He didn’t need to expand on that. The internet would be full of speculation, as it always was. All we had control over there was whether we engaged with the gossip. I always kept a firm stance that I wouldn’t look at what people were saying, but it was easier said than done. When you saw your name come up, it was hard not to look. It was especially hard to resist the temptation when somebody sent you something with your name in the headline. I found it hard to click away when the stories were dropped in my lap, even though I knew they were filled with inaccuracies.
Chapter 14
Chapter 14
Thedayoftheshort program started way too early. Unfortunately for me, my subconscious woke me up by replaying the instructions from Mark intermingled with the night we had performed for our family and friends. I lay on my side, barely able to make out the generic hotel art on the wall in the alarm clock's light. The glowing green numbers read 4:48, which meant it was nearly eight back home. Whether it was that or thoughts of the day ahead keeping me up, I couldn’t say.
I gave up on sleep sometime around five thirty. If I was going to be awake, I might as well be productive.
By the time Dom met me in the hotel lobby, I was finding it hard to sit still. My legs were bouncing, the fingers of my left hand tapping on my knee when he came into view. The purple circles under his eyes suggested he had also struggled to sleep last night. I jumped up and met him midway between the entrance and the bench I had been sitting on. “Are you ready?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he asked, “Jeez, how much caffeine have you had?” His dark eyes looked me up and down with concern.
“Just a cup and a half,” I said. Well, maybe more like a cup and three quarters. “Way less than you usually have, so I don’t want to hear any judgement.”
His thick eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m just antsy.”
Thankfully, that seemed to be explanation enough. “We already showed the only people you should be worried about,” he said, doing his best to sound reassuring. It would have been more effective if he hadn't sounded like he was trying to convince himself. He took one of my hands in his and gave me a gentle tug towards where breakfast was served. I was so used to moving with him when our hands were together that I didn't even think about following him.
"And if you don't remember, the night ended with you getting punched in the face. So, excuse me if I'm nervous about this."
Dom stopped suddenly. He stepped to the side of the corridor, letting other people pass. "Listen to me." His eyes met mine, unblinking. He placed his hands on my upper arms, squeezing them gently. "That was different. Nobody here is going to get angry with me. Any frustration aimed our way will be because we've kicked everyone's asses, not because somebody is paranoid and jealous."
When I had first started in competitions, my mother would always insist on adding a buffer of time in our schedule, just in case something unexpected came up. It rarely did, but on the odd occasion, the extra time had come in handy. Thankfully, it had become a habit, because there was an accident that had brought traffic to a near stop a few blocks away from the hotel. We didn’t have to cut into any of our prep for the morning, but just knowing that it was a possibility had me on edge. I knew most people would find it strange that it would be the thought of running late that got to me, but it was. I would rather havea skate broadcast internationally than risk being rushed in my preparation for it.
We ate an early lunch at the arena to allow ourselves enough time to get dressed and, in my case, made up for the competition. As I layered on the thick foundation that would be the base of my performance makeup, I relaxed a bit. Everything I needed to do to get my face ready gave me steps to follow, allowing me not to overthink things. Getting to focus on my music rather than what was to come was a pleasant reprieve from the rush of the day.
I repeated his words about the people who mattered having already seen our skate to myself throughout the day. By the time I was in my performance makeup, I had nearly convinced myself of it. The woman looking back at me in the mirror looked like the sort of person who wouldn’t care what others thought of her. She looked self-assured and confident. She had to be to pull off the dark lipstick and voluminous lashes. It was a far cry from how I normally looked during rehearsals, with minimal makeup and unstyled hair. The dress added to the illusion. It was the sort of thing you needed to be confident to pull off. There was a deep V in the front, with thin pieces of fabric attaching it in places. Underneath was skin-coloured mesh, so while it had the illusion of openness, it wouldn’t cause a wardrobe malfunction. Plus, the dress codes were strict at competitions like this. Pushing the envelope too much would be stupid. The skirt was flowy and semi-sheer under the bunched waist. I had to admit that in the dress I looked much more like an adult than I had in the past. Honestly, I was surprised at how well I could pull it off.
The nerves I hadn’t been able to shake seemed more productive by the time Dom and I stepped on the ice for warmups. Some nerves were good. If I wasn’t nervous at all, I was probably verging on overconfidence. Only a few minutes after the warmup, we were standing near the entrance to the icewith Mark and Olga at our sides. My headphones came out, I passed my jacket off, and I took my place beside Dom. Two taps on my hand, which I returned as our names were announced to thousands of people. “Skating for Canada, Hazel Pierce and Dominic Hughes.”
The cheer that went up was what I needed. We had the advantage of skating in front of a home crowd to start the season. They would be friendly to us, cheering us on amidst rivals from other countries. We would face much less favourable crowds for the rest of the season, with the notable exception of Nationals in January. I found my spot near centre ice and moved into my starting position. I fixed my eyes on Dom’s, his dark eyes framed by dark lashes. For the next few minutes, all I had to do was keep my focus on him. I could ignore the thousands of people watching in person and the fact that many more would be watching on TV. He was in this with me. I knew Mark had only insisted we stare at each other for the believability of the performance, but I may have done it anyway. It helped to focus on him.
