True to my word, I spent extra time in the laboratory when I returned to school and found a humble apartment near campus to share with Gwen. Charlene and Talbert helped to haul my few personal possessions out of the building where I had lived with Neil for three years. Neil had returned to Lawrence ready to start another semester of study, but this would be his last at Carolina Tech. Over the summer, he had applied to a doctoral program in his new area of passion, astronomy, which he affectionately called “Photography of the Stars”. He obviously thought this pun was clever, and his doting parents probably reinforced the notion that it was indeed quite witty. After Christmas, Neil would move on to a university blessed with his family’s approval to continue his all-expenses-paid education. I never blamed Neil for wanting to pursue the highest levels of learning, nor did I condemn his parents for providing opportunity to their only son. In the final analysis, as I left the dwelling we had shared with the intent of marriage, I only blamed Neil for his selfishness and dishonesty.

When Neil married, he did not wait until the academic community bestowed the title “Doctor of Philosophy” upon him. He married less than two years after leaving South Carolina, still in the midst of his research. His bride was an undergraduate student, barely old enough to drink a legal flute of champagne at their sumptuous wedding reception. He met the young lady while teaching an introductory physics laboratory and married her eighteen months later. Perhaps Neil grew up after leaving Carolina Tech and suddenly became ready to partner with another human being. Realistically, I was not the right match for Neil and we never would have married regardless of the circumstances. When Neil Fitch met the right girl, he married her; no questions asked, no arguments, no mind-numbing excuses.

Charlene and I hugged good-bye and promised to get together regularly for coffee. However, Charlene and Elliot divorced a few years later. Elliot remarried almost immediately, revealing the reason for the divorce. Charlene moved back to Kentucky to live near her own family, and I ultimately lost touch with her. Remembering my days as a Carolina Tech graduate student, I regret losing Charlene’s friendship more than ending my engagement to Neil. Charlene had been a good friend, Neil had never been a good fiancé.

Poor Gwen did the best she could to uphold her end of the conversation as I drove through the muggy darkness from Atlanta back to Carolina Tech. Between a long day of uncomfortable travel, the time difference, and a general sense of disorientation; she was completely exhausted. Although I wanted to get to know her, I eventually stopped chattering and allowed her to vegetate and doze off in the passenger seat. Numbly, she stumbled into her new bedroom and collapsed. I did not see her again until morning.

It was already afternoon for my new friend when my circadian rhythm signaled morning. She had been up for hours sipping tea and organizing her belongings. I smiled warmly at her surprisingly cheerful face. She apologized for her asocial behavior the previous night and offered me a cup of strong tea. Pouring a cup, she began brightly, “The last time I slept in a room so small, I had to share it with someone.”

The apartment was tiny, with two small bedrooms the size of closets. But it was furnished, clean and affordable. I looked at Gwen searching her features for signs of disgust or humor. Finally I found humor as her lips pressed into a teasing grin. “My dormitory room was that size,” she clarified.

I visibly expelled a sigh of relief. “I thought you hated the place.”

“No, not at all,” she continued, “It’s really charming in its own way.”

Gwen was exactly right. For what it was, the place could be viewed as delightful, especially to a girl far from home or one looking for a comfortable haven to finish her graduate studies and start a new social life. It epitomized the graduate student lifestyle; fun but serious, spare but adaptable. It was the ideal place to live with a good friend and the worst little hole to share with a bad roommate. Gwen and I drank tea all morning, talking and laughing. Thus began a wonderful friendship that I welcomed as a special blessing during my last year of study.

I had hoped to perform in the Summer Gala at the Martinsville Community Arena along with my adult skating friends and the children who learned new skills and routines in preparation for the upcoming competitive season. After spending an entire month of summer vacation in California and much of the rest of it working in the laboratory to avoid Dr. Butler’s petty wrath, I had no time to learn a program. I managed to attend almost all of the twice-weekly adult evening sessions during the remainder of summer; but forfeiting two weeks’ pay precluded lessons with Willa until I could manage to get my finances back in order.

