“What’s three hours for dreams?”
“You want to make yourself a widower, don’t you?” my mother asked. “You want to send me into three hours of lunatic Boston drivers to chase lunatic dreams. How would you feel if we were the victims of road rage all for figure skating lessons?”
“The odds are small,” he said.
“Exactly,” she said.
“I meant death. The odds of death are small,” he said. “Be reasonable.”
My father called Lauren a few minutes later. By Wednesday, my mother was driving me to Boston, and soon after, I had dropped out of middle school to be great.
Long before the skating days, my father had conceded to pharmaceuticals. My mother had urged pills on him in hopes it would be just like the time he had only wanted his own and she begged and begged until finally I was brought home to be their baby.
Each day, she handed him a glass of juice and an antidepressant with his breakfast. There was a waiting period for happiness, she explained. It would take some months for the efficacy to kick in. The waiting period ended. Still, a new orange bottle would appear full each month.
“Why bother?” my father asked one day.
“Because it helps,” my mother answered.
“The symptoms,” he said.
“Don’t you feel better?” she asked, rattling a bottle.
“I’m under better,” he said. “All the way up to mediocre.”
“All the way up there?” It was a gallant stab at coquettishness, and in the willful play, I could see the girl my mother must once have been.
“All the way up to docile. Happy now?” he said.
“This isn’t my fault,” she said.
“You’re right, it’s my fault.”
“Why does there have to be fault?”
“I don’t have a reason,” he said.
“I know what you need,” my mother said. “You need a day at the beach. Hampton’s only an hour’s drive.”
“What would we do there?” my father asked.
“Relax,” she said.
“That’s exactly what I don’t want to do: relax,” he said.
“Then what do you want?” she asked.
“I don’t want anything,” he answered.
“A confession. Finally,” my mother said. “You never want to do anything.” Her arms were above her head in exasperation.
“I said I don’t want anything. Nothing about doing.”
“Nothing doing,” she said. “That’s you. I try and I try. And there you are: nothing doing.” She was jabbing a pointed finger in his direction. “This is senseless depression.”
“Better,” he said, “than senseless conversation.”
Then I started getting good at skating, and humming trailed through the house as my father opened shades and returned from the sporting goods store with bags full of therapy bands and running shoes. Sunday morning, we’d hear off-key whistling as he whisked egg whites into shiny foam. He played opera and threw an arm to the ceiling, calling, “Buongiorno, giorno! Bravissimo! Bravissima!” The pills went into the wastebasket. Endless loops of serials and commercials gave way to Olympian video recordings of hard work rewarded. My father pulled his old anatomy books from the attic and went to the library to read studies on the metabolism of carbohydrates relative to anaerobic activity. Suddenly, it seemed that the love I loved was big and strong and animating enough to take my father into its territories, to make him cross over into mine.
None of the girls at the rink spoke to me except to say heads up! or out of my way! or incoming! I was only a juvenile then, but juveniles were dangerous, more even than the advanced. Who knew what any of us might become? Everyone wished growth spurts on each other. Publicly, of course, it was the pageant treatment, waves and smiles and backhands.
The exception was Emma Closerman, who might have hit her head too many times falling on the ice. She called her mother “I” and herself “you,” just as she had heard her mother do. Her mother would say things like, “You must do what I tell you,” and Emma would do what her mother told her. Her mother said, I want you to try harder, and Emma tried harder. So Emma said, “Where am I?” when she was looking for her mother or “What am I doing?” if she was wondering what her mother was doing. During a poor training session she could be heard muttering around the rink, “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing” or “If you don’t land that double axel, I don’t know what I will do with you.” Mrs. Closerman had almost been a champion, and after marrying a rich man twenty years older than her father, had spent her widowhood screaming from bleachers. With a mother like hers, the SCOBs said, Emma would probably rather have been born six feet tall.
The boys, the few of them there were, were not ones to worry about. You could ask them to help you stretch without the fear of them jerking your hip out its socket or spraining your ankle. There was Edward, who skated pairs with his sister Breanne, Hans, who for skating had moved from Amsterdam, and of course, Ryan.
“Fresh meat, my favorite,” Ryan said the first day I showed up for practice. He was whipping a rope by the warm-up mats. “Nine-sixty-nine, nine-seventy, nine-seventy-one. Obviously, you know who I am. Now who are you?” he asked.
“Alivopro Doyle,” I said.
“Is that some sort of made-up black name?”
“It’s a Latinate abbreviation.”
“You need a Marilyn Monroe.”
“A what?” I said.
“If you want to be a star, you can’t be a Norma Jean.”
“I don’t want to be a star,” I said. “I want to skate.”
“Nine-ninety-five, nine-ninety-six, nine-ninety-seven.”
When he’d cleared a thousand, I knew he wasn’t listening anymore and the most graceful thing to do was walk away. I went into the corner and jumped until I was warm, pulling my legs in directions polar normalcy. Then I laced my skates and took to the ice, removing my rubber guards. For a second, I looked up into the bleachers for my mother. She was dog-earring pages of a chinaware catalogue towards the middle of the rink.
“Point! Point! Point!” Emma’s mother screamed a few feet away. My mother startled out of soup tureens and gave me a little wave.
Once I’d circled the rink a few times, Lauren sent me from one end of the arena to the other, jump here, jump there, once more but straighter, once more but higher, point that toe, lift those arms, bend those knees, arch that back, pick up the pace, don’t rush — you’re rushing — smile a little, smile: that’s it, now again! I looked at the red lump of her jacket approximating movements. I made toe pick holes gaping like skull sockets in the ice. “Show me what you’ve got,” she said, inserting my tape in the player. “Then we’ll make it better.” The panic of Stravinsky staccato-snapped through the speakers. I flew through notes like a bursting seam. I spun to a stop as the final crescendo climaxed. By the boards a red shape was clapping.
After it was done, I felt something cold hit my back.
“You there,” Ryan said, tossing a bit of snow that had been caked to his blade towards me. “Shaniqua, Babushka, Muhammad, whatever your name is.”
“Alivopro,” I said. “And yes?”
“Actually, you’re pretty fabulous, I thought you should know,” he said. “Not as fabulous as M-O-I moi, of course. But fabulous nonetheless. That’s a compliment if you were wondering. Be pleased. Not as fabulous as me is still really really fabulous.”
“Give me a couple years,” I said.
“Sassy, I like that,” Ryan said. “Now sassy-ass, what do you think of my shadow? Glammy or tranny?” He closed his eyes to reveal lavender shimmering from his lids.