CHAPTER 6
Gli ha piu’ garbo un ciuco a bere a boccia.
There is something simultaneously soothing and dangerous about the sound of a figure-skating blade gliding over the ice. The movement is grace personified, but the mechanism helping create the movement is a deadly quarter-inch blade. It’s a mesmerizing dichotomy, almost as dizzying as watching Pamela Gregory skate.
All the guests as well as some of the lodge’s staff were lined up against the boards of the outdoor ice rink, eager to watch Pamela’s early-morning routine. She was skating without any musical accompaniment, wearing a simple outfit of black tights, gray oversized sweatshirt, and black gloves, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked youthful, joyous, and despite her “look at me” actions from the night before, oblivious to the attention she was getting.
Each glide across the ice propelled her several feet in one direction, and she seemed to move effortlessly without using an ounce of muscle although anyone who knew anything about the sport of figure skating knew that was the opposite of the truth. The simpler the movement often meant the skill was that much harder to achieve. It took a lot of practice to make something look easy.
Pamela’s white boots moved left, right, then backward, leaning on an inside edge, then an outside edge, all the while making soft swooshing sounds that belied the fact that her blade was cutting into the ice itself. The audience had no words to describe what Pamela was doing, and they couldn’t believe the speed at which she was doing it. They didn’t understand that she was performing brackets, choctaws, counters, and mohawks, all different types of turns on different edges of the blade that she had been performing and perfecting since she was four years old. They had no idea what to call the crossovers, lunges, and rockers she executed without hesitation or a break in her speed. Vinny, however, did know the name for one impressive move that required Pamela to skate across the ice with her skates facing opposite directions and on two separate horizontal planes, all the while leaning backward from the waist into a backbend.
“That is a perfect Ina Bauer!” Vinny shouted.
“I thought her name was Pamela?” Helen asked.
Laughing, Vinny replied, “The move is called an Ina Bauer, named after a famous German skater from the fifties.”
“Like that Katarina Witt?” Helen asked.
Vinny’s face turned whiter than the nearby snowdrifts when Helen uttered the name of Pamela’s nemesis. “Please, Helen, if you know what’s good for all of us, never mention that name again.”
“What name?” Helen asked. “Katarina Witt?”
“Helen!”
Although Vinny was furious and furiously concerned that even though Pamela was in the middle of her routine and a bit preoccupied, she might overhear Helen speak of the German Who Shall Not Be Named, he needn’t worry, Helen was playing him.
“Easy, tiger,” Helen said. “I won’t ruffle the ice lady’s feathers. But since you seem to care a lot about this ice-skating stuff, you should get out there and join her.”
A look of terror with the tiniest hint of delight filled Vinny’s eyes. “That would be a dream come true, Helen,” Vinny confessed. “But even with my level-six certificate, I’m no match for Pamela.”
“How about you, Sloan?” Alberta asked. “Could you keep up with Pamela?”
“Oh no, I haven’t skated since I was a kid,” Sloan replied. “Every winter my uncle’s pond would freeze up and we’d skate until my mother thought we were going to drill a hole in the ice and fall in.”
Alberta imagined Sloan as a young boy bundled up to ward off the cold, skating around a frozen pond, but was soon distracted by a loud scratching sound. She thought it was a bird with a sore throat cawing when she realized Pamela was making the sound by spinning on the ice.
“And that is the perfect layback,” Charlie said, snapping away on his camera.
The others may not have known it, but Charlie wasn’t exaggerating. Pamela was performing what could only be described as a textbook layback spin. She was spinning on her left foot, while her right leg was bent at the knee and raised off the ice so it was almost parallel to her waist. Bending backward, her arms were lifted overhead with her fingertips a few inches apart so her limbs created the illusion of forming a semicircle. She looked like the living embodiment of a music box ballerina.
“She is absolutely stunning,” Jinx gushed. “I’m half her age and I couldn’t get into that position standing still.”
“I don’t think she has half the moves you do.” Freddy didn’t mean for anyone to overhear his flirtatious remark, but Sloan and Alberta did and couldn’t stop from smiling. Young love was not only beautiful to watch, it was also infectious.
“You’d look pretty fetching in a skating outfit like that,” Sloan said in Alberta’s ear.
“As long as you’re right next to me to catch me when I fall,” Alberta whispered back.
This time it was Jinx who overheard the trifle.
“Do I have to separate you two?” she joked.
“You should mind your beeswax, signorina,” Alberta chided.
“You’re all missing Pamela’s beeswax!” Vinny cried.