A fan of Torvill and Dean, the 1984 Olympic ice dancing champions, Gwen agreed to attend the Gala with me. I warned her not to expect championship ice dancing, as the dance program at Martinsville was weak at best and handled almost entirely by a part-time coach who could not afford to quit her day job. Nor did the Martinsville community offer sufficient interest in ice dance to support this woman as a fulltime instructor. Although some adults preferred dance to freestyle, there were no serious ice dance competitors among the younger athletes. The children who specialized in freestyle often took a weekly dance lesson to improve their footwork, body carriage, or musical interpretation.

Gwen and I bought a cup of hot chocolate in the lobby before the show where I was surprised to see my friend, Helen, from the Arctic Circle. Although Helen had skated in Martinsville for a few weeks after its opening the previous September, she quickly vanished from the adult skating scene, and no one seemed to know what had happened to her. I assumed she lost interest in the sport or the commute from Lawrence had become too inconvenient for her. When I saw her cradling a baby, I realized she had taken maternity leave from ice skating. Helen planned to get back on the ice this fall and incorporate skating into her post-pregnancy weight loss plan.

We sat together on the aluminum bleachers watching the children perform corny group numbers and individual routines. I noticed no significant improvement among any of the young competitive skaters. Maybe a spin was a little better or a shaky camel existed where before there was none. Perhaps a kid could now do a small double toe loop in addition to the double salchow he previously owned, or maybe a new step sequence had been learned and shoehorned between a couple of jumps. Among the higher level athletes, I recognized subtle changes such as better extension, increased control over landings, and smoother spins. No one suddenly had an arsenal of triples after the summer months. However, the polish displayed by the advanced skaters, often in the same programs they used the previous season, could mean the difference between simply qualifying for the final round at Regionals and placing respectably.

Summer is traditionally a time of intense training for competitive figure skaters. Young people, unfettered by educational commitments, can spend their days on the ice and in off-ice exercises. It is a time to learn new skills and to perfect marginal ones. Elite skaters construct new programs, while developing athletes adapt their old routines to suit changing competitive objectives. For working adults, there may be no difference between summer skating and the regular season. Because their personal schedules are fairly constant, adults generally do not expect profound improvement during the summer months.

Watching Stephanie carefully, I dissected her program and mentally compared it to the version she performed in June. When I returned to Martinsville following my California trip, I was shamefully relieved to find that Stephanie still did not have an axel. In fact, the waltz-backspin and waltz-loop exercises had improved very little since our last meeting. Her program itself had not evolved significantly. Maybe an extra rotation occurred in the sit spin or she glided more assuredly out of her flip jump, but no new skills were choreographed into the mix. The young woman still looked fragile and confused on the ice. At odds with her music, her jumps failed to coincide with swells in the melody and the tempo changed before she could reciprocate.

I never considered Stephanie a poor skater. She was a good skater, considering she learned to skate as a college student and had only participated in the sport for two-and-half years. As an adult, she did not look cute and cuddly while making awkward mistakes against the magnifying white backdrop. A small child could get away with these errors. People would adore the child’s stage presence and applaud her effort, but Stephanie looked like a young woman who had started too late.

When Vijay took the ice, I expected something impressive, consistent with his adult night rehearsals. His axel attempts frightened everyone except him as he landed, usually backward on both feet, unable to find his precise axis of rotation. Alone on the ice, Vijay subjected his technique to my severe scrutiny. He over-rotated his first jump, the waltz. Opening a program with a waltz jump may be a mistake for someone working religiously on axels. In spite of Vijay’s inability to master the axel, his body instinctively wanted to rotate every time it took off forward. Fighting instinct, he seemed to decide mid-air not to rotate and landed on a wild edge, almost falling. Unfortunately, Vijay did not show the audience how beautiful a simple waltz jump can be and how well a computer programmer with a year of skating lessons can execute it. The incident seemed to shake Vijay’s confidence and he began to overcompensate by skating unnecessarily faster and harder.

