Bittersweet (36 page)

“Amazing program,” I tell her when she slides back into the box. She grabs her water bottle, taking a swig as her coach hands her a towel.

“There’s no karma in figure skating,” she says, looking right through me. I raise my eyebrows, but she’s right. When you’re a solo skater,
everyone
is the competition. Even when you’re in a local club together, you know that one day, it will come down to the solo, you against your friends. You against the world.

The competition. The grueling schedule. The pressure to
be perfect—a porcelain ballerina, dancing beneath the glass of an unimaginably tiny snow globe. It was all part of the gig.

For so long I wanted to blame my father’s affair for my decision to throw the Empire Games and pull out of regionals. I wanted him to be my reason to be mad, my excuse for hanging up the skates and seeking refuge in a bowl of batter. But maybe a small part of me was already there, one skate over the line, ready to leave. I remember it now, all the impossible expectations made bearable only by my pure love for the ice and my friendship with Kara.

I touch the silver rabbit pin on my shoulder, the metal warm and smooth. When I skated with Kara, we protected each other, supported and cheered for each other, our friendship a never-empty well of encouragement. More than the ribbons and trophies and talk of bright futures, our friendship is what made it all worth it. All those five a.m. practices, the blisters and bruises and bone-tiring workouts—as long as we were in it together, we could do anything.

It was never about the competition, just like she said in Amir Jordan’s bathroom in the first hours of the brand-new year.

“Hudson Avery,” the announcer calls. In my parallel life, the crowd would fall silent; in the stillness before their next collective breath, the butterflies would return. They’d carry me onto the ice and I’d perform my routine as planned, immaculate. Nail a perfect score. Paige Adamo would scowl and pout and stab her toe pick into the ice, but the judges wouldn’t waver. It would be unanimous.

The Capriani Cup scholarship would be awarded to …

“Hudson Avery,” the announcer calls again. I stand and grip the rail in front of the box, steadying myself. This is it. The chance I’ve been waiting for all winter.

“Hudson Avery, please report to the ice,” the announcer echoes. The crowd begins to fidget. Murmur. I close my eyes and wait for those butterflies. If I don’t go now, I forfeit. I give up everything I worked so hard for these last few months. Fillmore. Baylor’s. Wolves. Cupcakes. Friends. Family. Life.

My heart finally fills, but it’s not with butterflies. It’s flashes of the Wolves, the new friends I made as I helped coach them into a real team, the joy they shared after each hard-won game. Flashes of everyone at Hurley’s pulling together on a busy night to keep the customers fed. Flashes of the pictures Dani took in the kitchen, me with my cupcakes, how they saved me after my father left, gave me something into which I could pour my heart and creativity, something that brought people a few minutes of happiness on an otherwise dark day. Flashes of Mom and Bug and what it means to be part of a family, part of a team—
my
home team.

And then the truth, clear and crisp as the winter sky the morning after a storm: I never really left the ice. I never will. Ever since I blew the Empire Games, I thought I was hiding out in the diner, staying below the radar until the mistakes lost my trail. But I wasn’t. Tonight, here,
this
is where I’m hiding. Not from my past. From my present. From my
real
life and everyone I care about.

This competition belongs to Parallel Life Hudson. We’re not fused—our paths diverged a long time ago, long before that night in Rochester.

I open my eyes and slide out of the box, but instead of skating to the center of the ice, I give the organizer the cut sign, grab my blade guards, and hobble back to the locker room. Commotion floats through the stands as the announcer receives word of my forfeit and locates the next skater’s bio and music, but soon the crowd settles, ready for her to appear.

After I pull on my leg warmers and boots, I peek into the arena one last time. The skater, a tiny blonde in a black-and-silver dress, is in position. She waves to two people in the stands who are out of their seats with pride. The music starts and her face turns serious as she poses for her first step, toe solid on the ice. Maybe she’s found my butterflies, or some of her own. Maybe she’ll win the scholarship and go on to train and compete and win the Olympic gold, looking back on this night as the one that changed everything—the once-in-a-lifetime golden ticket moment that made all of her impossible dreams come true.

