She has two coffees - proper ones from the place on Main, not the institutional horror from the building - and she hands me one and falls into step beside me. We walk the corridor in comfortable silence for a moment.
“So… dinner with Jake Skelly?”
“News travels fast.”
“Small town.” She sips her coffee. “He seems good.”
“He is.”
She nods. “And?”
“And it’s good.”
“I think you’ve made the right choice professionally.” She sips her coffee and there’s a long pause. “He talked to the team, you know. Mateo.”
I wasn’t sure he would really follow through.
“I want you to be happy,” Tara says. “That’s all.”
She’s the closest thing I’ve had to a friend since I’ve been here. I feel a rush of gratitude for her.
“I’m getting there.”
She bumps her shoulder against mine.
“Good,” she says. “Now drink your coffee before it gets cold.”
ELIDA
I call that afternoon.
I sit at my little desk in work and I dial before I can talk myself out of it.
It rings three times.
“Brita Fiske.”
Her voice is warm and direct. I like her immediately, which I wasn’t expecting.
“This is Elida Eriksson.”
“I was hoping you’d call.”
We talk for forty minutes.
She asks good questions - nothing about Erik or about what happened, just about my skating. Where I am technically. What I’ve been doing to maintain it. Whether I’ve been on the ice much. I tell her about the coaching sessions and about the routine I’ve been running alone in the early mornings when the rink is empty.
“Good,” she says. “That’s good. The body remembers.”
“It does.”
“I’ve seen your competition footage. From your last season. You’re extraordinary.”
“That was a while ago,” I say.
“Elida, half a year is nothing. Not for a skater your age.”
“It feels longer.”
