Loe raamatut: «One Wish»

One

Grace Dillon’s flower shop was very quiet on the day after Christmas. She had no orders to fill, no deliveries to make, and she’d be very surprised if her shop phone rang at all. Most people were trying to recover from Christmas; many families were away for the holidays or had company to entertain.

Grace drove to North Bend to grab an early skate before the rink got busy. Figure skating classes were suspended over Christmas break and people, mostly kids who wanted to try out their new skates, would dominate the rink later in the day. Grace loved these secret early morning skates. She had a deal with Jake Galbraith, the rink owner. She could call him and if it was convenient, he’d let her skate for an hour or two while they were getting ready to open. He didn’t want to charge her, but she paid him fifty dollars an hour anyway. It was a point of pride.

He smiled at her when she came in and told her to have a good skate.

She stretched and then stepped onto the deserted ice, closely following the Zamboni ice resurfacer that had just finished. She warmed up with forward and backward crossovers, backward half swizzle pumps, figure eights, scratch spins and axels. She noticed Jake was watching, leaning his forearms on the boards. She performed a forward spiral and a leaning tower spiral. She executed a perfect sit spin next. She circled the ice a few times, adding a jump here and there. She had been famous for her straddle split jump, touching her toes with her fingers. When she looked for Jake again, he had disappeared.

Suddenly, the music started, filling the rink with the strains of “Rhapsody in Blue.” She glided into an arabesque, arms stretched, fingers pointed, wrists flexible. She saw that Jake had returned, was watching her every move. She went for a double axel and fell on her ass. She got up, laughing to herself. She glided around the rink a few times, tried the jump again and landed it, but it wasn’t pretty. The music changed to another Gershwin tune. She’d practiced to this music as a little girl; it was familiar and comfortable. Her earliest memories of skating always filled her with nostalgia and comfort. That was before the competition got really fierce.

She’d been on the ice for an hour when the music segued into Alicia Keys’s “Girl on Fire” and it lit her up. Her signature music. She was on fire! She skated like she was competing. When she was fifteen, stronger but lighter and more flexible, she could really catch the air. She noticed other people watching—a guy leaned on his broom and gazed at her, a couple of teenage girls who worked in the skate rental shop had stopped working to watch, the Zamboni driver leaned a shoulder against the rink glass, hands in his pockets. Two hours slid by effortlessly. She slowed and got off the ice when she heard the sounds of people arriving to skate.

“Beautiful,” Jake said. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

“Holidays are busy at the shop,” she said. She tried to get to the rink on Sunday mornings, but the past month had been frantic—wreaths, centerpieces, two weddings and increased day-to-day traffic in the shop.

“You should spend more time on the ice. I have a long list of people looking for a good coach.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I’d be a good coach. I don’t have time for one thing. And I’d never go back on the circuit, even with students. I left that world.”

“I thought the day would come that you might be interested in going back, maybe not in competition for yourself, but coaching. I think on name alone you’d make a fortune.”

“I left the name behind, too,” she reminded him with a smile. “We have an agreement.”

“I haven’t said a word. People ask me, who is that girl, but I just say you’re training and asked not to be identified. Some of them guess and would show up to watch you if they had any idea when you would be skating. The ice misses you. Watching you skate is like seeing music.”

“Nice try. I don’t train anymore. I spent as much time on my ass as on my blades. I look like crap.”

“Your worst is better than a lot of bests I see. I’ve missed you. Maybe you’ll have more time in the new year.”

“We’ll see.”

She took off her skates and pulled on her Ugg boots. Sometimes she questioned her decision to leave it all behind, because being on the ice made her so happy. Then she’d remind herself that while a couple of hours felt great, the difficult routine of a competitive figure skater was grueling, exhausting. As a coach she’d never be able to push young girls the way she’d been pushed.

