After a few warm-up laps around Hansie’s little chalet and a couple of L-spins and laybacks, I hooked the first camel of the session. Exiting the spin, I realized Alex was standing beside me evaluating my performance in much the same way my previous coach, Willa Blanchard, had. Alex bridged the gap between Zach’s cohort and the rest of the Sunday morning regulars. He was friendly to everyone and entered the building with a cheerfully boisterous “good morning” to all. Alex had the best intentions of being helpful and supportive of his contemporaries, yet he handed out technical advice a little too freely for my taste.

“You aren’t straightening your back soon enough,” Alex commented.

I had slipped off my toe pick, failing to anchor my camel. This mistake cost a rotation or two before I could find center and attain my position. Considering it was my first camel of the session and I had only been on the ice for fifteen minutes, it was a nice save. My camels would improve as the session progressed and my muscles acclimated to skating movements. I skated about three times per week: Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings for a total of six hours, a respectable allotment for an adult who also worked fulltime. However, it was insufficient to maintain a perpetual state of readiness. I needed at least a half-hour to dust off my skills and get my body into skating mode, and that assumed fifteen minutes of stretching at Hansie’s tacky soda shop counter before lacing my boots.

I did not need Alex to point out my error. I knew exactly why I failed to lock my position fast enough. The slip off my pick was not a habitual fault, I did not repeat the same mistake on every camel spin. The blunder occurred solely because I was not sufficiently warmed up and did not have my blades under me yet.

“That was only my first camel today. Of course it wasn’t perfect,” I replied trying to sound light-hearted when in truth I was annoyed.

Alex ignored my subtle hint and continued to advise. He went so far as to demonstrate. Sadly, his camel was a poorer example of the species that my sloppy little misstep. He exited the maneuver slightly embarrassed and skated away from me with a chipper: “Keep skating, Kate!”

The man crossed the rink to speak with Zach who had been building his jumps toward the axel and double salchow. Like a couple of teenage boys, they took turns jumping and watching each other: posturing, commenting and upping the ante. In many ways, Alex reminded me of Vijay. He possessed much of Vijay’s daredevil courage, but only a fraction of his talent. Alex gladly threw his body into the air, but preferred not to fall. He broke out of moves, allowing himself to land squarely on two feet rather than trusting the skill an instant longer. But Alex did have his strengths, the most notable of which was the flip jump. His flips were huge and delayed. Alex burst into the air and hung suspended and open for a vibration before contracting into a single turn. He tried doubles to the chagrin of his training partner. Zach could not begin to attempt a double flip. Alex’s most remarkable ability descended naturally from the vault of the flip. Alex could do a Russian split jump, an aerial pose in which skater appears to sit with his legs outstretched in a wide “V”. Most adults do simple little splits, parting the legs a modest ninety degrees in an upright leap. A genuinely good split jump requires great height and power, something many adults find difficult to achieve.

I had moved on to sit spins by the time Alex approached me again.

“That’s a great sit spin!” he declared before I even rose from the position. “One of the best I’ve seen,” Alex continued. “I wish I could get down that far.”

Actually, depth was not Alex’s problem. His spin traveled across the rink as a gyroscope traverses a smooth tabletop. From what I could ascertain, Alex’s predicament was rooted as much in his entrance to the skill as the position of his free leg while rotating. In the best sit spins, the free leg turns out, but Alex’s toe pointed straight upward often resulting in a startling catch of his blade heel in the ice. Such an unfortunate incident abruptly interrupted his spin causing him to drop to his backside, still spinning on the seat of his sweatpants.

I would not have offered unsolicited advice to Alex, but he specifically requested my input on his sit spin. I did not know how to correct the approach that caused his spin to wander before he could sit down, but the deficiency in his foot position was probably obvious to the least experienced skater at Hansie’s. Merely pointing his toe outward benefited Alex’s performance significantly.

After the session concluded, general freestyle began with a group of youngsters anxiously taking the ice in a display of prowess to each other and their watchful parents. Alex sat down opposite me in Georgeanne’s usual spot by the poodle lockers.

“Thanks for the sit spin tip. That helped a lot.”

I smiled warmly at Alex, as visions of coaching danced in my head. Alex could be a pest with his well-meaning suggestions, but he was also one of the people who made me feel welcome at Hansie’s. “I’m glad, Alex.”

We silently rubbed towels over our blades for a few introspective moments.

“So, Kate, would you like to grab lunch?”

