Barriers

“I'm going to the rink!” I'm on my way out the door on an unusually chilly Thursday morning, almost two weeks after Draft Day. I've been at the rink constantly, checking the schedule posted on the website every day to see when the ice was free to use. Development camp starts Monday and I want to be in the best shape possible, even if it means waking up at 4 AM to shoot a puck around before a beginner's figure skating class takes the ice at 6. Basically, if there's something I can do to help my chances of being in the NHL, I've been doing it, no matter how worried and scared I am.

“Wait!” I stop dead at the front door and listen as Tati races down the stairs to catch me. “Can you drop me off at Caliber?” She's looking at me and untying a knot in the laces of her skates. It's not too far out of the way from the public rink, so I agree and we get in my car.

Third time is the charm when I try to start the engine, and we're on our way. Tati is telling me all about her new jump combinations and I'm trying to not get us killed in the early bird traffic.

“Miss Andrea says I'm going to start training a triple-triple for my long program,” she explains, reaching over to turn on my turn signal when I neglect to do so because that's the kind of girl that she is. “If it's consistent by August I can debut it at the Caliber Cup in September.”

“Do you seriously call your coach Miss Andrea?” This baffles me. Tati has switched coaches a handful of times, each time because my mom didn't agree with their coaching style or the skills that they wanted her to train. So far, though, Mom seems to like Andrea.

“Yes, that's her name. Why?”

“I don't know. If I called my coach Mr. Anderson, he'd probably smack me.” I think of my Sonics coach, a rotund, bald man with a temper. I've never called him anything except Coach and I doubt he'd ever want me to. She shrugs and looks out the passenger side window. I turn on the radio to the rap station for some white noise, but a second later she turns it off.

“What?” I ask her, annoyed. I hate when people control the stereo in my car.

“Are you and Doug going to break up?” She's referring to my boyfriend of four years, and it's such a random question that I'm at a loss for words. Doug is a fixture in my life; we've known each other since elementary school, and Tati has known him since she was just a kid.

“I don't even know why you're asking that.” I really don't. She's a strange kid that usually voices whatever is on her mind, and this is no exception.

“If you go to Boston, he'll be in San Jose. If you go to Providence, he'll still be in San Jose. Either way, you're going to both be living your own lives, away from each other, meeting new people and doing different things. I'm just wondering if you guys will be able to, you know, deal with that.”

Doug will be a freshman playing soccer at the University of San Jose this fall, something that my little sister has obviously put a lot of thought into. I shake my head at her.

“As much as it bothers me to share the inner workings of my relationship with my fifteen-year-old sister... No, I don't think we're going to break up. We've been apart before, you know, when I travel for games. And he's done those soccer tournaments in Mexico where he was gone for two weeks.” Those tournaments happen once or twice per summer, so we've been apart quite a bit in our four years together.

“You cannot compare a two week tournament to a seven month hockey season.” She turns in her seat to face me. “I just think it would suck if you go into this thinking everything will be great when it might not be.”

I turn into the Caliber Skating Club parking lot and park right in front of the door, but she doesn't get out. I look over at the passenger seat, ready to rip into her. The fact is, I'm scared as hell about leaving home and my family, and being away from Doug. She doesn't need to reiterate it.

“When you get a boyfriend, you can give me dating advice. Okay? But I'm freaking out enough the way it is about being away from everybody and your ominous bullshit isn't helping any.” Our staredown lasts a few moments until I glance away to look at the entrance of the rink, where her coach is outside waiting. I'm fuming, but I still say, “Go nail that triple-triple. Do you need a ride home?”

“No,” she answers me shortly, clearly angry, and gets out of the car. She jogs up to her coach, who points at the clock in the lobby visible from outside. They go inside the building and I'm left outside, idling. I sigh heavily before putting my car in drive and turning around to make the trip to the public rink.

After putting a puck through an hour of hell with a series of shooting accuracy and stickhandling drills, and working on my conditioning, I come back home, park in the driveway and come through the front door. I close the door silently just in case not everyone is awake yet. Everyone else in my family tends to slam it so I thought I'd show some courtesy.

“Nas, that you?” It's my mom from the kitchen. I head up the first flight of stairs and see her measuring out coffee grinds into the coffee maker. She turns her head, looks at me, and then continues to measure. “Good morning. Tatiana's at practice?”

“Uh huh.” I go into the pantry for a handful of Oreos and sit at the table.

“You sound upset. Something happened?” The one thing about my mom is that she's extremely perceptive. You don't even have to say a word for her to know that something is going on.

“She just thinks she knows everything. Like, she's fifteen and spends eight hours a day in a skating dress, being coached by a woman who she calls Miss Andrea. She's doesn't know anything.” I don't have to refer to Tatiana by name for Mom to know that I mean her.

“I'm sure she means well.” She pours herself some coffee into a mug, stirs in a packet of sugar, and joins me at the table. “And just because she's young doesn't mean that she's clueless, Nas.”

“Well, she annoys the hell out of me.” I dunk a cookie into her coffee, ignoring the disdainful look that she gives me. I watch as she takes a sip and stirs it with a spoon. We both look up at the same time when we hear my dad walking around upstairs. When it's quiet again, she looks back to me.

