Apparently, I do get some sleep, because I wake up to a surprise.

Coach Chen is sitting at the foot of my bed. She’s all in blue today and her hair is tied back in a neat bun.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. “Am I dreaming?”

She sighs. “I wish.”

“Uh-oh. What’s wrong?”

“You had an adventure last night,” she says.

She states this, really. No question marks in sight.

I sit up. Hug a pillow tightly as I try to stay calm. “Maybe,” I say, drawing out each syllable.

“Esperanza, you have to be careful what you do and who you are seen with now. You are going to the Olympics as a figure skater, and by definition, people are fascinated with you.” Another big sigh. “No one can ever get enough of young, pretty figure skaters.”

I raise the pillow until it’s level with my eyes, as if hiding might make whatever is about to happen go away. “What aren’t you telling me?” I ask, my words half muffled.

She blinks. Then blinks again. “There are rumors about you and Hunter Wills.”

I lower the pillow a little so I can talk better. “You didn’t tell me about the Danny Morrison rumors, so why are you telling me about the Hunter Wills ones?”

“Because this time it’s different.”

“Why?”

“Because Hunter Wills is a famous playboy, and now you’re linked to him.”

“So? It’s just another rumor.”

“That may be,” Coach Chen says, though from her tone it doesn’t sound like she totally buys that claim. “But this rumor is going to change your day-to-day existence.”

“How? Why?”

“Espi, there are press people camped on your doorstep.”

“What? Still? But they were here for Hunter, and he’s gone.”

Coach Chen gets up and goes over to the window. She peeks out the lilac-flowered curtain. “Well, now they’re here for you.”

I get up and join her there. She moves aside so I can see.

Dios mío. The reporters are like a swarm of bees who got confused about which season it is.

“Your mother can’t even get out of the house for work. And Betty gave up trying to get in.”

“Oh no. How are we going to get out?”

“You’re going to have to go through them so they’ll follow you and your poor mother can head to work in peace.”

“My poor mother? What about poor me?”

Coach Chen steps away from the window. “This isn’t her fault.”

“And it’s mine?”

She crosses her arms. She might be tiny, but it’s an intimidating kind of tiny sometimes. “Well, Esperanza, no one else had a romantic skate on a starry night all alone on a pond with Hunter Wills other than you, am I right?”

I swallow. “How do you know that part, exactly?”

“There are pictures all over the place of you online!”

“Maybe you should have an Internet ban too?” I ask sheepishly.

She exhales with a groan. “The moral of the story is the following: You don’t need this kind of distraction. I don’t want you online for a reason, and that reason is because I don’t want you getting caught up in more drama than the experience of competing at this level provides. This is a dream come true for you and for me! I knew you could do this, and here you are.”

“I know,” I say in a small voice.

“Then I’m sure you also know that spending time with Mr. Phenom” — Coach Chen rolls her eyes — “is not going to help you. He eats up the press like they’re breakfast. He loves it. But all hanging out with him is going to do for you is hurt your focus.”

“But he’s helping me with my jumps,” I say in a smaller voice, as if this makes up for anything.

“Leave that kind of help to me,” she says. “I wish you’d never told him about the quad, Espi. Hunter Wills is not out to help you. Trust me.”

“How do you know that?”

Coach starts grabbing the things I need for today and shoving them in a bag. “Well, for one, isn’t he dating Jennifer Madison?”

I look at her with surprise. “You got that on the gossip sites.”

“I read them like everyone else,” she says, like this should be obvious. “Just tone it down on the Hunter Wills drama until after the Olympics. Okay?”

“I’ll try.”

“Not try. Do.”

“Yes, Yoda.”

Coach Chen ignores this remark. “Now come with me. You can shower and get ready at my house, but at the moment, my job is to get you through that storm of press outside so your mother can get to work in peace.” She beckons when I hesitate. “Don’t forget, Espi, I have a little experience with this from back in the day. I’ve got the exit down, and I’m going to start teaching you this morning.”

“Okay,” I say, then take a deep breath and follow her lead.

My first and also most important lesson of the morning:

It’s one thing to do press, when they invite you somewhere for an interview, or you open up, say, a private ice skating rink to them for a special segment, when there are producers like Run-on-Sentence Jenny, and there is organization and structure and calm, even amid the nervousness-producing parts.

