SLOANE EMILY
The music in my head swells to a crescendo, the timpani rolling like a summer thunderstorm. I push hard into the ice and turn, the wind whipping pieces of hair into my face. I position my arms for an arabesque. I look over my shoulder. I bend low at the knee, suck in a deep breath, and leap, spin, spin …
And land hard and fast to a cymbal crash only I can hear.
“Damn,” I mutter. I wanted a triple, but once again, I missed. I wussed out at the last second and doubled it, a move that is quickly becoming my signature. And the landing was total crap. I can practically hear my mom’s voice in my head, bemoaning yet another failed jump.
I stand up straight and skate a wide circle around the center of the ice with my hands on my hips, shaking first my right foot, then my left, my standard “Get it together, Sloane” move. In two hours of practice, I only managed to get two halfway-decent triples, and both times I was sure I was going to snap my leg in two with the force of the landing.
The fear I’ve had since I started practicing again a few months ago is becoming more and more real: I lost it, and it’s not coming back.
I execute a low, fast camel at dead-center ice, as if the physics of the impossibly fast spin will send the fear and doubt flying out into the empty seats above me. I straighten up from the spin a little bit dizzy and am immediately annoyed that I didn’t spot properly, something I learned to do when I was just six years old. What is wrong with me?
A beam of light pours down from an open door high in the last row of the stands. I see Henry shuffling down the stairs from the mezzanine level in his standard-issue jeans and threadbare wool sweater. His gray hair peeks out from a black wool beanie, and I wonder, as I often do, if it’s the same one he’s been wearing since I started at this rink when I was five or if he replaces it every few years. Even though it’s a balmy eighty-two-degree Washington, DC, day, Henry wears long pants and wool year round, and he’s never without his hat. I guess that’s what comes of a lifetime maintaining an ice rink.
He makes his way down the stairs, until his nose is nearly pressed up against the glass that surrounds the rink. I pick up the pace and go for one last triple, just for him. I barely land and have to step out of it a half second after I hit the ice, but Henry applauds anyway.
“Hey there, Little Bit,” he calls to me, his pet name for me from back when I actually was a little munchkin of a skater. He doesn’t care that now that I’m five four, one of the taller skaters out there, and sixteen years old, the name no longer applies. “It’s closing time. Off the ice.” Henry may be my biggest fan, but he’s also a stickler for the rules.
I skate toward him, then throw a hard hockey stop like James taught me when I was little. The blades give a satisfying SSSSSSCHICK across the ice as I skid to a stop inches from where Henry stands. “Okay, okay, I’m going!” I’m breathing hard from the last jump, which was probably one too many for this session. I can feel my thighs starting to turn to jelly.
He just shakes his head and smiles, then opens the little door to let me out of the rink. “Don’t you have school tomorrow?”
“School’s out, Henry,” I say. “Last week.”
“So I guess I better get used to shooing you out at closing for the next three months, huh?”
“Nope,” I reply. “In fact, this is the last you’ll see of me, Henry. I’m off to Montreal in the morning.”
“They shipping you off to some fancy finishing school or something?” Henry chuckles. He likes to pretend I’m some prim and proper lady circa 1955, and I like to pretend like I’m some kind of rebel skate punk. He’s a little closer to the truth than I am.
“Worse. Skate camp. ‘Four intensive weeks of training with former Olympians, surrounded by more than fifty promising young athletes,’ ” I say, quoting the brochure.
“A fate worse than death, I’m sure. For someone who’s here every dang night, isn’t skate camp the perfect summer plan?”
“Here the only person I have to impress is you, and you’ve been clapping for me since I first learned to skate backward,” I say.
“You put too much pressure on yourself,” he says. He lays his heavy hand on my shoulder. “It ain’t a big deal. Either you love it or you don’t. Either you can do it or you can’t. And, kid? I been watching you for years, and I know you can do it. The question you gotta figure out is, do you love it?”
It’s a wonder my jelly legs don’t collapse beneath me immediately. Henry knows the question is way too big for me, though, and he doesn’t even wait for an answer. He steps onto the ice behind me and makes his way slowly to where the Zamboni lives.
