#thearteofredemption

[stargazer-sims]

The Art of Redemption

(part 13)

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By the time Saturday rolls around, Nikolai has almost entirely forgotten his disappointment at not being able to enjoy Thursday's unexpected snowfall by playing outside with Stan, Beth-Anne and Stan and Milena's two young grandsons. He acknowledges that Beth-Anne and Stan's reasons for discouraging him from going out made sense. Another inadvertent fall wouldn't do his injured leg any good, and he definitely doesn’t want any more setbacks. But, just because he understands the rationale now, that didn't mean he had to like it at the time.

He can't say he was sad or bored indoors with Milena. They listened to music and she taught him how to bake chocolate chip cookies, and they laughed a lot at each other’s work-related anecdotes. Although he would have preferred helping to build a snow fort and then engaging in the inevitable snowball fight afterwards, lack of snowballs notwithstanding, it had been a fun day.

He and Milena had hot cocoa and their freshly-baked cookies waiting when everyone else came inside, and it was hard to determine if it was Stan or his seven and nine year old grandsons, Lukas and Marek, who were more excited about the snack. After snack time, Nikolai played video games with the boys while Milena got some housekeeping done and Stan and Beth-Anne went back outside to help the Kovacs' elderly next-door neighbour clear snow from his driveway.

While Lukas, the seven year old, was taking his turn with the game controller, nine year old Marek chattered enthusiastically to Nikolai about skating, about his Saturday group class, and how his grandpa thought he could start competing next year if he wanted to.

"I don't know if I'd win any medals or not," Marek said. "But even if I don't, that's okay. I like skating a lot, and Grandpa says having fun is what counts. But, I think he thinks I'm a good skater anyway."

“Well, your grandpa should know,” Nikolai told him. “He’s seen a lot of skaters in his lifetime, and back in the day, he was fantastic too. Is he going to coach you?”

“Maybe,” Marek said. “Or maybe Auntie Beth-Anne, ‘cause I’m in her group class now. You have to be at least nine to be in that class, and I had my birthday in November, so I moved from another class to that one."

“I’m coming to your group class this Saturday, so I’ll see you there.”

That elicited a giggle from Marek. “You’re too big for a kids' group class!”

“No, I’m not coming to skate. I’m coming to watch. Some day, I’m going to be a coach like your grandpa and Beth-Anne, but I have to learn how to do it first, and Beth-Anne is going to teach me.”  

“Is that like… coach coaching?”

Nikolai laughed. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“Cool.” Marek beamed. “You should watch me, ‘cause I can do three different double jumps. Oh, and there’s this one kid, Eden. He can do a triple toe loop, but don’t tell anybody, ‘cause Auntie Beth-Anne already said he’s not allowed to do triples yet.”

Nikolai put a finger to his lips and made a zipping gesture. “The secret’s safe. Don’t worry.”

He’d been aware on some level that Stan’s grandson and the much-mentioned kid named Eden were both in one of Beth-Anne’s Saturday group classes, but until recently, he’d been far too focused on his own career and the events of his own life to give much thought to what might be happening at the rink when he wasn’t there. Saturdays used to be his day off, when he didn’t go to the dance studio or the gym, and when he skated only if he wanted to. Prior to his injury, he’d had very little contact with children’s group classes. He'd had no reason to.

But, all that has changed.  It’s Saturday, and he’s essentially going to work. Or, more accurately, to volunteer. He rephrases the thought because although it’s technically on-the-job training, he’s not getting paid. 

He’ll have to start looking for a real job soon. His savings won’t last indefinitely, and the mortgage on his and Anya’s house and their household bills won’t pay themselves. He doubts Anya would be thrilled about taking on the full responsibility for it. She couldn’t afford to manage it on her own anyway and would probably need help from her parents. Nikolai does not, under any circumstances, want that to happen. He’d rather sell the property than to be indebted to Anya’s father in any way. Mr. Baranov dislikes him intensely, a fact that he barely succeeds in hiding, and Nikolai isn’t shy to admit the feeling is mutual. 