It’s a whole other thing when the press just shows up uninvited.

Then they are like a pack of animals.

Wolves.

Their existence, their persistence, or dare I say, persecution, is overwhelming. It is also unbelievable. They try to lure you in with very transparent methods, but it’s obvious that the second you come close, they’ll pounce.

“Excuse us — no questions today,” Coach says as she expertly pushes through the clamoring swarm of arms and microphones and camera flashes and all the shouting. She has a permanent smile on her face, yet her arm is up and out and making room for us.

“Hello, everyone,” I’m saying as we move forward little by little toward Coach’s car, where Mr. Chen is in the driver’s seat with the engine running. I have a smile on my face, just like Coach said I should. “I’ll be happy to answer your questions after I take home the gold,” I sing, like I do this every day, just as she instructed.

Be nice, she said.

But be firm, she also said.

And above all else, keep moving.

“I counted a total of forty-five press people,” Mr. Chen says once we’re both in the car.

He takes us back to their house, where he gets in his car to head to school and Coach runs around to the driver’s side. Within moments we are off to Boston, mostly without being followed, we think. Yet the press is everywhere when we arrive at the practice rink too.

By the time lunchtime rolls around, my big plan is to hide out in a corner of the stands. In fact, I might never leave here again.

Coach Chen refused to give me the particulars of what people are saying, but between overhearing Stacie and Meredith gossiping this morning (they weren’t exactly keeping it down), and from the kinds of things the reporters were shouting as Coach Chen maneuvered me through the throngs, last night I was apparently “cozying up to Hunter Wills,” and he and I were “stargazing on a wintry night” as well as “hoping for some alone time, away from the prying eyes of Jennifer Madison’s two best friends” — aka Stacie and Meredith. The worst one, though, was the “America’s Hope for Gold Is Hoping for Some Action.”

Really? Seriously?

I wonder if Danny Morrison is aware that the speculation around our made-up relationship is dying down due to my brand-new made-up relationship with Hunter Wills.

If he knows, he’s probably relieved.

Then I wonder why I’m even thinking about Danny Morrison at a time like this. I mean, what is my problem? Coach Chen is right: I don’t need this sort of distraction right now. I have other things to attend to. Olympic-sized things, for example.

My stomach grumbles from hunger.

“I brought you a sandwich.”

I look up. Tawny Jones is standing there in all her willowy beauty, a toasted veggie panini in her outstretched hand. Like she has read my mind. Or heard my stomach from across the rink.

I take it from her. “Thank you.” Suddenly, I feel a little starstruck. Ice dancing gets a bad rep because they don’t do big jumps or lifts, but I like it. And it’s hard. All that fancy footwork? They may make it look easy, but it is not. And Tawny Jones and her partner are unparalleled on the ice.

Tawny sits down next to me. “I figured you weren’t going out there again today with all those paparazzi after you.”

“No way. Not until I go home for the night.” I sigh. “And maybe not even then.”

She unwraps her identical sandwich. “Don’t worry. It’ll die down. You’ve just got to ride it out.”

I open my panini. “You sound like you know from experience.”

“Most of the skaters here have gone through what you went through this morning at some point. Some of us more than others,” she says, nodding in the direction of Hunter, who is talking to his coach over in the corner. “My moment was during the last Olympics when my old partner and I did abysmally, which disappointed everyone I knew and apparently half the country. And then we broke up, both as a team and as a romantic couple. It was a PR disaster, a career disaster, and a personal disaster all rolled into one. Try that one on for size.”

I look at her guiltily. “I remember that.”

She sighs. “You and everybody else.”

“It did seem really romantic, the two of you going to the Olympics together.”

“Yes, well. It was, and then it wasn’t. But I survived.”

We munch on our sandwiches for a while in silence, Tawny pondering her past press debacle, I suppose, and me my current one.

Then I turn to her. “You not only survived it, but you came back and now you’re on top. You’ve got a great new partner, and you two are favorites to at least medal and maybe even win gold.”

She smiles wide. “That part does feel good.”

“It should. I’ve always been a huge fan.”

“Thanks, Esperanza.”

“It’s true. And I appreciate the advice, and you coming here to make sure I eat.”

She laughs. “No problem. I’m glad we got to chat. But can I give you one last bit of unsolicited advice before I head to ballet?”

I nod.

