“There will be about two hundred people, all arriving in cars, RVs, trucks with camper shells and fifth wheels. My mother thinks the tent for the reception is uppity, and my father complains it will block the sky, but he already contacted cousins in the old country to send him crates of their best wine. We always have to rent tables so at least no one is complaining about that. But I want a waitstaff and bartenders for this event, if only to help with the cleanup. My family should celebrate and enjoy the fruits of their labors.”
“It sounds positively wonderful,” Grace said somewhat dreamily. “I can’t imagine having that many family members around to celebrate.”
“Oh, there will be arguing, too,” she said. “Fights, even. Big families—big control issues. They’re very opinionated, very strong, very nosy. There is always lots of laughter, lots of yelling.”
“I’d love to do this,” Grace said. “But I’ll be honest, I’ve never done a wedding this big or this far away. The people I worked for before coming here to open the shop are in Portland. I know they could do it...”
“Get them to help you, if you want,” Peyton said. “I only want two things from you—flowers and to see you dance at my wedding. I hope a lot of people from Thunder Point will be there.”
Grace gave the situation some thought. There were many different ways this could be accomplished. She could order the flowers and even make the bouquets and arrangements and drive up with them—the van was refrigerated in back. Or, she could transport the flowers and make them into bouquets and arrangements once there. Or, she could have Ross and Mamie order the flowers and she could go up a day early, visit with them and make up the flowers in their shop. They’d be thrilled. She ran over all these possibilities with Peyton and Peyton left the final decision in her hands.
“And now, what can I do for you?” Peyton asked.
“Oh. That.” Grace cleared her throat. “A checkup, I guess. I haven’t had one in a while, like too long. Oh, don’t make that face—it’s only been a few years!”
Peyton’s black eyes grew huge. “A few years?”
Grace leaned toward her a little. “I’ve had lots of physicals over the years, all with good results, but only a couple of those exams. But now it seems I need to be on the pill.”
“Ah,” Peyton said. “Gotcha.”
“Your first thirty-year-old virgin?” Grace asked with a smirk, though she was not thirty yet.
“No,” Peyton said, laughing. “I’m very happy to oblige.” She glanced at her watch. “Can you come down to the clinic this afternoon at around two? That’s a really slow time. Scott will be at the hospital and I can arrange with Devon to get you in right away so we don’t take too much of your time. But I’m going to want to do a blood panel to make sure everything is in order.”
Grace hadn’t been exaggerating—she’d had a ton of physicals. A competitive skater had to be in peak condition, couldn’t risk anemia or vitamin deficiency or, God forbid, some lurking condition like a heart or kidney problem. But this was different.
“I can do that. Two o’clock.”
Nine
Although they didn’t talk about it, Grace realized that she and Troy were having a standoff. She wanted to hear some words of love before she told him the whole story of her life and he wanted the story of her life before there could be words of love. She might be very vulnerable to the promise of first love, but she wasn’t an idiot.
She had kept her appointment with Peyton.
When Grace had visited Peyton and asked her about birth control pills, she told her they’d only been using condoms for protection. “I’m not worried about it,” she said. “But Troy is getting a little nervous about depending only on that when the pill is safer.”
“Perfectly understandable. Are your periods regular?” Peyton asked.
“No, unfortunately. I’m pretty sure I’m due any day now. Seems like it’s been a while.”
“Well, let’s do a physical exam and blood work and then I’ll give you a prescription for birth control pills. You can start taking them the first day of your period, but stick with your other protection until two weeks on the pill. I’ll also give you a pregnancy test to take home just in case that cycle doesn’t arrive—you can check to be sure you’re not pregnant.”
Troy hadn’t even asked her about it. She decided she was going to tell him everything about her past before his friends visited on the weekend. If there was anything about her he no longer liked, he could just sleep on his own couch while they were in town.
She put the morning mail on her desk, went about her work, put together a few floral arrangements for Justin to deliver later. She went upstairs to fix a sandwich for lunch, then cleaned up the shop, made a list of flower orders for the week and visited with customers. It was late afternoon and Justin had already picked up his deliveries before she went through the mail. She leafed through the usual ads and bills, then came across a letter. Her name and address were typed on the envelope and she expected an offer of cheap insurance or something similar. But inside was one folded slip of paper. She opened it and read what was typed across the page.
“I dream of you every night. B.”
She stared at it, mouth open. Her hands began to shake. She looked over her shoulder left, then right. Her breath came in short gasps. She locked the back door. She wanted to go upstairs and lock her loft, but she was afraid to go outside. She grabbed her cell phone and then spoke aloud, to calm herself. “Stop. Stop. You’re alone here. He’s not here.”
But she checked every nook and cranny, in the cooler, the office, even under the desk. She looked into the alley and saw nothing unusual. She didn’t know who to call. Not her mother, who would only say I told you so. Not Mamie and Ross in Portland—what could they do? She finally speed-dialed Mikhail’s cell phone. She had no idea where he might be; he could be anywhere in the world. She usually got his voice mail and was constructing the message she’d leave him when he answered in Russian.