When the music started, it was easy to zone out everything other than us. The program started with us close together for several seconds, with us only moving away from each other so we could get into position for our opening jumps. We had to move our arms in sync and turn at the same rate before flinging ourselves off of our left skates. The Lutz was worth more points than our other jumps, since the takeoff was less intuitive than others. Like everything else, the added difficulty meant additional points if we did them properly . In my peripheral vision, I saw Dom extending out of the jump at the same time I did. A good start.
We went through the rest of the opening moves in turn, including our much improved triple twist. Even without the additional rotation nailed, the repeated attempts had beenbeneficial. Dom was able to throw me higher, giving me more time to complete the three rotations and get into position for landing before he had to catch me again. Compared to before, it felt like we had time to spare. Even the dance steps went off without a hitch. I didn’t give the moves a second thought or feel awkward in the slightest.
With the last notes of the music, I leaned so far back that I was looking at the world upside down. Dom supported most of my weight with an arm wrapped around my waist, while his other hand was on the thigh of the leg I had off the ice. I had time for three panting breaths before he helped me back to a standing position.
He grinned down at me. He looked as relieved as I felt. Not only had we made it through the most technically challenging program we’d attempted to date, we had done it well. There was the slightest mis-timing with our side-by-side spins, but we managed to correct that on our way out of them. Not super clean, but not terrible. Our jump combination — a triple Flip to a triple Loop — went better than in the warmup. The end of the skate was clean, so at least we had ended well. The things we could have done better were small. Looking up at Dom, whose chest was heaving as he breathed heavily after all that effort, I could tell he thought the same way.
We sat between Mark and Olga in the kiss and cry, still trying to return our breathing to normal levels while they chatted away about how the skate had gone. Trying to listen to both of them at the same time was nearly impossible, even without the noise of the crowd, but that didn’t stop them from speaking over each other. We would have to ask them for their comments later, when we could focus on what they had to say. I tried when we waited for our marks. I really did, but it was always harder to concentrate on anything other than the numbers that were about to come up.
A wave of relief washed over me when the scores were read. We had come close to our personal best, even with the couple of minor missteps along the way. All the focus Olga had on our artistry had paid off. As the crowd cheered with the scores, I leaned towards Mark so he could kiss my cheek and give words of encouragement. "Everyone will talk about you two tonight!" he whispered. Heart was still pounding against my ribs, I looked at Dom. He was waving at the crowd with a huge grin on his face. Amidst the cheers, I heard the announcer say that we were currently sitting in first place.
After the skate was done, all we had to do was wait for the others to finish. There were several other pairs after us, which meant that we had plenty of time to kill, but I preferred it this way. I would rather get our skate out of the way and see what everyone else had done, especially at the start of the year. We hadn’t had the chance to see the other performances yet. I preferred to watch them live, without the need to focus on what was going to happen in our program.
Going in, we knew that our toughest competition in the Skate Canada competition would be the top-ranked pair from China. Yilin Yang and Liping Shen were close in age to Dom and me, having moved up from junior to senior competition the year before we did. Dom and I had chatted through most of the other pairs, making comments about the skates or voicing completely unrelated thoughts that popped into our heads. We stopped when Yang and Shen stepped onto the ice. They deserved all our attention. As I watched, I tried to make my best guess about what their score would be. It would be close to ours; that much I knew. They always skated well. This competition was no exception.
Dom and I didn’t speak until after their score was read. It was as close as I’d feared, with them only a couple of points behind us. Below them, there was a larger gap to Thompson and Peres,the second highest ranked American team. While there was one pair left to skate, I didn’t think that they would break into the top three.
I was right. Dom and I waved briefly at the cameras that were pointed towards us as the rankings after the short program were announced. We had to act like we were happy to have so many eyes on us, but also be professional about it. It was always nice to be in the lead coming out of the short program, but it could change quickly. The free skate was worth significantly more. If we messed up there, we would topple out of first place. And since the schedule was so packed, we didn’t have much time to shift our minds onto the next program.
I carefully changed out of my dress, taking care to pack it up neatly. I would use it and my skates all season, so I needed to take good care of them. The dress was nearly impossible to clean if something happened to it, so I knew it was best to spend as little time in it as possible. If something happened to it in a performance–say, sequins falling onto the ice or a strap breaking–we would lose marks for our wardrobe issues. There were enough things that could go wrong even with us trying our hardest. If we were to get docked points, I would rather it happen because we landed a jump wrong or our synchronicity was slightly off in our step sequence. If we were to lose points because of something as silly as a wardrobe issue, it would be harder to swallow.
As I packed my dress up, I couldn't help but listen to the conversations that were being held around me. Somebody mentioned Pierce and Hughes, but were they mentioning us because we were leading or because of the nature of our skate? I felt like people were looking at me more than usual. After so many years of changing around other people, I knew people kept their eyes to themselves and that everyone was more focused on themselves than on you. But after that skate, I suspected peoplewere talking about Dom and me. I couldn't shake the feeling. The sense of being watched fed my urge to escape and get back to the hotel.