Alberta and Jinx looked at center ice just in time to watch Pamela finish her routine with a traditional scratch spin. Left blade on the ice, right skate pressed against the left, arms crossed in front of her chest, and spinning on the ice like a top. Just when the move couldn’t get any more impressive, Pamela threw her head back and continued to spin so quickly that, for a few moments, it looked like she was headless. By the time she took her final position everyone, except for Charlie who was still taking pictures, was applauding.
Pamela remained in position for a few moments and looked as if she didn’t know what to do with herself. Alberta wondered if this was like watching a singer on stage after performing an emotionally taxing solo—do they have to remind themselves that they’re not in their own private world, but on a stage with hundreds or thousands of eyes on them? Even though Pamela only had about ten pairs of eyes gawking at her, she still looked like she was lost in some private place that no one else was privy to. Until she was rescued by an intruder.
“What the hell are you doing?” Pamela screeched.
Stephanie skated to a perfect stop a few inches from her boss holding Pamela’s fur coat in one arm and the matching headband in the other.
“You, um, said that you wanted your coat and your hat thing, the moment you stopped skating,” Stephanie replied meekly.
“I’m not done skating until the applause stops,” Pamela croaked. “So unless you have dirt in your ears, you should still be able to hear the clapping.”
The only applause Pamela could have heard was from her own mind because by this point the clapping, which had been enthusiastic and genuine, had indeed ended. Vinny’s attempt to resurrect the applause on his own and prevent it from appearing that Pamela was hearing aural hallucinations only sounded embarrassing. Not that Pamela noticed one bit. Her performance on the ice may have been over, but her performance as prima donna, the well-rehearsed character that she had introduced to the group the night before, was back in all its theatrical glory.
“Why don’t I hear the shutter of the camera?” Pamela bellowed.
All heads turned to look at Charlie, who was gawking at Pamela instead of clicking his camera so his photo could be published in the Herald and uploaded online for the world to gawk over as well.
“All I hear are the appalling sounds of nature!” Pamela cried.
After a few tension-filled moments, Charlie understood he was the target of Pamela’s ire and snapped to attention. Bumbling, he grabbed the camera that was hanging feebly around his neck and began snapping away. Pamela pushed Stephanie to the side to make sure she didn’t photobomb any of the images Charlie was collecting, and her assistant glided to the railing, fox apparel still in hand. This must not have been the first time Pamela engaged in such a maneuver because Stephanie didn’t stumble, she merely glided to the side of the rink.
“Isn’t Pamela such a strong woman?” Vinny asked rhetorically. “I’m going to see if there’s any chance I can get a photo from Charlie.”
After Vinny left the group, Alberta could sense Sloan wanted to say something.
“Cat got your tongue?” she asked.
“More like an ass,” he replied.
“What?” was the collective response.
“I was thinking of an odd little Italian phrase I picked up while studying odd little Italian phrases online,” Sloan confessed. “Gli ha piu’ garbo un ciuco a bere a boccia.”
“Ah, Madon! I haven’t heard that one in years,” Alberta said.
“I never heard that one at all,” Jinx added. “Translate please.”
“He basically called Miss Olympic Figure Skater a no-good low-class . . .”
“Helen!” Alberta interrupted before Helen could finish her sentence.
“Don’t look at me,” she replied. “He’s your boyfriend.”
“The phrase translates to mean a donkey drinking from a bottle has better manners,” Alberta explained.
Jinx nodded her head vigorously, thoroughly understanding. “So he called Pamela a no-good low-class . . .”
“Jinx!” Alberta shouted, once again interrupting someone before they could finish their off-color sentence.
“I’ll make sure to find out how truly low Ms. Gregory’s class is once I interview her,” Jinx said mischievously. “Speaking of which, I need to go prepare. Round one of our interviews starts the moment the subject can pry herself off the ice.”
* * *
Sitting in one of the plum-colored leather chairs next to a crackling fire, Jinx was reveling in her first celebrity interview. She had instructed everyone in her group to fight the urge to stop by to say hello so she could have privacy, and gave Freddy special orders to keep them at bay. So far, her demands were being followed.
Jinx had already done some online investigation and learned the basic facts about Pamela. She was born in Montague, New Jersey, and was discovered during a skating lesson at a local rink when she was four years old by the man who would become her first coach. Sandy Lansing immediately recognized potential in the very young skater and was universally credited for giving Pamela a strong foundation of skating skills and solid technique that made her a darling among judges from her earliest competition. As often happens in the world of figure skating, it became evident after working with Sandy for several years that there was nothing more the coach could teach his student. Sandy suggested that Pamela move on to study with a more accomplished and acclaimed coach who could help her achieve the greatness that was in her grasp. Her search led her to relocate to the West Coast.
