Mel pulled out her phone and got ready to record me.
I gave Ben and Co. once last glance as I skated to an open space, ignoring the perfect Salchows and axels taking flight around me.
The first practice of my gold medal month was starting now, and the only person I needed to worry about wasme.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired,” Erica whined as I sat down beside her in the main Olympic Village dining hall.
“Same,” Kayla agreed. She took a huge bite of quiche and frowned at her plate. “And thosebeds...”
I glanced between the two pouting teens in matching powder-blue Nike tracksuits and realized that I needed to harness my elder stateswoman energy, because they were spiraling and it was only day three.
“Remember,everyoneis sleeping on cardboard and fishing wire, so it’s still a level playing field,” I replied. “And we’re here a week early. Plenty of time to acclimate. You’ll be fine.”
Although I had to agree about the bed part, because the infamous Olympic beds made out of cardboard made it feel like we were sleeping on cereal boxes.
“How’s your breakfast?” I wave my fork toward their trays.
“Amazing,” Kayla sighed as she picked at her quiche.
“This frittata is so freaking good,” Erica said with her mouth full. “But would we expect anything less from Italy?”
I glanced down at my selections. I’d come close to having meal-decision fatigue because the main dining hall was like a bizarro-world mall food court. It was the juxtaposition of carrying a tray to various stations with every cuisine and preparation method imaginable, from deep fried, to vegan, to kosher. I’d opted to be a little adventurous and traded my usual oatmeal for an egg and avocado breakfast sandwich on a cornetto.
“I need more coffee,” Kayla complained. She craned her head to glance around the crowded space like she was looking for a waiter. “Because I have no clue how I’m going to stay awake today.”
“Maybe if you put your phone away before midnight you wouldn’t be so exhausted.”
I was fully embracing my role as oldest team member now.
I felt someone slam into me and then collapse into a chair next to me. I turned to find women’s ice hockey team captain and social media darling Campbell Pesansky panning her phone over the three of us.
“You guys, look who I found! It’s members of our gorgeous figure skating team, live on Cam-cam,” she said, staring at her phone instead of us. “Say hi, ladies!”
We all waved warily, shooting glances at each other.
“Is that really live?” Erica pointed at the camera and mouthed to me.
I leaned over and saw the comments streaming up Campbell’s live feed. I grimaced at Erica and nodded.
We’d all gone through media training prior to arriving, and live streaming was allowed in nonrestricted areas but frowned upon. That said, the rules were different for some of the athletes with major name recognition. Obviously people knew the three of us and the rest of the figure skating team, but Campbell’s fame was on a different level.
She’d mastered her social media presence during the build-up to the Games and was now exploiting it in every way possible. Her vibe was fun big sister with an emphasis on the “big” part because she was five eleven and all muscle. One of her most popular sketches was humbling guys who weren’t athletes but thought that they were faster or stronger than her just by virtue of being men. Her unhinged “Cam-cam” lives were a close second because she asked rapid-fire, uncomfortable questions in a way that was so disarming that no one got insulted.
Campbell swung her camera to face me. “Okay, Miss Albright, the people want to know. Are you and Bennett Martino melting the ice or what? Hm? Because everyone is convinced you’re a thing. Right, people?”
Kayla snorted in a way that sounded like agreement.
Campbell flipped her phone and slid closer to me so we were both on-screen, and I could see the comments and gifts from viewers popping up. There were nine thousand people watching her livestream.
I remembered one takeaway from the training for dealing with these types of questions; acknowledge without overexplaining, and then pivot. As much as I needed to figure out what was happening with Ben there was no way I wanted it overshadowing how the public viewed my Olympic experience. The narrative needed to be about my comeback, not who I was or wasn’t sleeping with.
I manufactured a smile for Campbell and her audience. “I can understand why people would assume that given we were seen together quite a bit. But that was all for my interview onThe Score.”
I glanced at the screen and saw thumbs-down emojis falling over our faces.
“Hold up, you have angered the people,” Campbell said. “Notthe answer they want.” She squinted at the screen. “Or believe. FraggleFrock00 just called you a ‘lying liar who lies.’ Damn, that’s harsh, Fraggle!”
