Frozen Barriers
Copyright
©
2014 by Angela Page
All rights reserved
Cover Design by LU Ann
Formatting by Jovana Shirley,
Unforeseen Editing
Editing by Paige Maroney Smith
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual personas, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.
For my husband RLP
You told me to write…..
…..I hope I made you proud
Songs That Inspired
Frozen Barriers
2001
It was time for my skating club’s annual showcase. I had just celebrated my eleventh birthday the week before, and Mother insisted we not have a huge party for fear that my showcase outfit might not fit. Instead, I was forced to listen to my parents, Victoria and Charles Cameron, argue over ridiculous nonsense that I couldn’t understand at such a young age. My mother, the always-perfect image in the public eye, was nothing more than a closet Cruella Deville. She saw I was visibly affected by the argument and assured me that my father was just trying to make her understand what was best for his family. I shook my head as though I didn’t understand completely, and in all honesty, I didn’t. Why couldn’t I have a normal birthday party like every other kid my age? While everyone else at my private school had their own fair share of family issues, at least their parents didn’t have issues celebrating birthdays. Most of my friends at school stopped inviting me to their own birthday parties simply because Mother said it was not a healthy environment for an upcoming star figure skater to be involved in. At eleven, who was I to say otherwise? She was my mother; I assumed she knew what she was doing. Man, was I ever wrong! It was times like this that I wished they would have had another child, so I would at least have had someone else around to endure some of the constant alone time.
The showcase dress rehearsal always fell on a Friday afternoon. Mother would have me released early from school because she said dress rehearsal or not I was still going to spend the extra time getting hair and makeup done just in case something didn’t look right with one of the four group outfits I was forced to wear. Heaven forbid I looked like an eleven-year-old instead of some freak show from those pageants on television. She constantly told me, “Appearances, Emily— always remember you must not embarrass the family.”
Thank you, Mother. I’ll try not to forget the oversized mansion you and Daddy reside in on the cul-de-sac in Andover, Massachusetts.
I was but a mere doll Mother played dress up with all to keep face and make sure everyone else in the skating club knew she had money and prestige and some of the other girls’ families in my group did not
.
Yes, even at eleven, I realized my life was going to be lonely and controlled, or rather, dictated, until I was actually able to make my own decisions as an adult.
Once my mother carefully placed all my skating outfits, skates, and grooming kits into the Mercedes, we were ready to go to rehearsal. Mid March in New England was never a pretty time of year. Snow started melting, leaving a muddy mess around every corner. Puddles formed, and the ugly brown snow that looked pretty in December was showing again. I somehow always related the layers of snow to my mother. No matter how many fresh coats of snow we received over the winter, if you kept peeling back each layer, the first layer was still the ugliest. Yeah, that was my mother. Fresh and pristine on the outside, but inside, she was still hideous.
At the rink, I was usually always quite happy. This was the only time I was able to socialize with girls my own age, and they had shared the same interest as me, skating. I had a few girls whom I actually considered close friends, even if they were only friends at the rink. Lily, Suzanne, and Morgan were my only chance each week to have a normal life of an eleven- year-old, even if it was just for the times we were training at the rink.
Mother dropped me off with my skate bag and told me to go inside while she brought in the remainder of my gear to the dressing room. I laughed as I walked into the rink.
Dressing room?
Clearly, she was delusional. Figure skaters didn’t get
dressing rooms
at rinks; we got the stinky sweat-smelling hockey locker room still reeking from the stick practice that cleared out five minutes before we set up shop. I hated those hockey players. They always smelled, and they looked like mini transformers in their padding, waddling around like they owned the place. They ruined the ice every time we had skate practice after them because the Zamboni could never grind down their divots enough, and we’d catch toe picks and edges on all the holes in the ice. If I even so much as hit one of those holes and fell, Mother made sure I knew what was at stake. “Appearances, Emily.” I swear, if I was ever admitted into a loony bin, it was because I just kept saying “appearances” over and over again.
Just as I was about to round the corner to go into the
dressing room
to change into my skates, a hockey player came barreling around the blind corner, knocking me on my rear. As I gathered my thoughts and glanced up, I scowled at the boy who looked no more than thirteen and stared at me with his mouth gaped open and his hair all disheveled from his hockey helmet.
He reached out his gloved hand to me and said, “Sorry, Barbie, didn’t see you. Here, let me help you up.”
I looked at his outstretched, wet gloved hand and back to his smirking face and said, “Eww, get your smelly glove away from me. I can help myself up, you jerk! My mother is going to be livid if you messed up my hair and dress.” I quickly stood and inspected my first costume, and it looked okay. As I felt around my hair, nothing appeared out of place, so I glanced back over at the overstuffed Michelin kid seething as I remembered his comment just a moment before. “Where do you get off calling me Barbie? Who do you think you are?!”
His smile quickly turned into shock. “I …uhh…sorry. I really didn’t see you.”
“Whatever!” I stormed my way back into the locker room and started to get ready for the longest weekend of the skating season, not giving a second glance to the boy who almost ruined my appearance.
