Page 6 of Blade

“How are you going to skate tomorrow?” Connie glanced quickly at Ana, then looked back at the road. She looked worried.

“Extremely well,” Ana answered.

“Haha,” her mother laughed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

They took the exit for Echo. Cheyenne Mountain was practically on top of them as they passed an open field, then stopped at the first traffic light. They made a right and were soon passing the entrance to the training facility.

“There’s the rink,” her mother said.

Ana stared at the enormous, majestic building as her entire body straightened and leaned against the door and the window, like it wanted to transport itself out of this car and through the brick walls and the metal stands and the wood boards right onto the ice. This was where she belonged, and she wanted to be there now. Right now.

Connie drove up the access road and made the first turn into the driveway of Avery Hall. She parked in one of four spots, between a blue SUV and a red Jeep with Oklahoma plates, and killed the engine, staring out the window at the building.

“Jesus,” she said, scrunching her face. “Well ... I guess this is what dorms look like.”

Connie always had an opinion about houses and property, since selling them was her job.

“Who cares what it looks like?” Ana popped the hatchback with the button on the console.

Connie opened her door, still scanning the beige box with the flat roof, a green wire with holiday lights affixed to the gutters, half on and half off like someone had started to take it down, but then gave up.

“Even a little dormer, or some shutters ...”

Ana climbed out and walked around the back to drag the two duffel bags and one trunk onto the asphalt. Her mother followed, slowly, tired as usual, and now worried about the architecture.

“Sometimes you can spruce things up with a nice row of boxwoods.”

“Connie—stop!” Ana handed her the strap of one duffel, then another, and Connie heaved them onto her shoulders. She followed Ana, who dragged the trunk toward the front yard.

“I’ll picture you there in the spring,” her mother said, pointing to a snow-covered bench, as if she wouldn’t be here to see it. Which was absurd. Connie would probably visit her every weekend.

The door opened, and a woman appeared, breathless and out of sorts, her heavy frame bursting from the sides of an apron like she was someone’s grandmother in the middle of cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Orthopedic shoes, royal blue polyester pants, white tunic. Glasses, short gray hair.

She introduced herself with a hearty handshake.

“I’m Edie—the dorm mother. You must be Ana ... and Mrs. Robbins.”

She grabbed one of the duffels from Connie’s shoulder and led them down a long hallway, motioning with her head as she pointed out the attractions—her apartment on the right, where she lived alone because her husband had passed and her boy was in the navy; the TV room on the left; and behind that, the kitchen.

At the foot of a wide set of stairs, they stopped to let two girls wearing Team Germany warm-up jackets scurry by without breaking their side-by-side formation.

“This is Ana. Say hello,” Edie said.

The girls ignored her, then walked away, down the hallway to the front door.

“Don’t mind them.” Edie led them next up the stairs, the duffel bags dragging, the trunk thumping as it hit each new step.

“The girls come and go.” She looked back at Ana then. “You’ll get used to it. Just don’t get too attached to anyone. I tell the girls when they first arrive, but they never listen.”

More of them passed by as Edie labored up the stairs, trying to explain things about the dorm while she climbed.

“There are two floors for the girls, six rooms on each, with two girls to a room. Three if we get tight on space, but right now I have you in a double. Toilets and showers are in the middle.”

They followed Edie left at the landing, then to the first door down the hall.

“Well,” she said, letting them pass into the room across from the toilets. “Here it is.”

Ana looked around. Two beds, two dressers. Beige carpet and white paint. Her side was the one with the bare walls. The other belonged to her roommate, Mio Akasawa, and Ana lingered for a moment on the poster that hung above her bed, a cat on a skateboard with some Japanese writing. It was enough to paste a smile right across her face.