Tawny glances in Hunter’s direction again. “One of the biggest lessons I learned during the last Olympics and with my last partner was not to mix business with pleasure. Or business with romance.”

I open my mouth. Close it again. My cheeks start to burn.

“I’m not judging you, Esperanza. There are plenty of people who will do that all over the world during the next few weeks. I’m just giving you some food for thought. Be careful. Make this Olympics about your skating and your skating only, not some drama with Hunter Wills. You’re new to this, and when you’re new, it’s easy to get swept up in situations that distract you from what really matters.”

I nod. “I hear you.” I sigh again. “And I appreciate the advice.”

“I’m here if you want to talk, and not just this weekend. We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other all the way until the Closing Ceremonies. Don’t hesitate to come find me. At this point, I’m a veteran of all things Olympic figure skating, including scandal.”

Tawny says this with such a friendly smile that a huge wave of gratitude washes over me. I could use a friend on this team, a friend other than Hunter Wills.

And I think maybe I just made one.

“I think we should have everyone to Luciano’s tomorrow evening like you wanted,” I tell my mother that evening. She is in the kitchen, having some tea before bed. “If that’s still an option,” I add quickly.

My mother brightens at this. “I thought you weren’t into the idea.”

I sit down at the table next to her. “I wasn’t sure about it at first. But now I am.”

“What changed your mind?”

Well, I think to myself, my afternoon included several under-the-breath remarks from Stacie and Meredith calling me a “Media Hog,” which made me feel awful and want to run away, and all Hunter said to me today was, “Way to steal my spotlight, Espi.” He said it with a laugh, but I wasn’t sure I bought it. People think I am trying to hog the spotlight, and I want to prove that I’m not. Maybe with a party, the other skaters will see I’m generous and not at all hoglike.

What I say is the following:

“I just think you were right and it would be a nice thing to do.”

“I’m glad,” she says.

I nod. Then I stare off into space while my mother finishes her tea. It’s late, and I’m tired and sore, and it’s been a long and not-so-easy day. “Full of right angles,” as Mr. Chen would say. Then again, it’s been a long and not-so-easy couple of days. It’s difficult not to wonder if they will only get harder going forward until the Olympics are over. Maybe I’m not cut out for the Olympics. Maybe this is all too much for me. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea.

Notice this big pile of self-doubt?

I realize this is what Libby would call a Shame Spiral, which she defines as a downward descent into a black hole of negativity. Shame Spirals are really bad for you. I need to stop this one before it’s too late and I’m so spiral-y I can’t find my way out again.

“Espi?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure,” I say. Nothing to see here. “Why?”

“You have a look of abject horror on your face.”

I smile. English may be my mother’s second language, but boy, can she knock it out of the park with the vocabulary sometimes. “‘Abject horror,’ Mamá?”

“Yes. Just like the girls in those horror movies who aren’t one of the leads, and suddenly the villain is coming to get them in some awful way, like with a chain saw, and they know it’s their time to go.”

“Wow. That is a vivid explanation of my facial expression.”

“Well, mi amor, it was pretty vivid. And worrisome. There isn’t some bad man coming for you. You’re one of the stars, mija. You just need to get used to it.”

“I guess so. It’s strange. It’s different. Maybe it’s not what I’m meant to do.”

My mother gets up and places her empty teacup in the sink. “I don’t think anyone is meant to withstand the kind of onslaught you did today,” she says.

Onslaught! My mother is racking up the SAT words.

“But with figure skating,” she goes on, “I can’t imagine anyone more meant for this opportunity to be in the Winter Olympics in the entire world, mija. And I mean that.”

I get up too. “I know you do, Mamá.” My voice is tight. I am trying not to cry, something I’ve been doing a lot of lately.

“I love you, Esperanza. But I’m not just saying all these things because I love you!”

This makes me laugh. “I know that, too.” I get up and give her a big hug. She’s soft and round and familiar.

“Now go get some sleep. You need to be wide awake to fight through those cameras like Coach Chen showed you today. That woman can be a warrior sometimes. It’s amazing to watch.”

“That she can.”

“Espi,” my mother says when I’m about to go down the hall to bed.

I turn back. “What?”

“You can be a warrior too. You already are one. I see it in you. You’re so strong and tough.”

I nod. I can’t get any more words out.

“Good night,” she says, and I watch her disappear into her room.