Streak - 23. Chapter 23

October 25, 2002

Spokane, WA

JJ

I skated out onto the ice and assumed my starting position, waiting for the music to begin. I was more nervous now than I had been, and that was because Alex wasn’t here. Just knowing that he was in the audience, that he was cheering me on, made things so much better. Then I could shut everyone else out, and pretend I was skating just for him. Only he wasn’t here, so I didn’t have him as my lucky charm.

He’d told me it was important that I do well so my family didn’t think I was over-dependent on him. I’d considered what he said and mulled it over in my brain way too much, and while he may be right, I really didn’t give a shit what they thought. I didn’t think that he was really all that concerned about it either. That meant there had to be another reason for his concern, and I could only come to one conclusion: He was probably trying to tell me that he was the one who was nervous that I was too dependent on him. I worried that I seemed obsessed, and that would drive him away. It was that fear, that concern that propelled me forward today. If I fucked up, Alex would think that he had to hold my hand and be at every one of my competitions. That much pressure may convince him that I was just too high maintenance.

I’d wanted to call him before I went on the ice just to hear his smooth voice, but I resisted that urge. I needed to show him that I could do this on my own, and that way he could relax about it. The music started and I put my all into my program, and while I normally did that, this time it was even more intense. When I’d skated at Regionals, it had been with happiness and joy, performing for Alex, but this time I was skating with worry and fear. How fucked up was it that those two emotions seemed to motivate me almost as well as happiness.

My body moved automatically, while my mind was racing to keep up with my program and to simultaneously rein in my neurotic thoughts. I felt like I was in a contest, where I had to get to the end of my program before my body caught up with my mind, and then passed it up. When that happened, I would fuck up, and fuck up big time. So I focused as hard as I could, urging myself forward. When I heard the last chords from my music, and did my final twirl and bow, I let out a huge sigh of relief. It had been close. The demons inside me had almost caught up.

I pushed that aside and basked in the glow of success. The applause was almost deafening as the crowd told me how well I’d done. I’d nailed this one, performing even better than I had at the Regionals. This was my first major International competition since my 9-11 meltdown, and I’d knocked the short program out like it was child’s play.

I skated over to the kiss and cry and found Tiffany waiting for me. She had a weird combination of emotions splayed on her face. She seemed partly proud, and partly worried. “You were fantastic,” she said, pushing the worry aside.

“Thanks,” I said. She knew me too well, and could read me like a book when I was skating. That’s why she looked nervous, because she’d seen the emotional struggle I’d just experienced. I tried to distract her by talking about the technical details, and that seemed to work. The scores came up and I’d kicked ass. We were halfway through the competition, and I was firmly in first place.

I talked to the media for a bit, giving them the obligatory pabulum that one was required to spew, and then I was finally able to find a quiet corner and call Alex. I was so excited to tell him how well I’d done. It was 2:00pm here, which meant it was 5:00pm back east. He’d told me he was going to Virginia with Wade, but that was the same time zone as Boston. I heard his phone ringing, and longed for him to pick it up, but it went to voice mail. I tried not to let that bother me, and just left a pleasant message. I’d wait to tell him I did well until I talked to him.

I hung up and stared at the phone, subconsciously demanding that it tell me why Alex hadn’t answered my call. He was probably riding, and it was tough for him to answer. He was probably galloping across some fields, and as soon as he pulled the horse back to a walk, he’d pull out his phone, see that I called, and ring me back. I had this vision of him riding across this green pasture, with an open shirt and his blond hair blowing in the wind, just like you see on the cover of some trashy romance novel. That thought made me chuckle to myself. I went back and watched the other skaters.

I was trying to focus on them, but it wasn’t working. Half an hour passed, and then an hour and I still hadn’t gotten a call from Alex. I forced myself to keep my rink expression, but that was getting tougher to do. I excused myself to go to the bathroom and locked myself in a stall for fifteen minutes, just to try and get a grip on my emotions. The short program competition ended at 3:30, and I was firmly in first place. I tried to be happy about it, and I was, but not as happy as I should have been. It was 6:30 in Virginia, so it was almost dinner time. Surely Alex was back inside, getting ready? He wouldn’t still be riding this close to when he had to appear at dinner, looking spruce and clean. I dialed his phone again, keyed up to tell him how I’d done, but the call went to voice mail again.

“Where do you want to eat?” Tiffany asked me, breaking into my turbulent thoughts.

