Being Sloane Jacobs (15 page)

“It’s like the green arrow back in the States. Means we have the right of way to turn,” he says, and when we hit a pothole, his lips brush against my neck ever so slightly. A zap of electricity runs from the spot down to my belly button.

I, Sloane Emily Jacobs, am sitting in my pajamas on the handlebars of a boy’s bike, being whisked around a foreign city at midnight.

I can’t even
imagine
what my mom would say. The thought makes me grin.

We bike for blocks, until we’re out of the more
neighborhood-y areas and into downtown Montreal. It’s late, so all the office buildings are dark, but the hotels are bustling with tourists wandering, photographing old churches wedged between new glass high-rises. It’s a typical urban downtown, except there’s art and sculpture
everywhere
. As we ride, Matt periodically taps my shoulder and points here or there, at sights for me to see, and I’m reminded that he’s been here before.

I turn to catch a glimpse of a statue of an angel with a gaping hole in its midsection, but Matt is pedaling us so fast I have to turn my head over my shoulder to get a good look. And as I do, this time it’s
my
lips that nearly brush his cheek. I spin my head forward so fast I almost give myself whiplash. My heart pounds. Did he notice? And then I feel his warm breath close to my ear again. My heart slows down to a near stop while I wait for him to speak.

“We can probably head back now.” It’s loud on the bike, the sounds of traffic and the rushing of wind, but all I can hear is his voice, and all I can feel is his breathing. I just nod, and Matt circles around the next block to start us on the journey back.

When we climb off the bike at the dorm, I’m struck by how quiet it is. The sirens must have been turned off a while ago, and now that we’re standing still, the silence is nearly deafening. He locks up his bike, and I follow him back into the dorm. His hand brushes mine as we walk, but I jerk it away, crossing my arms again. I forgot about my undergarment issue.

We step into the elevator, and he turns to me. I can feel his breath on my neck again, and I suppress a shiver.

“So that was fun,” he says. He pauses. He seems like he’s about to say something else.

One of many
, I remind myself.
Focus on skating
.

“Yeah,” I say stiffly. “Sure.”

The elevator door dings open on my floor, and I bolt off as if the doors might slam on me at any second. Matt gets off the elevator right behind me.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“Taking the stairs,” he says. He points to the end of the hall. “Seems dumb to ride up another two floors.”

“Oh. Okay,” I reply. I feel a tightness in my stomach. I walk the ten steps down the hall to my door and take out my key. The hair on the back of my neck stands up as I listen to Matt’s footsteps. He doesn’t even pause.

“Night, Sloane,” he calls over his shoulder.

“Night,” I reply. But the door to the stairwell has already swung shut behind him.

CHAPTER 12

SLOANE DEVON

I’m growing my very own creature.

I sit on the edge of my bed and peel off my sweaty sock to examine my new friend, who’s joined me after a week of grueling figure skating sessions. He’s about the size of a pea, bubbly and blistery, with a hard red callous starting to form over the top. If he gets any bigger, I’ll have to name him and invite him to the family.

I’m nurturing my creature through hours of hot, sweaty sessions on the ice with my feet crammed into tight leather skates. Though these skates have “Size 7.5” stamped into the tongue in gold, the same size as my own hockey skates, it must be some crazy European size or a conspiracy by the figure skating industry to ruin the feet of America’s sweethearts.

I pull my foot into my lap to examine the creature’s progress. Our room phone rings, and I nearly tumble to the floor in a pretzel knot of arms and legs.

I pull myself to my knees and snag the phone from its resting place on the table between my bed and Ivy’s.

“ ’Ello?” I’m slightly breathless.

