“Yep. You know how the toe loop’s technique is turn, bend, tap?” Faith nods. “This exercise makes it tap, split, snap.”
“Tap, split snap,” Faith repeats. “I like that.” But she doesn’t move to try it. “Can you show me first?”
“Sure!” I glide backward, extending my free leg behind me. Shifting my weight, I switch feet and repeat the movement. Edge, extend. Edge, extend. One more time, then I tap into the ice. I twist forward to perform a midair split, then snap my ankles together and land backward.
I skate back to her. “Your turn.”
Faith looks like a ballerina when she springs into the air, but she doesn’t snap her ankles back together in time on the way down.
Surprise floods her face when she lands forward instead of backward. “This is hard!”
“Yep! Alex says it’s all about timing—but once you figure it out, it’ll make your toe loop so much bigger.”
By the time our ten minutes are up, Faith’s got the basics down well enough to practice it on her own.
Then it’s back to my new choreography for the rest of the session. I start with my opening pose, one hand on the boards to keep my balance.
My arms are still too stiff. My ankles still wobble.
I skate off, working through the new steps Miss Lydia laid out earlier. Background music fills the silence in the last minutes of the session, but I barely notice. I definitely don’t make up choreography for it.
The session ends. I unlace my skates, rolling my ankles in circles to work out the kinks. I feel like I’ve been riding a roller coaster, flying high when I helped Faith on her toe loop, only to plummet while practicing my program. Faith glances at me as she passes, then takes her usual seat at one of the tables.
Hope sits down next to me.
“Miss Lydia told me to give you this.” She passes me a thin envelope. “Your program is going to be really pretty.”
“Thanks,” I mumble.
I set the envelope down and swipe a towel across my skate blade extra fast. Icy slush takes flight, landing a few feet away with a soggy splat.
“Her choreography is really hard. But it’ll earn you lots of points with the judges.”
I turn away from Hope slightly. This isn’t something I want to discuss when I don’t know how to feel about it myself. Is it the music I hate, or the princess everyone will see when I perform to it?
I slide a soft guard onto my blade, then reach for the envelope. It isn’t sealed. I untuck the flap and slide out a single sheet of paper. It’s a bill from Miss Lydia to Mom.
Wide-eyed, I read it again, but nothing changes.
Miss Lydia charged Mom four thousand dollars for a handful of lessons, my music cut, and a phone consultation with a seamstress?
The air around me feels thin. My breath comes fast, like I just skated a double program run-through. This is way more than Alex’s fees. We haven’t even seen my new costume yet, since the seamstress Miss Lydia prefers lives in a different state.
I set the bill in my lap, trying to control my breath.
“Hey, hurry up. It’s time for lunch,” Faith calls to Hope. Her eyes land on me. “Do you want to come?”
“Where?” I’m surprised I can speak at all right now.
“The diner across the street,” Hope jumps in. “We eat there sometimes with other skaters. You should come!”
“Oh, um.” I look down, catching sight of the bill again. Mom gave me twenty dollars last week, but it’s supposed to be for emergencies. I reach for my bag and pull out the lunch she packed this morning. “I have food already.”
“You could eat it there with us.” Faith’s expression is friendly and open. Hope nods, pigtails bouncing.
On any other day, I’d tuck my lunch back into my bag and join them. But after seeing the bill, I’m not in the mood to be social.
“Thanks.” My gaze drops back to the bill in my lap. “But I think I’m going to stay at the rink today.”
The girls depart in a collective sparkle of roller bags. Skaters who can afford designer bags probably wouldn’t blink at a bill like this. I peek at it one more time, hoping I misread a decimal point.
Nope.
I stow it away in my duffel and head for the coaches’ lounge.
Four thousand dollars. That’s more than the cost of my ice-time for the entire summer. The money I’m saving as a skate-school assistant definitely won’t cover this.
Mom got a bonus at work, I remind myself. She told me to focus on training. She said not to worry.
I swallow over the thickness in my throat and enter the lounge. My heart still thrums faster than normal.
Even if Mom has this all figured out, there’s still a problem: I don’t know if my slow music and boring choreography are even worth all this money.
Chapter Ten
After my final choreography lesson with Miss Lydia, I try to focus on jumps, but my thoughts drift away from takeoff technique to money and music. Mom seemed fine after I gave her Miss Lydia’s bill, but my stomach churns just thinking about her spending money on something I don’t even like.
I’m too distracted to lose myself on the ice today. I land a solid triple salchow, then snag my toe pick the moment I step forward. That gets me a small amused grin from Faith. I smile back.
Then I remember my new program.
I should practice it now that I know all the steps. I glide toward the music box, but stop, letting another skater go ahead of me. I hover nearby. When another skater approaches, I pretend to work on spirals by the boards.
The session ends, and Faith offers me a small wave before leaving the rink with Hope for the day.
Only half the lights are on when I enter the coaches’ lounge. Alex sits in