“I’m kind of tired,” I said. “I think I’ll just do room service.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. I gave her a nasty look, to warn her that it wasn’t safe to probe any more, and then we left the rink and went back to the hotel. I managed to escape from her and my bodyguard, back to my room. I had a huge suite, which was good, because I’d alternately sit on my bed, then walk around the room all agitated, then sit back down again. And the longer I did that, the longer I repeated that process, the agitation and worry and sadness turned into something much more familiar: Anger. He knew this was important to me. He knew how uptight I was about this. Was it too much to ask that he talk to me after I skated? He couldn’t make a five-minute phone call? I wasn’t even worth that? I wasn’t pissed at him for not being here in person (I lied to myself), but the least he could fucking do was talk to me. If he couldn’t spare a few minutes to talk to me, then it was obvious that he didn’t give a shit about me, or how I did. As soon as I was gone, I was out of his mind. I was just a distraction, a plaything to him. I felt used and tossed aside, and that triggered another emotion: Pride.

I looked at my phone and I’d burned through another hour torturing myself, so it was now pushing 5:30. That meant it was 8:30 in Virginia. It had been three and a half hours since I called and left a message telling him I was finished. He couldn’t find the time to call me back for three and a half hours? My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten anything for quite a while. I ordered room service and waited impatiently for it to arrive, but if anything my agitation got worse.

At 7:00, just as I was finishing dinner, my phone rang. I got all excited, but that emotion cratered when I saw that it was Tiffany. “Hello,” I said coldly, trying to let her know I wasn’t in a mood to talk.

“Did you eat dinner yet? I thought maybe we could eat and strategize for the free skate,” she said. We didn’t need to strategize; she was just trying to get me to do something, which meant she figured out that I was all upset. That just made me more annoyed.

“I already ate. I’m pretty tired, so I’m going to crash early.”

“This early?” she asked.

“This early,” I said rudely, to cut that line of conversation off. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.” Before she could argue any more, I hung up the phone. Now she was trying to manage my moods and placate me, and even though I secretly wanted her to do that, it bugged the shit out of me that she was doing it so obviously.

At 7:30, I was so annoyed that I was losing my ability to function and be rational. I took a deep breath and called Alex, and not surprisingly, my call went to voice mail. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to you today. If you care, you can check online to see how the competition went.” I ended the call and turned off my phone, determined to prevent any of these people from fucking with my mind.

The phone in the room rang, making me jump in surprise, and really pissing me off. “What?” I demanded rudely as I answered it.

“I was just checking to make sure your dinner was satisfactory,” a pleasant lady said.

“It was good,” I said through clenched teeth.

“We can send someone up to get the tray,” she offered.

“You can get the tray tomorrow when you clean the room,” I snapped, and hung up the phone. In a fit of rage, I took the phone and threw it across the room, ripping the cable out of it. There was another phone in my bedroom, so I disconnected that one in a more deliberate manner. For the first time since I got back to the hotel, I smiled a genuine smile. I had cut off the assholes in my life that would do nothing but bother and annoy me. I was nicely insulated from them.

I took out a bottle of sleeping pills. I used to take them regularly, but when I started sleeping with Alex, I slept so well I didn’t need them. One usually knocked me out, but there were two left in the bottle, so I took both of them. Then I crashed.

October 25, 2002

Goodwell

Charlottesville, VA

Wade

We’d just come back from a long ride and guided our lathered horses into the paddock. Matt rode next to me and looked at me with a happy expression to show me how completely exhilarated he was from our ride. We dismounted together, and I walked over to address the stable boy. “You’ll need to cool the horses down,” I said. “We didn’t get a chance to walk them much before we got back.”

“No problem, Mr. Danfield,” he said respectfully. He called one of his coworkers over and the two of them started to walk the horses. Matt and I sauntered into the house, with thoughts of an afternoon fuck at the forefront of my mind. Instead, I encountered my mother in the Great Room.

“Welcome,” I said to her, and gave her the obligatory faux kisses on the cheek, and Matt did the same thing. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

“I wasn’t waiting at all,” she said, but with a slight smile. “I got here a few hours ago, and availed myself of that opportunity to spend some time with my grandson.”

“I’m glad you did,” I said in a friendly way. Goodwell was my house now, more or less, and it was my obligation to be polite to my guests, even if that guest was my mother. “We were riding. It was marvelous.”

“Sadly, I don’t think I’ll have time to do that,” she said, and was genuinely unhappy about that.

“Maybe next weekend, after your party,” I offered. “Did you figure everything out?”

“Anxious to get rid of me?”

I looked at the clock meaningfully. “I expected that you would stay for dinner, since it is only in an hour and a half.”

“Thank you for the invitation. I think I will do just that,” she said.

