Dreams of Gold

by Maynard F. Thomson

Genres: Coming of Age; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

The dreams of figure skaters Maggie Campbell and Clay Bartlett come to an abrupt halt when a car accident ends Clay's career. Maggie leaves Clay to hone her skills as a single skater.

Release date: January 23, 2010

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 452

Sample

September 2000: Boston

Reaching for her nightgown, Maggie winced at the pain lancing up her side, praying it was only a pulled muscle. She’d have
to get it looked at in the morning; the possibility that the rib had opened up again, with the Nationals barely four months
away, was too grim to consider. She took two aspirin, eased into bed, opened Foucault’s History of Sexuality. Harvard was full of students who did things better than anyone else; when she sat for her psychology exam, she’d be just
another junior.


She turned on her cassette player. She never tired of the slow music for their long program, thinking of it as love-making
set to music.


The Rachmaninoff had been Hunter Rill’s idea. She’d opposed it at first, declaring it a pairs cliché, but he’d persisted,
and he’d been right. Probably no other coach exploited the sensual undercurrent of skating as well as Rill; Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini wouldn’t do for a brother-sister team, but for Clay and Maggie, radiating a palpable sexual attraction, it was perfect.




She flipped through the textbook with mounting boredom before letting it slip to the floor; Rachmaninoff had more to say about
sexuality, and in a language she understood. She turned off the light. The twinge in her side as she slipped her hands behind
her head assuaged her guilt at not letting Clay talk her into Lofton Weeks’s annual bacchanal.


When she was seventeen, and still skating as a junior, she’d been thrilled to be invited; it told the skating world that the
man who’d been synonymous with American figure skating for almost fifty years had anointed Clay Bartlett and Maggie Campbell
prospects, which was worth points every time they competed. When she was eighteen it was exhilarating to sip champagne and grow giddy
at the thought of their first season campaigning as seniors. By nineteen it was starting to pall. At twenty, one half of the
United States pairs silver medal team had gone home early. Now Maggie, at twenty-one, was pleased she hadn’t even pretended.


The drunks and the skaters with eating disorders would be throwing up in the bathrooms. Association officials and judges would
buttonhole her about their program, or their costumes, or the color of her lipstick. Red-faced, middle-aged skating fanatics
would try to fondle her, while their wives showed off their cleavages and ogled Clay. Thirty seconds after some coach had
deposited the four hundredth unwelcome kiss, she’d hear him telling someone she used drugs or slept with girls. Lofton Weeks
would flatter and cajole until she’d want to scream. She’d made the right decision: she needed a quiet night at home.


The concerto was coming to the movement she loved best, their music, almost unbearably lush. She shut her eyes, letting the strings pulse through her, hearing the melody as the sound
track to their triumph in Denver six weeks before.


That night had confirmed Maggie Campbell and Clayton
Bartlett as the heirs presumptive to the National title. It had been even more satisfying than the evening the previous January,
when they’d won the silver at the Nationals. They’d skated well enough to take the gold, but understood that the association,
and hence the judges, thought it was still Schuyler and Drummond’s. That was the way of skating, so they’d kept quiet, waited,
and worked. The win in Denver said their time had arrived.


Stepping onto the ice, they’d known what they had to do, and they’d done it. They’d owned the crowd from their opening lift,
a Hunter Rill invention culminating with Maggie standing on Clay’s chest-high left palm, his right hand bracing her calf.
The roar, as she thrust out her arms and revolved, her head ten feet above the ice, was deafening.


Elements that had seemed a gamble when Rill put the program together, like the throw triple Salchow with less than a minute
to go, hadn’t seemed chancey at all when the time came—just a bit of work that had to be done. They’d have won even if they’d
doubled it; that had been the safe choice, but they were skating to win, not to avoid losing. At Clay’s whispered, “Triple?” she’d nodded; two seconds later he’d thrown her twelve feet through
the air, spinning. When she’d landed, she’d known they’d won.