Within a few years she was winning major competitions and rising up the figure-skating ladder until she won the U.S. Nationals when she was only sixteen. A bevy of international medals followed that culminated in a stunning victory at the World Championships, where she ousted the favorite and returning champ from Denmark, capping off a remarkable pre-Olympic career.
But none of that really mattered. What made Pamela Gregory world famous was that she stepped onto the ice in Zurich as a contender and left an Olympic champion.
Sitting across from Jinx in a matching leather chair, her fox fur draped over her shoulders, sipping hot chocolate out of a mug, Pamela still had the mark of a champion. It was an intangible quality, the confidence knowing she was the best in her chosen field, that exuded from her and after all these years had yet to be extinguished.
But then her true self cracked through the surface.
“Stephanie! I need food,” Pamela professed. “All this reminiscing is making me hungry.”
Like a Pavlovian assistant, Stephanie came running up to them from where she had been sitting trying not to drop the files she was holding. “What can I get you, Miss Gregory? A protein bar? Some yogurt?”
“No, just the usual.”
“A plate of nuts and cheese coming right up.”
“And no cashews, you know how I despise them.”
“I already put them on the UFL,” Stephanie assured.
“The UFL?” Jinx asked.
“Unacceptable food list,” Stephanie replied as if it should be universally known. “I e-mail it to every venue before our arrival.”
“Are you allergic?” Jinx asked.
“No!” Pamela shrieked. “Cashews are disgusting! I’m not allergic to anything. Except stupidity and dillydallying. Isn’t that right, Stephanie?”
Stephanie paused, read between Pamela’s words, and understood that her boss was talking about her and ran off. Only to run back a few seconds later.
“I’m sorry, Jinx, would you like anything?”
Feeling her stomach grumble at the thought of food, Jinx realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “I’d love some tomatoes and mutz.”
Stephanie nodded her head, turned to leave, and once again turned right back around.
“Mutz?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No,” Stephanie replied. “What’s mutz?”
“It’s mozzarella cheese!”
A culinary light bulb went off in Stephanie’s head. “Of course. Sorry, I have, you know, other things on my mind. Be right back.”
Jinx didn’t need Stephanie to spell it out to decipher “other things” meant Pamela. And Pamela didn’t need to speak to render Jinx speechless. Her actions took care of that all by themselves. Pamela pulled a silver flask out from the pocket of her fur coat, unscrewed it, poured some liquid into her hot chocolate, and placed the flask back into her coat as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Did you just pour alcohol into your hot chocolate?” Jinx asked, trying very hard not to sound like a teenager, but knowing she probably failed.
“Yes,” Pamela replied taking a sip. “Brandy, to be exact.”
“I know we’re secluded and in the middle of nowhere,” Jinx said. “But do you think that’s wise? What if someone sees you?”
“What if I don’t care?”
That was not the response Jinx was expecting. Everyone in the public eye knew that every public move could be caught on camera and made even more public by being posted online. Pamela must care about her public image. Why take the risk?
“It helps ward off the chill,” she explained. “Been helping since I was sixteen.”
“You’ve been putting brandy in hot chocolate since you were a teenager?”
“How else do you think I won Olympic gold?” Pamela shrieked. “Do you think I made it this far on talent and hard work alone?”
“Yes.” Jinx knew it was the wrong answer, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“You’re either innocent or stupid,” Pamela said. “Figure skating is a cutthroat sport. All those pretty little girls in their pretty little dresses that you see on TV have ice in their blood and they’d kill their own mother if it meant winning an Olympic medal of any color let alone gold. Every rumor is true, the glitz and the glamour are all a cover-up to hide the harsh reality that very few make it to the top. Most get injured or can’t afford to pay for lessons any longer or they just plain suck.”
Pamela took another sip of her spiked chocolate and Jinx stared at her dumbfounded, but was savvy enough to know that you never interrupt an interviewee when they’re on a roll. And Pamela wasn’t done spinning.
“There’s not enough room at the top for all the wannabes and the hopefuls skating their little hearts out in mall rinks across America wearing the cute little outfits that their mothers embellished with cheap rhinestones and pearls so their moderately talented little girl will sparkle under the lights. If they don’t crash and burn or break a hip before their fifteenth birthday maybe, maybe they’ll make it in the chorus of some Disney on Ice show dressed up like a cartoon princess or coaching kids who are even worse than they were in some crummy rink or, God forbid, opening up a lodge like this one.”
