Chapter Seven
After our final freestyle session, Faith and Hope head out, but I don’t leave with them. I make my way to the rink bathroom to change into thicker pants and a fleece-lined jacket.
Only a few people still sit at the tables between the two rinks when I get back—including Faith and Hope.
Hope spots me first and waves. As I get closer, I notice the pencil and paper in front of her. Faith sits across from her, an electronic pen hovering above her iPad.
“Mom’s running late,” Faith explains.
“Did you want to sit with us?” Hope asks. “We’re taking notes on stuff Alex taught us.”
It definitely wouldn’t hurt to see how much of Miss Lydia’s lesson I remember. Maybe writing it down will help me figure out how to make her happy.
“Sure.” I take a seat across from Hope, next to Faith. I pull out my notebook and flip to a blank page, then create a list of everything Miss Lydia asked me to do today, from each spiral down to the tiniest arm movement.
Beside me, Faith leans forward, pen swirling across her iPad screen, and I can’t help stealing a peek. She isn’t taking notes, at least not like Hope and I. Lots of horizontal lines and dots fill her screen.
“Is that music?”
Faith nods slowly. “It’s the intro for my free program. I’m trying to memorize what steps go with the rises and falls of the melody.”
“Whoa.” I don’t even have my program music yet. Am I even more behind than I thought? “Does Miss Lydia want everyone to do that?”
“I’m just doing it for fun. Hope definitely doesn’t do this kind of off-ice work, right?” Faith looks at her sister.
“Nope!” Hope shows me her sheet of paper. It has a line with Alex’s name on it, but it’s mostly filled with doodles. They don’t look related to skating at all. She shrugs. “Mom says I get distracted very easily.”
“That’s the truth,” Faith says, and Hope sticks out her tongue. Her phone chimes. “Mom’s here.” She looks at me. “You’re not coming with us, right?”
I shake my head. “I’m helping at skate-school tonight. It’s just on Tuesday, so everything’ll be back to normal tomorrow.”
“Cool.” Hope jumps up. “Bye, Ana!”
Faith glances back at me, too. “See you.”
I say goodbye, then pull out my phone and realize Mom’s sent me a text, asking how my first choreography lesson went.
I know I should tell her the truth, but I don’t want her to think she made a mistake letting me switch rinks.
5:22 p.m.: Good!! Lots of work on spirals and edges for my new program!
That should do it. I check it over again, so I don’t arrive home to a lecture on proper English spelling and grammar, then tap send.
I head into the coaches’ lounge, and Alex looks up from his salad. “Hey, you.”
I sit beside him, then pull out my own dinner. Mom packed a big container of noodles today. No bao this time around, but I’ll survive. Probably.
“How’d your first lesson with Lydia go?”
I catch Alex’s flub but don’t point out Miss Lydia’s proper title. Correcting him felt like a game yesterday. Today, I don’t feel like playing.
“Practicing in a skirt felt weird. Plus, she made me do Moves in the Field for almost the whole lesson.” I make a face at my noodles. “She didn’t choreograph anything.”
“It sounds like you’re going through a normal adjustment period. My hunch is that Lydia wants to get a sense of how the skirt looks while you skate so she can tweak your steps as needed. Watching your Moves will also help her learn your strengths as a skater. That’s pretty standard for new choreography students.”
I guess that makes sense. It also explains why Faith got to skate to music today. I bet she worked with Miss Lydia last season.
Maybe the lesson wasn’t 100 percent awful.
Except for the skirt. If Miss Lydia wants to see how I move in it, she might be making mental notes for the seamstress she works with. That could mean a dress in my future. Not something I want. The skirt is bad enough. I grab my chopsticks and peel the lid off my food, wondering how to mention this to Alex.
The door opens, and a white woman with shoulder-length blond hair steps into the lounge.
Her face lights up when she sees me. “You must be Ana-Marie.”
“Yep, that’s me.” I glance at Alex. He’s smiling, too.
“I’m Corinne, the skate-school director. We’re so excited you’ll be helping out this semester.”
