Ken tugged at the scarf. “You look like Nanook of the North.”

“That’s what Bitsy said.”

He looked around the rink. “Which one is Bitsy?”

“The pretty lady in black and red. The one that’s gawking at you.”

Ken grinned and waved.

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see where you work. A friend of mine stopped by this morning with some more of my clothes, and I hitched a ride over with him.”

Chris looked at his feet clad in tan-and-navy ducks. “You’re wearing shoes.”

“These things are soft inside. They don’t bother my toe.” Ken turned his attention to the skaters. “Are you coaching? Am I keeping you from something?”

“No. The girl that was scheduled for this time slot called in sick today.”

Ken gestured at the rink. “Tell me about this. What’s happening?”

“This is a freestyle session. It lasts for forty-five minutes. The skaters practice jumps and spins and programs that they’ll use in competition.” Chris pointed to a small booth with an elaborate console. “The kids can plug their competition music into the sound system.” She selected a CD and punched it into the machine. “Patti,” Chris shouted over the guardrail, “you’re up.” A pretty blonde in a black unitard nodded acknowledgment and moved to center ice. “This is my top student,” Chris confided. “She’s Junior Ladies, and she’s qualified to go to Easterns.”

“Easterns?”

Chris made a sweeping movement with her hands. “These are all competitive skaters. They belong to an organization called the United States Figure Skating Association. As their skills improve they move up the ladder in a series of tests. There are eight tests for freestyle. When you pass a test you qualify to compete at a certain level at USFSA-sanctioned competitions. The freestyle levels are Juvenile, Intermediate, Novice, Junior, and Senior.”

Chris moved to the gate while she continued talking. “The country is divided up into sections. We belong to the South Atlantic section, which extends from Pennsylvania to Florida. In October, a South Atlantic qualifying competition is held, and the winners of that competition are invited to skate in the Eastern Championships. The winners of Easterns go on to skate in Nationals. The top nationally ranked skaters then go on to skate on our World team in international competitions-and every four years that World team goes to the Olympics.”

Music blared from the loudspeakers and Chris’ attention turned to her skater. The girl skipped across the ice in a footwork pattern. She turned and gained momentum in backwards crossovers. “She’s going to do a double Lutz,” Chris told Ken. Patti whipped past them, tapped her toe pick into the ice, and spun into the jump.

“That’s beautiful,” Ken gasped. “How does she do that?”

“This is her toughest combination of jumps coming up.” Chris watched her skater closely. “Double toe. Double loop.” Patti sailed into the air and rotated two-and-a-half times. “Double axel!” Chris beamed. “A perfectly executed double axel.” The music suddenly changed tempo and Patti shifted into more balletic maneuvers, gracefully gliding past them and smiling.

“Did you teach her to jump like that? It’s like magic.”

“Haven’t you ever watched skating on television?”

“It’s different on television. It’s so remote.” Ken’s attention was riveted to the skater. “Skating always seemed like entertainment to me, but this is actually a sport. This kid is an athlete.”

“You’re impressed!”

“Darn right I’m impressed. I don’t know what I expected to see here, but it wasn’t this.”

Chris grinned. “Thought you’d find a bunch of little girls in pink tights sipping hot chocolate?”

“Something like that.”

“Skating is not for delicate types. It takes a lot of guts and a lot of perseverance.”

“You said she was a Junior. Don’t you have any Senior skaters?”

“None that compete. Unfortunately, I can barely get a skater to Junior level. This is a privately owned rink and in order to pay the electric bill it’s necessary to make money on public skating sessions and hockey. There just aren’t enough hours for the figure skaters. Patti trains three hours a day, five days a week. She skates against girls that train six hours a day, seven days a week. If Patti does well this year and gets a national title, she’ll most likely leave home and board at a larger rink…like Denver or Tacoma, or maybe one of the California rinks.”

“That must be upsetting for you.”

Chris shrugged. “I’d like to have a Senior-level skater, but it’s not a killer. I like the glory of winning as much as the next person, but I also enjoy the satisfaction of seeing improvement.” She pointed to a leggy brown-haired girl. The girl wore red tights and a red skating dress topped with a sweatshirt. She moved with a style uniquely her own and very different from the Junior skater. She entered a camel spin, leg extended, toe pointed. She rotated in the spin nine times, swooped down, and changed supporting legs to go into another camel spin. “Alex,” Chris told him. “She started skating late. She’s thirteen and only working on her third test, but she still has a chance. It’s a slim chance, but it’s there. If we work hard together, someday she might be my winning Junior-level skater. When I lose a Patti there’s always an Alex to get excited about.”

A loud whining noise droned behind them. The skaters stopped practicing and left the ice. “The Zamboni,” Chris explained. “The forty-five-minute freestyle is over. Now they’ll make ice, and a new session will begin.”

Ken watched the skaters wipe the ice from their blades and cover them with rubber guards. “Why do they do that?”

Chris steered him toward the lobby where students were changing skates and dressing in warmer clothes. “There’s a very fine double edge on the bottom of the blade. It nicks fairly easily and one strategically placed nick can slow you down and ruin a spin or a spiral. Besides, those blades cost three hundred dollars.”

Ken raised his eyebrows in astonishment. “Three hundred dollars for a skate blade?”

Chris nodded. “Boots can range anywhere from two hundred to seven hundred. It costs from ten to fifty thousand dollars a year to train a competitive skater. This is not a slum sport.”

“You sound upset about that.”

“Some of our best athletes are priced out. I constantly see potential being wasted because there simply isn’t enough money in a family’s budget to provide sufficient ice time.”

His brows drew together in displeasure. “How about Alex? Does her family have enough money?”

“Barely. Her father works at a second job to keep up with expenses.”

“Is it really all that expensive to operate this place?”

Chris sighed. “I know the electric is very high. I think expenses could be cut if there was some modernization, but the man that owns the rink is getting on in years and isn’t interested in making improvements. Frankly, I think the only reason he doesn’t turn it into rubble is out of kindness to the skate club.”

“Why doesn’t he sell it?”

Chris made an exasperated gesture with her arms. “Who would buy this albatross? Skating rinks are going broke all over the country.”

“Sometimes people buy things for reasons other than profit.”

“You mean like a tax shelter?”

“That’s one reason.”

Chris wrinkled her nose. “I’ll have to talk to my accountant about it.”

Skaters began to make their way back to the ice surface. One by one they filed past Ken and smiled a welcome or said hello. When the lobby was empty, he turned to Chris. “They’re a nice group of young people.”

Chris smiled with pride and agreed. “They’re like family to me. Now maybe you can see why I was reluctant to become involved with you. My life is so full. Besides not wanting to repeat a hideous mistake, I wasn’t sure I had any more love left to give. I was afraid I would have to take some from one place to put in another.”