It hadn’t always been like that, of course. His family and Anya’s have known each other since he and Anya were teenagers, ever since Nikolai’s family had moved here from another province and Nikolai met Anya at the rink. They’d all gotten along well, and Nikolai even recalls Anya’s father happily giving his blessing for their marriage. It’s only been during the past three years, since Nikolai and Anya have been married, that things have gone drastically downhill.

God alone knows what Anya might’ve been telling her father about me all this time. It’s enough to push him toward panic, and he has to remind himself this isn’t the moment. He needs to be clear-headed. Later. You’ll have time to think about all that stuff later.

Beth-Anne had woken him up at six o’clock and told him to hustle, as they needed to be at the rink by a quarter to eight.  When he asked her why they needed to be there so early if her first class didn’t start until 8:30, she explained there’s one kid who’s been coming to the rink with his older cousin lately, and the cousin is apparently fixated on arriving early for everything. He could be there as early as eight o’clock, she said, and she didn’t want a ten year old out on the ice by himself with only the non-skating teenage cousin to supervise him. 

As it happened, Beth-Anne had given him ample time to get ready. He ended up sitting on the bench by the front door for twenty minutes waiting for her, and he wanted to laugh when she came flying down the stairs with a breathless, “Okay, this is the best I can do with this fucking makeup. Let’s go.” 

They made it to the arena only five minutes later than Beth-Anne’s 7:45 target, which they mutually agreed was due entirely to being held up by some sort of emergency road work they’d had to detour around and had nothing at all to do with stopping at Tim Horton’s to fill their insulated travel mugs with fresh coffee. Beth-Anne was pleased, right up until two seconds ago, when they’d rounded the corner into the glass-walled corridor leading to her assigned practice rink and they spotted a kid already on the ice. 

The child is small, with wisps of straight black hair peeking out from beneath his rainbow-striped toque. When he turns, Nikolai sees a delicate face that reminds him of a porcelain doll more than of a real person. He immediately feels weird for having this thought, but he can’t help remarking to himself that he’s never seen such a beautiful child before.

Then, something else occurs to him that quickly chases the stray thought away.  He wonders if there’s been a mix-up with ice times. There’s no way this boy should be in a group class for nine to eleven year olds. He doesn’t look like he could be more than six or seven. 

Nikolai blinks and looks more closely at the way the little boy is moving. The child is dancing around an orange safety cone, and his footwork is far too complex for any six year old to have perfected to that degree. 

It takes only a moment for him to connect the dots. This must be Eden Seong, the student Beth-Anne often talks about with such adoration and pride. Korean-Canadian, tiny, feisty, and overflowing with talent… Suddenly, it makes sense why everyone refers to him as ‘little Eden’ and why he gets so much praise.

“Dammit!” Beth-Anne mutters. “I’m going to have a word with that cousin.”

Nikolai looks up toward the benches and notices another boy, this one probably around sixteen or seventeen, with the same delicate features as the younger one. He's bundled in a huge parka and cradling a takeaway cup between his mittened hands, and he looks unhappy. He appears to be shouting something at the smaller boy, but from behind the wall, it’s hard to tell. 

Nikolai’s attention is off the child for no more than three seconds, but in that sliver of time, Beth-Anne lets out an exclamation of “Shit!” and almost simultaneously sets their two metal travel mugs and her skate bag on the floor. Beth-Anne is already pushing her way through the door to the rink area when Nikolai sees that the little boy is now sitting on his bum on the ice, legs splayed out in front of him. 

Nikolai hurries to catch up with Beth-Anne, cursing under his breath because at this point his crutches are slowing him down rather than helping him. He abandons them by the door and limps as fast as he can to the gate that leads to the ice surface.

Beth-Anne is already practically running across the ice. "Eden, are you okay? What happened?"

The little boy — Eden — scrambles to his feet and skates directly into Beth-Anne’s waiting arms. Almost immediately, he begins to sob for all he’s worth. He wails, "Everything is awful!"