If Corinne is the director, that means she’s a big reason I get free ice-time. I balance my lunch container on my lap and reach out to shake her hand.
“Follow me, sweetheart. I’ve got some stuff to go over with you before classes start.”
Corinne waves me over to a tall table with cubbies above it. I stow my container under my seat, then move to join her. The table reaches my chest, even on tiptoes.
“Our classes each have one instructor and sometimes an assistant like you,” Corinne explains. “For the most part, you’ll be assisting Alex. Everyone in tonight’s classes should be around your age since we hold group lessons for younger kids on a different day.”
I nod to let her know I’m listening.
“We’re lucky that someone so accomplished is giving back to our community. I also hope you might consider performing in our end-of-session recital this August.”
She studies a row of coats hanging on a nearby wall. “This might be a little large for you, but it’s the smallest we have.” She pulls a jacket off a wall peg and passes it to me. The rink’s logo is sewn on the back. “No need to decide about the recital now, of course, but we would be honored if you’d give it some thought.”
I glance from Corinne to the jacket. They’re giving me free ice-time in exchange for a few hours of my help. I’ll be saving Mom twelve hundred dollars a month, and all they want is for me to skate in a recital?
“I don’t need to think about it,” I tell her. “I’ll totally do the recital. And anything else you need help with.”
Corinne beams. “Wonderful, sweetie. Now, some more things you should know.” She reaches into a plastic jack-o’-lantern bowl at the center of the table and pulls out a glossy rectangle. “It’ll be your responsibility to help students who’re struggling to keep up with the rest of their class. Wear this in a visible place, so everyone can learn your name.”
She hands me the tag. It has my name etched out in big, bold letters.
I slip my arms into the oversize coat, then pin on my tag as the door opens again. Corinne announces the name of each instructor as they file in.
There’s Taj and Kaitlyn, Etsuko and Victor-who-goes-by-Vic. Nicole arrives on her own a minute later.
Corinne sits and starts lacing up. I return to my chair and take a big slurp of noodles before grabbing my skates.
The door flies open, and a woman rushes in. Her hair is short and brown, skin a little darker than mine. “Oh man, bridge traffic was intense.” She grabs an instructor jacket from the wall and plops into the seat next to me. Her eyes scan my name tag. “Hey, Ana-Marie! I’m Jen. It’s super nice to meet you.” She unzips her bag as she talks. “We’re all stoked you’ll be helping out.”
Around the room, a couple of instructors nod as Jen’s eyes fall on them.
“Hi,” I reply back. I glance at Alex, then back to Jen. She looks familiar, even though we just met. “Alex said you’re driving me home tonight?”
“That’s right. I even had a nice chat with your mom last week.” Jen grins. “She officially knows I’m not a child abductor.”
Alex rolls his eyes, and I laugh.
Jen pulls two gel socks and one scuffed-up skate out of her bag. “You know, Alex and I used to perform together, before he settled down and coached you to a national title.”
I sit up a little straighter. “Did you ever do a show in France? In a white lacy dress?”
Jen studies me, a bit perplexed. “Yes, we did—”
“Although only one of us wore a dress.” Alex shoots me a wry smile. “How did you know about this?”
“Tamar and I found a video of you online. She said you looked like you were in love with your partner… with Jen.” My cheeks heat up as I look between them.
“Better not show that to Myles, then!” Jen winks at Alex before sliding on her gel socks.
“I was acting.” Alex shrugs, but he’s still smiling. “Not that Jen made it easy. She’d eat spicy food right before the show, then huff her horrific breath on me for the entire number.”
I look back at Jen. “You seriously did that?”
“Hey now, don’t judge. You have no idea how dull being on tour could get. I was just spicing things up! Spicing—get it?”
Before I can answer, Corinne steps into view. “Sorry to interrupt. Mind if we trade seats, Ana-Marie?”
I grab my stuff and hobble to a chair across the room, one skate half-laced and still loose. Jen stops rummaging through her bag as Corinne holds out a clipboard and pen.
