The Favorites: A Novel(120)

My lawyer laid a firm hand on my elbow. I ignored him. I was tired of all this politeness and propriety. All this pretending anything about this situation was fair. I was so tired.

“You seriously think,” I said, “we made it all the way to the Olympic final and then decided to do some dangerous drugs just for the hell of it?”

Jane pursed her lips. “Ms. Shaw, if you could please refrain from using profanity in—”

“Heath almost died. You really believe he took that shit on purpose?”

My lawyer’s grip tightened. “Katarina, I suggest you—”

“Oh, like it fucking matters what I say.” I shook him off and turned to face the commission members. “You know exactly who did this, but why tell the truth when you have Heath and me to take the fall? You all made up your minds about us years ago.”

We weren’t enough, and then we were too much. We would never be worthy of the gold in their eyes, no matter what we did.

“I assume you’re referring to the claims posted by Ellis Dean,” Jane said. “His theories are certainly quite…imaginative. But we must rely on the facts, not wild, libelous conjecture.”

So far, Ellis had been the only one willing to point fingers at Francesca and Dmitri, at least in public. They’d both stayed above the fray since the Games, releasing separate statements conveying their hopes that this matter would be resolved swiftly, and their total confidence in the IOC arriving at the right decision.

“If his claims are so ‘wild,’?” I shot back, “then why did Gaskell Pharmaceuticals slap him with a cease and desist and try to shut his site down?”

“Ms. Shaw,” Jane started.

“Why is he getting middle-of-the-night phone calls from men with Russian accents? He’s changed residences twice in the last month, and he’s still receiving threats.”

“We are not here to discuss Mr. Dean, or your competitors.” Jane fixed me with a stern look. “We’re here to discuss—”

“We were sabotaged, and we still won.” I stood. My pencil skirt had ridden up, and I didn’t bother to tug the hem back into place. “Those gold medals are rightfully ours. You know it, and everyone who saw us skate that night damn well knows it too.”

“Sit down, Ms. Shaw,” Jane said. “We’re not finished here.”

“Yes,” I told her. “We are.”



* * *



—

I took the next train to Geneva. By the time I reached Heath’s hospital room, the IOC committee had sent out a press release with their decision.

The ruling had been unanimous. We would be sanctioned. Our medals would be stripped, our winning score stricken from the record books. We were no longer the Sochi gold medalists.

Heath was looking better that afternoon, sitting up in bed, the bright alpine sunshine lending his complexion a little color. From the expression on his face, though, I could tell he’d already heard the news.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

The question sounded so absurd in his hoarse, feeble voice, I almost laughed.

“Don’t worry about me.” I flung my suit jacket on the chair in the corner, where I’d spent the majority of my time the past several weeks. “How are you feeling today?”

“We can still appeal the ruling. Take it to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, or—”

“No.” I sat on the bed, my hip brushing his. “Let them do what they want. I don’t care.”

“Sure,” Heath said.

Then he realized I was serious. He stared as if he were seeing me for the very first time.

“But…” He swallowed. “We won.”

“We did. I know it, you know it. The whole world knows it.” I took his hand. “So who cares if we don’t have some shiny hunks of metal to prove it?”

I meant every word. I didn’t care about the medals anymore. I didn’t care if we were immortalized in the record books, or forgotten tomorrow. A bunch of washed-up bureaucrats in some bland Swiss conference room didn’t get to decide if we were champions or not. I decided who I was. I decided what I wanted.

“Are you sure, Katarina?” Heath asked. “Are you sure that will be enough for you?”

You’re my home, Heath had said to me once. Despite all the years we’d spent apart, all the time we’d wasted, he was my home too. He always had been.

“We have the rest of our lives,” I said. “That’s more than enough.”





Inez Acton: Good for her.

Jane Currer: Ms. Shaw was given every opportunity to provide a reasonable explanation for what happened in Sochi. She did not avail herself of those opportunities.

Inez Acton: She gave her whole life to that sport, and this is how they repay her? Fuck ’em.

Jane Currer: In the end, she left us no other option.

Kirk Lockwood reports on NBC: “American ice dancers Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha will be stripped of their win at the recent Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia—although, as Mr. Rocha has been hospitalized since the night of the ice dance final, they never actually received their gold medals. U.S. Figure Skating will meet in the coming months to consider future disciplinary measures, including a potential ban from the sport.”