Their unison had been perfect. They had entered their jumps and spins together, revolved as one, exited with legs and arms
at identical angles, identical points on the compass, moving as synchronously as parts of a watch. Going in, some had said
the Lantsberg twins might be their match, but they’d lacked the unison. Not by much, but enough.


They were the only pair in the world with a triple flip. They landed side-by-side triple flips and triple toe loops seconds
apart, and once again the crowd noise swamped the music, but they knew it so well that they never lost a beat.




When Clay fixed his pivot and lowered her into the death spiral, it was as though eyes, not arms, connected them. He winked
at her as she swept around him, her curls sweeping the ice. They finished with Clay kneeling, she leaning back across his
leg, his right hand cradling her neck. Their kiss was the only unscripted element in the four minutes and twenty-eight seconds,
and it sent the crowd into a frenzy.


She heard Lofton Weeks, immaculate in his black dinner jacket, working the officials afterward: “The most elegant American
pairs team in forty years. The best in the world, getting better every time out.” Weeks always talked that way about skaters
he hoped to sign to his professional tour, but she’d heard others echo the claim, so she dared to think it might be true.


She drifted off, as she often did, to music; her life moved to music.

Somewhere, dimly, an alarm sounded. Too soon, she thought, much too soon, and she reached to shut it off before remembering
she hadn’t set it. One eye opened on the glowing clock face.


One-thirty. Before she’d fully digested it she realized it had been the phone she’d heard. Distantly she heard her mother’s
muffled voice. Mumbling, then louder: “What? No! Is he…”


When she heard footsteps approach the door she knew, even before the door opened and her mother whispered, “Maggie? Maggie,
it’s Mother. There’s been an accident.”


Her heart raced, her stomach knotted. She bolted upright and switched on the lamp. “What happened?”

“It’s Clay … he’s been hurt.”

Something squeezed her throat. “Hurt?” she whispered. “How badly? What’s wrong?”



“That was Alex Bartlett. They’re at the hospital. Apparently Clay was in a car accident.”

“Is he all right?”

“He’s banged up, but he’s not in any danger.”

“Thank God.” Maggie sprang from the bed. “I’ve got to go. Which hospital?”

“Boston City.”

Maggie pulled on clothes. “How did it happen?” she called from her closet.

“They’re not sure. Apparently the driver lost control of the car coming off Storrow Drive. It went into a light pole.”

Maggie stepped out of the closet. Her mother had settled on the bed. Her brother, owlish in his thick glasses, blinked nervously
in the doorway.


“I don’t understand—what do you mean, the driver lost control? Wasn’t Clay driving? Was another car involved?”

“Clay wasn’t driving. It was his car, but he wasn’t driving.”

“Then who … ?”

“Doe Rawlings.”

Maggie ran out the door.

Clay’s right eye fluttered open as she approached. “Hi, kiddo,” he whispered. “Pretty, aren’t I?”

His left eye, puffy and blue black, was swollen almost shut. A bandage covered one ear, another curved under his chin.

She went to him, fighting the impulse to shudder. “How do you feel?” His left hand was lying on top of the blanket; she picked
it up and squeezed.


He squeezed back, his smile fading as stitches pulled. “Like I had an argument with a windshield, and lost.”



“But why weren’t you driving?” Seeing his downcast eyes, she cocked her head skeptically. “Too much to drink?”

He nodded sheepishly. “After being in training so long, it went right to my head.”

“I told you to watch it.”

“I know, I know. But Lofton was all worked up over our win in Denver, and I had a couple of glasses of champagne with him
while he told me how much money he’s going to make us when we turn pro. Some of the groupies kept bringing me beer, and of
course Hunter was throwing back the vodka and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”


She ran her finger down the line of his jaw. “Why do I suspect he didn’t hear ‘no’ for an answer?”

When Clay Bartlett grinned he looked like a naughty twelve-year-old. “Once a year, Mag.”

