I bring our joined hands to my lips and press a soft kiss to Mabel’s knuckles, breathing in the sugary sweet scent of her skin. I know the fact that she isn’t pulling away is because of the cameras on us, but fuck it. I’m taking my shots where I can.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say that the two of you have had a bit of a love-hate relationship in the media over the years. Mabel, you’ve publicly referred to Ryder as a thorn in your side on multiple occasions, so how did we get here?”
Eyes still on Mabel, I raise a brow, silently asking if she wants to field this one. Her answering wink tells me all I need to know.
“You’re not wrong, Whitney. I have called Ryder a thorn in my side publicly many times over the years. I’ve called him a lot worse when it’s just the two of us. But sometimes, I think the line between love and hate is too thin not to cross it. Of course, Ryder drives me nuts. He’s competitive and painfully unserious, and every time he calls me Marshmallow, I want to choke him, just a little bit. But one day I woke up and realized that I also want to spend all my time withhim. I want to listen to him sing along with the car radio, even though he’s mostly mumbling because he doesn’t know the words. I want to roll my eyes when he doesn’t ask before taking the pickle off my plate at a restaurant and replacing it with exactly seven of his french fries. I want to see the way his eyes light up when he brings me a sweet treat and watches me devour it in thirty seconds flat. All those little things that drive me crazy, I also love them. And I think that’s what opened my eyes. When I realized that even though I sometimes want to push him off the side of the mountain, Ryder is also the person I don’t ever want to live without.”
I’ve known Mabel Quinn since the day she was born. I know when she’s angry and when she’s sad. I know when she’s happy and when she’s hangry. I know the side-step dance she does when she really has to pee but is too polite to end a conversation so she can leave, and I like to think I know when she’s telling the truth.
And that murderous confession wrapped up in admission sounds like the truest words she’s ever spoken.
“Oh wow, that is…oddly romantic,” Whitney laughs. “Was it the same for you, Ryder? Were you walking that fine line between love and hate, too?”
“No,” I answer immediately, not taking my eyesoff of Mabel, needing to make sure she hears every word. This might not be the way I always dreamt of having this conversation, but when have she and I ever done anything by the book? “No. There was never any hate on my end. I have cared deeply about Mabel for our entire lives. When we were kids, it was different. It was an affectionate kind of love. But once we grew up, I never stood a chance. I’ve been captivated by my wife since I was seventeen years old. It never mattered to me that she didn’t feel the same way, never mattered that she’d found my existence abhorrent for so long. It never mattered that the only way I could get her attention for so long was to feed on her annoyance. She’s it for me. You’re it for me, Mabel. Every morning I wake up, and I can’t believe how lucky I am that you finally looked my way.” I kiss her knuckles again, watching the flurry of emotions flood her face before she schools her expression back to her media-trained smile.
I mean it, baby girl. Please know that I mean it.
“How is a girl supposed to resist that?” Mabel winks at Whitney, who swipes an invisible tear from her cheek at my display of affection.
“Mabel, girl, do not let that man go. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Now, back to the video. Walk me through that night. You’re in Las Vegas;you’re blowing off steam before the Games. How do you wind up at the altar?”
We take turns giving her the practiced story Trina spun for us—that after spending time with our parents, we were so overwhelmed with love and emotion and excitement and neither of us wanted to go to Milan without being married. Whitney probes, asking about a ceremony, what our parents think, if we have any honeymoon plans after Milan. Sticking with Trina’s demands, the questions all avoid addressing the stupid pregnancy rumors head-on while still giving us the opportunity to squash them by talking about Mabel’s upcoming competitions, our (fake) travel plans, and all the ways we’re enjoying our newlywed life (wink wink, nudge nudge). After an hour, I think we must be done, but that’s when Whitney turns her attention to Mabel.
“Mabel, you’ve been in the public eye your whole life. You started your career at the Junior Games when you were only eleven years old. That’s a year younger than your husband was when he entered his first competition. So I know you have to be aware of both the honor and burden of living your life in the court of public opinion.”
Mabel tilts her head in acknowledgment.
“So I have to ask, with all the discourse surrounding you online—the criticism of your placeon Team U.S.A, the claims of nepotism, and now the controversy about what some people are calling a quickie wedding. You’ve been accused of clout-chasing, using your parents’ name to shove your way onto the scene, of trying to sleep your way to the top. How do you deal with all that? How do you block out the noise?”
