Life on the Edge (4 page)

we got to talking about pop music in Russia and then our lives growing up in such different places. The night deepened, but we
didn’t
move from our seats.

“Do you miss home?”
I
asked.

“I miss my family, but the Cape feels like home now. It’s quite different from Moscow, but I love it.”

“It’s amazing how well you speak English, living in the States only five years. Before we met, I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to understand a word you said.”

“I should’ve talked to you in Russian just to scare you.” He grinned. “But I wanted to make a good impression.”

“You made a great impression.”

After I spoke, I realized how gushy I sounded, but Sergei
didn’t
seem to mind. He was wearing that little smile again–the one
I’d
caught him giving me throughout dinner.

The wind picked up, rustling the trees and sending
my
empty cup skittering over the table. Sergei snatched it and noticed the time on his watch.

“Oh, wow, it’s two thirty. I’m
sorry,
I didn’t mean to stay this late.”

“No worries. I can sleep till noon tomorrow.”

He rose from his chair, stretching his arms. “Do you think they all killed each other downstairs?”

“My guess is they played so hard they passed out at some point. That’s been known to happen.”

got up and smoothed my skirt.
I’d
kicked off my sandals hours ago, and the weathered wood of the patio was cool under my bare feet.

Sergei took a step toward
me
. “Thanks again for the great meal.
And the even better company.”

“You’re very welcome. I’m so glad you came.”

stood on tippy-toes to give him a quick hug, but Sergei’s strong arms held me against him, enveloping my small frame. His body exuded warmth.
I
closed my eyes and breathed in the woody scent of his cologne.
We’d
shared plenty of hugs at competitions, but this felt so different, like we belonged nowhere else but in this embrace.

After what seemed like both an eternity and a split second, Sergei pulled away, his hands brushing down
my
back. He glanced downward and gestured to the door.

“I can let myself out.”

head bobbed weakly. “Okay. I’ll see you Monday.”

“See you.” He held
my
gaze a moment longer than necessary. Then he was gone.

stood paralyzed, listening to the blood pulse in my ears.
My
heart beat so fast I thought it might pound out of my chest. I
couldn’t
have imagined the electricity I’d felt in Sergei’s arms. It was too real.
And
I had no idea how I could ever forget it.

Chapter Three

Daylight
hadn’t
yet appeared when I pulled into the rink’s parking lot on Monday, fingers tapping nervously on the wheel.
I’d
woken before my alarm and gotten an early start, even earlier than the ridiculous hour I usually began my day. All Sunday,
I’d
relived every look and smile Sergei and I had shared on my terrace. I
wasn’t
sure what to expect from him this morning.
Awkwardness?
Normalcy?
I
hoped for the latter.

Inside the rink, two pairs of
novice ice dance teams
occupied the ice, while two moms on the bleachers yawned. Aubrey and Marley’s coach, Viktor, barked at the skaters over the jazzy tune playing on the sound system.
I
made a sharp left for the locker room and startled Sergei as he came out of the gym in a sleeveless T-shirt and shorts.

“You’re very early.” He blotted his face with a towel.

slapped my hands together, using exuberance to hide my anxiety. “I’m ready to work.”

“Don’t you need a partner to do that?” He smiled and wiped his arms, toweling the tight curve of his biceps.

“I guess I didn’t give Chris the memo,”
I
said with a little laugh.

“I had to run five extra miles on the treadmill to work off that great dinner you made.” He patted his stomach. “It was worth it, though.”

Every smile he gave
me
melted another morsel of my nervousness. He threw his towel across his shoulder. “I need to take a shower. See, I’m usually done with all this by the time you get here.”

A flicker of heat stirred inside
me
as I pictured the hot water running over his muscles and down his chest.
My
hand flew to my cheek. “Um, carry on then. Pretend you never saw me.”

Sergei strolled toward the locker room, and
I
nibbled on my lip. He
didn’t
seem fazed by our night of flirting and our lingering hug. As much as I
didn’t
want any awkwardness, I couldn’t deny my tinge of disappointment. Had
I
imagined the spark between us?

****

Chris yelled behind us as we blazed across the ice, setting up for the triple twist. Two dancers scattered, and Chris vaulted
me
into the air. Holding
my
arms tight to my body, I spun two and a half times, but gravity pulled me down before I completed the “triple” part of the element. Chris caught
me
sideways, and we struggled to keep our balance.

“How many have we done?” he asked once we disentangled.

“Nine. And we’ve only done six clean.”

Sergei skated past us. “You need seven out of ten.” He moved over to help Trevor and his partner, Leigh, but called out over his shoulder, “Must be fully rotated.”

swiped the perspiration from my forehead with the back of my hand and repositioned the bobby pins holding up my loose bun. At the start of practice, Sergei had informed us we needed to perform seventy percent of our triple twists cleanly every day that week. Otherwise, he would allow us to do only a double in our programs at Skate America, our first international competition of the season. Doubles meant lower scores–not what we wanted in our debut.