Mannerisms that were indiscernible in a crowded rink seemed to glow with stunning obviousness as the powerful man raced around the empty arena. His unbridled strength lacked grace and beauty as his legs pumped and his head bounced along the horizon of the barrier. Vijay exploded from the ice, as a volcano spews a hot projectile, then landed roughly on his toe pick gouging the delicate surface and sending a violent spray of crystalline shards in all directions. His might and enthusiasm could not be contained by one small space, as his spins traveled determinedly from their point of origin, not because the position was weak but because he could not control his energy, anchoring it with finesse and dexterity to the surface.

But Vijay showed promise. He gave himself to that performance, sacrificing safety for potential. It was his first skate for an audience, and Vijay battled nervousness. Disheveled by an early mistake, he skated more vigorously than in practice which may have resulted in as many errors as skating cautiously. The wild landings were natural by-products of unusually big jumps. His body had to make instantaneous adjustments to accommodate their unexpected magnitude. Vijay’s spins did travel occasionally, but not as dramatically as the one that ran across the center of the rink at the conclusion of his program. After the show, he looked embarrassed and tried to shrug off the experience as beginner’s bad luck.

No one was more embarrassed than Randall Blanchard, not because Vijay or another student had skated poorly, but because Randall had attempted the double axel and fallen on his backside. I saw Randall complete several of the difficult jumps during the adult session, and fully expected him to either land the double axel or substitute one of his remarkable delayed singles. A seasoned performer and coach, Randall knew that skaters fall when performing their most challenging skills, especially under the stress of public performance. He probably worried that sliding across the rink on his buttocks did not speak well of him as a figure skater. The building literally moaned with disappointment and surprise when the man hit the ice. I respected his willingness to continue to push himself long after convention allowed him to just stand by the penalty box shouting instructions at his students. Many coaches do little more than put on skates at Randall’s age. Some prefer to teach in rubber soled shoes.

“Next time,” the coach shrugged.

Vijay echoed his agreement.

“Maybe you’ll give it a try some time, Kate,” Randall brightened.

“Oh, I’d like to see that,” Gwen teased with a sly grin.

Gwen had never seen me skate, nor had I told her much about what I could do on the ice. She may have assumed that I only skated recreationally around the perimeter for exercise. After watching Stephanie and Vijay, who both looked reasonably good in practice, perform such sloppy routines, I doubted I could impress anyone with my limited galaxy of skills.

“Some of the skaters weren’t bad,” Gwen mused, speaking of the advanced freestyle competitors, as we drove away from the arena.

“A few of the kids are good,” I agreed vacantly, still contemplating how pathetic I might have appeared under the same circumstances.

“I have to compliment your two friends. It took nerve to get out there and skate for an audience. I don’t think I could do that.”

I was becoming uncertain whether or not I could.

“You were right, Kate,” my roommate continued. “Some of them weren’t bad, but I doubt there’s an Olympic champion in the lot.”

Even if the laws of probability were not in Gwen’s favor, her observation was absolutely accurate. As a casual fan of figure skating, she realized none of the Martinsville skaters possessed that esoteric spark of budding greatness. Almost every skating school trains skaters who are good or even impressive on a local level, but when faced with serious competition, they either crumble to anxiety or lose their identity in a vast pool of talent.

A skater who looks exciting in practice is not necessarily the one who performs well for a judging panel or audience. An athlete who frightens recreational skaters into a corner can look slow and bewildered during a competitive program. Being able to center a spin in the middle of the arena on adult night is completely different than pulling the same spin under pressure. Landing a jump in a practice session is not the same as trying to land it in competition. Not only is there little tension during practice, the skater has numerous opportunities to set up the skill and make his attempt. If something is not quite right, he can abort and try another pass. In competition, it has to be flawless at that moment, every time. This requires an almost perfect success rate on practice ice or an uncanny ability to perform under pressure.

Vijay was the most gifted, capable adult skater I knew. His exhibition in the Summer Gala made him look ridiculous. For as long as I knew Vijay, he was never able to watch the videotape his wife made of that performance.

Chapter 38 posted 9/7/01
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