I feel Mabel stiffen beside me, the tension palpable in the hand still in mine. Technically, Whitney hasn’t crossed any of the boundaries set by Trina, but I don’t think either of us were expecting what is supposed to be a fluff piece to take such a heavy turn. I clear my throat, ready to jump in and defend my wife, to protect Mabel the way I’ve always tried to do, but she’s quicker than me. She squeezes my hand, letting it rest on her thigh even as she pulls away and relaxes into the couch with her elbow on the armrest and her chin in her hand.
Missing only a crown atop her luscious red curls, my wife is a queen holding court, and I’m helpless to do anything but fall at her feet and listen.
18
FUCK ME SIDEWAYS
MABEL
Ryder seems a little shocked that the interview has taken this turn, but I knew it was coming. And as much as Trina might want to verbally whoop my ass later for not presenting my usual, graceful, polished responses when someone asks how I deal with the unfortunate tragedy of being a woman, I’m so tired of pretending.
“You know, Whitney, as much as I would love to sit here and say that it doesn’t bother me. That I just keep my head down, focus on the work and my family and let the noise be just noise, but that’s not true. I think that for people like us, who choose a profession that puts them in the spotlight to some degree, you expect that it’s going to come with acertain level of scrutiny, right? But for me, it started before snowboarding became my career. The first time I heard a think-piece about myself, I was nine years old, and some middle-aged man living in Utah was pontificating over whether my choice to pursue snowboarding and not skiing or diving was a stain on my family’s legacy. My third-grade teacher read it aloud in class. And that’s not even the first time my choices were being picked apart by strangers; it’s just the first time I realized how much I was going to spend my life living for other people. To say it hasn’t affected me would be a lie.”
Whitney nods, squinting her eyes in that way interviewers do when they think they’re getting deep.
“Can you talk a little more about that? Because I see it, you know? Having followed your career and the careers of other athletes and powerful women, I feel like there is a certain wall that we put up in order to sort of compartmentalize our careers and our personal lives in the way that—sorry to say, Ryder—men don’t always have to think about. We have to, because it can have a serious effect on our mental health if we don’t.”
“Yeah, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head right there. And I think for me,” I press a hand to my heart, letting the thumping rhythm guide me as Ichoose my words. “I built these walls at the expense of living a real life. I’ve been so afraid of how I might be perceived that I’ve developed this hard, unshakeable persona. Mabel Quinn keeps her head down. Mabel Quinn is modest but grateful. Mabel Quinn is just lucky to be here. And that thought process, that character I’ve been playing has started to sort of rot me inside.”
I can feel Ryder’s eyes on me, but I can’t look at him. Not yet. I have so much to say, and until now, I’ve been too much of a coward to say it. Even if it’s through the lens of a stupid, contrived interview about our sham of a marriage, he deserves to know the truth.
“All those years of suppressing my emotions got to me, and I started to take it out on other people. No, not other people. I took it out on Ryder.” I squeeze his hand, but still can’t bring myself to face him. “I feel like I used Ryder as a scapegoat for all of my grievances because he was there, just about the same age as me, doing the same job with the same pedigree and not facing the same scrutiny. Being pissed off at the patriarchy and the establishment and society for the way we’re treated as women is difficult because they’re ideologies. They’re not tangible things. But being mad at Ryder because he could act like a regular teenager, getting into trouble withnothing more than a slap on the wrist? That was easy. Hating him because no one ever questioned his place on the slopes or accused him of being a nepo-baby? Easy. Even now, I fall back on this annoyance like a crutch. Every article written about us since we got married has questioned my motives, my headspace going into Milan, whether I’m pregnant or not. Even when they’re talking about Ryder’s dating history, it’s not really about him. It’s about me and how I must feel knowing he had a past before me. No one asks if Ryder married me to get ahead or if having a wife will mess with his game or speculates that because he’s eating a taco, he must be an expectant father.”
Finally, I turn to face Ryder, and the unshed tears in his eyes are a punch to the gut. For a second, there are no cameras, no microphones, no Whitney Walker and her listeners hanging on our every word. It’s just me and my husband and the words that are so long overdue.
“I’m sorry, Ryder. I know that none of that is your fault, and you never deserved to be treated like my punching bag. I want you to know that I’m going to do my best to be better, okay?”
It’s not much. I don’t think I could possibly make up for a decade of undeserved snark, but it’s something.