“I didn’t mention this before, but I brought Lord Bridgemont along,” I told her.

“I will have to polish up my manners,” she said, being absolutely pleasant.

“That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about,” Matt said with a smile. I watched my mother flinch slightly at that compliment from Matt, and then she gave him her biggest smile. He probably thought it was charming, while I just saw the teeth of a crocodile.

“And where is this mysterious peer?” she asked.

“We were finished riding, but Mary Ellen volunteered to show Alex the old cistern,” I explained. My mother raised an eyebrow briefly. She was under no illusions as to how slutty her daughter was.

“Then I will plan to meet him at dinner,” she said.

Matt and I left her and headed to our room, pausing to check on Riley and Maddy. “Dude, what the fuck? She was almost human.”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “That’s how she used to be when she was here at Goodwell.” My mother had usually been relaxed and jovial here; it was only within the past few years that she had been as frigid here as she’d been in the Capital. “But I’m really enjoying myself, so for tonight; I’m just going with it.”

“Speaking of enjoyment,” he said with a leer, and took me on sexual roller coaster ride. I concluded that he could take me on that kind of ride any time. I’d skip the emotional ones.

We took a shower and got our clothes out for dinner. “Rink gear,” I said to Matt. When we played hockey at Stanford, we were required to wear nice clothes when we went to the rink, so when I told him that, it meant that we had to wear sport jackets, slacks, and a tie.

“Dude, here?” he asked, slightly annoyed. He liked a more relaxed dress code.

“Look pretty for me,” I said with a wink. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

He gave me his adorable grin. “Dude, for you, I’ll wear anything, or nothing at all.” He was too funny. We spiffed up and headed down to the dining room, to find everyone else already there. Alex was dressed in a suit, which made us look a bit more casual, but not in a tacky way. My mother had a very chic but conservative dress on, one that accentuated her slim figure. Mary Ellen wore a dress that was cut so low it was right on the edge of tasteful.

“Good evening,” Alex said.

“Good evening,” I said with a genuine smile, one he returned. “I see you have met my mother.”

“I have been having a delightful conversation with these two lovely ladies,” he said.

“So try not to ruin it,” Mary Ellen joked.

“I can be charming, and if I’m not, Matt is,” I said. We sat down and ate, then drank, then drank some more, and had a very lively conversation about nothing in particular. It was a truly enjoyable dinner.

“That was a wonderful meal to end a spectacular day,” Alex said, as the staff cleared the food off the table and brought us after dinner drinks.

“You’re going to bed already?” Matt asked. “The night’s not over yet.”

“I am merely going with the flow,” he said. “What is that lovely room toward the back of the house?”

“The one with all the windows?” I asked for clarification.

“Yes.”

“That’s the conservatory,” I said. “Do you play an instrument?”

“I am an adequate violinist,” he said.

“We’ll see about that,” I said, and stood up. We took our drinks to the conservatory and I rummaged in the closet until I found a violin and handed it to him.

“Very nice,” he said. It was a Stradivarius, an instrument one of my ancestors had specially ordered. “Do you play?”

“I play the flute badly,” I said. “I can do the trombone too, only that’s worse.” I’d taken lessons when I was young, and had rarely played since I’d gone away to college. I wasn’t great, but I was adequate; I’d merely made myself sound worse to keep their expectations low.

“And what of the rest of you?” Alex asked.

“Mother is quite accomplished on the piano,” I said.

“Why thank you, Wade,” she said, and walked over to the beautiful Steinway piano, an acquisition by another relative. She sat down at the bench and began to play a few chords.

“I can sing,” Mary Ellen said.

“So can I,” Matt said. He was a good singer, something he’d probably inherited from Robbie.

We took a bit to get the feel for how we played, or sang, and laughed our asses off as we did. I asked the staff to bring us more drinks, and they obliged, so that made the whole thing more fun. We ended up playing stupid ditties for the most part, starting with “Yankee Doodle” and ending with “Camptown Races,” along with some British pieces Alex tossed in. It was a total blast. We played until Mary Ellen yawned, although I wasn’t sure if she was really tired, or just trying to end the party.

“I’m a bit tired,” Mary Ellen said coquettishly, like a true Southern Belle. “I think I’ll retire.”

“Allow me to escort you,” Alex said gallantly. Matt looked away just in time to hide his annoyance from everyone else.

“I would be honored,” Mary Ellen said, and we all watched as she led him off. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t invited my mother to stay, a horrible oversight on my part.

“I have just assumed that you would stay here tonight,” I said to her. “That was pretty rude. I’m sorry.”

