Page 11 of Thrown for a Loop
“Woeful answer, Coach Merritt,” she says, her expression dead serious. “A toe loop requires a precise entrance from a back outside edge, with the free leg initiating the takeoff. The rotation needs to be controlled, notflung, and you must land on the same back outside edge. Watch.”
Grasping the wall, the coach demonstrates a proper takeoff technique. And every pair of eyes in the room is trained on her skates, with some of the younger kids wiggling to the front so they can see.
Chase pays attention, too. He knows he’s not off the hot seat, and he’s too competitive to let Sister Walsh make him look like a fool.
He’s always thought of figure skating as joyful, though, at least compared to hockey’s violence. But there’s surprisingly little joy in this room.
“That’s what I want to see,” Sister Walsh finishes. “A deep plant of the nondominant foot, and then a takeoff that leads with theheel. Coach Merritt will show us an improvement now.”
He almost snorts.Coach Merritt thinks you need to get laid.But he gamely moves to center ice. He skates backward for a moment and then holds his breath as he plants his left toe pick behind him.
Lucky for him, hockey requires precision, too, and he’s had a lifetime of practicing maneuvers on ice. Leading with his right heel, he jumps neatly, managing a full rotation. And as his mother always reminded him to do, he keeps his knee soft, his chest up, and his arms spread as he lands cleanly.
There’s a wild cheer from the audience of tweens and teens. Joon-ho does a wolf whistle.
The coach’s face remains grumpy. “Much improved,” she says when the noise quiets. “Now tell us which jump combinations work off a toe loop.”
Uh-oh.“Well, lots. Flips and lutzes, probably. But I never learned any toe loop combinations. Only the salchow combos.”
“I have to wonder why not,” Sister Walsh says primly. “Linking two toe loops together would have improved your technique.”
“Because she died, ma’am,” he says. “My mom. On the Fourth of July when I was twelve.”
There’s a very awkward silence, which he finds absolutely satisfying. “Oh,” she says eventually, as if this would never have occurred to her.
He doesn’t blame her, though. At age twelve, the possibility hadn’t occurred to him, either. On that rainy summer evening—after the fireworks display—she left the house to visit a friend, andshe never made it home. Her old bald tires hydroplaned on a curve, and she hit a tree.
“She died instantly,” a police officer told him that night, as if that would be a comfort. He still dreams about that night sometimes—a fist pounding on the door, and the blue and red cruiser lights flashing from the driveway when his father pulled it open.
“She didn’t suffer,” the officer said. But Chase has suffered every day since. He still hates the Fourth of July. And he never put on his figure skates again.
When he glances toward Zoe again, he forgets to be sad, though. Because she’s watching him with a Mona Lisa smile on her pretty mouth and fascination in her big brown eyes.
Chapter 5
Present Day
What the hell are you doing here, Zoe?
Chase is waiting for an answer. But the question feels much more complicated than it did a couple of hours ago.
I gulp. “I’m trained as a skating coach, and I needed a job.”
He squints at me, as if trying to decide if I’m telling the truth.
“I don’t need another coach. I’ve got all the help I need,” he says curtly. “Now excuse me.”
Before I can even respond, he steps around me in the same smooth way in which a good player can always evade his opponent. He’s halfway down the escalator before I remember to close my mouth.
Defeated, I turn around. The fourth floor has emptied almost completely. Only Darcy is visible, collapsed in her office chair, her pocketbook on her lap.
I take a deep, centering breath and head back into the office suite, jerking a thumb toward Nolan Sharp’s office. “Is he…?”
“Gone,” she says with a tired smile. “Now let’s get our drink on. I picked the most amazing place. Or at least I tried to. With the way this day is going, who can say?”
It’s hard to argue that point. “Let’s go.”
After a ten-block walk to the Meatpacking District, we approach the hippest bar I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. The name—Elixir—is carved above the front door, which opens to reveal a dark and moody interior.
