Cinderella in Skates

chapter FOURTEEN





Shane and I mostly slept through the car ride home from the mountains yesterday, and I'm okay with that. I didn't expect much private time with his parents sitting less than twelve inches in front of us the whole time.

A way-too-short weekend ended with a way-too-short evening in front of the fire last night. Once he'd started kissing me, Shane hadn't stopped until the flames had died down to nothing more than embers and it was hard for me to keep my teeth from chattering.

I'm bummed that we have real practice after class today with the team and Coach Dobrov, and I won't be seeing Shane. He's got too much going on downtown to come to the suburbs for a special practice session with me after my official one.

I'm sitting at the very end of one of the wooden benches lining the rink, my teammates scattered around me. I still don't really know any of them, but it's clear from the constant buzz of conversation and occasional peal of laughter that they all know each other.

Great.

The door to the rink opens and another girl dressed in goalie pads walks in.

There she is.

Erica Wunders.

Otherwise known as the only thing that can stop me from starting this season.

Erica clomps -- seriously, have you ever tried to move around in goalie pads? There's no way to make that graceful -- in my direction and drops down onto the bench next to me.

"Hey," she says, brushing some of her black hair off her forehead. "Welcome aboard, Natalie."

I smile at her, but I'm immediately suspicious. "Thank you."

"Get ready for this. Suicides are definitely going to be on tap first," she says, and now I'm wondering if maybe I'd been wrong about Erica the whole time. Maybe she'd just been super focused on the tryout that day and hadn't realized she was coming across so, well, rudely.

"Uh oh," I say, trying to keep things light and friendly. "Those are my least favorite drills."

"You'll get better at them once you play hockey longer."

"Yeah, I guess you'd know. It definitely shows you've been doing this forever and I'm pretty sure it's obvious I've only been at it for a couple of months."

Erica nods. "Yeah, it is."

I blink twice. I hadn't expected her to agree with me. I'm scrambling to come up with some kind of response to that when she goes on.

"That's not to say you can't get better or anything, Natalie. It's just hard when you're so new to the game."

"Well, I think I'm doing alright."

Erica nods enthusiastically. "Oh, for sure! For sure! Oh, my gosh, I didn't mean to say you're not," she says, but I'm not buying the sugary sweetness in her tone this time. "I guess I'm just trying to tell you not to be too discouraged if you don't get a lot of playing time, that's all. It's hard to beat out someone like me."

"I guess we'll see, right?"

A quick frown flashes across her face but before she can say anything, Coach Dobrov blows her whistle, cutting off the rest of the conversation.

"Ladies!" the coach bellows out. "Welcome to the new season. Congratulations on making it this far. You're all about to be part of something very special as long as you're willing to work for it."

I try not to smile. After my little chat with Erica, I'm more willing to work to get this than ever before.

Coach Dobrov explains how practices will run, and from the sound of things, today is about to be chock full of all sorts of conditioning drills, or, as I like to call them, torture.

She has us all line up on one of the blue lines, and I'm instantly envious of the girls who aren't about to have to do all these sprints in full goalie padding.

And sure enough, sprints are exactly what Coach Dobrov has in mind, the same ones we had to do to start tryouts.

Coach Dobrov blows her whistle and I begin skating. It's easy at first -- Shane's insistence on conditioning drills might actually pay off one more time -- but by the I'm on my way back from the last blue line, my legs feel heavy and a thick braid of sweat prickles on my hairline.

I'm almost to the finish line when I realize she hasn't blown the whistle yet, but already two girls have given up. One lies flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling, arms at her side and the other is bent over on one knee, gagging in the corner.

But Erica is still skating with ease.

I force myself to keep going. She won't beat me. I won't let that happen. I can't. I reach the blue line and turn around to go back to the first red line. As long as it takes. Even if the blades fall off my skates.

Four more girls have dropped out by the time I'm on my way back from the far goal. Erica isn't one of them, and I already know we're going to be the last two standing, and Coach Dobrov's not going to show us any mercy.

My legs wobble, the skates feeling more foreign on my feet now than they had the very first day I'd put them on, but I'm not stopping. There are just three of us left standing, and as I start another round of the drill, I see the only other person separating me from Erica stumble and hit the ice.

Coach Dobrov stands inside the bench, arms folded across her chest, whistle dangling around her neck, and it doesn't look like she has plans to blow it any time soon.

Erica and I keep skating -- we're neck-and-neck, really -- and I'm looking at her out of the corner of my eye when the front of the blade of her skate digs awkwardly into the ice and she trips and falls.

The whistle blows then and even though Erica hadn't really quit, I don't care.

I'm the last one standing.

"Nice job, ladies," Coach Dobrov says, shooting a quick glance in my direction. "Let's move into position drills for the rest of the afternoon."

I skate over to where Coach King waits by one of the nets, not at all excited when I realize that I'm essentially going to have to spend every practice with Erica Wunders.

Great.

I can hardly wait.





     ***



I'm in the locker room changing into non-sweaty yoga pants and a sweatshirt to head home in when Ivy drops down onto the bench next to me.

"Boy, do I feel bad for you," she says, tipping her head back and taking a sip from her water bottle.

I raise my eyebrows. "What?"

"You're the sucker who gets to be Erica's back-up. That's not somethin' I'd wish on my worst enemy."

"So you mean it's not all in my head?" I ask with a smile, happy to hear maybe I'm not the only one Erica isn't super fond of.

She definitely had not been happy to lose out to me during the suicide drill and she wasn't shy about making it known that she'd tripped -- not quit -- all through the rest of practice. Even Coach King eventually had to remind her that goalies are supposed to have short memories.

"Erica thinks she the best player in Wisconsin," Ivy says with a roll of her eyes. "You'll get tired of it really fast."

"Who says I'm not already?"

"Welcome aboard," she says. "You're the best back-up goalie we've had on the team in all my years playing here so far. And this is my fourth."

"Doesn't seem to matter much with Erica in net," I grumble. "I didn't know you were on the team. I didn't see you at tryouts."

"I was sick," she says. "Coach D cut me a break because I've played for her for the last three years. Still made me do individual conditioning drills when I was better to make sure I didn't turn into a lazy slug during the offseason, though."

I laugh. "That sounds about right."

"Hey, what are you doing Friday night?"

I hesitate for a second, not sure how much I want to tell her right away. I'd been planning on surprising Shane at his hockey game this weekend. "Actually, I'm thinking of going to the Badger game."

"The hockey game?" Ivy asks.

I nod.

"Cool!" she says. "Those are really fun. Who are you going with?"

"Oh, it was, um --"

"Just you, huh?" Ivy cuts in, and I can't help but smile. I like her blunt style.

"Yep. Just me."

"Want some company?"

"Oh, you don't have to."

"Yeah, I know, but it'd be fun. And you should get to know your teammates."

"You're probably right. Let's do it."

"Great!" she says, clapping her hands together. "We can head downtown after practice Friday."

"Sounds like a plan."

She smiles at me and bounces off to the back of the locker room and all I can really think about is how excited I am to surprise Shane.