Page 44 of Playing to Win

“You can go through and take a look if you like, but that rink should be empty.”

“I will take a look, if that’s okay?”

She shrugs. “Be my guest.”

I follow signs for the ice rink, still hunched over, still tiptoeing, still hooded. When I get to the rink, the rental shed is empty, except for one worker playing on his phone behind the desk. The rink is dimly lit by an overhead light but it is 100 percent, truly, really, empty.

I take out my phone and dial Kerry. “He isn’t here. I think he played me. I don’t think he was ever coming, Kerry.”

“Conniving, deceitful… Well, you’re going to have to think of something else, Izzy. Posting about him ordering eggs and how your training is going just isn’t going to draw enough interest.”

I hate this. I hate that my book isn’t enough to sell itself. But I have something to prove. I must remember the bigger picture. “I’ll think of something.”

I walk to the edge of the rink and lean on the wood wall around the perimeter. The chill from the ice hits me and takes me back to memories of my childhood. Running my hand along the rim of the rink, I make my way to the gate and bend down, sliding my fingertips along the cold ice.

Gosh, I remember how it felt. I remember how the cold would seep through my clothes when I fell. How it would chill me to the bone at first, until I got moving.

“Excuse me. Can I help you?”

I walk over to the guy behind the rental desk. “No, thank you. I thought a friend was supposed to be here right now but I must have been mistaken.”

“The rink is free if you want to skate?”

I put my hands in my pockets and look back at the ice, remembering that last fall. The fall that gave my mother leverage to tell me to quit figure skating. God, I loved it before that fall. One broken arm was all it took for my mother to make the seed of fear grow. Just another thing I loved that she stopped me from doing. All because she wanted me to focus on more “highbrow” life options.

Could I do it? Could I still skate?

I look back at the guy and past him to the rows of rental skates. “Do you have any figure skates?”

“Sure do.”

I give him my size and the next thing I know, my feet are strapped into white skates and I’m standing on the threshold of the gate and the ice.

I used to be an amazing skater. I had so many friends in my classes. When things got serious, when the competitions started to take up time that my mother thought I should spend doing spelling and math, she started talking to me about how I could hurt myself. She planted the seed and it grew, until the fear made it happen.

The overhead sound system breaks into my trance. “Defying Gravity” from the musical Wicked begins. I take a breath and step onto the ice. I let the gentle momentum nudge me forward, until I can no longer hang on to the side.

Eventually, I nudge myself forward with one foot and glide slowly with the other. Picking up pace, I’m soon halfway around the enormous rink, then back to where I started.

I grip the safety of the gate and start to laugh. I made it. I push off again and do another lap, then another, and another. Each time I get quicker.

On my fifth or sixth lap, I dare to turn and skate backward. I pick up speed and start flying around the rink. The wind of my motion blows against me. I hold out my arms and close my eyes, letting my feet guide me around the slick ice.

My skin feels flushed. My lungs are working hard. My pulse is racing, as I go and go and just keep bloody going. I feel light, weightless, free, and defiant all at once.

Maybe I used to be scared but now I feel the exhilaration that follows when fear is conquered. Fear can lead to freedom.

I have no idea how long I skate for before I start to do tricks. First, I skate on one leg, then I kick up into a flying camel, amazed I can still do it. On my final lap, I build my speed until I can’t go any faster, like I’ve reached the peak of a mountain I’ve been climbing. I bring myself to the middle of the ice and start to spin on the spot, a basic one-foot move. In a split-second, crazy decision, I bring one leg behind me, bending it toward my head, and take hold of my skate. I’m stiffer than I used to be but I’m doing it. I’m doing the bloody haircutter spin! I turn and turn, elated and energized, until my momentum stops and I stop with it.

I lower my leg and bend over my knees to catch my breath, laughing with pure joy, the kind I don’t often feel, the kind that should be cherished.

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