She pulled out a hundred dollars in cash for her two hours alone on the rink. Jake had told her he put the money in a special scholarship fund for young wannabe Olympians who couldn’t otherwise afford lessons. She told him however he wanted to spend it was fine with her. As long as he didn’t sell her out.

As she left the rink she reflected that her life in Thunder Point was so much more peaceful than it had been in competition and her freedom was hard-won. She had friends now, even if they didn’t know who she had been before. At least no one thought of her as tragic or complicated or as one of the saddest yet most triumphant stories told on the competitive skating circuit. No one was threatened by her, hated her, feared or resented her. No one called her a rich bitch or a dirty liar.

Of course, the weight of her secrets sometimes wore on her. Jake Galbraith had recognized her at once. All she had to do was ask the cost of a private rink for a couple of hours and he knew immediately who she was. She hadn’t confided in anyone in Thunder Point.

When she got into the van she saw that she had a message on her cell phone. She listened to it before leaving the parking lot. It was Mikhail, her old coach. He still kept tabs on her. They stayed in touch. Often, they left each other a series of brief messages because he could be anywhere in the world. “I am wishing you happy Christmas,” the Russian said. “I think I am day late. If so, you will understand.”

Grace waited until she was back in her tiny apartment above the flower shop before returning the call. “I thought you had forgotten all about me,” she said to his voice mail. “It was a happy Christmas. I was a maid of honor for my friend Iris yesterday—that’s how I spent the day. I’ve never been in a wedding before. It was small and intimate, a beautiful experience. And this morning I went skating. I fell three times.” Then she mimicked his accent. “What can I say? I am clumsy oaf with no training.” Then she laughed, wished him the best New Year ever and said goodbye.

Grace’s beloved father and coach died rather suddenly when she was only fourteen and he was sixty. Her mother, once a competitive and professional figure skater, responded by hiring an even better coach, a very short Russian of huge reputation who could take Grace all the way. There was no time for grieving, they had work to do. Mikhail Petrov was a tough, brilliant coach and they were together for nine years. He had been very unhappy with her decision to leave competition and for a couple of years he pestered her to return to the sport. “Before you forget everything I taught you!”

Her mother, Winnie Dillon Banks, who had herself been a teenage skating wonder, was worse than devastated. She was furious. “If you quit now, after all I’ve invested in you, you are dead to me.” After the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, Grace walked away from everything and everyone. All she’d ever wished for was to be like everyone else. To not be constantly judged every time she took a breath. She wanted to be normal.

* * *

In the afternoon, when Grace was just about to ruin her dinner with a big bowl of popcorn while looking through various online floral arrangements on her laptop, there was a light tapping at her back door. She pulled the curtain to peek out through the window in the door and was shocked to see Iris. She opened the door.

“Don’t newlyweds lay around in bed for several days after the wedding? Doing it until their parts give out?” Grace asked, only half teasing.

“Maybe when one of the newlyweds isn’t the town deputy,” Iris said. “We did eat breakfast in bed and Seth didn’t go to the office until about one. I cleaned the house, thawed something for dinner and...” She paused. “I called Troy to tell him.”

“You didn’t tell him before, huh?” Grace asked.

Iris shook her head.

Troy Headly, high school history teacher and the fantasy of all the high school girls, had had a very big crush on Iris. They had dated for only a few months last spring when Iris told him theirs would have to be a friendship-only relationship. She was the high school guidance counselor and before getting involved with a teacher in the same school, she had to be powerfully sure. And she hadn’t been. But Troy had pursued Iris right up until Seth was in the picture. Even then, it was pretty obvious he still had a serious thing for Iris and wouldn’t mind if Seth fell off the face of the earth.

“How’d he take it?” Grace asked.

“Like a man,” Iris said. “Is it too early for wine?”

“Certainly not!” Grace pulled a bottle of Napa Cellars sauvignon blanc from her little refrigerator and opened it. “Was it awful?”