Nikolai frowns. Not that most of the figure skaters he’s acquainted with, including himself, are known for being particularly mellow, but this level of dramatic behaviour seems like an overreaction to a simple fall. He glances up at the teenager in the stands again. The older boy is scowling with his entire face, his features pinched with anger or embarrassment, or both. 

He realizes something must’ve happened before he and Beth-Anne arrived, and what he’s seeing now is Eden’s breaking point.

"I wouldn't go that far," Beth-Anne is saying to her little student. "Everything can't be awful. There's got to be something that isn't."

"No... everything,” Eden says.

"Are you sure?" she asks. “What about grilled cheese? And ballet?"

Eden pauses, considering her words. He sniffles loudly and concedes, "No."

"There. You’re not awful either, and I’m reasonbly sure I’m not. So, everything's not awful. Just certain things."

"Yeah, I guess,” he says. 

"Can you tell me why you're crying?" she inquires. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“No,” he tells her. “It’s just… I hardly ever fall down. I lost my balance, and it was stupid ‘cause I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Everyone falls down sometimes. It’s okay. As long as you’re not hurt, that’s what’s important.”

Eden shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does,” Beth-Anne says.

“No, it doesn’t. Even if I hurt myself really bad and I could never skate again, it wouldn’t make any difference. Maybe it’d even be better that way, ‘cause then I’d have an actual reason to stop.” More tears spill down his pale cheeks, and he wipes at them aggressively. "It wouldn’t just be because my parents don’t want me to skate any more. They said I have to stop after this month, and it’s not fair.”

“I know,” Beth-Anne says gently. “I’ve talked to your parents, and I've been thinking a lot about that.”

"Really? Can you fix it? Can you talk to them again and make them change their minds?”

“No one can make anybody change their mind, you know. Every person is in charge of their own actions and their own feelings. I can try to convince them, but at the end of the day, what happens will be up to them."

“But, what about my feelings?” Eden protests. “I love skating. I don’t ever want to stop, but all my parents care about is liabilities, whatever that is. They don’t care how I feel.”

“I think they do,” Beth-Anne assures him. “But, they’re worried about you. They don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Then, I should never do anything ever again. I should never ride my bike or run on the stairs or walk on the sidewalk in my bare feet or play tag with Charlie and Sadie. I accidentally got hurt doing all that stuff.”

“Have you tried telling that to your parents?”

“No, but it wouldn’t do any good if I did.”

“You might be surprised,” Beth-Anne tells him.

“We shouldn’t even have to talk about it,” Eden says. He pulls back from his coach and looks her straight in the face. “I’m good at skating. Like, really good, and it’s my favourite thing in the whole world, and everybody knows that. Why would anybody want to take away somebody’s favourite thing that they’re really good at? That’s just… not right.”

"Hmm..." Beth-Anne lets go of him and straightens up. "You know what I think?”

“What?”

“That’s a very grown up way to express yourself. I think, instead of acting like you did last time when your mother came to get you, you should explain it to your parents the way you just did to me.”

"I was so mad," Eden says. "I couldn't help it."

"Really? Some invisible force of nature just pulled you to the ice and made you scream like a toddler?"

"No, but—"

"Remember what I just said? Each person is in charge of their own feelings and actions. That means we get to choose how we respond to things, and sometimes the choices we make help us get our point across a lot better."

"What do you mean?"

"If you were having an argument with one of your friends, would you listen to him more if he yelled and threw a tantrum, or if he just calmly explained his side of it?"

"Calm," Eden says. "I don't like it when people yell."

"Most people don't like that," Beth-Anne says. "I'll bet your mother didn't like it very much the other day."

"She said I made a scene." Eden looks down at his feet. "And she said she didn't want to hear me saying anything else about skating that day."

"Well, today's a new day, and you've already learned something useful, haven't you?"

Eden nods. "Yeah. Only babies get their way by screaming. Kids my age kinda have to act more like grownups to win the argument."

Beth-Anne laughs. "I might not have put it quite that way, but you've got the idea. If you want me to, I'll talk to your parents again, but I want you to talk to them about it as well. Do you think you can do that?"

