The Favorites: A Novel(95)
Despite what you may have heard, my speech at Sheila Lin’s funeral wasn’t planned.
Until the whole crowd swiveled to stare at me, I didn’t even realize I’d stood up and volunteered to speak. I had no idea what to say. I barely recall what I did say.
I remember squinting into the sun, gripping my glasses to keep my hands from shaking, sweat creeping down my spine under my black dress.
And the way Bella and Heath looked at me. She seemed hostile at first—muscles tensed, dreading the scene I was surely about to cause—but as I spoke, she softened. When I stepped away from the podium, she gave me a nod of acknowledgment, so swift and subtle I thought I might have imagined it.
Heath, though—he stayed so still, he could have been another monument in the cemetery. I felt his eyes on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to meet them. I was afraid of what I’d see—pure loathing, smug satisfaction. Or worst of all, total indifference.
I left Hollywood Forever without saying another word to anyone and changed my flight so I could leave LA as soon as possible. By the time the plane lifted off the tarmac, my visit to California already felt like a strange dream.
That was it, I figured. I would never see Heath or the Lins again.
I returned to my solitary life in Illinois. Weeks passed, every day the same as the last—until a blizzard swept through overnight, brushing a coat of glittering white over everything.
The next morning, I walked out my front door and found Bella Lin standing in the snow.
* * *
—
Bella was dressed all in white, and she looked so much like her mother, for a moment I thought I’d been visited by a ghost.
“Hi,” she said. The compact car behind her was white too, nearly invisible against the snowdrifts and the pale cloud cover.
I walked down the icy steps, stopping on the final tread. “What are you doing here?”
“I was in the area.”
She’d been at the U.S. National Championships, which were held in Omaha that year—at least a six-hour drive. Even for Midwesterners, calling that in the area was pushing it.
“What are you really doing here, Bella?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“You just saw me at the funeral.”
“Yeah, and you left without saying goodbye.” She folded her arms. “Without saying anything, actually, aside from your big speech about what a bitch my dead mother was.”
I shifted my weight. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“Don’t apologize. That speech was the most honest thing anyone said all day.”
She looked me over, noting my layered workout clothes and the tote I carried.
“Going skating?”
I nodded, tucking the bag closer against my fleece jacket.
“Mind if I join you? I’ve got my skates in the trunk.”
I gave her suede ankle boots, already stained with slush, a dubious glance. “You have different shoes in there too? It’s a bit of a walk.”
“I’ll be fine,” Bella said with a familiar smile. Challenge accepted. “Lead the way.”
She kept pace with me as I headed into the woods, an occasional heavier huff of breath the only sign that the slippery terrain gave her any trouble. I kept expecting her to ask where we were going, but she didn’t say a word—until we reached our destination.
“Holy shit,” Bella said. “You have your own ice rink?”
About a year into my self-imposed exile, I’d had the old stable building where Heath used to hide out converted into a private skating facility. The ice surface was small, and I had to spend a good hour a day dragging a rake-like tool back and forth to keep it smooth enough to skate on, but it was all mine.
I hauled open the sliding barn doors and switched on the fairy lights strung across the rafters. The east-facing wall was all windows, looking out on the forest and the lakeshore beyond. The panes retracted so I could skate in the open air when the weather was better, a refrigeration system keeping the ice frozen even in the summer heat.
Bella spun around in awe.
“I knew it,” she said. “I knew you could never give it up.”
I’d certainly tried. The first few weeks after Vancouver, I did nothing except sleep and eat and seethe with rage. Then I decided I needed a project to occupy my time, so I vowed to fix up the house. If I couldn’t reach my full potential, at least my home could.
For months, I stripped paint and steamed wallpaper and scrubbed woodwork. I piled trash on the beach and lit a bonfire. I cleaned out my brother’s room and finally let myself cry about his death—and his life—gasping in dust and stale smoke until my lungs burned.
No matter what I did, though, my body roiled with restless energy. When it was warm outside, I walked in the woods until my feet blistered. When the weather turned, and the silence became too much, I played my parents’ records—Hounds of Love and Private Dancer and Rumours, volume turned as loud as it would go—but that only made me want to move, to dance.
To skate.
Money can’t buy happiness, but for me it bought the next best thing. I found a contractor who specialized in at-home hockey rinks—and who, thankfully, had never heard of Olympic ice dancer Katarina Shaw. Several months and a significant chunk of my savings later, the stable had been transformed.