“Mikhail, he found me! I just got a letter. It says what he used to say, that he dreams of me every night. It’s Bruno! Oh, God.”
“Sons of bitches!” he barked into the phone.
“It’s not addressed to Izzy. It’s addressed to Grace Dillon. Here at the shop. Where I live.”
“But he is in hospital,” Mikhail said. “I will call them now. Then I call you. Stay where you are,” he instructed as though she’d leave the phone if she left the room.
“Thank you. I couldn’t make myself call them.”
The first note had come when she was twelve, just a little girl, but her parents hadn’t shared it with her. At twelve she was already a skater with enormous promise and a winner in her age category. Her parents screened everything that came near her, but she saw one of the notes lying on her father’s desk a year later. She got a little excited at first—someone loved her? Dreamed of her? But her mother said, “Don’t be ridiculous! It’s another nutcase! We reported him to the police.”
She didn’t think another thing about it. Then, not long after her father’s death, after an early morning practice with Mikhail, her new coach, she took off her skates in the arena where she’d been skating and walked toward the exit where the chauffeured town car waited. A man she didn’t know and couldn’t remember ever seeing before stepped out of a dark hallway, grabbed her, put his hand over her mouth and ran down that dark hallway with her. She struggled and fought and he babbled that he was going to take care of her, rescue her from the people who were exploiting her.
He held her in a maintenance closet with a broken lock on the door. She huddled in the corner, sitting on the cold floor, while he paced and babbled about foreign countries using children to spy for them, that the beautiful children should be freed, on and on with nonsense that had no meaning. He hadn’t been armed that she could see, but he was a large man. His ha
ir was thinning on top but long on the sides and back; she found out later that he was twenty-four. She tried to get up and run for the door of that small space but he smacked her right down and threatened her, told her he’d have to hurt her to protect her if she didn’t follow his rules.
It took a little over two hours for the police to open the unlocked door, wrestle him to the ground and remove her. It was much later that she learned he was delusional and had to be hospitalized.
After that incident there were a couple of other stalkers that were handled quickly, efficiently and with restraining orders. Those two later perpetrators were not delusional but appeared to be aficionados of the young female sporting scene and seemed to move on with little argument. Who knew who they bothered after her?
Once Grace understood exactly what had been going on she also understood there were predators out there, people who preyed on pretty young athletes, male and female. They usually began by giving small gifts or flowers and praising their talent, but too soon they’d be seen at every practice and competition, always trying to get closer, to chat it up with the coaches or athletes.
It was very likely a combination of her own close calls and the tearful words from that young skater, Shannon Fields, that caused Grace to fire such rash and destructive accusations at the coach, Hal Nordstrom, suggesting he’d been inappropriate. Poor little Shannon had said to Grace, “You don’t understand! I gave him everything he asked for. Everything, even if it was horrible!” Grace believed, in her gut, that Shannon had been talking about something other than, more than, practice. She had no evidence. But he did have a sleazy, lecherous look in his eye and he did way too much fondling and butt patting.
What did she know about it? She had Mikhail Petrov, that cold, angry, often silent little Russian who never touched her, not in anger, not in praise. Since his compliments came in the harsh, brittle Russian tongue, she had no way of knowing, for years, that he was sentimental on the inside. Looking back, she could see that Mikhail had almost become the man of her small family; both Winnie and Grace had depended on him. He was always present, completely devoted.
Mikhail also had strong opinions about Hal Nordstrom. He used one phrase whenever he referred to that particular coach. “He is piece of shit.”
Winnie had told her to keep her mouth shut and when she hadn’t, Nordstrom sued them for defamation and Winnie had settled with an undisclosed sum. When, a few years later, Nordstrom was arrested for molesting several young skaters, Grace felt vindicated. But did Winnie apologize? Just the opposite. “You could have saved me considerable money if you’d just kept your mouth shut. And he would’ve eventually been found guilty anyway.”
It was a long couple of hours before Mikhail called her back. “He is out, moya radost,” he said, his Russian for my happiness. “But he is with family in Florida. They swear on bibles he is safe and taking medicine. I’ll get this verified to my satisfaction.”
“Oh, Mikhail, what if they’re lying? Making excuses?”
“I have called police. I want they should answer me. We shall see. Are you safe?”
“I think so,” she said weakly, looking around again. “Why would he even want me now? I’m not on the ice or in the news! He shouldn’t even want me anymore!”
“Ach, I can’t know the head of a crazy man! If there is doubts, you must take steps. Call police. Or,” he said, hesitating briefly, “call Winnie. She will not abandon you.”
A nervous laugh that was almost a sob escaped her. The last thing she wanted was to be controlled by her mother again. She talked to Mikhail while she walked to the front door, put up the closed sign and locked it. They talked for just a few minutes. She learned he was in Chicago for some exhibition skating and then would be heading to Southern California, which had become his home base.