"Yeah," Eden says. "As long as you tell them I want to have a grown up conversation first."

"I'll definitely do that for you."

"I'm gonna tell them what I told you, but should I also say I want to start competing in Novice division next season, too?”

“Yes, you can tell them that, but let’s concentrate on keeping you skating first, okay?”

“And getting out of group classes and having more individual sessions?” he persists.

“Yes, but let’s go one step at a time. Stay in the program first, and then we’ll worry about the other stuff,” Beth-Anne says. “For what it’s worth though, I do think you've outgrown group classes. If you want to skate competitively, you should have individual coaching all the time."

"Will you do it?" Eden asks. The prospect of skating competitively seems to have distracted him from his earlier emotional outburst, and Nikolai finds himself smiling slightly. Eden reminds him of himself with his single-minded passion for the sport and for reaching the top. "I want to keep skating and maybe even get to the Olympics some day, and if you were my coach, that'd be awesome."

"I'll be your coach for the next couple of years, if that's what you and your parents want," Beth-Anne says. "When you're ready for Junior division, you might need somebody who can give you more time and attention."

"Somebody?" he echoes, sounding a little incredulous, as if he can't possibly imagine not having Beth-Anne as his coach. "Like who?"

"We'll have plenty of time to work that out, but maybe this guy over here." Beth-Anne turns and waves her hand in the direction of Nikolai, who’s leaning against the open gate to take some weight off his leg. She beckons him to come and join them. "You know, if he learns everything I'm going to teach him about coaching, and if the two of you can get along."

“Is he nice?” Eden asks, as Nikolai starts to pick his way carefully across the ice. "And he can't work with me unless he likes hugs, 'cause you know I'm a hugger."

“He’s amazingly nice,” Beth-Anne says. “A little headstrong sometimes, but he’s great guy and he’s just as obsessed with skating as you are. That should make him a good match for you, and…” she cuts the sentence short to admonish, “Nikolai, take your time! And where are your crutches?”

“Over there,” Nikolai says vaguely. He slides a bit as he stops beside Beth-Anne. “They were getting annoying, and I can put weight on my leg now, so…”

Beth-Anne makes an exasperated noise. “See what I mean? Headstrong as fu—"

“Fudge,” Nikolai interrupts her.

Eden seems not to notice the slip. He’s too occupied with scrutinizing Nikolai. "Can you be a coach? Do you even know enough about skating?"

"Oh, I might know a thing or two,” Nikolai says, doing his best to keep his amusement off his face. “I’ve won a few medals, even.”

Beth-Anne smiles. "Eden, this is Nikolai Pavlenko. He won gold at Worlds last season." She gestures at Eden and continues, "Nik, meet Eden Seong."

Eden scrunches his brow in concentration as he studies him. "But, you kinda don’t look like Nikolai Pavlenko, though? My parents let me stay up to watch a bunch of stuff from Worlds last season. I watched your free skate, but you look a lot different than you did when I saw you on TV."

Nikolai strokes his chin. "Maybe it's the beard. It's new." 

He doesn’t mention that his beard is a result of him having been too depressed to bother with shaving. By the time he felt well enough to care about his appearance again, he decided he actually liked the beard and opted to keep it. He hadn’t been aware that it had altered his recognizability that much, but then again, he’s used to his own face in the mirror. He’d never not recognize himself, but that doesn’t necessarily mean other people would instantly know it was him.

"I like it,” Eden says. “You think I can grow one someday?"

"Probably when you're older," Nikolai replies.

"I'd look cool with a beard." Eden strokes his own chin like he’s trying to imagine himself older and with facial hair. "If you were my coach, could you teach me to do quads? You make them look so easy."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Beth-Anne says. "You can't even do a triple yet."

"Yes, I can!" Eden retorts, and then quickly claps a hand over his mouth. "Um, I mean... Triple? What's that?"

Recalling the tidbit of allegedly secret information he’d heard from Marek a few days earlier, Nikolai laughs out loud. "Oh, I already like you."

Really?" Eden says.

