LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Ten o’clock lights out,” Jackie said to their retreating backs. Neither girl turned to acknowledge the remark.

      “Ten o’clock curfew,” Jackie called again.

      “I know, I know,” Beth snapped.

      “Then stop testing,” Jackie said, matching Beth’s volume and then some. “And don’t forget what you’re here for.”

      “Doesn’t matter if I forget. You’ll remind me,” the girl said with bitterness before she allowed Tanya to lead her away.

      Max could read nothing from Jackie’s expression. “Were you checking up on her?”

      Jackie gave him a blank look. “What?”

      “You were outside, too, during the pond incident. Were you checking up on her?”

      Jackie sighed, shadows of fatigue darkening her skin. “She’s impulsive, immature. She needs a mother as much as a coach. I’m not very maternal.” Jackie spoke as if she was talking to herself. “Her mother is the CEO of the biggest mining company in the world. She gave Beth everything, but you can’t give somebody drive. You have to be hungry to have drive.”

      Max knew exactly where his own hunger had come from. It was born in the antiseptic waiting room where he’d taken off his shoes and practiced his wobbly skating skills on the linoleum while his four-year-old brother Robby had endured treatments for leukemia. The disease had taken his life anyway, a few days before his fifth birthday.

      Lap after lap had buried the need deeper. He would control his own body to the point where he was the best in the world, invincible. His own parents had means, but Beth’s mother had billions. And Laney’s birth mother? She’d had the need only to feed her habit, from what he’d learned. Maybe Jackie was right; they both hungered in their own way. He was not sure what to say, and he saw from the uncomfortable look on Laney and Mr. Thompson’s faces that they shared his unease.

      “Beth’s going to do well,” Laney said softly. “She’ll dig down deep to get what she wants.”

      “She wants a mother, not a coach,” Jackie said, still gazing down the darkened hallway. “But she’s not going to get that from me.” Jackie shook her head and seemed to rouse herself from her thoughts. “I had four brothers.”

      “No kids?” Mr. Thompson asked.

      She answered dreamily, “A son. He’s a trial lawyer.” She thumbed her phone to life and showed them the photo of a dark-haired, thick-browed man. “Lives with his dad. Fortunate for him, because mothers make their kids weak,” she said with a glance at Laney. “You’re better off without one.”

      Max saw Laney flinch, and he frowned at the massive insensitivity, but Coach Jackie appeared not to notice.

      Mr. Thompson put an arm around Laney. “She did have a mother, a good woman who loved her enough to let her be who she was meant to be.”

      Jackie smiled. “And a father who didn’t let the mother get in the way.”

      Dan’s face tightened and he squeezed Laney closer as Jackie said good-night and left.

      “She’s harsh,” Max said, trying to gauge Laney’s reaction.

      Laney broke into her customary smile. “Maybe we could learn from her.” She put on her best scowl. “It’s time for bed everyone. Especially all those who have recently jumped in freezing-cold ponds and such.”

      He chuckled. “You taking over my job?”

      “Of course, so go take your supplements, drink eight glasses of water and get to sleep fast so you’ll be your cheerful good self tomorrow at training.”

      “Is that an order, Laney?” he teased.

      “Absolutely,” she proclaimed, kissing her father, taking Max’s arm and propelling him toward the exit.

      Max allowed himself to be swept along in the tide of Laney’s cheerful conversation, but he knew she must be wondering, as he was, who had taken her skate and tried so hard to get rid of it.

      As they walked past the windows, he had an uncomfortable feeling that there were more problems waiting in the darkness.

      * * *

      The gray predawn did nothing to lighten the tiny bathroom as Laney ruefully consulted the little notes she’d taped to the bathroom mirror reminding her which of the taps in the shower was for the hot water. Many a scalding she’d endured before she’d swallowed her pride and wrote the messages to herself. Hot and cold, only two choices and it frustrated her to no end that she could not remember that simple detail, one even a child could manage.

      So you need a note, Laney. So what? The needles of hot water soothed her muscles, still sore from the crash. A slight pain in her shoulder reminded her that the day had gone from a crash to a tackle, which seemed hard to believe as she greeted another morning. Whatever had happened, she was determined not to let it deflect one iota of mental energy from her training. Run the day or it will run you, Max always told her.

      Somehow the image of Max disappearing under the water stubbornly refused to leave her head. At the moment he sank, she had not cared about anything else in the world but that he should resurface unharmed. He was her trainer and friend, she reminded herself. Of course she would feel that way. But something new and different circled inside her chest, a feeling that she’d not experienced in a very long time, irregular and delicate as a bird hopping from branch to branch. She pressed her hands to the wet tile and tried to refocus.

      There was one thing and one thing only that could drive every thought and care from her psyche, and that was training. Long, grueling, bone-crunching training. The surge of fire in her belly urged her on as she dressed and packed her gear for the oval. Her second pair of skates, her only other pair, was packed safely in her bag, along with the EpiPen she’d fortunately never had to use.

      Needles, she thought with a shudder. A person could live a very happy life without ever having a close encounter with one. She’d had plenty after the hit-and-run accident. Cubby grudgingly awakened and ate his cat food topped with a small piece of chicken she’d swiped from the kitchen. In stealth mode, she let herself out, locking the door behind her.

      The other doors along the hallway were closed. At 5:00 a.m., the girls would be clinging to those last few hours of sleep. No sound of anyone stirring, even Mama Love, the team chef, who she knew liked to get a good start on the breakfast preparations. Laney took an apple and a hard-boiled egg from the snack drawer in the fridge and let herself outside into the cold.

      “Good morning.”

      She jumped a step backward from the security guard.

      “You scared me.”

      He smiled politely. “Sorry. Checking on the dorms. Going out?”

      She nodded. “To the ice.”

      “So early?”

      “I like to start my day before everyone else.”

      “Guess that’s the way champions are made.” He offered to escort her.

      “No, thanks....” she started, until she considered the tongue-lashing she’d get from both Max and her father for puttering around unattended in the solitary early-morning hours. “Actually, that would be great,” she said, shouldering her gear.

      They walked in silence and she slipped inside and took a deep breath, waving at the guard as he left. Though most people wouldn’t agree, she knew ice had a smell and she savored it now, sucking in a deep lungful of air and letting it tingle through her as it might have done for all the world-class athletes who had trained in this very spot.

      She made her way past the bleachers toward the multilane track that circled the rink, planning an easy run to warm up, but the familiar sound of blades skimming the ice stopped her.

      Max was alone on the ice, blade positioned,

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