“We got this,” Chris said. “No problem.”

partner never lacked confidence. He could miss a jump five times in a row and stand up smiling.
I
, on the other hand, overanalyzed every mistake I made.

We sped into the takeoff, and
I
twisted myself into three revolutions. On the free fall down, Chris took hold of
my
waist, and my right skate found the ice with a smooth run out.

Chris let out a whoop and held up seven fingers as he skated over to Sergei.

Sergei smiled. “Keep it up the next four days.”

After a water break, we started working on sections of our long program, set to Massenet’s “Meditation.” Sergei had envisioned romance when
he’d
choreographed the program, aiming to strengthen the emotional connection between Chris and me on the ice. Our relationship was so far from romantic, though, we had to do our best acting jobs to achieve Sergei’s vision.

Sergei watched us practice our star lift and then asked us to repeat it. Above Chris’s head,
I
sailed in a vertical split position, his hand on my hip and my hand on the back of his shoulder.

“More stretch,
Em
,” Sergei called.
“Chris, smoother on the dismount.”

pointed my toes, not easy to do in skates, and extended my free arm as far as I could. Chris set
me
down, and we transitioned into the next movement, where he touched my face and we looked into each other’s eyes. We held the pose a few seconds before Sergei sprinted
over
.

“You’re not feeling it. You have to maintain the emotion throughout the program and especially in these moments between the elements. Chris, as soon as
Em
comes down from the lift, you need to lock your eyes on hers and pull her close.
Em
, you have to look at him
like
he’s your whole world. I’ll put on the music and show you.”

He glided to the ice door and popped our CD into the sound system queue. Trevor and Leigh were almost finished with a section of their short program, so Chris and
I
idled near the boards to wait.

Sergei pushed up the sleeves of his fleece jacket. “I’ll run through it with
Em
so you can see what I’m looking for.”

I followed Sergei through the
mine field
of skaters jumping, falling, and dancing to the music in their heads. He grasped
my
hand, and we did long, powerful crossovers in tandem, building up speed for the lift. Since Sergei had been a Junior World Champion with his former partner Elena, he owned all the skills to demonstrate his teaching points.

With one
arm
he lifted me, and we flew across the rink. A brisk wind cooled
my
skin. On the dismount,
my
right blade carved into the ice, and Sergei swept me up to his side. His fingers stroked
my
cheek, while his eyes stroked my heart. The sparkling blue pools held an intensity
I’d
never seen before.

breaths came out in shallow puffs. The dreamy notes of “Meditation” floated around us as we glided together, bonded by our unblinking gazes. I
didn’t
know if I was looking at Sergei as if he was my whole world, but he certainly was making me feel like I was his entire universe.

We skidded to a stop near Chris, kicking up a light spray of ice. Sergei’s eyes broke from
mine
as he backed away and rubbed the nape of his neck.
I
grabbed my water bottle from the boards and gulped down the liquid.
I’d
lost all the moisture in my mouth.

“That’s, uh . . . that’s how it should look,” Sergei said, still avoiding eye contact with
me
.

Chris stared at us and waited a second to speak. “Sure, I can do that.”

He and
I
skated to the opposite end of the rink and came around in the lift. Chris copied Sergei’s movements, but my body
didn’t
sing like it had under Sergei’s touch.
I
looked up at Chris with the most convincing adoration I could muster.

Sergei clapped and finally threw a glance in
my
direction. “That was better.”

We finished our lesson with back-to-back run-throughs of our short and long programs, and Sergei met us at the ice door on our way out.

“Let’s talk a minute.”

Chris and
I
sat on the first row of bleachers while Sergei stood with his hands in his jacket pockets.

“Last year you made people notice you with your athletic ability. No other teams are doing side-by-side triple
Lutzes
or the triple Lutz throw. You have that advantage over everyone else.
And
you’re getting closer on the twist every day. Once you have that down, the technical content in your programs will be unmatched.

“This season you need to show the judges you have the full package. You both have a great feel for the music and know how to present to the audience. Now you have to work on relating to each other. Have you heard the phrase ‘Two shall skate as one’?”

We nodded, and Sergei continued, “That’s what I need from you every second of every program.”

We nodded again with more gusto, and Sergei told us, “Good job today,” before leaving to prepare for his next lesson.
I
was going to make a comment to Chris, but his attention had shifted to the ice, where Marley and her partner, Zach, were practicing the Westminster Waltz compulsory dance. Marley’s balletic arms highlighted the nuances of the regal music, while Zach stood tall with strong ballroom posture.