Page 73 of Side By Side
That was the missed call. And yes, she had her phone on do-not-disturb. For starters, no one outside of her family usually called her at all. And when her family did, Chandler didn’t want to be woken up at odd hours when they failed to remember the time zone differences.
Having tossed her phone on the bed, she rushed to the shower. She let the cold water help with the grogginess, but the headache would require some medicine, so when she got out, Chandler grabbed a couple of pills and downed those with a full bottle of water. Then, she changed and headed downstairs, where she grabbed two granola bars that tasted more like tree bark than the actual granola with honey and cinnamon they claimed it to taste like. She made herself a cup of coffee in a thermos next and thought about Belle, wondering if she’d made one for herself or if she’d rushed out there to the rink. Chandler stuffed the granola bars and two apples into her jacket pockets and made another thermos for Belle. Then, she headed to the rink.
When she got there, Chandler pulled open the door, planning to apologize profusely to both Cat and Belle, but as she stepped inside, she remembered. She hadn’t gotten any rude wake-up texts or calls from her sister, nor had Cat stormed into her bedroom to wake Chandler up. Cat wasn’t going to be here. Chandler had told her to stay way for a few days, and she’d listened. There was happiness first, but it was followed quickly by the disappointment that her sister hadn’t shown up or called, or even stopped by her room to talk just as a sibling needing to repair their clearly fractured relationship because she viewed herself solely as Chandler’s coach these days and nothing more. Chandler saw Belle on the ice, and as she prepared to yell that she was there, she heard the music playing overhead and realized why she would have had to yell. It was loud, and they hadn’t been playing music yet because they’d been learning the basics of their routine. Belle must have found where she could hook up her phone to the overhead speakers, and she was playing a song that Chandler recognized.
“Taylor Swift?” she said to herself.
Chandler stood there watching Belle as the woman moved gracefully and seamlessly on the ice, going from one jump to another, to a spin, to a dance sequence, smiling when appropriate but molding her facial expressions to the music as well.
“God, she’s beautiful,” she said, again to herself.
Belle looked as if she’d never left competitive skating at all. She made sure to face where Chandler had always pretended the judges would be located at the currently empty bench and give the requisite smile or the facial expression based on the tone of the song. She looked so unbelievably free out there. Her arms moved like jelly where appropriate and tightened when necessary. Her whole body seemed to understand something that not even Chandler’s pinky finger had been able to grasp: skating was fun. It was serious, but it was also fun.
As the song ended, Belle moved to center ice to finish. Another song started up, but she seemed done and shook her head a little, stretching her arms over her head and then, yawning, which made Chandler laugh. Belle turned her head at the sound and skated her way.
“Hey, morning,” she said. “I was just about to burst into your bedroom to check on you.” She reached for the remote she’d set on the wall and pressed it to turn off the music.
“Yeah, about that… Why did you text me about being naked?”
“I don’t know.” Belle shrugged both shoulders. “You seem like the kind of person who might sleep naked.”
“I do? Why?”
“Well, last night, I kept trying to get you to tell me where your pajamas were and asked you what you sleep in. You wouldn’t tell me and said you’d just sleep naked, so I assumed you did that normally.”
“Did you see me naked, Belle?”
“What? No way,” she replied with a laugh. “I opened drawers until I found what you ended up in before I left. And, before you ask, I started with the bottom drawers in your dresser first since I figured your underwear drawer was on top. I was a perfect gentlelady. I made you change in the bathroom, and I tucked you in. Then, I left you with a trash can just in case.”
“That’s why that was there,” she said, remembering the trash can about a foot away from her bed.
“You don’t remember any of this?”
“Things are very blurry right now. Here. I wasn’t sure if you had coffee or not yet.” She handed Belle the thermos she’d made up for her. “And I got us apples and a granola bar.”
“The one that tastes like a tree threw up on it?”
Chandler laughed and replied, “That’s the one. I think they might have made them in the same building where there was honey and cinnamon present.”
“In tight-lidded jars, maybe.”
Chandler laughed again and took a drink of her own coffee.
“So, no Cat today. What do you want to do?” Belle asked. “Are you even able to skate? We can take the morning off if you want.”
“No, I was actually going to ask you about something.”
“What?”
Chandler nodded toward the bench so she could change into her skates. Belle met her there and sat down next to her.
“Well, High-Performance Skate has a competition tomorrow night. It’s a senior invitational event, but they emailed Cat a few weeks ago asking if I’d skate in it.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. And I was thinking that maybe we could skate instead.”
“Us?”