In the locker room, I remove my skates, then strip off my leggings and leotard and replace them with a pair of holey jeans and a white T-shirt. After spending hours spinning in spandex, there’s nothing better than throwing on baggy, soft, comfortable clothes. Actually, there’s one thing better, and that’s slipping into a hot bath. But according to the voice mail Mom left for me earlier, that’s not on the agenda tonight.
I wad up my skating clothes and wedge them into the front pocket of my black skate bag, making a mental note to take them out when I get home so they don’t ferment. I pull the elastic out of my bun and check the mirror to see if I can do anything with what I see, but my long black hair, normally shiny and stick straight, is a sweaty, frizzy mess. I wind it back up into a pseudo-bun and secure it with the elastic. Mom will be here to pick me up any minute, so there’s no time for the shower and blowout I’m sure she’d prefer.
With one final look in the mirror, I lug my bag over my shoulder and push through the heavy blue door that leads into the lobby. I walk across the shiny linoleum and out the front door, but there’s no sign of the shiny silver sedan Mom drives, a gift from Dad on their twenty-fifth anniversary. I dig my phone out of my bag and see that she still has ten more minutes. Mom is always Right On Time. She’s always right, period.
I head back inside to wait.
I settle in on one of the benches in the narrow corridor across from the trophy cases. I’ve probably spent days of my life sitting here. Between my lessons and training sessions and James’s hockey games, I feel like the rink is my childhood home, not the two-story brick colonial in Alexandria. I root around in my skate bag, searching for my summer reading book, but it’s not there. In my mind’s eye, I can see my copy of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man on my nightstand. I hate being without something to read. I get up and wander across the floor.
The trophy case takes up an entire wall of the lobby, and even though I’ve looked through it a hundred times, I can’t stop myself from scanning the photographs of various skate teams from the past decade. A small, gangly girl grins cheesily in every one, a mile-wide gap between her two front teeth. Her jet-black hair, cut in a severe wedge, shines in every shot. In some she’s raising medals to the camera, in others she’s executing spins, and in one she’s even mid-salchow. In all of them, she looks completely blissed out, like she’s the queen of the ice.
I step back and shudder at the pictures of my tween-age self. Thank God for a growth spurt, several thousand dollars’ worth of orthodontia, and finally ditching that awful bob haircut my mom always said was “so CUTE!” If I had more of a juvenile delinquent bent, I’d break the glass and burn those pictures. I can just imagine what the papers would have to say about that.
The last picture is of me at sectionals, age thirteen. I’m wearing a navy-blue dress with tiny silver rhinestones around the collar and a short, flouncy skirt. It was my lucky dress, I had decided, because it brought me a first place at regionals. I’m holding a bouquet of red roses nearly bigger than I am and hoisting a gold medal over my head.
I’m glad there’s no picture of me from junior nationals that year. It would show me in that same navy dress, skidding across the ice on my butt after failing to land a double—a double! And that moment, three years ago, was the end of my competitive career—until now.
My mind is already going there, to that disastrous routine. I’m picking up speed, I’m bending, I’m leaping, I’m spinning, I’m—
I turn around. Through the glass doors I can see my mom’s silver Mercedes. I shake off the memories, grab my bag, and rush out to the car.
“Sloane Emily Jacobs, do you have to dress like a street urchin every time we go to dinner?” Mom swings the car out onto the road and instantly hits traffic. Her voice is high and severe, the way it always gets in DC gridlock when she has somewhere very important to be.
I would love to know the last time my mother actually encountered a street urchin, but I keep that comment to myself. It would most certainly be followed by a remark about my “smart mouth.”
When I don’t say anything or apologize for my appearance, I see her hands tense on the steering wheel. “Honestly, why can’t you just play along this once? It’s our last dinner as a family before you go off to camp.”
I flinch at the word “camp,” which for me does not conjure up images of archery and swimming and making fun arts and crafts with glitter. No. This summer is going to mean blisters, ice packs, morning workouts, tights and leg warmers and gloves and earmuffs, trying to stave off runny noses during eight-hour sessions on the ice. It will mean pressure from coaches, pressure from fellow campers, and even worse, pressure from myself. There will be glitter, but it certainly won’t be on fun arts and crafts.
“Is James coming?” I ask.