“Sloane, honey, I was hoping I’d catch you. I’ve tried your cell several times this last week but haven’t heard back.” The voice on the other end of the phone is deep and brisk. Something in my brain goes
ping
—I’ve heard the voice before. I’m so busy trying to place it that I just mumble a hello, and the man charges on. “Sloane, I know things have been strained lately, and that’s my fault. I should have spoken to you about what you saw. You know I love you and your brother more than anything, and I do love your mother, but—”

A gasp catches in my throat, and I nearly choke on my tongue. It’s Sloane Emily’s
dad
, and he doesn’t know I’m not her. And worse, he’s rambling on in that clipped tone about something to do with an “indiscretion.” Oh God, I have to make him stop. I have to make him stop talking and get Sloane Emily to call him and finish whatever this is he’s starting.

I cough hard and sputter, and the effect is good. He stops midsentence, a long silence on the other end of the phone.

“Sloane? Are you okay?”

What to do, what to do?
If I pretend I’m Ivy, then he’ll be all freaked out and embarrassed about spilling secrets to a stranger. But if I try to be Sloane Emily, he’s going to know from the sound of my voice that I’m not her. I have to say
something
.

I cough again, then clear my throat and drop my voice a
bit until I’m confident it sounds convincingly gravelly. “Uh, Dad, I’m uh, not feeling so great. I think I picked up a cold from the rink. I’ll have to call you back.”

There’s another long silence, and I worry the jig is up. I hear him sigh loud and long. “Please do, Sloane. I’d really like to discuss this.”

“Yeah, will do.” I cough again, then hang up the phone before he can say anything else.
Holy crap, that was a close one
. I go to the wardrobe and flip through the hangers until I get to the cardigan in the back with the deep pockets, where I’ve been storing my phone to keep it away from Ivy’s clutching little hands.

Your dad called. I answered. Covered by saying I’m getting sick. Call him back. NOW.

I press Send. I have no idea what that was all about, but from the sound of it, maybe perfect Sloane Emily doesn’t have the perfect family I thought she had. I push the thought out of my head. I have enough of my own problems here at the Ice Hotel. Last night over a stash of gummy bears and some videos of Andy’s old pairs routines, I’d hatched a devious plan. I’m risking too much skating alone. It’s too easy to spot my weaknesses. So today, I have a meeting with Juliet Rowe, BSI’s camp director, to talk to her about switching to pairs. I have no idea if it’s even going to be allowed, but I have to try. This last week of trying to hide while skating all by myself has been
waaaaaay
too hard.

I’d rather be knocking Andy over than letting him carry me across the ice.

I shut the phone and put it back in the cardigan pocket. I glance in the mirror and catch sight of myself as Sloane Emily in a pair of black capris, a white cami, and a pale pink cardigan with little yellow flowers embroidered on it. I may look a little bit like a kindergarten teacher, but at least I don’t look like myself—the girl whose mom is in rehab, who dated a loser like Dylan for close to a year, who can’t keep her fists to herself.

I smile at myself in the mirror.

I slip on a pair of flip-flops and hurry downstairs. Juliet’s office is in the front foyer area, just behind the desk where I checked in the first day. I arrive at the front desk and am directed through a set of mahogany french doors. Juliet is sitting behind an enormous desk that looks large enough to ford a river on, and it only looks larger in front of her delicate butterfly frame. According to Sloane Emily’s brochure, Juliet used to train Olympians. Looking at her sitting there twirling a powder-blue kerchief between her fingers, I gulp. She’s the tiniest woman who’s ever scared me.

“Miss Jacobs, please sit down.” She gestures to one of the overstuffed leather chairs across from her desk. I plant myself in it, and unlike the couch upstairs, this one is exactly as hard and uncomfortable as it looks. I fidget as the brass buttons dig into my butt. I see Juliet watching me and wrinkling her nose. “What can I do for you today?”

“I wanted to talk to you about switching to pairs for the summer,” I say. Best just to dive right in, and also I want to
end this conversation as quickly as possible and get out of here. I’m not positive, but I worry that Juliet has the power to smell hockey on me.