“I think it's important to know that she just want to help. Nothing she say is meant to be mean.”

“That doesn't make it any less annoying.”

“No, it does not. But, at the same time... Nas, you'll be gone for long time. Away from family and friends. Don't worry about things your fifteen-year-old sister says one day before the sun is even up. She's naïve, maybe, but you're being naïve too.”

My dad comes down the stairs and into the kitchen before I can dispute that. He messes up my sweaty hair, kisses my mom, and says good morning in Russian. My mom catches my eye, smiles, and then turns to my dad to launch into a conversation about the neighbors down the street. I know my mom thinks that the problem is solved, that our conversation is over and done with. In her opinion, I'm just being petty when she doesn't even know what Tati said to me. I stand up from the table and go upstairs to shower and change, and when I come back down fifteen minutes later, they're still there in the kitchen.

“I'm going to Doug's,” I announce and head down the stairs to the front door. I'm too annoyed to sit at the house any longer. Without waiting for an answer, I'm already out the door and in the car. I forgot how cold it is so I wish I had put on something warmer than my typical outfit of running shorts and some ancient T-shirt from some ancient hockey tournament or team. I'm not very knowledgeable about fashion but anything I can move in, to me, is the perfect outfit.

Doug's house is the complete opposite direction from the public rink, so I go down roads I haven't been on in a few weeks. The drive gives me some time to stew in my annoyance about my sister and mother, who no matter what, always seem to defend each other, even when they don't know they're doing it. Tati is practically Mom's clone, while I've always been more like my dad. I guess Ivan is more like Dad, too, but he's young yet so I can't be sure.

I pull into his driveway and knock on the door, and his housekeeper Daria answers it. She's Romanian, and though I'm fluent in Russian, I can't speak Romanian worth a damn, so we manage with her limited English. She likes me, though, and I like her too.

“Is Doug here?” I look into the house, but see no one around. He's an only child, so the house is pretty quiet and it doesn't look like anyone is even there.

“He's upstairs, you go up.” She steps out of the way to let me through. I thank her and take the stairs two at a time and make my way to his bedroom.

The door is open, and he's standing at his bed, filling up suitcases. His closet is half empty and most of the shoes that usually line his bed aren't there any longer.

“Hey,” I say softly. He looks up and nods.

“Hey, Ana.” Only person in the world that can call me Ana and not get punched. I walk in and sit on his bed, careful to stay out of the way of his packing frenzy. I forgot that he's leaving tomorrow for an orientation camp at the University of San Jose. I'll be gone for roughly the same amount of time, so at least we'll both be busy in each other's absence. “What's going on?”

“Nothing, I just needed to get out of my house.” I lay back on the bed and stare at the ceiling. “I was just at the rink.”

“Yeah?” he asks, turning to his dresser and rummaging through the drawers. “Was the NHL's sweetheart fitting in some ice time?” He'd been teasing me since the draft, calling me things like the NHL's Sweetheart or Golden Girl.

“Shut up,” I laugh at him. If the NHL is looking for a sweetheart, they've got the wrong girl. I prop myself up on my elbows and watch as he rubs his scruffy chin in thought, staring at his suitcases with a blank expression. “What?”

“I can't find my compression shorts...I thought they'd be with my underwear...” He rummages through his suitcase.

“You put them in your Under Armor drawer after you insisted that they weren't underwear but just workout clothes you wear under your workout clothes,” I recall. This happened about two weeks ago, and I told him he was just going to forget where he put them. He looks at me and chuckles.

“You know everything.” Doug turns and empties out his entire Under Armor drawer into a suitcase. I shake my head.

“No, I definitely don't know everything.” He turns back to me again. I sit up and hug my knees to my chest. “I wish I knew if I'm going to make it past development camp, into training camp. And I wish I knew if I'm going to be on the team or not. I'm so afraid that I'm just going to be stuck in the system. I just want to do what my dad never had the chance to.”

“You will. You're the best hockey player I know.” I roll my eyes, grab a pair of rolled up socks from his suitcase, and chuck them at him.

“We live in Kentucky. I am the only hockey player you know.”

“Well, still.” He pushes a suitcase aside to make room on the bed for himself, and takes a seat. “You'll do great, if you let yourself. But spending the time you have left here worrying about what might be or what might not be is just dumb. Okay?”

I nod in agreement. “Okay.”

We spend the next hour fooling around on his bed, until we hear doors banging downstairs – after four years of spending my free time at Doug's house, I've come to learn that slamming doors is Daria's way of letting us know that one or both of his parents have come home. I sit up and look for my shirt, but Doug spots it first and hands it to me.

“Are you going?”

“Yeah, I'd better,” I reply. Doug's parents like me just fine, but I highly doubt that they want to walk in on me half naked. I pull the T-shirt over my head and stand up. “I'll come over tomorrow before you leave for the airport.”

“Okay.” We kiss goodbye and I go downstairs. I say goodbye to Daria and then leave through the back door so I don't have to confront his parents. Thankfully, I parked on the street so they probably didn't even see my car. I walk across the yard, get into the driver's seat, and check the time on my phone.