She chuckled. “I just assumed I would stay here as well, so I think my presumptuousness balances out your rudeness.” We laughed about that, and then headed back to our room.

“Dude, who the fuck was that?” Matt asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Your mother. I’ve never seen her like that. She was a lot of fun.”

“She can be,” I said, smiling, then reality broke through and I frowned. “Just don’t let your guard down.”

He nodded. “So Alex was walking Mary Ellen back to her room,” he said angrily.

“We talked about this,” I said firmly.

“She’s going to fuck him,” he said.

“She already has, or at least that’s my guess,” I said.

“What? How do you know that?” he asked, all pissed off.

I gave him a firm look to chill his ass out. “Notice how at dinner she didn’t act slutty?”

“I don’t know,” he said skeptically. “I guess it was less slutty than normal.”

“That’s about as un-slutty as Mary Ellen gets,” I joked, and we laughed about it.

“Why does that matter?”

“In the past, I noticed a pattern when she’s after a guy, usually one of my friends. She puts on her slut-mode, only then after she’s fucked him, she mellows out. It’s like she uses her skank routine to reel the dude in, then after she does that, she acts much classier.” Matt looked at me, wide-eyed at how whacked my sister was. “Doesn’t mean she fucked Alex, I’m just saying that’s how she used to be.”

“This is going to kill JJ,” he said.

“Didn’t he do his short program today?” I asked Matt. “I wonder how he did.”

“Alex didn’t talk about it,” Matt grumbled. “Then again, he was pretty fucking preoccupied.”

“It’s still pretty early,” I told him. “Why don’t you call JJ? He’ll like hearing from you.”

“You do it,” he said. “If I do, I might give away that something is wrong.”

“Good point,” I agreed. I called JJ and got his voicemail, so I left him a nice message. I was going to call Tiffany, but she’d been feeling so shitty lately, I decided it was best for her to just sleep.

October 26, 2002

Goodwell

Charlottesville, VA

Matt was lying on his back, snoring softly, with his morning erection tenting out the sheet. I giggled and played with it, only he was still asleep, and already grumpy from his hangover, so he rolled over onto his side to keep me from waking him up.

I got out of bed and threw on some clothes then went down to eat breakfast. I thought that once I hit my twenties, my appetite would diminish, but that hadn’t happened. I paused to study my body in the hallway mirror, looking for any sign of excess fat, but I was as slim as ever. I was pretty busy, so that must burn all those calories off. I cringed in horror at the thought that someday I may not have that luxury, and worried that I’d end up getting fat like my Aunt Emeline. She had the notorious Danfield appetite but without the accelerated metabolism, and she seemed to weigh at least forty pounds too much these days.

I had just started eating when Alex came in looking uncharacteristically upset. “Good morning,” I said cheerfully, and that was evidently his cue to turn on his façade and hide what was bothering him.

“It certainly is,” he said, as he sat down and joined me.

“I was going to finish eating, and then go for a morning ride. Would you care to join me?” I asked.

“I have a bit of a crisis, but perhaps I can share my tale of woe with you as we ride,” he said.

“That’s a good idea. Riding should make things better,” I said.

“I fear that has contributed indirectly to the problem I now face,” he said. He had certainly piqued my curiosity, but I wasn’t going to let him see that. We finished eating and went down to change into our riding tack. I glanced at him as he changed, and while I couldn’t help but appreciate what an amazingly handsome guy he was, the attraction that had been so strong and had all but possessed me this summer was completely gone. The thought of having sex with him in any capacity just didn’t excite me at all.

We had a couple of spirited stallions, so I had them saddled up and we tore off over the smooth terrain, flying along at a full gallop. Doing this, riding with Alex, helped remind me of how much I’d enjoyed him at Bridgemont. Matt was a good horseman, but he wasn’t in my league. In fact, the only two people, besides Nana and my mother, who could match me on horseback were JP and Alex. We let the horses run, let them really go, then reined them in for a more leisurely trot, or walk, as the terrain varied.

“So you have a crisis?” I asked. Since he raised the topic initially, I felt that it was only polite of me to bring it up again.

“I do,” he said. “I fear I have vexed JJ, although I am not sure how badly I have angered him.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I did not call him yesterday to inquire about his competition, and I didn’t get to return his calls until much later in the evening, after we all went to bed.”

“What did he say when you talked to him?”

“I didn’t get a chance to talk to him yet,” he told me.

“Then what makes you think he’s mad at you?”