I hope she does.

“Good luck,” I whisper, touching the silver rabbit on my shoulder. The skater glides into her first loop, and I slip unnoticed out the back door.

Red velvet devil’s food cupcakes topped with red, orange, and yellow swirled buttercream icing peaks and a thin red apple curl

I pull into a spot close to the Hurley’s entrance and kill the engine. It’s so
quiet I can almost hear the snow fall, big fat flakes plopping on the pavement, the windshield, the roof of the truck. The lights are on inside the diner, but the blinds are drawn, and in the muted hush, I feel it—that edge of wrongness. I shouldn’t have come back here. Mom will never forgive me.

I sink back into the driver’s seat and slip the keys into the ignition. My heart races and my breath fogs up windows as I reverse out of the spot. I’m leaving tonight. Now. I’ve got my snow-stomping boots and my backpack and everything I need to escape Watonka, escape New York, escape everywhere. Train or not, this time …

It’s the old man that stops me.

Earl—the regular from my first day of training. The one with all the dimes. I recognize the blue sedan as it pulls into my just-vacated parking spot. He sees me when he gets out and nods—not a wave or a smile, not a greeting, but something else. Something that in its utter simplicity says only,
I know, Dolly Madison. I know all about it.
We lock eyes for an eternity, conversation floating soundlessly through the winter air, and then the moment vanishes, footprints covered quickly by the snow as he shuffles up the path and disappears inside.

I pull into a different spot and slam the truck into park. No way I’m leaving them again. Not now. Not after everything.

Earl leans on the front counter, tapping his foot to the jazz riff floating from the kitchen. The knitting club is there, along with three other occupied tables, familiar patrons chatting in a low collective hum as silverware scrapes against plates.
Clink clink. Storm’s coming back around, believe that? Clink clink clink. We’re putting the house on the market this spring. Clink clink. Etta’s boy’s back from Iraq. Getting married next month….

Marianne, Dani, Nat, Mom—none of them are in the dining room. Bug’s not around, either. I pour a cup of coffee for Earl and push through the double doors into the kitchen. “Looks dead out there. What hap—”

“Close the doors!” A blur of voices snuffs out the rest of my question. Nat, hovering next to the doorway like she’s on guard duty, shoves me out of the way and pulls the double
doors tight. She’s shaking so hard, even her sleek pink bob looks nervous. Some kind of unidentifiable meat is burning on the grill, Marianne and Trick are frantically stacking full plates onto a serving tray, Mom and Dani are crawling around on the floor like someone lost a contact lens, and Bug is tucked into a ball under the prep counter, clutching his backpack and wiping his eyes with a dish towel.

“Nice of you to join us,” Mom says. She doesn’t get up from the floor.

“What happened? Did the reviewer show up yet?”

“Came and went,” Nat says. Her eyes sweep the floor like she’s searching for a mouse. “Hardly ate a thing. Lousy tipper, too. And that was after—”

“He didn’t like it?” My stomach knots up. “How could he not—”

“Excuse me?” One of the knitting club ladies calls through the window over the grill. “We put our order in a while ago, but I think our waitress went on break.”

“Be right out!” Nat’s bordering on hysterical. “Hudson, watch the door. Close it right behind me.”

“Is everyone in here crazy, or—”

“Close it! I’m not screwing around!”

“Is Nat all right?” I ask when she’s out of the kitchen. “Doesn’t even look busy out there. What are you guys—”

“May be half-dead in the dining room,” Trick says, “but we’re kinda scramblin’ back here, in case you haven’t noticed. So if you could skip the third degree and maybe flip those
Polish sausages, help Marianne run this food, or locate your brother’s hamster—”

“Mr. Napkins?” I don’t wait for an answer. I duck under the counter and reach for Bug. “Come here, sweet pea. Tell me what happened.”

