Talking throughout the demonstration, I showed Vijay how to descend to a seated position during the initial revolution. Swinging in a wide arc, I grabbed my free leg and guided it into position. This swift movement also lowered my body into the sit, requiring little more than one turn on the ice. Skaters often hesitate, spinning at a variety of heights, before locating the desired altitude. The descent should be smooth and immediate to prevent traveling and to achieve the most attractive entrance. Vijay mimicked my motions, improving his sit spin almost instantly. He learned quickly and his athletic body welcomed virtually any skating challenge.
My friend repeated the spin several more times as I looked on, like Willa, with my hand poised on my hip. Breathing heavily from his last ascent, Vijay clapped me on the shoulder, “You should be a coach, Kate.”
No more pleasant words could have danced upon my eardrums. A coach! I should be a coach! While Vijay made this partially tongue-in-cheek comment out of gratitude, it captured my imagination with myriad possibilities. I could coach adult skaters. Having missed my chance to skate as a young person, I assumed all related career possibilities were also unattainable. As the idea germinated, I concocted a plan to pass enough tests to establish my credibility as an accomplished skater. This would probably take years, but it would give me a new goal to pursue after passing my final doctoral examination. Once gainfully employed, I could afford two or more hours of instruction per week, quickening my progress through the skills.
I left the Martinsville Community Arena with a new ambition that made employment as a professor or consumer researcher seem less final. It would provide transitional income until I amassed sufficient skating credentials to call myself a professional figure skating coach. Driving home, I hummed and sang along with the popular country tunes on the radio imagining a brighter, more emotionally fulfilling future. I mentally walked through lessons, teaching imaginary adult students how to do specific moves. Never did I waste a moment daydreaming about consumer research. Those thoughts usually involved dread, boredom and foreboding. Potential employment did not make me happy since I fantasized about designing wedding gowns and working with brides as a teenage girl. The idea of coaching, actually earning money for my love of skating, was more exciting than any ambition I entertained as a student.
Fondly remembering my job in the bridal salon, images of wedding fashions appeared in my mind then began to almost physically take shape in the evening sunset. Artistically stifled and suffering from academic performance anxiety, I had not entertained an artistic thought in months or even years. Yet, these images formed with demanding resolution. I could see myself wearing one of them, to my wedding with Neil.
As I worked, ideas for accompanying fabrics and supplies came to mind, and I made note of them on a sheet of paper. Lining the gown in rum pink would flatter my complexion. Constructing the ample train ruffles in a pretty but inexpensive chantilly lace would look rich when trimmed with costly alençon.
“Kate?”
Enthralled by a rare moment of creative enlightenment, I had not heard Neil enter the apartment or walk down the hall to my room.
“Kate?” he repeated, “You can’t study all night. Let’s go out for pizza.”
Neil had seen me making notes and assumed I was reviewing research data or planning a new experiment.
“Oh, I’m not studying,” I corrected getting up from my chair at the long worktable that I used for academic pursuits as well as sewing. “I’m designing my wedding dress.” I held up the sketch for Neil’s evaluation.
He visibly blanched. “Why are you designing a wedding dress when we haven’t set a date?” he asked.
“Do you know how long it will take to make a bridal gown? I have to draft a pattern, make a muslin fitting garment…”
“But why are you doing this now?” he prodded, then his eyes caught the pile of folded ivory textiles on the table. “Where did you get all of that fabric?”
“I bought it in North Carolina when I went to that conference in February.”
Neil stared transfixed at the lace as though hypnotized by its embroidery.
Following his gaze, I picked up the lace, indelicately causing the careful folds to collapse into a bundle. I held the wad of needlework close to his face. “Does this make you nervous, Neil?” I asked sarcastically. Shaking the fabric defiantly, I demanded again, this time more forcefully, as anger welled in my throat: “Does this lace make you nervous?”
Neil held up his hands in concession. “I can see you’re irritable right now. I’ll just leave you alone.”
As Neil turned to leave the room, I gathered my emotions. “We have to talk about this. We have been engaged for two years.”
“We are still students,” he stated indifferently.
“I’m going to finish my degree next spring or summer. We can start making plans.” Demonstrating my good will, I replaced the lace on the table.
“Maybe I’m just not ready to make plans yet,” Neil retorted defensively.
“Well, when will you be ready? Do you want to wait until I graduate to even talk about our wedding?”
“I’ve decided to go straight for my doctorate,” he confessed.
While I knew that Neil wanted to take additional courses to explore his options, this came as a surprise. “I thought you planned to work for a few years first.”
“I changed my mind.”
