The Favorites: A Novel(73)

“We don’t need her, Katarina. All we need is each other.”

I closed my eyes and listened to his heartbeat and, for the moment at least, let myself believe him.





Part IV


   The Game





Garrett Lin: How would I describe the next phase of Kat and Heath’s career?

Kirk Lockwood: All over the place. They had, what, ten different coaches in five different countries in two years?

Jane Currer: Appalling. Parting ways with Sheila Lin may have been the worst mistake they ever made, and that’s saying something.

Ellis Dean: The best thing that ever happened to me. Those little attention whores provided so much content, it was hard to keep up.

Garrett Lin: I guess I’ll go with “wild.” In more ways than one.

Francesca Gaskell: It seemed like Shaw and Rocha were everywhere in those days.

Katarina and Heath pose on the red carpet at a movie premiere. They pop champagne at the opening of a new dance club. They laugh on a talk-show sofa. Katarina’s hair has grown out into a sleek chin-length bob, and they’re both clearly being dressed by professional stylists.

Inez Acton: That nude shoot they did was an attack on bisexuals everywhere. Let us live.

Behind-the-scenes footage of Katarina and Heath’s photo shoot for ESPN The Magazine’s annual Body Issue. They pose with his arm across her chest and her thigh blocking his pelvis.

Inez Acton: And then there were all those YouTube supercuts. Pornographic, basically.

A snippet of a fan-made YouTube video plays: dramatically filtered clips of sexy moments from Shaw and Rocha programs, edited to match the song “Promiscuous” by Nelly Furtado.

Inez Acton: I heard the figure skating association tried to have the videos taken down—something about streaming rights? Big mistake on their part, if you ask me. Those were the most effective advertisements for ice dance ever made.

Jane Currer: Mind you, Shaw and Rocha still hadn’t won a major title. But the general public wasn’t interested in them for their athletic skills. Katarina and Heath were celebrities.

Garrett Lin: By far the craziest thing I heard about was…I think they call it “fan fiction”?

Ellis Dean: Oh my god, the erotic fanfic. Imagine having strangers on the internet write multipart sagas about you banging.

Garrett Lin: No, of course I didn’t read it. I’m just telling you what I heard.

Ellis Dean: (He clears his throat, then reads from his cellphone screen.) “Heath thrust into her hot, wet center. ‘God, Katarina,’ he moaned as she rode his rock-hard member. ‘You even fuck like a champion.’?” That’s one of the better ones, if you can believe it. We did a roundup on Kiss & Cry before the 2008 National Championships.

Garrett Lin: Bella and I were still in touch with Kat and Heath, yeah. We only saw one another at competitions, though.

Francesca Gaskell: I feel bad saying it, but it was kinda nice, not having them at the Academy anymore. Everyone could relax and just focus on skating.

Kirk Lockwood: Shaw and Rocha were certainly the most famous ice dance team. They were also one of the best. They were so in sync, sometimes they’d make mistakes in unison!

During the original dance at the 2007 U.S. Nationals in Spokane, Katarina and Heath stumble on their twizzles, at the same time and somehow still in rhythm to the song—which is now Kate Bush’s “Under Ice” rather than traditional tango music.

Garrett Lin: It seemed awful, if I’m being honest. All that attention. My sister and I grew up in the public eye, but what we went through paled in comparison.

Ellis Dean: Oh, they loved the attention. Well, Kat did anyway. And whatever Kat loved, Heath at least pretended to love too.

Jane Currer: Perhaps if they’d spent more time on their training and less time posing for photographs, they would have been happier with their results. We never knew whether they’d show up to any given competition with a new coach—or no coach at all.

Kirk Lockwood: The lack of coaching consistency was an issue. It’s remarkable they skated as well as they did, given all the upheaval and distraction.

Katarina’s brother, Lee, gives another tell-all interview: “Our father never told her no. Her eyes looked just like our mom’s. Katie would fix ’em on him like a gun sight until he surrendered.”

Inez Acton: Katarina and Heath both had this rebellious, sexy, no-fucks-given vibe. That’s what people loved about them—and what they hated. But we all know a “bad boy” and a “bad girl” are treated very differently in our society.

Jane Currer: Champion skaters should be role models. Perhaps it’s old-fashioned of me to say so, but especially the ladies. So many young women look up to them.

Video footage immediately following the free dance at the 2008 World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden. Ellis Dean catches Katarina and Heath as they leave the kiss and cry. He has official press credentials now, and professional recording equipment.

“How are you feeling about the silver?” he asks. “Cause if you ask me, you guys got screwed.”

Heath has his hand on Katarina’s elbow, like he wants to hold her back. But she’s too fired up. “The results are bullshit, that’s what I think. Kipriyanov almost face-planted coming out of that combo spin. The judges just didn’t want to give us the gold.”