“Nah, it was fine. Good, really. He was surprised we got married so soon, but then so was everyone. So were we, when you get down to it. He congratulated me and said he hoped I’d be very happy—all the right things. Then I asked him if he was going to be all right and he laughed, but he didn’t sound amused. He said he was surprised to find himself disappointed an old girlfriend got married. It’s hard for me to think of myself as his girlfriend—it was never that serious. Even Troy admits he’s not looking for a wife! Not now. He likes the single life.”

Grace poured the wine and put the bowl of popcorn between them. “A gourmet treat,” she said. “Or maybe dinner. So, is it different? Being married?”

“Not yet,” Iris said. “Ask me again when we merge bank accounts. We’ve been solitary, single adults for a long time. Right now we’re each taking care of our own obligations until Seth either rents or sells his town house. There’s plenty of closet space at my house, but we could have issues when his manly furniture looks for space among my decidedly female things.”

“You’re staying in your house,” Grace said in relief.

“It’s perfect for us. I like to ride my bike to work in good weather.”

“I love your house,” Grace said. “Aren’t you ever going to have a honeymoon?”

“Eventually. We’re looking for deals online right now. We’re going to sneak away in a couple of months, hopefully somewhere warm and sunny, when Seth can get away from the town and I can escape my office at school. But what about you, Grace? Why aren’t you seeing anyone?”

Grace burst out laughing. It wasn’t the first time Iris had asked. “First of all, who? Second, when?”

“Don’t you ever meet a groomsman at any of the weddings you do?”

“Never. They all come long after I’m gone and I’m not invited to the receptions. Besides, isn’t that the kiss of death? Hooking up with someone in the wedding party at the reception? No thanks.”

“We have to get you out more,” Iris said.

“Right,” Grace said doubtfully. “Maybe I could help you chaperone the prom and meet some very promising eighteen-year-old? Nah, I don’t think so.”

“We’ll go clubbing or something.”

“Clubbing?” Grace sputtered. “In Thunder Point?”

“Okay, we’ll go up to North Bend. And graze.”

“I’m sure Seth would appreciate that!”

“Well, I won’t take any phone numbers or bring anyone home...”

“Iris,” Grace said, lifting her wineglass. “Let it go. I’ll handle my own love life. In my own time, in my own way.”

“There’s always Troy,” Iris said, sipping.

“Nah, we’re pals. There’s no chemistry.” On his side. “We had a beer together once, followed by grilled cheese and tomato soup. It was swell. Besides, I’m not interested in your sloppy seconds. I read, you know. Rebound boyfriends are not a good idea.”

“You can’t just work all the time,” Iris said.

“No?” Grace asked. “I thought you could.”

* * *

Growing up, everyone thought Grace was a spoiled rich kid, but she had been raised on hard, committed, constant work. If she took a day off she felt ashamed. Her program would suffer. But her work hadn’t been the kind average people understood.

Her full name was Isabella Grace Dillon Banks. She’d given up most of her name and went by Grace Dillon because Izzy Banks was very well-known in some circles. Probably not among her Thunder Point acquaintances, but for those who watched champion figure skating competitions around the world, Izzy Banks was known, both for her skating and for her involvement in dramas and scandals that rocked the skating world.

Grace’s mother, Winnie Dillon Banks, was a wealthy heiress whose grandfather made money in tobacco. She was a well-known skater in her time, though never as successful as Grace in competitions. Winnie’s best show as a competitive skater had been second place in Nationals. But she saw in her daughter her chance to win and became the ultimate stage mother.

Grace had a privileged, isolated childhood where skating was everything.

Grace was born to an ice-skating icon and her coach. Winnie Dillon began a love affair with her coach, Leon Banks, when she was twenty-two. Some cynical rivals and professional observers suggested she succumbed to marriage and motherhood when all signals pointed to her competing days being over.