He moved his horse close to mine and handed me his phone. “Play that message,” he said, referring to the one he’d queued up. It was JJ’s voice: “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to you today. If you care, you can check online to see how the competition went.” It was impossible to miss how pissed off he was, but even more apparent was how hurt he was.

“I see your point,” I said, handing his phone back.

“I should have called him. I had intended to call him. I guess I was so enthralled with being in the country and riding, and I had so enjoyed everyone’s company, that I didn’t think about any other aspect of my life,” he said.

“I think that is exactly what JJ is upset about,” I explained. “He’ll think that as soon as he’s out of sight, you forget him.”

“That is hardly the case,” he objected. I looked at him to challenge that, and then we rode on in silence for a bit. “I can see how it may have looked that way to him.”

“He was probably sad that you weren’t there, but he figured that you’d still be there in spirit. He’s a diva, so he has no problem thinking you’d be waiting by the phone for him to call and tell you how he did. And to share in the news of his big victory.”

“He won? I had assumed he had done badly, based on that message.”

“He’s in first place after the short program,” I told him. I’d talked to Tiffany this morning; she’d called to check on Riley. Evidently she wasn’t sleeping really well there. “He was all excited to share the victory with you, but you weren’t there.”

He frowned at me. “I had thought talking to you would help me feel better. It has not.”

I chuckled. “Look Alex, you and JJ seem to be doing very well together, but like I said, he’s a diva. He’s going to require a little more effort, especially during competitions. Most of us avoid him as much as possible during these times. He’s not easy to handle.”

“I can see where you would reach that conclusion, but I do not find him to be a diva, and I do not find him to be high-maintenance. In this situation, it is I who am at fault, and who let him down.”

“So he hasn’t called you back?” I asked.

“I have not been able to contact him,” he said, the frustration burning through his own calm demeanor. He looked at his phone, as if it were the device that was responsible. “I have phoned him eight times, and left five messages, but have not gotten a response.”

“It is still really early there, and he doesn’t wake up at the crack of dawn,” I joked. JJ was notorious for sleeping in every chance he got.

“He does not,” Alex agreed.

“Are you going to tell him about you and Mary Ellen?”

“Tell him what?” he challenged. When Alex and I had been together, when we were in Britain, we’d had a really neat way of communicating without saying anything. It was as if we could read each other just by looking at our facial expressions, or into each others’ eyes. We did that now, locked eyes for a bit, until I raised an eyebrow, telling him that I pretty much knew he’d fucked Mary Ellen and that there really was no use in arguing about it. He sighed. “I’m not sure.”

“Do you two have an agreement that you won’t sleep with other people?” I asked. That got me a dirty look, because I was probing, and I felt guilty for doing that. “I apologize for asking questions about things that are none of my business. I was just trying to put things in context.”

“I suppose if I sleep with your sister in your own house, you have the right to ask me my intentions,” he said in a mildly playful way. “To answer your question, JJ and I have not had a conversation about that. There is no formal commitment, but I suspect that on his part there is an implied one, and he would assume we would only sleep with each other.”

“Maybe you can use this incident as a way to clarify that,” I told him, which was also my way of strongly suggesting that he be honest with JJ about this.

“Maybe,” he agreed skeptically. “But as it stands, I am unsure as to how to make things right. I have left him wounded and sad, thousands of miles away, and he has to do his free skate tomorrow.”

“You think that this could mess him up enough that he’d lose?”

He nodded. “He seems to need one person with whom he can bond and share his fears and insecurities with, at least as it regards skating. I am happy to do that for him, but yesterday, I failed. I imagine he will feel cut adrift, and very much alone.”

“I suspect that when he wakes up and sees that you called, and listens to your messages, he’ll call you back.”

“I wonder what I should say to him.”

“You should grovel,” I said. He gave me a dirty look, although I wasn’t sure if that was because he was upset that I made JJ sound like a drama queen, or because he didn’t want to grovel. “Will explained this to me when he was having problems with JJ.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said that when JJ is mad at you, you have two choices. You can both apologize and grovel, in which case he will probably forgive you. The other option is to wait until he gets over it on his own, only according to Will, that takes a very long time,” I explained.

“As JJ has described his relationship with Will, I would have to believe Will knows him very well, and is most likely right in that assertion,” he said. “And in that case, it means I must do some rather intense groveling, something I am not very good at.”

I laughed. “I think that JJ will help you practice and get better at that.”

“You are probably right, since I am prone to errors, especially when it comes to relationships,” he said.

“I’ve learned that they take some work, but they’re worth it.”

“For the most part, I agree with you,” he said with a grin. Then we spurred the horses forward and rode back to Goodwell.