“Yes, James is coming, he’s a member of this family, and apparently the only one who knows how to dress like a civilized member of society.” She sighs.
If James is coming, then this dinner is definitely not about celebrating my trip to the Glitter Gulag. James has been unofficially exiled from family dinners lately, ever since he announced his plans to double major in biology and international affairs with a goal of achieving “a green and peaceful future.” When my parents aren’t screaming at him about a lifetime as a broke hippie tree-hugger or “what it looks like” for my father, they’re simply swimming along in total denial. In Dad’s latest appearance on Fox, he told that uppity Nina Shelby with her crisp suits and her helmet hair that James was premed.
So this dinner may be about family togetherness, but only the kind that looks good in front of cameras. My stomach tightens into a knot. We’re putting on a show for the press, probably to help certain blind items on Washington gossip sites about a senior senator getting frisky with a pretty young female staffer.
This is the kind of togetherness that makes my family feel like it’s splintered right down the middle.
“Please, Sloane. Can you just … fix this?” Mom waves a hand in my direction. I’m not sure whether she’s signaling my outfit or me, generally, as a person.
But there’s no use in arguing. There’s never any use in arguing with my parents. Besides, Mom has enough to deal with. I almost feel sorry for her.
I hunt in my bag until I find a plaid wool blazer and a camel-colored pashmina, both only slightly wrinkled. It’s the best I can do considering the circumstances of the surprise dinner. Mom glances over from the driver’s seat and simply snips, “When we get home, those jeans are going straight into the trash.”
There’s no point in telling her the holes were placed there, strategically and fashionably, by the fine people at J. Crew, and that in fact I paid extra for the holes. But if she had absolutely no problem tossing a pink leather Marc Jacobs miniskirt that cost enough to feed a family of four for a month, she won’t think twice about my eighty-nine-dollar jeans. Like I said, I almost feel sorry for her.
I wind the scarf around my neck and nearly strangle myself with it as Mom banks a hard right onto Pennsylvania Avenue, floors the gas pedal, then screeches to a halt at the valet stand outside the Capital Grille. In one quick move she’s out of the car, slipping her purse over her shoulder, handing the keys to a red-vested attendant. I unfold myself from the passenger seat. My muscles are already starting to tense a little after all those jumps and landings.
The valet pulls the car away, and Mom, clad in an impeccably tailored ivory pantsuit, gives me a final up-and-down. I get the anticipated sigh, this time with a bonus eye roll. “Button up that blazer,” she says, then whirls on her heel and steps through the revolving door.
Before I can follow her, though, I take a deep breath, square my shoulders, and try to ignore the bad feeling coiled in my stomach. Jacobs family dinners tend to look pretty good from the outside, but they feel like a Guantánamo interrogation to the insiders. Two hours of Dad. Two hours of Mom and Dad.
Thank God I’ll have James.
Inside the dimly lit restaurant, I head toward the big table near the center of the dining room but close to a large window facing the street. It’s the place to see and be seen, and it’s been our regular table since Dad graduated from junior senator status five years ago. I rush for the coveted “hiding seat,” the one whose back faces the window. Here, I can usually prevent my photograph from being taken. Luckily, James still isn’t here or he would have snatched it. We used to spend hours wheeling and dealing over who’d get the chair. I usually won, but I did a lot of laundry and washed a lot of dishes to make up for it. Never mind that my mom employs a full-time maid; Dad says chores build character.
As if he knows anything about character.
Mom is situating herself in her usual seat to Dad’s right (his seat is the one that faces the window, all but guaranteeing a photo). Dad is across the room chatting up one of the many silver-haired donors and “family friends” who will no doubt interrupt our dinner tonight. The waiter is already pouring Mom a glass of her favorite pinot gris.
I reach for my water goblet and start chugging. That workout really drained me. I catch my mom raising a brow at me across the table and remember that it’s not ladylike to drink as if I’ve been lost in the desert for days, so I restrain myself. Resistance is futile tonight. I just have to get through it. It’s almost enough to make me want to go away to skate camp.
Almost.