Alex’s casual suggestion caught me by surprise. I could not be certain if he meant to invite me for a date or if we would just be getting something to eat as friends, Dutch treat, after skating. Since the invitation came in a nebulous wrapper, I accepted it. I longed to sit and talk with someone other than my coworkers. A polite hello to a neighbor in the lobby of my apartment building did not constitute a satisfying relationship, and I liked Alex well enough to consider him a friend.

That first lunch was definitely a meeting of friends. We each ordered our own sandwich at a deli counter and sat together at a small table to eat and sip soda out of cans. I enjoyed chatting with Alex, mostly about skating. He filled the space Elise Poole had occupied during my short stint in Boston; however, I was not jealous of Alex, which made our interaction more comfortable.

Alex had learned to figure skate as a teen when he did not grow big enough for football, basketball or hockey. He had been an athletic child and was intrigued by male skaters such as Scott Hamilton, Robin Cousins, and Jozef Sabovcik. Alex may not have been big, but he was popular in school and imposing enough to stave off the teasing a young man might receive from classmates for donning a pair of figure skates. If Alex wanted to skate, then figure skating must be cool. He occasionally dazzled his friends by asking them to meet him at a public session during which Alex landed axels, double salchows, and caught air in Russian splits. Even cynical buddies who thought skating was for girls (and males of questionable sexual orientation) were impressed by Alex’s display of muscle and power. Unable to propel themselves around the rink without terrifying backward falls, they also realized skating’s great difficulty and appreciated Alex’s macho brand of ice acrobatics.

Alex started skating early enough to become good, but too late to be competitive. He gave up skating to attend college but returned to the sport in his late twenties. Five years later, Alex had discovered fear. Although he leapt high into the air as a result of physical fitness and muscle memory, he tended to lose his courage mid-flight, aborting otherwise reasonable attempts at multi-revolution jumps. Alex could not afford to sustain an injury that would interfere with his profession. As an independent sales representative for several manufacturers of power tools, Alex had to travel a rather large territory across Connecticut and Rhode Island demonstrating products, meeting with store management and taking orders for new stock. Doing his job with a broken leg or arm would be nearly impossible.

My new friend seemed to spend a lot of time talking about what he used to be able to do on the ice, rather than his current abilities or goals. I might have thought his retrospective bragging was aimed at impressing me, but upon further contemplation, Alex was more likely trying to convince himself that he could do those things again. Psychological factors curtailed Alex’s jumping ability, not an innate lack of potential. If he genuinely performed those stunts as a high school student, he might relearn most of them. In his mid-thirties, Alex kept his body in good condition. Although older, his physique had probably not changed dramatically since he quit skating at eighteen years old.

Admittedly, I found Alex physically attractive and was somewhat disappointed when he did not appear at the adult session the next Sunday morning. ‘All the better’, I eventually thought in an attempt to purge the inkling of magnetism from my system. I was not in a hurry to start having romantic feelings for someone I picked up in an ice rink. Alex returned the next week and we had lunch again. If Alex were female, this would have been the beginning of a terrific friendship, but opposite genders tend to be drawn together by sexual tension. Alex obviously wanted more than a skating buddy. He invited me to dinner the following Friday night. I had not had a date in months, not since Howard’s infamous surprise visit, and I had not been officially committed to a boyfriend for about four weeks. I graciously accepted his invitation.

The week passed slowly as I preformed the routine and mindless tasks of a consumer scientist, most of which involved sitting in endless meetings trying not to fall asleep. I had learned the art of glancing at my watch or the wall clock on the sly, pretending to fish in my pocket for a tissue or fumble with my notes. But Friday evening promised a reward for my patience. Having a date made me feel feminine and special. I had begun to meet people and to establish an identity in my new home. A man I had met ice skating had asked me to join him for dinner. I did not especially care if he had serious intentions, I just wanted to enjoy these emotions.

After work I fussed over myself, curling my hair, applying make up, and dressing in the clothes I had selected and pressed days earlier. When Alex buzzed my apartment, I was bubbling over with a combination of excitement and giddiness. A first date is a triumph of hope over experience, epitomizing the human need to pair and relate to another person on an intimate level in spite of past failures. Of course, I was too young to give up the search and resign myself to solitude. I felt like a divorced woman who had begun to date again. This was rather pathetic considering my long distance relationship with Howard totaled approximately six weeks of personal contact. Had Howard not separated me from the world of eligible singles, the rigors of my doctoral work would have done the job in his place. In any case, I was ready to begin living again.

Chapter 58 posted 9/4/02
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