CHAPTER 1
Time with Katya, my figure skating coach, is in high demand. That’s why I’m watching the sun rise out of the window of my sister’s Honda Accord as we drive to the rink just outside of Detroit at six in the morning. Time on the ice with a coach is a little easier to line up if you’re able to skate during the day. And don’t go to your seventh-grade classes. Which I’d be okay with. But Mom isn’t there yet.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. Mom’s super supportive of my skating. Always has been. Even when it got harder to make it to the rink because Dad got sick. When he died at the beginning of the summer, she always found a way—a carpool, a Lyft, something—to get me to the ice. We’ve been down a driver for a few months, but she never let a practice slip.
She even got me on the ice on the day of Dad’s funeral, after the service and the slow drive following the hearse to the cemetery and the burial. We got in the car when it was all over, and Mom said, “Do you want to skate now?” And I did. I really did. More than anything. Because skating … that’s the one thing I can always seem to do right. The one thing that clicks into place and just works. Even with Dad gone.
Maybe Mom worked harder to get me to practice because Dad died. Because skating makes me a little lighter, makes me miss Dad a little less. Or maybe because skating was Dad’s and my thing, and so Mom is a little protective of the tradition. Now that my sister, Heather, has her license, it’s easier. Though, to be honest, I’d rather Mom drove me more. Heather’s great and all, but I can tell that she would rather do just about anything than wake up early to cruise down I-94 and sit on the hard, cold bleachers while her sibling practices salchows and toe loops.
I glance over at Heather as she bites back a yawn.
“Thanks for driving,” I say. I thank Heather a lot. Or at least, I try to remember to.
“Yeah.” Heather’s voice is a little distant. Soft with hints of her yawn still lingering.
“It’s a big day.” I’ve been psyching myself up about today for two weeks now.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“Katya’s assessing my skills so she can design my next competition program.”
“You nervous?”
Am I? I’m not really sure. I know what the answer is supposed to be, so I say, “Yeah, I guess.”
Heather scoffs. “Whatever, V. We both know you’re excited as hell to show off.”
I smile a little. She’s right. I’m not antsy because I’m nervous. I’m antsy because I’m amped. Excited. I’ve been working on a triple toe loop, and I really think today might be the day I do it. The thought of springing into the air, whipping around three times, and actually landing on my blade has me giddy.
“Want some tunes?” Heather asks, another yawn taking over the end of the word tunes so it stretches out with extra vowel sounds.
“Yeah. Anything is fine.”
Heather tosses me the old iPhone she keeps in the car. “Your pick.”
I scroll through and land on David Bowie—Dad’s favorite. I almost sink into a sad place as my hand hovers over the song title, but I press play and immediately start to sing along. Maybe I’m trying to push away the thought that I’m listening to Bowie without Dad. Maybe I just need to wake up a little. Heather joins in quickly, and by the time we hit the chorus, the two of us are overexaggerating our words and giggling during the instrumental sections. It’s easy to be with Heather like this.
* * *
The carefree feel from the car fades away as soon as I step into the rink. Practice is serious. Katya and her husband, Dmitri, moved to the United States from Russia about a year ago, and I’m really lucky I get to skate with her. Even though she doesn’t compete regularly anymore, her body is still in peak condition, slim and muscular. She always wears black—a black leotard, black skating tights, and black leg warmers that cover the tops of her black skates. You don’t often see female skaters in black skates, but they suit Katya. Between her monochromatic wardrobe and her face, which is snow white, sharp and angular, she gives off some serious no-nonsense vibes.
My wardrobe is decidedly less intimidating: a maroon “Schrute Farms” T-shirt and some worn leggings with one of the knees blown out that I inherited from Heather. And fuzzy socks.
After warm-up, Katya starts putting me through my paces, asking to see certain spins, jumps, and footwork in quick succession.
