I sit up a little straighter. “Did you ever do a show in France? In a white lacy dress?”
Jen studies me, a bit perplexed. “Yes, we did—”
“Although only one of us wore a dress.” Alex shoots me a wry smile. “How did you know about this?”
“Tamar and I found a video of you online. She said you looked like you were in love with your partner… with Jen.” My cheeks heat up as I look between them.
“Better not show that to Myles, then!” Jen winks at Alex before sliding on her gel socks.
“I was acting.” Alex shrugs, but he’s still smiling. “Not that Jen made it easy. She’d eat spicy food right before the show, then huff her horrific breath on me for the entire number.”
I look back at Jen. “You seriously did that?”
“Hey now, don’t judge. You have no idea how dull being on tour could get. I was just spicing things up! Spicing—get it?”
Before I can answer, Corinne steps into view. “Sorry to interrupt. Mind if we trade seats, Ana-Marie?”
I grab my stuff and hobble to a chair across the room, one skate half-laced and still loose. Jen stops rummaging through her bag as Corinne holds out a clipboard and pen.
“There’s a student in your first class whose mother called this afternoon.” Corinne leans toward Jen and lowers her voice. “She asked us to update the name on our roster and make a note to use male pronouns.”
My ears prick up. I know we’ve gone over pronouns in English class, but it’s summer now. My mind’s sluggish, reluctant to remember school subjects.
“The front desk printed tonight’s class lists this morning, but I promised her I would give you a heads-up. Everything will be corrected by next week.”
Jen grabs the clipboard and looks it over.
“This one.” Pointing, Corinne passes her pen to Jen. “Last name: L-U-B-E-C-K. Change the first name to Hayden.”
“So, I call this kid ‘he’ instead of ‘she’?”
“Yes.” Corinne nods. “Exactly.”
“Got it.” Jen scratches out a line and scribbles a note to herself.
I look down fast before anyone catches me staring. My cheeks burn, like earlier today when I saw Faith effortlessly execute a pose for Miss Lydia that I wasn’t even close to mastering. Except, this feels different.
Can people really ask others to call them whatever they want? I can’t imagine asking Mom to even call me Ana instead of Ana-Marie.
“The Zamboni’s about done.” Victor-who-goes-by-Vic peers out the door. “Heads up—it’s chaos.”
“Ready, Ana?” Alex calls.
“Yep!” I slide on my black boot covers for added warmth and head out the door with him.
Outside the lounge, kids hop over benches, chasing one another in the seating area, while their parents check out skates at the rental counter.
“Level three, this way,” Vic says in a booming voice. He hops onto the ice and glides past a crowd of people, waving his clipboard over his head.
“Level one!” Jen calls. “Meet by the vending machines.”
I stop in my tracks, looking toward the snack area. I sort of remember my own first day of skate-school, back when I was five. It’s when I met Alex. Before we were allowed to get on the ice, Alex taught my class the safe way to fall and get back up. This must be what Jen will teach first, except these kids are older than I was. No one looks under ten.
The students in Jen’s class face away from me as she rounds them up. I rock to the tips of my toe picks to get a better view, but I’m too far away to see much. Even if I knew what Hayden looked like, he’d be impossible to spot.
I’m not sure why I’m so interested in someone I don’t know. It could be because I’ve never met someone with a different name from the one their parents gave them. This feels bigger, though. Maybe it doesn’t have much to do with Hayden at all.
“Hurry, Ana!”
Alex is already at the rink door. I dart forward, dodging around people to catch up. He wastes no time getting me up to speed.
“We’ve got a combined class of levels five and six first.” Alex and I glide past orange cones that divide the rink into a few sections. “This group should be comfortable with all types of forward skating and able to skate backward, almost ready to learn two-foot spins and single jumps. We need to evaluate everyone today to make sure they’re in the right class. If anyone’s struggling, let me know after.”
Kids swizzle over. Each student wears a sticker with their name in blocky black letters. Elsie, Simone, and Priya stand in front. The rest of the class clusters behind them. All girls. They look about my age, although I’m one of the shortest out here.
Alex introduces himself, then me.
The class warms up on our private strip of ice. They glide back and forth and back again, practicing lunges, dips, and slaloms. On our fourth pass, I spot Jen. She’s by the rink entrance, helping her students onto the ice. I slow my glide. Jen extends a hand to one girl after another while a boy waits nearby, already on the ice. With his back to me, all I see is blond hair and a dark red sweatshirt.
That must be Hayden.
A throat clears. I whirl around, noting Alex’s arched eyebrow. The class has moved on to forward crossovers without me. “Push with the side of your blade, Priya, not the toe pick,” I call.
Focus, focus, focus.
When class finally ends, Alex’s students skate away, only to be replaced by another set. I look across the rink again, but Jen’s students are already off the ice.
My mind circles back to Hayden for the rest of the night. I can’t stop thinking about how his mom called the rink and how Jen had no problem calling Hayden “he” instead of “she.” By the time Jen drops me off
