Summer's End Read Free Page A

streaking harsh lines of blue across her eyelids. But Phoebe didn’t have much makeup. In desperation Eleanor flipped on the television. “Here, Amy, I think you might like this.”
    It was the Olympics, a preview of the ladies figure skating competition.
    Amy didn’t like television. She didn’t like to sit, doing nothing, but within moments she was mesmerized—the spins, the jumps, the flashing blades, and the costumes, oh, the gorgeous costumes, the glittering sequins, the chiffon skirts that floated and swirled, the soft feathers. She was breathless. Longing swelled inside her, a balloon stretching and growing until it was tight and hard.
    â€œI have to do that. Oh, Mother, Daddy, please , I just have to.”
    Eleanor had no sympathy for her youngest child’s obsession with glamour and affectation. She was English, a brisk, practical, self-assured woman. She liked the ballet, but figure skating? It was so…so middlebrow.
    But anything that would keep Amy occupied during bad weather was worth doing. She called the college’s hockey rink about skating lessons.
    Oh, yes, an assistant coach’s wife had been a figure skater. She’d be happy to give Amy a few lessons.
    Amy went to her first lesson. The next day she took her skates to school. Eleanor assumed that she was taking them for show and tell, and Amy did indeed show them to everyone. After school, instead of going home, she bent her head into the biting wind and trudged to therink. She put on her skates and went out on the ice, skating straight into the middle of a hockey practice.
    The coach instantly blew his whistle. This fragile-looking child in her loosely tied skates was in genuine peril. But he knew nothing about little girls; it never occurred to him to ask why she was there. He told her that the team would be off the ice in fifteen minutes, and as they were leaving, he motioned to one of his huge, shin-guarded, shoulder-padded players to go tie her little white skates for her.
    She had been mesmerized by the players’ speed. That’s what she wanted to do, to go that fast, to fly like that. She stepped out onto the rough ice and started to skate. The coach forgot about her, and after the team had cleared out of the locker room, he flipped off the lights with only the briefest glance over his shoulder. Amy went on skating in the dusky half-light. She wasn’t even thinking about costumes anymore. She wanted to skate.
    An hour later the Zamboni man came to resurface the ice for the evening open session. And of course he was very surprised to see her. Do your parents know you are here? Do you have permission to do this? Any of those questions Amy would have answered honestly.
    But he worded his question unthinkingly. “Are you supposed to be here?” he asked.
    â€œYes,” Amy answered, and she was telling the truth. “I am supposed to be here.”
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    â€œWhat was she like as a child?” Gwen asked. “I’ve seen pictures of her. She was lovely.”
    â€œYes, she was,” Hal nodded. “She was also obedient, very obedient. Until she started skating, she was draggedalong everywhere, to Phoebe’s and Ian’s piano recitals and science fairs, and she always behaved well, probably better than a little kid should have. But most good skaters do have very obedient personalities. For years and years they have to do exactly what they are told, when they are told, and a lot of it is pretty tedious. They have to want to obey their coaches. It always surprises me that so much creativity can come out of these very well-behaved people, and I’m still not sure that I know what makes Amy tick. When she’s around the family, she always seems quiet and cooperative, just like when she was little.”
    â€œYou don’t accomplish what she was by being quiet and cooperative.”
    â€œNo, you don’t,” Hal agreed. “There’s clearly this big chunk