He pulls himself tighter into a ball, shrugging me off. “Mr.
hiccup
Napkins
hiccup
is gone!”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“I had him right here, and now he’s”—
hiccup
—“MIA.” He opens his backpack to show me the dark space inside, nothing there but a few shreds of hamster hay and an old T-shirt stuffed into the bottom.

“You brought Mr. Napkins here? In your
backpack
?”

Bug blinks behind his tortoiseshell glasses, tears spilling down his cheeks. “I didn’t want to leave him home alone again.”
Hiccup.
“He gets lonely.”

“I know he does, Bug. I’m sorry.” My throat is dry and tight, knees aching against the cold tile floor. If I had just stayed here earlier, helped Mom out, maybe things would’ve gone better with the reviewer. Maybe I could’ve taken Bug home. Maybe I—

“What if he gets outside?” Bug’s crying harder, eyes wild with this new fear. “He’ll freeze! What if someone hamster-naps him? What if he gets hit by a snowplow? What if he—”

“Bug, listen to me. Mr. Napkins is the smartest hamster alive. He’s not outside. He’s somewhere in this diner, and we’ll find him. But you have to calm down.” I put my hands on
his shoulders and inch closer. “I know I haven’t given you any reason to trust me tonight. I don’t blame you if you’re mad, but we have to put that aside so we can find Mr. Napkins. Can you do that for me?”

His big brown saucer-eyes blink twice. One more sniffle. Another hiccup, then a nod, and he follows me out from under the prep counter.

“Do you have your notebook?” I ask. “The one you use to write down clues for important cases?”

He digs out the notebook and a pencil from the front part of his bag and flips to an empty page.

“Good. Now think. What do we know about Mr. Napkins? What kind of environment does he like? What are his favorite hiding places at home?”

Bug’s tongue sticks partway out of his mouth as pencil races across paper. “Hates the cold,” I read over his shoulder. “Goes near heat vents. Small spaces. Likes food and the dark.”

“That’s all I can think of.” Bug wipes his eyes with the back of his free hand.

“Okay, let’s recap.” I reread his notes out loud, keeping one eye on the ground in case of a Mr. Napkins flyby. While Mom edges her way around the perimeter, Dani covers the back, searching under the dishwasher with a flashlight.

“Any ideas?” Bug asks.

“Yes.” I steer him over to the grill. “He likes food and he likes heat, right? I know where I’d go. Right under there.”

Bug and I crouch down and peer under the grill and ovens.
From the dusty dark beneath the warmest place in the kitchen, a tiny pink nose wriggles innocently.

“We have visual contact,” I say. With any luck, it’s the hamster in question and not some other rodent mascot we’ve yet to discover. “Bug, keep your eye on him while I find something to get his attention.”

“Dani,” Trick says, “run this to table eight and tell Nat and Marianne the incident has been … located.”

“Got it,” she says, taking the plates from his hands.

I slip out of my jacket and scarf, drop them on a stool, and scrounge up a tub of peanut butter, an apple, and some sliced cheese. With an elaborately concocted snack and a whole lotta cooing, Bug coaxes his twitchy little friend into the light.

“Mr. Napkins!” He scoops up the hamster and presses him to his chest in a tiny hug. “Don’t you ever do that again. I was so worried about you!”

Honestly, I’d be more worried about getting all huggy-snuggy-kissy-face with a rodent that spent half the night trolling around under an oven that’s been here since the 1950s, but that’s just my personal—

“Hudson? What the …” Mom’s eyes bulge as she looks me over. In all the excitement of the missing hamster, I forgot about the outfit—my multicolored sequined skating dress just one deep breath away from a wardrobe malfunction, fuzzy pink leg warmers hastily tucked into boots over beige spandex tights. “Where on
earth
have you—”