Winnie and Leon had their daughter on skates before she was four years old. They pushed and trained her hard. In those early days, when skating was simply fun, when she yearned to be the best, Grace was happy. She begged to skate and hated her time off. She’d have been on the ice eight hours a day if her father had let her. She was coddled and loved and indulged. She had a few friends, other little girls who were training and taking lessons and part of a skating club, some of them Leon’s other students.

Grace loved her parents very much and didn’t quite understand until after her father’s death that theirs had been a difficult marriage. Her father was much older than Winnie and more focused on his students than his wife. Her mother was a demanding diva and socialite; she dragged a reluctant Leon to charity events and parties. Her parents disagreed on almost everything, especially Grace’s training and education. Grace never went to traditional school, public or private—she had tutors. Leon thought this might be a mistake, feared she wouldn’t be a well-adjusted child.

At the age of twelve the level of competition turned serious. But Grace was winning everything in her age category and was quickly viewed as unbeatable. She trained on the ice several hours a day, took gymnastics, ballet and practiced yoga. The family moved from Atlanta to Chicago and finally settled in San Francisco, following the best opportunities for her training and education, as well as for Leon’s coaching prospects. Her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when Grace was fourteen. Winnie sought a tougher, stronger, more famous coach the moment Leon fell ill. It was almost as if she’d chosen Mikhail before he was needed. Then Leon passed away rather swiftly, within months of his diagnosis.

Winnie and Grace took a few days off, then it was back on the ice. “Your success meant everything to your father,” Winnie kept saying. It was true that Leon wanted the best for his daughter, but it was Winnie to whom winning was everything. No matter the personal cost. And skating became less for fun and more for life. Winnie blew a gasket whenever Grace didn’t take first place.

Grace left the world of competitive skating when she was twenty-three, right after the Vancouver Games. She went to Portland to stay with a sweet older couple who had once worked for her mother. Ross and Mamie Jenkins had known Grace since birth. They’d been part of Winnie’s staff, Ross a driver and Mamie in housekeeping. They had retired to open a flower shop a few years before Grace quit the circuit. When she needed them, they took her in.

She collapsed. She was exhausted and depressed and afraid of the future. Mamie pampered her and gave her time; it seemed as if she’d slept for a month. Then one evening Mamie spoke up. “If you lay around one more day, you won’t be able to walk. You have to do something—it’s your choice. Get a job, go to school, something.”

Grace didn’t want to be around people and she didn’t believe she had any marketable skills. So she started helping in the flower shop, in the back, learning to make beautiful bouquets and arrangements. Portland was a funky, interesting, welcoming city—not too big, not too small, not uppity or flashy. Little by little, Grace came out of the back room to deal with customers, sometimes delivering flowers, even helping Mamie and Ross with weddings. No one made a fuss over her or asked her a lot of questions.

Every time a major skating competition was covered by the mainstream or sports networks, Grace was glued to the TV, watching every move. And invariably there’d be some short vignette about Izzy Banks, the girl who had it all and threw it all away. “Izzy Banks, the brat on the ice, the fiercest competitor in figure skating, obviously couldn’t take the pressure,” one sportscaster noted of her.

Brat. Boy, that stung.

Her mother would usually get in touch, proving that Winnie couldn’t ignore the competitions any more than Grace could. She’d pressure Grace to return home, return to skating, and the few conversations they had would end in a fight and they wouldn’t speak again for months.

A year before the 2014 Winter Games in Russia, when the dramatic story of her life might be publicly examined yet again, Grace went in search of a new place to settle and tackle life on her own. A little money had been set aside for her by her father and she found Pretty Petals, the shop Iris’s mother had owned. She’d been in Thunder Point almost a year when the winter competition took place. When Grace couldn’t watch it, she’d record it. There had been the usual newsy dish about the more stunning events of the life of Izzy Banks, but no one seemed to recognize Grace. There were, thankfully, more interesting sports scandals that year. And Thunder Point was more a football than figure skating town.