It's only eight o'clock, and I can't think of a single thing to do. The rink is occupied with a learn-to-skate class, according to their website. Most of my teammates had billet families and are gone for the summer, and I haven't even talked to a single friend from school since graduation earlier this summer. Without letting myself think about it, I drive back to Caliber.

I park my Grand Prix and walk up to the front doors. In the lobby, a trophy case is front and center. A picture of my sister holding a trophy is on the top shelf. I look away and see a sign directing me to the indoor rinks, and I follow them.

The closer I get to the ice, the louder the overhead classical music gets. It's completely unbearable when I open the door to the first rink and am deafened by the sound. On the ice, my sister is skating fluidly to the music, looking like the seasoned professional that she's becoming.

The woman known as Miss Andrea is yelling to me from across the way, but it's not like I can hear her. I shrug my shoulders and point to my left ear to let her know that no one can hear anything over this awful Tchaikovsky tune. My sister's coach makes a big show of going over to the sound system and turning off the music. Tati continues as if the music never stopped.

“This is a closed practice,” says Andrea to me. She clearly doesn't know who I am even though, when I'm cleaned up and looking half decent, my sister and I look like twins.

“This is my sister,” Tati yells as she sets up for a jump. Full of momentum, she raises off of the ice and lands perfectly after completing a technically sound double axle. I figure skated for years, and wasn't half bad, but none of my jumps ever looked anything like that.

“I'm Nastia,” I introduce myself, hand outstretched. Still a bit wary, Andrea shakes it anyway.

“Andrea McConnell,” she tells me. Andrea turns back to the ice and holds onto the wall surrounding the rink. “I told her to finish with her triple-triple, to see if she'll have the endurance to do it.”

“It's pretty late in her program, isn't it?” Not that I don't trust this woman, but going nonstop for a four or five minute free skate is hard work. Finishing with a difficult jump makes it moreso. It's like taking back to back two minute shifts in hockey at the end of the third period – grueling and nearly impossible.

“Yes.” We're both watching my sister on the ice now. She's prepping for the jump, but she's red in the face and looks tired. I know my sister, though, like I know myself. She's not going to give up on this like I wouldn't give up on too many lengthy shifts. It's part of the game.

She lands the triple-triple but she's too exhausted to finish her choreography. She slowly skates over and we share an awkward staredown, still unsure of where we stand after our blowout from this morning. But then she smiles at me.

“Did you like it?”

“I did,” I say honestly. Except for the horrible music, it wasn't a bad routine. And the music wasn't even a problem since Andrea had turned it off halfway through. Still, it'd been a long time since I cared even a modicum about figure skating.

“What are you doing here?” she asks. She opens the rink door to step off of the ice and reaches for a water bottle sitting on a chair to my left. After emptying half of the bottle, she looks at me. “I thought you were mad at me.”

I shrug. “Nah. Not really.” Not anymore, anyway.

Tati looks Andrea. “Can I take a break?” Andrea looks at the clock.

“You have ten minutes, then we're running your long program again.” Tati nods and then leads me over to a set of bleachers. We take a seat about halfway up, and she takes off her skates before speaking.

“I didn't mean to upset you before when I brought up Doug.”

“I know. Mom made sure I knew that.”

“Hold on, I'm not done!” she exclaims, holding up her hand to silence me. “I only have ten minutes.” Jesus, she's so rude sometimes. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that everything would be okay when things change soon. With you and him, anyway. You're leaving soon...”

“I'm very much aware, thanks.” Camp was the only thing running through my mind these days, and everybody kept bringing it up, which didn't help when I was trying not to worry about it.

“Nas, you're my big sister. I mean, technically I'm supposed to look up to you. And I guess I kind of do.” She sure knows how to stroke someone's ego. “And I don't want to see you go off and get hurt. I mean, I want to see you go off, and do the hockey thing, but you're my best friend, and I don't want us to grow apart or for you to get your heart broken.”

I swear to God I almost cry right then and there. Tatiana Pankratova is crazy, and rude, and knows no life outside of the Caliber Skating Club, but I'm stuck with her and she's stuck with me, no matter what comes our way. I put my hands on her shoulders and make sure she's listening to me.

“Here's what's going to happen, Tati. I'm going to go to camp, rock the Bruins' world, and make the team for this season. Someday, I'll skate around the ice holding the Stanley Cup over my head, and Doug and I will live happily ever after. You're going to go to the Winter Olympics, do the best triple-triple ever performed, win a gold medal, and land on a Wheaties box.”

She nods, contemplating all of this. “Okay. That sounds pretty good.”

“So let's make it happen,” I propose. “Stanley Cup Champion, Olympic gold medalist. Me and you.”

She grins. “Deal.”

Monday morning I'm leaving for Boston, and who knows what'll happen after that. All I really know, for sure, is that I have to make the time I have left here count, because if my future includes a roster spot on the Boston Bruins, I'm leaving everything I've ever known behind and entering the unknown. Even though I'm terrified, I'm just as much ready – not just to be the first girl in the NHL, but to be the best player I can possibly be.