Mikhail was over sixty. He was once a competitive skater but gave that up in his early twenties, knowing he was not good enough to be great. But he had the potential to build champions and had been coaching ever since. He’d had only one brief marriage because, Is not the life for family man. Grace wasn’t quite sure how much or how little that influenced her decision to get out. What do I care? Mikhail would say. I make winners, that is what I do.
Grace wanted more. Or less, as the case may be.
“I would like to see you sometime,” she told him before hanging up.
“You have to find me,” he told her. “We would have good meal, laughs, old times. Maybe you skate for me once!”
“Maybe,” she said. “For old times only.”
“I was better making rules, telling you when you will skate and what you will do. I don’t follow so good.”
“I know this,” she said, laughing through nostalgic tears.
After they hung up, she dimmed the lights in the shop. When you’re closed, you’re closed. She didn’t have the courage to go upstairs to her loft. She had an irrational fear that he was waiting for her up there. He was really a kind of tragic, pathetic man who was completely out of reality, left in the care of an older sister who wasn’t married and promised to always guard him closely, a woman who really cared about him and was traumatized by the reality that he could possibly hurt someone.
She heard from Troy every day. If he didn’t call her after school, she called him. She’d give him till six or so, then she’d text him and ask him what he was doing after work.
In the meantime, she thought about Mikhail and she cried. The truth was, she missed skating for him. She even missed competition and the raw nerves of it. She had no regrets about leaving it—she’d accomplished everything she could and the strain was sometimes debilitating.
It was funny that the girl who was her fiercest rival, who hated her more than anyone on the circuit, an American named Fiona Temple, hadn’t ever made her mark. Fiona, who had her own posse of mean girls, spread more dirt about Grace than anyone else, making sure everyone knew that while most hardworking parents got up at four to take their kids to training and borrowed against the mortgage to pay for it, Rich Bitch Izzy’s mother put her in a town car at dawn to be delivered to the rink. Fiona, who celebrated the most when Grace walked away, hadn’t done anything significant since. She had believed the only thing that stood in the way of gold medals was Grace, yet with Grace gone China and Russia wrapped up the medals.
The pressure to stay in the competition had been fierce from all quarters, from Winnie, from her team, from her country. “You do what you have to do, but until the day comes, say nothing!” Mikhail had warned her. “Telling is losing.”
Any other coach would’ve dumped her. In her circles, winning was everything. World-famous coaches don’t waste their time on competitors who want to quit. But he stuck with her, gave her everything he had and she worked her ass off for him. Mikhail wasn’t warm and fuzzy, but he loved her like a daughter, protected her and challenged her and to this day had not abandoned her.
So she went to her last competition, the biggest in the world, angry and determined to strike one final blow for everyone who depended on her. And she took it. Took it all. She took it home by a mile. Winnie had her gold medal. Fiona hadn’t even made the cut.
The back door to the shop rattled as someone tried to get in. She nearly jumped out of her skin. She had to take a couple of deep breaths and wipe her eyes before creeping to the door to see who it was.
“Gracie, what’s wrong?” Troy said. “You’re crying.”
“Don’t ask me why, just please go upstairs and make sure no one is up there, ready to jump on us and kill us,” she said.
“What?” he asked, aghast.
“When it’s safe, we’ll talk up there. I’m not sure if I locked the door, but some days I don’t. I’ve gotten so relaxed...”
“Grace, what the hell?”
“Please,” she begged. “You’ll understand as soon as I can talk about it. I was going t
o explain some things anyway. Before your friends came to visit, I was going to tell you so it wouldn’t be vague anymore...but for right now, can you please check? And be very careful!”
Troy shook his head and went upstairs. He looked around her loft thoroughly, but nothing seemed out of place. He was back down in less than two minutes. “It’s okay.”
“Did you look everywhere?”
He nodded. “Even in the kitchen trash and the refrigerator. Come on.”
She clutched an envelope in her hand. When they were sitting across from each other in her tiny kitchen she started to explain. “My real name is—”
“I know,” he said.
“You know?”
“Sorry. I wasn’t going to tell you, but I can’t fake surprise. You’re all over the fucking internet, Gracie. I don’t know how you felt, how you feel, but I know who you are. And that you won it all and walked away.”
“Do you know about the rumors? That I accused a coach of inappropriate sexual behavior with a minor? That I was sued? That there were stalkers? That everyone hated me?”
He shrugged. “I got most of the facts. I don’t know how anyone could hate you. Most of all, I don’t know why it’s a secret.”
So she started at the beginning, born into figure skating, the daughter of a champion and coach, the bullying from jealous girls, pranks aimed at hurting her skating, the exhausting training and travel and no friends.
“The coaches demanded everyone behave nicely toward each other, but when the coaches weren’t looking... The rest of them were all so close,” she said. “They shared hotel rooms to save costs and I stayed alone. My mother would rent big town houses that came with domestic help and everyone thought because of that, I had it so easy, why wouldn’t I do well? It came up in every interview and article—as if all we had to do was write a check and first place was mine. All I wanted, the whole time I was growing up, was to be like everyone else.”