“There’s a student in your first class whose mother called this afternoon.” Corinne leans toward Jen and lowers her voice. “She asked us to update the name on our roster and make a note to use male pronouns.”
My ears prick up. I know we’ve gone over pronouns in English class, but it’s summer now. My mind’s sluggish, reluctant to remember school subjects.
“The front desk printed tonight’s class lists this morning, but I promised her I would give you a heads-up. Everything will be corrected by next week.”
Jen grabs the clipboard and looks it over.
“This one.” Pointing, Corinne passes her pen to Jen. “Last name: L-U-B-E-C-K. Change the first name to Hayden.”
“So, I call this kid ‘he’ instead of ‘she’?”
“Yes.” Corinne nods. “Exactly.”
“Got it.” Jen scratches out a line and scribbles a note to herself.
I look down fast before anyone catches me staring. My cheeks burn, like earlier today when I saw Faith effortlessly execute a pose for Miss Lydia that I wasn’t even close to mastering. Except, this feels different.
Can people really ask others to call them whatever they want? I can’t imagine asking Mom to even call me Ana instead of Ana-Marie.
“The Zamboni’s about done.” Victor-who-goes-by-Vic peers out the door. “Heads up—it’s chaos.”
“Ready, Ana?” Alex calls.
“Yep!” I slide on my black boot covers for added warmth and head out the door with him.
Outside the lounge, kids hop over benches, chasing one another in the seating area, while their parents check out skates at the rental counter.
“Level three, this way,” Vic says in a booming voice. He hops onto the ice and glides past a crowd of people, waving his clipboard over his head.
“Level one!” Jen calls. “Meet by the vending machines.”
I stop in my tracks, looking toward the snack area. I sort of remember my own first day of skate-school, back when I was five. It’s when I met Alex. Before we were allowed to get on the ice, Alex taught my class the safe way to fall and get back up. This must be what Jen will teach first, except these kids are older than I was. No one looks under ten.
The students in Jen’s class face away from me as she rounds them up. I rock to the tips of my toe picks to get a better view, but I’m too far away to see much. Even if I knew what Hayden looked like, he’d be impossible to spot.
I’m not sure why I’m so interested in someone I don’t know. It could be because I’ve never met someone with a different name from the one their parents gave them. This feels bigger, though. Maybe it doesn’t have much to do with Hayden at all.
“Hurry, Ana!”
Alex is already at the rink door. I dart forward, dodging around people to catch up. He wastes no time getting me up to speed.
“We’ve got a combined class of levels five and six first.” Alex and I glide past orange cones that divide the rink into a few sections. “This group should be comfortable with all types of forward skating and able to skate backward, almost ready to learn two-foot spins and single jumps. We need to evaluate everyone today to make sure they’re in the right class. If anyone’s struggling, let me know after.”
Kids swizzle over. Each student wears a sticker with their name in blocky black letters. Elsie, Simone, and Priya stand in front. The rest of the class clusters behind them. All girls. They look about my age, although I’m one of the shortest out here.
Alex introduces himself, then me.
The class warms up on our private strip of ice. They glide back and forth and back again, practicing lunges, dips, and slaloms. On our fourth pass, I spot Jen. She’s by the rink entrance, helping her students onto the ice. I slow my glide. Jen extends a hand to one girl after another while a boy waits nearby, already on the ice. With his back to me, all I see is blond hair and a dark red sweatshirt.
That must be Hayden.
A throat clears. I whirl around, noting Alex’s arched eyebrow. The class has moved on to forward crossovers without me. “Push with the side of your blade, Priya, not the toe pick,” I call.
When class finally ends, Alex’s students skate away, only to be replaced by another set. I look across the rink again, but Jen’s students are already off the ice.
My mind circles back to Hayden for the rest of the night. I can’t stop thinking about how his mom called the rink and how Jen had no problem calling Hayden “he” instead of “she.” By the time Jen drops me off at home and I get into bed, I’m no closer to figuring out what Hayden’s name and pronouns have to do with me.