Free Walk on Water by Laura Peyton Roberts Page A

Conditioning classes and dance lessons were things she’d traveled to, allowing for rests on the road. Shrugging off her jacket, Lexa stretched down to touch her toes, then placed her palms flat on the mat beneath her blades, praying she’d be equal to whatever Candace dished out. She came out of her stretch to find Beth standing beside her.
    “What’s the verdict?” Lexa asked.
    “I’m staying.” Beth pointed to a spot at the top of the stands. “I’ll be up there, watching, and at lunchtime, you and I will eat in the restaurant.”
    Lexa smiled at the belated realization that there would have to be a lunch break.
    “Well, get out there. She’s waiting.”
    With a start, Lexa spotted Candace already at center ice. “See you later!” she said, rushing through a gap between boards. There were at least twenty other skaters practicing in the oval. Lexa stroked through them directly to Candace, pulling up with a long two-footed hockey stop.
    Candace glanced down at the snow Lexa had accidentally sprayed onto her pristine latte-colored boots. Her upper lip twitched with irritation, but the next moment she was smiling again. “So. Blake has coached you your whole life? You’ve never trained with anyone else?”
    “Only Blake.”
    Candace shook her head. “And no pairs training at all?”
    “No,” Lexa said, embarrassed.
    “Beth told me as much, but I still barely believe it. What was he thinking?”
    “He was thinking I’d break my neck,” Lexa answered honestly, hoping to put a permanent end to questions about Blake.
    Candace took the hint. “Well. What’s your warm-up routine?”
    Lexa described the sequence of stretching, stroking, and warm-up jumps she usually began with.
    Candace nodded. “Good. Start getting here earlier and run through that without me. For today, just skate until you’re loose enough, then show me your programs.”
    “My singles programs?” She hadn’t expected to skate those routines ever again.
    “They won’t be any use to us now, but we have to start somewhere. Think of this as an exhibition.”
    Lexa’s mind raced as she stroked around the ice, pushing gradually faster, so deep in her own head that she was barely aware of her legs. This must be what going to college feels like, she thought, throwing a warm-up axel. A brand new place, all new faces, nothing but possibilities.
    She rushed through a few more easy jumps, then got off a sky-high double axel and a clean triple lutz, triple toe loop before skating back to Candace, proud to have kept her feet beneath her with so much first-day pressure.
    “You can jump,” Candace said. “But we already knew that. Let’s see your short.”
    “I didn’t bring my music,” Lexa apologized. “I didn’t think—”
    “If you’ve been practicing enough, you should hear that song in your sleep. Just skate to the music in your head and I’ll fill in the blanks.”
    Skating a program with so many other people on the ice required a different sort of concentration than skating in the clear: less choreography, more collision avoidance. If she’d had her music playing, the other skaters would have realized what she was doing and yielded out of courtesy. Now she’d have to rely on luck and reflexes. Taking her opening pose, Lexa drew a deep breath, and launched into her short.
    Despite her clean jump combo in warm-up, she bobbled the outside edge on the entry to the triple lutz, turning it into a flutz. Her superficial stretching showed up in the spiral, where she couldn’t achieve her usual extension. Her combination spin could have been faster, but her layback felt perfect. She milked it a few extra revolutions, hoping to save a lackluster performance.
    “Nice layback,” Candace remarked when Lexa had finished. “Good arch. Pretty arms.”
    Lexa glowed. “Thanks. Layback’s my favorite spin.”
    Candace smiled ironically. “Time to find another favorite, then.”
    “What? Oh. Right.” Very few men skated laybacks, which