The next morning, Beatrice sat in the front of the car and chirped away at their mother. She went over every move from her performance the day before. Their mother still hadn’t spoken to Maggie about her hair. The jealousy that Maggie had felt from the day before when Beatrice had won the competition had grown into a giant angry toad squatting in her belly.
Maggie traced lines into the frost of her window and daydreamed about walking into the rink, tossing her skates onto the ice, and never looking back. An image of her mother’s disappointed face flashed through her mind.
She wished she had the guts to go through with it.
When they arrived at the rink, Beatrice hopped out, as always prepared and excited to get to work. In the back seat, Maggie struggled to make sense of her stuff, frantically jamming warm-ups and skates into her skating bag.
“I want you to know how disappointed I am in your decision to wreck your hair, Magnolia,” her mother said. Her voice came calmly from the front of the car.
Maggie looked at the rearview mirror to catch her mother’s eye, but her mother stared straight ahead. Maggie got out of the car as quickly as she could. She decided to pretend that her mother hadn’t spoken at all. As she stomped up the stairs to the rink, she wished she’d had the guts to say something back to her mother. Inside the locker room, she laced up her skates. As she did, her hands trembled.
No other girls had arrived. She and Beatrice got the most ice time out of anyone and were always at the rink first as their mother insisted. Maggie would have gladly given her time to someone else as it obviously wasn’t doing her any good. She’d come in dead last at the competition.
She opened up her backpack, pulling out the pink warm-up sweatshirt that had, until recently, been identical to the one Beatrice was wearing. Maggie had made some alterations to the sweatshirt using some scissors and paint and glittery jewels. The blue swirls she’d painted would look great with her hair. Her mother would probably have to hide all the craft supplies from now on. Maggie snickered to herself.
Maggie waited for Beatrice to leave the locker room wearing her flawless puke-pink warm-up. Then Maggie threw hers on. She took a few minutes in front of a mirror to admire how the bedazzling sparkled as she turned. The rips in the shoulders really added something, too. She was glad in that moment that her mother never stuck around to watch practice anymore.
Maggie made her way out to the rink. She realized quickly that something was wrong. Instead of doing her morning drills, Beatrice was standing all by herself and looking forlorn. Their mother was still there, gesturing and talking loudly with the rink director.
“Hey, Bea, what’s going on?” Maggie asked, approaching her sister.
Beatrice looked like she was going to cry. “Coach Bennett quit,” she said. She wrapped her arms around herself. “She got a better offer at another rink, I guess.”
Despite the selfish shiver of happiness that shot through her own body, Maggie felt bad for Beatrice. She knew how much her sister loved Coach Bennett. Maggie had always had a more difficult relationship with their coach. They had different ideas on how Maggie should be spending her ice time. And they were both stubborn.
“So who’s going to take over?” Maggie asked, trying hard not to sound too thrilled.
Beatrice’s lower lip quivered. She pointed out to the ice at a man, dressed all in black, who skated like he didn’t have a care in the world. He was doing spins and jumps over and over, tiny chips of ice spraying into the air every time he landed. When his hands whipped around, the silver rings on all of his fingers caught the light and winked.
Maggie thought, with a thrill, that if that was their new coach, things were definitely going to be changing.
The man began to skate over to the girls, stopping on the other side of the Plexiglas wall and smiling wide. Maggie noticed that he had a colorful tattoo sleeve that snaked up one arm. Oh, her mother was really not going to like that.
“Hey, girls. You’re here early,” the man said. He lounged against the wall. He seemed so confident and completely unaware that there was a loud argument happening — about him — just a short distance away.
Maggie could feel Beatrice’s whole body stiffen beside her. Beatrice would be waiting to see how she should react from their mother.
“We always show up early,” Maggie said. “I’m Maggie, and this is my twin sister, Beatrice.” She stood up and smoothed down her warm-up. “Are you our new coach?”
“I’m Coach Stone, and I sure hope so,” he said. He nodded toward the group of adults who were still talking loudly. “But I guess we’ll see.”
Looking up — way up — at him, Maggie noticed how very tall Coach Stone was. She also noticed a mischievous sparkle in his eyes.
Just then, Maggie’s mother appeared, storm clouds in her eyes. “Girls, we are going home,” she said, pulling her white gloves out of her designer purse and brushing invisible dust from them. “Go grab your things.”
Coach Stone smirked and said, “It was nice meeting you, Maggie and Beatrice.”
Maggie’s mother walked away without saying a word to him, her heels clicking loudly on the cement floor. Beatrice jumped up and followed her like a mouse.
Maggie sighed and waved limply at Coach Stone, saying, “See ya later.” She started to walk to the locker room to change back into her school clothes but then turned and said, “Well, maybe.” She didn’t have much hope of that, though.
“Hey, Maggie,” Coach Stone said.
“Yeah?” said Maggie, looking back at him one last time.
“Nice hair.”