“Seej!” I turn at my nickname since birth, the vocalization of my initials, S.E.J., since my four-year-old brother either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say “Sloane.” I look up and see James making his way through the restaurant, and true to form, he’s dressed like a civilized member of Washington society in khakis, a gingham oxford (sleeves rolled up, of course), and tasseled leather boat shoes. He’s got that windblown look of someone who spent the day on a schooner off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, and if it weren’t for his jet-black hair and the gap in his front teeth, you might mistake him for a member of the Kennedy clan. I have to suppress a giggle imagining him at a meeting of the Georgetown chapter of Greenpeace. He must fit right in.
He tugs on my messy bun, then plops down in the chair next to mine, opposite Mom. After Dad’s seat, it’s the chair that’s most likely to land you in a newspaper photo above a caption about “meeting and greeting” or “lobbying” or some other Washington euphemism for raising money.
“Good to see ya, kid,” he says. He scoots his chair in and smooths a white linen napkin over his lap. “Though I hear I won’t be seeing much more of you. Skate camp, huh? I thought those days were over.”
Mom nearly chokes on her sip of wine but manages a more dignified hiccup. “Your sister was taking a little hiatus from skating to focus on school, but she’s been desperately missing the ice. She’s ready for her big comeback.”
I barely manage to suppress an eye roll. Across the table, James winks at me. I’m pretty sure those exact words are on a press release somewhere, right below “Senator Jacobs Kicks Off Reelection Campaign.”
“Well, go for the gold, Seej,” James says. He waves the waiter over and orders a beer. My mom quickly adds, “In a glass, please.” Before the waitress leaves, we place our orders: wedge salad and baked chicken for Mom; a fish entrée that James confirms is sustainable; the usual—steak, medium-rare—for Dad; and a hamburger, fries, and salad for me (with a side of eye roll from Mom).
Dad finally takes his seat next to Mom. I can tell his mind is still with the man at the next table, thinking about money or policy or … oh, isn’t it all just about money? “So what is everyone having?”
“We already ordered, Dad,” I say, avoiding eye contact. “You missed it.”
“I ordered you the steak,” Mom adds, and puts a heavy-bottomed glass of whiskey in his hand.
“Good to see you, James,” Dad says between sips of his drink. “How were finals?”
“Great,” he says. “I did really well. I think I’ll make the dean’s list again.”
“Excellent. I’ll pass that along to the staff to add to the newsletter,” Dad says. I stifle a groan. “Started looking at med schools yet?”
“No, Dad,” James says. His smile hasn’t faltered. James has an uncanny ability to ignore Dad’s bait and instead hear only what he wants to hear, as if the father he sees sitting at the table came straight out of some evening sitcom (and not one of the dysfunctional ones). I don’t know how he does it. I shouldn’t be surprised, though. Dad does the exact same thing. “But I have started looking into public policy programs where I can focus on environmental policy. You know, the Kennedy School has a great program.”
Dad instantly perks up at the mention of Harvard and politics, and the strained conversation picks up a little. It’s shocking how he seems to be talking with a totally different son, imagining a political dynasty while James chatters on about clean-water policy in the third world as it relates to the United Nations.
The food comes, and I tear into my burger. The only redeeming quality of these dinners is that the burgers here are possibly the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth. A couple of years ago I discovered that I could get the chef to put avocado on them, and it’s made the whole experience of family dinner much more bearable. With the first bite, a thick stream of meat juice and grease runs down my chin and onto my napkin. Heaven.
“Sloane, isn’t it about time you got back to your training diet?” Mom says. Her face is screwed up in disgust. “Lots of fruits and vegetables, some lean protein, right? Your body needs good fuel to perform at its peak.”
“Sure,” I say between bites. “I bet there will be plenty of that at camp.”
“Well, you might want to get started early,” Mom replies. She pushes the cherry tomatoes around on her plate a bit, then finally spears one and brings it to her lips. I swear, she will spend at least five minutes chewing that one tomato, and by the time she’s done, I’ll have wolfed down almost my entire burger.
“Oh, leave her alone,” James says. “She looks great. And besides, she’s an athlete. She can eat whatever she wants.”
“Thank you, James,” I reply, and take another monster bite of burger.