“Well, that is very unorthodox,” she says. Her accent is odd, a mix of American English and a twinge of Canadian, with some French and possibly Russian undertones.

“I know, but I was just hoping to try something new, after, well …” I’m not quite sure what I was going to say, but it seemed like a good idea to come up with an excuse. Under Juliet’s steely gaze, my mind goes blank.

“Yes, I know about your history,” she says. There’s a long pause, and I wonder if she wants me to talk about it. From what I gathered from Ivy and Sloane Emily, something happened a few years ago that took Sloane out of competition, and it’s been a while since she’s skated. Apparently this summer is supposed to be some kind of comeback, but it looks like that won’t be happening. “Normally it would be impossible, as we invite a certain number of singles skaters and a certain number of pairs skaters to the program. You are very lucky that Miranda Bates broke her ankle before arrival.”

I want to laugh. No one’s ever been so blunt as to say that someone else’s misfortune is my gain, but the look on Juliet’s face tells me she’s deadly serious.

“We do need one more girl for pairs,” she says, then sniffs. Oh God, she can smell the hockey. I knew it. “I guess that will be you.”

I let out an enormous sigh and thank her, but Juliet has
already turned her attention back to her computer. I guess our appointment is over. Thank God.

I leave the chair, most likely bearing the imprint of brass buttons on my bum, and rush out the door before she changes her mind or banishes me from camp altogether.

In the outer office, I find Andy practically jumping up and down. “Well?”

“Done and done!”

“Yes!” he says. “I hear some girl snapped her tibia, so I figured it would work out. We are
so
partnering up for the end-of-season exhibition.”

I gulp. For the last week, all anyone can talk about is the stupid exhibition that’s not exactly an exhibition, since we’ll be judged and there will be winners (and losers). The pairs kids have been scrambling to buddy up. No one wants to be left out or stuck with a dud partner. The singles skaters have all been not-too-subtly dropping hints about their chosen music to make sure no one else picks the same thing. It’s all very passive-aggressive ice-skaterly.

“You and me,” I say, hoping he can’t tell that the idea of the exhibition makes me want to upchuck my lunch. Poor Andy. When he lifts me, I’m about as graceful as one of those hippos from
Fantasia
, if those hippos were missing four toes and deaf. He’s not going to buy my faux skating pedigree for long. Soon it’ll be put-up-or-shut-up time.

“Of
course
you switched to pairs.” The syrupy voice makes the hair on my arms stand up. “Isn’t that just
adorable
.”

“Nice dye job, Ivy,” I say as I turn around. It took her two days and a three-hour hair appointment to return her hair to its bleached-blond glory. I reach up and point to a patch near her forehead. “Looks like they missed a spot.”

She swats my hand away. “Don’t think this is over, Sloane Jacobs,” she says. “It’s
so not over
.”

“Sure thing, Ivy,” I say sweetly. Another benefit of the partner thing: it will bump me out of Ivy’s group and into the pairs group, which means larger lessons since there are twice as many of us. More people to hide behind. I’ll still have to do singles for the end-of-season competition, just like everyone else, but at least it will only be the short program. That means I’m spared—and am sparing the audience—two minutes of horror.

It also means I won’t even have to have a one-on-one session with a coach, since all our one-on-ones will be
two
-on-ones—with Andy running interference, even if he doesn’t realize it.

Ivy turns on her heel and marches away. Andy is doubled over laughing. “What do you think she’ll do to you?”

“I’m not worried,” I reply. “Now let’s go practice.”

Another day of practice has left my body a wreck. My hamstrings have practically calcified from all the leg extensions, leaving me feeling a little like the Tin Man as I walk back to my room. All this standing up straight has done a number
on my neck and shoulders, not to mention the strain on my core. My abs feel like Muhammad Ali has been using them as a heavy bag all day.

I hobble into my room and gaze at my bed. It looks just as fluffy and soft as it did in the brochure Sloane Emily showed me, and I can’t wait to fall into it.