reserved for hostile witnesses. "You don't know what you're saying. You're just upset over the Tango. Naturally, we're all devastated. But it's hardly something to quit over." Gloria smiled at John, resting her hand against his elbow.
"This is silly, Gabrielle, tell Mr. Ramsey you didn't mean what you said. Of course, you aren't quitting. After all that time and effort he's put into you? Why, you're insulting him. Tell him you're sorry and we'll forget the whole thing."
But Gabrielle couldn't just apologize and pretend nothing was wrong. Because something was wrong and that something was the fact that Gabrielle no longer enjoyed skating. She hated it. She hated waking up feeling obligated to report to a location where the next four hours straight would be spent listening to a broken record of her faults. She hated the constant exhaustion plaguing her legs, the bruises on her body, the weigh-ins followed by admonitions that one hundred pounds was still a bit heavy for a five foot four ice dancer. She hated smiling on practice sessions because there might be judges watching, she hated standing immobile while a dozen hands jabbed her during a costume fitting, musing as if Gabrielle wasn't in the room, "She's heavy in the chest, she's going to look like a cow when she bends over." But, most of all, she hated stepping out on competitive ice, knowing how many expectations were riding on her suddenly very unstable skate-blades.
"No." The denial exploded out Gabrielle's throat before she had a chance to temper it.
"No?" Gloria repeated. "What do you mean no?" Gabrielle kept silent, certain that whatever words she picked to explain herself now, would be inadequate.
But Gloria wouldn't let the issue rest. "You can't do this to me, Gabrielle. You can't flush twelve years of our hard work down the drain without some kind of explanation. If you pull from your first World Championship, the judges will never send you again."
"So what, Mom?"
There. That summarized it nicely. So what? So what if she never won a World medal? So what if she never again stepped inside any room colder than seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit? So what?
For six years, she'd made up lies when Gloria asked, "How are things going at the rink, sweetie?" because she knew her mom didn't really want to hear the answers. But Gabrielle was finished with all that. She announced, "I'm not going back. I hate it. John calls me names like stupid and worthless. He hits me and says I'm screwing up on purpose. He claimed I faked my heel hurting, and, when the doctor said it was a stress fracture, John told me to take an aspirin and get back on the ice."
Unfortunately, her mother still didn't want to hear any of it. She spat, "What is wrong with you, Gabrielle? Of course Mr. Ramsey yells. What would you rather have, some touchy-feely coach who's never sent a student past Regionals, or a man who knows what he's doing? What do you think, that you're the only one he's rough on?"
"No, I didn't say that. All I said was -- "
"I suspect the problem isn't with Mr. Ramsey. I suspect the problem is with you. I don't hear his other students complaining."
Instinctively, Gabrielle turned toward Chris. He was her only hope. He knew she wasn't making any of her charges up. John drove Chris harder than anyone else at the Ice Center. She'd spied him behind the bleachers, stuffing paper towels down his boots so John wouldn't see the blood oozing from his blisters. Chris could prove Gabrielle wasn't exaggerating. She attempted to catch his gaze, begging for Chris to take her side. He had to know how desperate she was. All she wanted was for him to confirm her version of how things really were at John's, and maybe then her mother would finally let Gabrielle come home.
"Chris... " She didn't know what else to say. "Please, Chris. Tell her it's not me. Tell her it's not my fault."
He didn't say anything.
He didn't do anything.
He simply closed his eyes. Gabrielle suspected that, if Chris had his way, he would prefer her to fall down some crater, never to resurface. She knew it wasn't fair to drag him into the middle of her personal battles, but Chris was her last chance. If he didn't back up her account, Gloria would never believe Gabrielle. She'd tell her to be a trouper. And she'd force her to go back.
"Chris.... Please...."
He took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders and sneaking a peek at John before looking straight at Gabrielle. He snapped, "If you can't stand the cold, stay out of the ice rink."
Gabrielle's head spun. Her hands grew numb, fingers buzzing like the feint hum of an electric current. From a distance, she heard Gloria tell John, "It's stress. Her first World Championship and all. She'd doesn't realize what she's saying. She'll be fine tomorrow. Won't you, sweetie?"
Gabrielle nodded, wondering why she couldn't breathe. And why no one seemed to notice. Her mother beamed. "There, now. It's settled. I'm so sorry for this scene, Mr. Ramsey. I'll talk to her. There's no excuse for this sort of behavior. Stress or no stress." Gabrielle pushed past them, heading toward the bathroom. For a split second before the door closed behind her, she caught Chris' eye. He attempted to stare back defiantly, but then looked away, his expression unreadable.
She locked the door and braced her palms on the sink, peering into the mirror. But, instead of her reflection, all Gabrielle saw was the next day.
And the next day, and the next.
Nothing would ever change. And it would never, ever, end.
Outside the bathroom door, her mother repeatedly apologized to John for Gabrielle's tantrum, promising it would not happen again.
And, inside the bathroom, Gabrielle flicked the razor from out of John's shaving kit, and silently slit her wrists.