"Beth-Anne, remember the back flip?" Nikolai says.

"Oh, lord..." Beth-Anne groans. "Don't give him ideas."

"Back flip?" Eden inquires. "What back flip?"

"Never mind, Eden," says Beth-Anne. "Forget you heard that."

"Can you really do a triple, Eden?" Nikolai asks.

Eden suddenly has the stereotypical ‘deer in the headlights’ expression, as if he doesn't know how to answer this question without getting in trouble with his coach. He glances at Beth-Anne, clearly trying to gauge her reaction. “Um… maybe?”

Beth-Anne shrugs. "If you can, you can. Never mind that I told you not to try it."

"I can," Eden confesses. "A triple toe loop."

"You don't become a champion without taking risks," says Nikolai. "You told me that, Beth-Anne. Remember?"

"You were my first student. What did I know back then?" she says.

“I think Uncle Stan told you the same thing, didn’t he?”

“Motivational bullshit.”

"Eden, how old are you?" Nikolai wants to know. "You're starting Novice next season, so ten or eleven, right?"

"I'm gonna be eleven in May," Eden answers. “May twenty-third.”

"And you can do a triple already. Nice." Nikolai meets Beth-Anne's gaze. "Can he show me?"

Beth-Anne spreads her hands. "Does it look like I could stop him?"

"You really wanna see it?" Eden says eagerly. "I promise, it’ll be good."

"I'm sure it will," says Nikolai.

"Beth-Anne, can I show him right now?"

Beth-Anne nods toward the center of the ice. "You might as well go for it. Move a few of those cones first."

Eden looks excited by this new turn of events. He grins at his cousin in the stands and gives him a cheeky thumbs up before skating away from Nikolai and Beth-Anne, and then pushing the orange cones off to the side, one by one.

Nikolai can’t look away as Eden skates around, building up momentum. The kid may be small, but that little body is packed with strength and kinetic energy. It’s not only pure power, either. He moves with a precision that surprises Nikolai; refined, graceful and disciplined. 

The kid has talent, and if he's already this advanced at ten, who knows what he might be capable of in the future?

Nikolai can predict the exact moment when Eden is about to jump. He counts the rotations.

One… two… three.

Yes!

The landing isn’t the greatest, but Eden doesn't fall or stumble as he touches down. Nikolai exhales. He’d been so invested in silently cheering for the boy’s success, he hadn’t been aware he’d stopped breathing while Eden was in the air.  Now that Eden’s blades are back on the ice, Nikolai allows himself to cheer out loud.

Beside him, Beth-Anne sounds like she might’ve been holding her breath too. She visibly relaxes as she calls out, “Well done, Eden!”

Eden skates back to them and more or less tackles Beth-Anne in his effort to hug her. Understandably exhilarated from what he's just done, he exclaims, "Did you like it? Was I awesome?"

"Yes, you were awesome, sweetheart," she says. "I'm not letting you do that again for a while though, understand? You're brilliant, but it's not a good idea to rush you along. There'll be time to work on triples and quads when you're really ready, okay?"

He acquiesces. “Okay."

"All right. Your friends are going to start showing up for class soon, so we need to put the cones back. I'm going to grab my skates and put them on, and then I'll help you set the cones up. Sound good?"

"Sounds good," Eden agrees. He turns to Nikolai. "So...? Was I super amazingly awesome or what?"

"I've never seen anyone like you," Nikolai tells him honestly.

"You think I could be in the Olympics?"

"Maybe."

"That's my dream."

"I'll tell you what," Nikolai says. "Let's both agree that we're going to work really hard to learn everything we can and to be the best we can be. Then, when we're both ready, maybe we'll work on achieving that dream of yours together."

"So, does that mean you'd really want to be my coach?" Eden asks.

"We can't know the future, so I'm not going to promise anything," Nikolai says. "But if everything goes the way we want it to for the next year or so, and we get to know each other better, then yes. Some day, I think I'd really like to be your coach."

#writing #the art of redemption #thearteofredemption #nikolai pavlenko #beth-anne jones #eden seong #stargazersims