This all goes pretty well. It should. I’ve been working on it long enough. I’ve put hours and hours into making sure that my body can follow through on the setup. So when I land a jump, it’s not just about that moment. That jump is proof that all of the work I’ve done means something. With each landing, my chest puffs out a little more. Why shouldn’t I be proud of what I can do?
Heather was right in the car. I’m good at this, and I like having the chance to show off.
Of course, I’d like it more if I had the ice to myself. Instead, there are eleven other skaters with their coaches running through similar routines. They’re all girls. That’s the way it always is. Eleven girls and me—a skater who looks like they might be a girl … but isn’t.
I’m nonbinary—or enby, which comes from shortening nonbinary to NB and then writing it out. Enby. That’s me. Not a girl or a boy—something in the middle. It’s not something that people see right away. Most don’t even know to look for it. Or what they would be looking for. Because, well, enby doesn’t mean one thing. That’s kind of the whole point.
I only realized that I’m nonbinary recently. Pretty much right when Dad died. I stumbled on the word enby on TikTok and fell down an internet rabbit hole. But seeing that word and trying it out in my mind—it was the first time I felt like something fit. Like the world made a little more sense. And I made a little more sense in it.
Unfortunately, realizing I’m nonbinary also changed how I see the world. Made me see how split things are. Like public bathrooms. Those plastic signs always feel a little hostile now. Stamped with those little block people with legs or a triangle: boy or girl. And look, no one gives me side-eye or shoves me against the tiled wall and tells me to get out … I just … I kind of do that to myself. I look at the two doors leading into two different bathrooms and think, Huh, there isn’t really space for me. Not in the way there’s space for girls and boys.
And then there’s skating. Which is separated into men’s and women’s divisions. No room for someone who might be both and neither.
Honestly, it feels like there’s barely any room for girls. The field’s crowded. And competitive. More girls than boys get into figure skating in the first place. Maybe their parents sign them up for skating classes instead of soccer teams; maybe it just has some intrinsic feminine appeal. I look around the rink and take stock of them. These girls who have stuck with skating. Who wake up at five in the morning to drag themselves to the rink for ice time. Who spring into the air, knowing they will absolutely fall again and again until they get it right. Even though people think of skating as delicate, it isn’t a dainty sport. It’s hard-core. And the girls that stick with it? They’re hard-core too. In a lot of ways, I’m like those girls.
But more and more, in ways that seem to matter, I’m not.
One skater with long arms and an ombre overskirt glides past me, her leg raised high and straight in an impressive spiral. My eyes trail after her, watching as she deftly and smoothly navigates across the ice. Her black hair is pulled into a tight bun on top of her head. The way she moves is the way I know Katya would like to see me move. It’s as if she’s gliding underwater, her limbs moving with an exact kind of grace. I’ve never skated that way. And I’m not jealous, exactly. My skating just isn’t graceful. It’s powerful. And I’m sure I can do jumps that other girl can’t. But … I know I can’t skate the way she does. Not all flowy and precise.
I’m still thinking about the spiral girl when I push back my leg to prep for my toe loop. As I rotate in the air, I’m thinking about the way her dainty fingers were positioned in front of her as she skated by me. Without meaning to, I look for her and my eyes snag on her high, black bun.
And suddenly, my blade hits the ice, and I topple awkwardly and land—hard—on my butt.
“You’re still under-rotating on that toe loop, Veronica,” Katya barks out across the ice. Her voice is quite deep, her accent unmistakable. She doesn’t skate over to see if I’m okay. She just says, “You need more power. Bend the knee a little more.”
I hate falling. I can feel a blush break out across my cheeks. I hate that too. I push myself up from the ice and cut my eyes over to the spiral girl. She’s looking at me too. Probably because I fell. My blush deepens, hot embarrassment and anger blooming on my cheeks.
I shove against the ice, and when I get up on my blades, I spring into the air for a little skip—as if to say, I’m totally fine! Nothing to see here! Then I’m off again. Thank goodness for skating. I may be angry. I may think the world is unfair. But here … when I skate, it’s me and gravity. And my anger is a tool in that fight. I gather speed across the glassy surface, turn my body, bend my leg (a little deeper this time), reach my foot back, and launch into the air.