When Pamela finished she was out of breath, her diatribe took more out of her than her morning skating performance. Jinx was still in shock that she had spoken so bluntly and negatively about the sport that had made her a star and given her a lifelong career. Jinx wasn’t the only one who seemed surprised.
From across the room Jinx caught Patrick staring at Pamela. She wasn’t sure if he overheard Pamela’s rant or if he was merely infatuated with her like most of the other men at the lodge. When she noticed Pamela lock eyes with Patrick, Jinx decided to use one of Wyck’s interview tips—always try to catch your subject off guard.
“How long have you known Patrick?”
“The bellhop? Never met him before.”
“Then why are you staring at him?” Jinx pushed back.
“Because that’s how you garner fans,” Pamela elucidated. “How do you think I built up such a huge and loyal fan base decades before social media took over the world? Look a fan in the eye and smile like you actually mean it. Works like a charm every time.”
Thunderstruck yet again by the vitriol of Pamela’s words, Jinx was compelled to remind her of how the relationship between a journalist and her subject works in that their conversation was being taped and everything that she said could be used against her in the pages of The Herald. Unfortunately, when Pamela explained the real truth of their relationship, it was Jinx who didn’t have her facts straight.
“Wyck agreed to what?” she cried.
“I have final approval over the article,” Pamela declared.
“That can’t be possible,” Jinx replied.
“If you don’t believe me, go ask your funny-looking boss,” Pamela replied. “I told Wyck that if he wanted to interview me, he had to adhere to my rules.”
“But that’s unethical,” Jinx stuttered.
“That’s what it takes to interview a celebrity,” Pamela stated. “I told Wyck that I’m the biggest celebrity TUSH has or ever will interview and if he wanted my story to grace the cover of his little rag, he’d have to do it on my terms and he agreed.”
Stunned, Jinx knew that The Herald was small, but Wyck had integrity. However, he also understood how to play the game to get a story. If Wyck had to bend the rules to interview a legend then he’d do just that, and as a cub reporter who was Jinx to judge? She just couldn’t believe that every word she wrote was going to have to be scrutinized and accepted by Pamela. Her hard-hitting well-balanced interview was going to be no more than a puff piece. About a woman who did nothing but huff and puff.
“It’s about time!” Pamela barked.
Stephanie placed a plate of nuts and cheese on the end table next to Pamela’s chair and another plate of cut up tomatoes along with some slices of yellowy cheese that looked nothing like mozzarella.
“I hope you like cheddar,” Stephanie said, a bit of fear creeping into her voice. “They didn’t have any mutz.”
“This will be fine,” Jinx lied. “Thank you.”
Pamela grabbed some nuts and threw them into her mouth. While chewing she said, “Go and draw my bath. I’ll be up in five minutes. And I want the lavender bubbles, not that disgusting one you always try to make me use.”
“Mustard flour is good for the muscles and breathing,” Stephanie explained.
“It makes me smell like a hot dog!” Pamela shouted. “Now go!”
Stephanie ran back out and just as she was exiting the room she nearly collided with Cathy, who was entering with a tray of small vases filled with fresh flowers.
“Prost,” Stephanie mumbled.
Stunned, Jinx turned to Pamela. “I can’t even! Did you hear that? Stephanie just called Cathy a prostitute.”
Laughing hysterically, Pamela corrected her. “The little dolt stutters when she’s nervous, she said ‘pardon. ’ ” Still laughing, Pamela continued, “I think I’m going to have to fire her after the opening. She’s only been with me a few months, but it isn’t working out.”
Once again Jinx was taken aback by the nonchalance of Pamela’s comment as well as the seriousness of her expression. She followed Pamela’s gaze across the room and saw that she was staring at Cathy.
“You really like to stare at people, don’t you?” Jinx asked.
“I find people fascinating,” Pamela replied. “As a reporter you must as well.”
“Yes, I do,” Jinx confirmed. “But I get the sense that you know Cathy and that’s why you’re interested in her.”
It was Pamela’s turn to be surprised by something her conversation partner said. “Why in the world would I be interested in Cathy? She’s a nobody. The only thing that matters to me is that the check she gives me for being here at this two-bit lodge doesn’t bounce.”
Without saying goodbye, Pamela got up and left the room. Jinx slumped back into the leather chair and could only think of one thing—Sloan was right, a donkey engaged in any activity at all had better manners than Pamela.