All she’d ever wanted was a life she could control. A life that didn’t include backbreaking labor, cruel rivals, endless travel across too many time zones, the occasional crazed fan or terrible loneliness. She wanted to know what it felt like to have real friends, not a staff of coaches, therapists, a security detail and competitors. She’d never had a boyfriend.

She did, however, have more than one gold medal. She’d won every significant competition in the world.

* * *

It drizzled in the days following Christmas, typical Oregon Coast weather in winter. Grace’s only part-time employee, a local married woman with a child in elementary school, came into the shop to resign. The woman’s life had grown too busy and complex, she complained. Grace knew it was going to create a challenge, even though all the woman had done was manage the front of the store. Grace was going to be back to doing it all, just as she had when the shop was new. She’d had the doorbell installed so she could lock the front door and go upstairs. The doorbell would buzz in her loft. And she could always close the shop to make deliveries when necessary. She’d ask around for a delivery boy.

Business was typically down the week following a holiday and the days were much shorter so Grace closed the shop at four one afternoon and drove out to Cooper’s for a beer. She wasn’t surprised to see Troy was back from visiting his family in Morro Bay. She was also not surprised that there was no one around the bar. People didn’t hang out on the beach in cold, wet weather like this. But she had to admit surprise at seeing a big pile of books and papers beside his laptop on the bar next to his cup of coffee. She jumped on a bar stool. “Welcome home. Did you have fun with the family?” she asked.

“More or less. My sister has three little undisciplined kids and I slept on her couch. It was brutal. What can I get you?”

“Beer?”

“Was that a question or order?” he asked.

“Beer, please.” She glanced at the books. “Homework?”

“Lesson plans,” he said, closing everything up, stacking it all and pushing it to one side. “We’re caught up in a couple of my classes so we’re going to have some fun. I’m going to offer them a chance for extra credit if they research the history of something that interests them—like a rock band or in-line skating or maybe a sport like kayaking. I’m writing up a few examples.”

“That almost sounds fun, but not enough fun. Did you get in any skiing over the holiday?”

“Nope,” he said, drawing her a draft. “We played some golf, but the weather wasn’t great. I might make a drive up to Mount Hood before I get back to work, maybe for a day. If I had more time and money I’d check out Tahoe. So, you were the maid of honor.”

“I was. Kind of short notice.”

“I heard it wasn’t exactly planned in advance...”

“That’s how I heard it, too. Iris said they decided and just did it. They got a marriage license, called a judge Seth knew, told Seth’s family and got it done. I didn’t even have time to order special flowers.” She sipped a little of her beer. “How are you handling it?”

“Fine,” he said.

“Good. That’s good.”

He leaned both hands on the bar. “I went out with my little brother and got roaring drunk. Then I bought a Jeep I can’t really afford.”

“Oh,” she said. “Gosh, I hope you don’t get your heart broken too often or you’ll go broke.”

“I’d wanted that Jeep anyway. And I deserved a good drunk.”

“Is that what caused...” She reached out toward the remnants of what looked like a healing bruise on his forehead.

He ducked away from her fingers. “I forgot I was sleeping on the couch, fell off and hit the coffee table.”

She couldn’t help herself. She laughed.

“And my heart isn’t broken,” he insisted. “Just a little coronary bruise. Gimme a week or two and it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

Bullshit, she thought. He looked completely miserable. “You’re very resilient,” she said. She sipped her beer.

“I guess we’ve all been there,” he said.

“Where?”

“Heartbreak hotel.”

“Hmm. Well, I don’t think I have. I haven’t had my heart broken. Not by a guy, at least.”

Troy appeared to be momentarily frozen. “There’s no polite way to ask this, but has your heart been broken by a girl?”

She giggled. There were times, and this was one of them, that it would feel so good to dump the story on someone, explain how a heart can be broken by ruthless competitors or the media. “No, Troy. I’m perfectly straight. I’m into guys, I just haven’t been seriously involved. I guess it’s not in my nature to be tied down to one guy.”