“I will still graduate and start working, so we should be able to get married.” How quick I was to compromise! I did not know how difficult it would be to find my first job out of graduate school with no industrial experience. Adding geographic limitations would further complicate the issue. But I willingly conceded to accept some sort of job while Neil continued his education. With his computer programming background, he was supposed to be the flexible member of our duo who could find employment wherever my obscure degree took me. While a
“I don’t want to get married while either one of us is in school,” Neil elaborated.
“A doctorate takes four or five years,” I admonished, based on my own unfortunate revelation, never considering that Neil might be one of those exceptional individuals who could finish in three years. “You want to wait another five years?” I asked in shock and disappointment wondering how I could possibly continue to live with this man and call myself his fiancée for a grand total of six or seven years. In my initial daze, I did not consider that we would separate and maintain and long-distance relationship so I could pursue my career and he could earn another degree.
Neil shrugged sheepishly.
I tried to explain that between my salary and his assistantship stipend, we would be able to live comfortably. Both of us knew couples, one of whom worked while the other went to school. Graduate programs were full of such people.
“We can have a modest wedding,” I began dreamily, as though no unpleasant words had been exchanged. Blocking them out, I proceeded to describe our small classic reception.
“My parents want a big wedding,” he interjected suddenly.
“Neil, no matter what kind of job I get, I will never be able to afford the kind of wedding a debutante’s father could host. I went through school without taking a loan. I am not going into debt for a wedding.” In spite of my adolescent interest in brides, I could not justify this type of spending just so Bernard and Elizabeth Fitch’s country club friends could eat caviar and sip champagne at my expense.
“My parents will pay for the wedding.”
That solved the problem. “Fine,” I agreed.
“I cannot continue to take money from my parents after we are married,” he continued.
“Why will you have to?”
“For school,” Neil answered flatly, as though it were obvious.
“But I’ll be working and you will be on assistantship,” I repeated, unsure of the depth of his concern or what more deeply rooted insecurity might lay buried beneath this financial excuse.
My boyfriend shifted his weight uncomfortably and sighed, ready to surrender the entire truth. “Kate, if I marry you and we live on our humble salaries without my parents’ help, how will I be able to buy a new camera lens? Or anything else for that matter?”
Brow twitching, my brain processed this new information. Words of truth escaped Neil’s vocal cords before he could filter them. A fraction of a second later, my eyes widened with shocking realization. Neil had aligned his priorities, and I was definitely not Number One. Our relationship and impending marriage were less important to him than frivolously spending his parents’ income. Neil Fitch easily qualified as the most selfish loathsome man on Earth. I wanted to strangle him for making such a fool of me and wasting the last two years of my life. A long moment elapsed between Neil’s confession and my subsequent utterance. I controlled an almost startling burst of rage and closed my eyes. I must have misunderstood him, I rationalized.
“I’m sorry, Neil. What did you say?”
“My parents are willing to put me through school and I am going to take it. Why should I live like a pauper when I don’t have to?” Panic brought about by the sight of bridal lace made the prospect of our marriage a frightening reality for Neil. He did not prudently temper his decision with clever excuses. The young man’s honest concerns surfaced; although on some level I had always been aware of them. Neil was used to a certain standard of living and did not want to sacrifice it, at least not to marry me. His sense of chivalry forbade him to take money from his parents after accepting the responsibility of marriage. At the very least, he maintained this gentlemanly façade to avoid walking down the proverbial aisle. In the years that I knew Neil, his self-indulgence had always been apparent, but the possibility that he preferred his parents’ wealth to his supposed love for me was a repugnant thought, one that I quickly dismissed if it ever crossed my mind. While this was not exactly a surprise, it was a terrible disappointment to discover that Neil was more materialistic and immature than I had imagined. And he obviously valued our relationship less than whatever he might purchase at the shopping mall that evening.
Our combined income as a graduate student and rookie consumer scientist would never approach that of two medical doctors. To a spoiled young fellow like Neil, this would qualify our early years of marriage as poverty. I had one question left for ex-fiancé.
“Then why did you give me this ring?”
I was more than delighted to show Vijay how to do a low sit spin. Finally able to rise from the seated position without assistance from the free toe, I felt comfortable demonstrating the skill to my fellow skaters. Adult skaters commonly support each other with positive comments, helpful suggestions and exchange of technique. I admired Vijay’s talent and was surprised when he sought my advice. Many freestyle skaters tend to excel in either spins or jumps. While the best competitors do both very well, most recreational skaters favor one skill over the other. I was definitely a spinner; and Vijay, a jumper.
Vijay’s off-handed suggestion of professional skating opportunities sent me into a tizzy of romantic inspiration. As soon as I returned home, I took out my new bridal fabric and forgotten sketchpad and began to draw. The design materialized on the paper, aided by my uncharacteristically deft hand. The gown seemed to want to be born, and I was merely the instrument of its conception.
Chapter 30 posted 5/2/01
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