“You are beautiful, darling,” Dad says, and Mom sighs and takes a sip of wine, clearly annoyed that Dad hasn’t taken her side and encouraged my “healthy” (no-fat, no-taste, no-fun) diet. “Which is why she’s got Preston on the hook. When are you two finally going out?”
“Um, never?” I reply. My parents exchange a look. It’s the first time they’ve made eye contact tonight. Neither of them appreciates my sarcasm, which is why I usually keep it corked up. At least they can bond over that.
“Preston’s a nice young man, Sloane,” Mom says.
Actually, Preston Brockton-Moore is a reptile. A slimy, disgusting, slithering snake of a guy who wants nothing more than to hiss his way into a Congressional seat, and also the pants of every female offspring of every politician this side of the Potomac.
Dad, of course, loves him, mostly because his father is Archibald Brockton, who possesses the delightful dual attributes of having more money than God and being the owner of a media company. Free press and free money? Throw in a tax cut and it’s my father’s version of heaven on earth.
“I think you two make a great pair,” Dad says. “And Archibald said Preston is off to Princeton in the fall.”
“Okay,” I say, dropping my eyes to my plate. I can’t look at Dad directly. I haven’t been able to look at him for months.
“Well, you’re interested in Princeton, aren’t you?”
“I want to go to Brown,” I reply. “Or Columbia.”
“But you’ll apply to Princeton, too, of course. And if Preston is already there, I’m sure that will help you with your decision.”
“Yeah, in that you’ll decide to stay far, far away from Princeton,” James stage-whispers to me. I’m thankful he said it so I don’t have to.
“Oh, honestly, Sloane, you act like the boy is an ax murderer,” Mom says. She raises her glass to take another sip of wine but finds it empty, so she raises it toward the waiter and gives a little wave. “He’s smart and handsome and comes from a wonderful family.”
“Mom, he backed me into a corner at that benefit and tried to molest me. He was stealing drinks from the bar all night.”
“That benefit was lovely. Preston’s mother wore the most beautiful Monique Lhuillier,” Mom says, once again steamrolling over what I have just said. “What was it for, again?”
“The sexual assault crisis center!” I practically shriek.
“Keep your voice down, dear. So inappropriate.” Wait, that’s inappropriate? The irony escapes her entirely, or maybe she just doesn’t care. Next to her, Dad is buried in his phone, texting God knows who, and James is focused on his fish.
I can feel the blood rise past my neck and start thudding in my ears. I want to shout something at her about how taking her relationship advice would be like learning to put out fires on the Hindenburg. The only thing keeping me from a full-on scream is the threat of another diner whipping out an iPhone and recording the whole thing. Living through this dinner once is bad enough; I definitely don’t need to relive it for all eternity on YouTube.
“Guess your standards are lower than mine” is what I finally mutter. James elbows me in the ribs at the exact moment that Dad chokes on a bite of steak, and when I look up, Dad’s staring at me hard. For the first time all night, he’s actually heard what I was saying.
James gives me a nearly imperceptible shake of his head that I know means No, not worth it, abort. I can’t believe I said it, in public, no less. Jacobses don’t—I don’t—lose control like that. I turn my eyes back to my burger. I take another bite, but suddenly it tastes like sawdust and sand. I have to take a gulp of water to get it down without choking. This meal, for me, is over.
After dinner, James takes a cab back to his dorm, and Dad heads to his office to proof some press releases. That leaves me and Mom in the car on our way home to Alexandria. The monuments whiz by as we make our way out of DC proper. At this point, I can’t wait to get to Montreal. I want to be anywhere but here.
Mom rambles on about a packing list, wondering if I’ll need two formal dresses or three. I turn away from her, press my cheek against the glass, and stare up at the night sky.
“I had Rosie pull out your navy strapless and that lovely champagne-colored one. Do you think you should take that pink one with the ruffle down the front too?” Mom asks. I don’t answer, which is good, because she apparently doesn’t need me to. She’s already moved on to shoe options.
A streak of light bursts across the darkness. A shooting star. It’s rare to see a star so bright in DC because of all the light pollution. For some reason, it makes me want to cry. I haven’t seen a shooting star since I was a little kid—since Mom and Dad were my heroes. Since I believed in them. Since they believed in me.
I close my eyes tight and make a wish.
I wish to be somebody—anybody—else.