“No boyfriend, then?”

“Are you fishing?” she asked. “I’ve had some terrific boyfriends, just nothing serious. No steadies, engagements or live-ins.”

“Why haven’t I ever met any of them?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I guess you weren’t around at the same time one of them was. I have a date later tonight, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh? What’s he like?” Troy asked.

“He’s kind of like a medieval knight, but has a gentle, sophisticated side. Big and brawny, very physical but disciplined. He’s also clever. Wise.”

“Fantastic,” Troy said. “Where are you going?”

“We’re staying in, actually. We might watch a movie.”

Troy lifted an eyebrow. “If I popped over unannounced, would I meet him?”

“Very probably. He’s a little possessive but I completely ignore that. Like I said, I’m not one to get serious. Let’s talk about your girlfriends.”

“I don’t kiss and tell.”

She straightened. “Humph. Yet you expect me to!”

“I think you were bragging and maybe stretching the truth. You’re a little weird, Grace. The last time we hung out was Halloween and you were a witch, complete with missing teeth. And you put a hex on me.”

She smiled, remembering. She’d told him she was going to shrink his thing. “How’d that work out?”

“Turns out you’re not much of a witch. So when you say your heart was never broken...”

“Come on, I’ve had my share of disappointments like everyone else, just haven’t had a romance end badly. We can moan about our various letdowns another time, when we’re both drowning our sorrows and feeling sorry for ourselves. Let’s not do that now, okay? I have a feeling if you get started...”

“Did Iris ask you to check on me?”

“Absolutely not. She said you were very grown-up and wished her every happiness. And I must say, buying a Jeep you can’t afford is definitely mature.” Then she grinned at him.

“It’s a great Jeep. Maybe I’ll take you off-road in it sometime. Besides, I only have one person to worry about so if I have trouble paying the bills, it’s not like I’m taking milk out of the baby’s mouth.”

She leaned her head on her hand. “You’re all about fun, aren’t you, Troy?”

“I work two jobs, Grace. I like to think of myself as active.”

“And your favorite activity is?”

“It’s a toss-up between diving and white-water rafting or kayaking. One of the things that brought me to Oregon is the great river trips. I was torn between Colorado, Idaho and Oregon. Oregon had the job. In a town on the water.”

“And you’re a teacher for the time off?”

“And the high pay,” he said, smiling.

“Iris says you’re the most dedicated teacher she knows,” Grace said.

“Iris should raise her standards.”

“Okay, so you’re still a little pissy.”

“I said I’d need a week or two,” he reminded her. He lifted his coffee cup to his lips. “What’s your favorite thing to do with time off?”

She didn’t answer right away. “I need more balance in my life,” she finally said. “That shop gets too much of my time. But it’s a good workout.”

“Flower arranging?” he asked doubtfully.

“I beg your pardon! I stand all day, haul heavy buckets full of fresh-cut flowers in water, deliver hundreds of pounds of arrangements to weddings and other events, get in and out of the back of that van all day, lift heavy pots and props and that’s before I have to clean up and do the books. It’s not for sissies.”

“And for fun?”

“I like to dance,” she said. “I don’t very often, but it’s fun.”

“I bet you were a cheerleader,” he said.

“I was never a cheerleader. I think I could’ve been. But I wasn’t interested.”

“You are the first girl in the history of the world, then.”

“I’m sure I’m not,” she said. “When I was that age I was into ballet, sort of. They are not the same moves at all. That, like flower arranging, takes strength. Plus, I have a bike.”

He raised his eyebrows. “A Harley?”

“A mountain bike. Retired for the winter due to ice, rain, cold and slick roads.” She drank the rest of her beer and put her money on the bar. “I’d love to stay and keep you company but I have a date.” She started for the door and turned back to him. “I’m glad you’re doing well, Troy. I’d like to see what that Jeep can do off-road. Maybe when the weather warms up. And dries up.”