I keep my arms close to my chest as I spin: one, two, three.
I land perfectly.
My hot cheeks round out as I crack a smile. My first triple!
I can’t stop myself from coasting around the rink and pumping my fists in the air. I used to think when people did that at the end of sports movies it was kind of cheesy, but now I know that it’s totally genuine. I feel incredible. Unstoppable. Superhuman.
“Again,” Katya barks out, bringing me back to earth. Or ice, in this case.
My smile grows, turning into an all-out grin. Again is Katya’s way of saying, Good job. I glance back over at the spiral girl, but she’s focused on her own practice now, in the middle of a sit spin. I wish she’d been looking when I pulled off a triple instead of when I pulled off a falling-on-my-butt. I brush off my thighs, and do as Katya says.
Again. Again. Again.
As I run through the jumps, landing each one now, I find myself thinking about Dad.
Sometimes, I like to imagine that Dad taught me to skate.
He didn’t, not really. I learned to skate in a small group class. The rink provided skates for the lessons. They were made of blue and red plastic and had big buckles so they could be adjusted quickly.
I remember asking Dad why I had to wear them. Why I couldn’t wear white skates like everyone else. Dad laughed and pointed out that some people had black skates and some had tan—not everyone had white. I was four, but I really remember that moment. Maybe it was the first time I ever scowled. Because I knew Dad was dodging the question.
“If you get through these lessons and still want to skate, we’ll get you white ones,” he whispered as he clipped the plastic buckles in place.
That was all I could think about through those group lessons from then on. Getting those white skates.
“The bribe” (as it came to be known in our household) isn’t the story I tell myself about learning to skate though. Instead, I focus on the winters on the pond. People like to complain about how cold it gets in Michigan, but I’ve always loved how, when the temperatures dip low enough for long enough, the pond in the small woods that border our neighborhood freezes over. Some Saturday morning, usually in January, Dad would get up just before the sun, pack our skates into a canvas bag, and drag me down the sidewalk and through the woods for the first skate of the new year. Sometimes I whined a little at the beginning of the walk—about the cold, or the time—but when we made it to the frozen pond, I was always quivering with excitement.
The first time we did it, I remember thinking it felt so different than the rink. The ice was the color of milk and covered in bumps and dips. Even though I had been coached again and again to bend my knees on the ice, some different instinct kicked in on the pond, and I snatched Dad’s hand and forced him to drag me around while I kept my legs rail straight.
Eventually, I learned how to skate on the pond. What parts of my training held and what parts I needed to let go. Sometimes, Dad and I would just skate quietly on the ice, listening to the crisp slide of our blades against the frozen surface. Other times, Dad would chase me around, race me from one end to the other. We did most things as a whole family, but skating on the pond—that was just for me and Dad.
Whenever we’d go out, Dad would only wear his old Michigan sweatshirt and a pair of worn jeans. Even if it was absolutely frigid. “You’re going to catch a terrible cold,” Mom would say (if she was up early enough to catch us sneaking out for a morning skate).
“I’ve got to be as aerodynamic as possible to beat V,” Dad would always respond. Mom would roll her eyes and wink as she said, “We both know she can skate circles around you.”
I’d grin back.
But skating on the pond wasn’t about winning.
It was just about being.
With Dad.
On ice.
Dad won’t be there this winter. I turn my thoughts to how that secret spot in the woods will feel without him. When will it freeze? Will I even want to wake up and trudge through the woods without Dad egging me on about how he’s gonna beat me? Suddenly, I feel the chill of the rink air against my bare arms. I’m never cold when I skate. I try to push the picture of me alone at the pond out of my mind, but it keeps sneaking back into my thoughts.
It’s gonna be weird skating without Dad there this winter.
At least I’ll be able to land a triple.
Copyright © 2023 by Caroline Huntoon