He could always disarm the schoolmarm in her. She rolled her eyes, sighing. “I know; I’m not blaming you.” The smile faded
as she remembered. “But why Doe Rawlings? How did she come to be driving?”


“By midnight I was ready to go, only I knew I shouldn’t drive. I was in the lobby, calling a cab, when Doe came out. She also
wanted to leave, but she’d come with Hunter, and he wouldn’t be ready for hours, so she suggested driving me home, dropping
me off, and I could come by for the car in the morning. It made sense at the time.”


He frowned. “I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, I was trying to figure out how we came to be wrapped
around a pole.”


“Your parents say the police estimate she was doing at least seventy when she went into the turn, that’s how.”

The open eye fluttered. He seemed to shrink, his pale face lost against the whiteness of the pillow. “Christ, I had no
idea. Why? I mean…” He swallowed. “Why?” he whispered.


“Because she was drunk, that’s why.”

His lips thinned. Shaking his head, almost angrily, he snapped, “No, she wasn’t. She hadn’t had a drink all night.”

“Do you know that?”


He looked away, at the wall. “No, but she said she hadn’t, and she seemed fine in the lobby.”

“Well, the flunked the Breathalyzer.”

He tried to sit up. “Oh, Lord.” Grimacing, he flopped back against the pillow. “I can’t believe it.”

“She lied, Clay.”

Maggie watched him trying to puzzle it out. “But why? We could have waited for a cab.”

“Because she’s a selfish bitch!” The rage broke over her. “Because she’s Doe Rawlings, that’s why.” Maggie wished the brittle,
hard words back as soon as she heard them bouncing off the antiseptic walls.


He blanched. Contrite, Maggie took a deep breath, willing her voice to remain calm. She began fussing with the sheet, tucking
in a loose edge. “Don’t you see? She’d decided she wanted to drive your car, and so what if she was drunk? She wanted to speed,
and the hell with the consequences.” Her mouth formed a tight crease. “What Doe wants, Doe gets. Hasn’t it always been that
way?”


“I suppose.” His face was pale against the white pillow.

She pushed the hair off his forehead. It fell back; it always did. “Well, when I see her…”

His hand grabbed hers. “Don’t, Maggie. Don’t say anything.”

She looked at him in amazement. “Don’t say anything? She could have killed you.”

“But she didn’t.” His head sank into the pillow. “Look—
think how she must feel: My car’s wrecked, I’m beat up, and she’s probably going to be cited for drunk driving. She’s had
a tough life; let’s not add to her troubles. It won’t help anything for you to get into it with her, and think how it would
make practices.”


“I’ve never found her presence one of the brighter parts of practice.”

“Please, Mag—don’t make me argue, not with my head feeling like this. Let’s just forget it, okay?”

Her lips tightened, but she nodded, sighing. “Okay, it’s up to you. But she’s a selfish, thoughtless prima donna, and somebody
ought to tell her.”


He put his arm across his forehead. “Let it be somebody else, all right? We have to skate on the same ice.”

“I said I won’t say anything.” She touched the bandage on his wrist. “What happened here?”

He held it overhead, studying it uncertainly. “I don’t know; there was a lot of glass around—I suppose I cut it getting out.
They put stitches in.”


She shivered again. “Does it hurt?”

He waggled his fingers cautiously, shaking his head. “No, not really. More numb than anything else, like the rest of me.”
His eyelids drooped.


Maggie patted him. “Sleep now. I’ll come back later.” She kissed his forehead. He was out before she had her coat on.

As soon as she walked into the room the next morning she knew something was wrong. Clay, paler than before, wore an expression
poised between fear and wonder. Two men, one in a lab coat, were standing by the bed. The man in a suit was rubbing his chin
and nodding at something the other man was saying. Lettie Bartlett, smiling unconvincingly, was straightening her son’s sheet,
while Alex Bartlett was
saying to the two men, “Are you sure? You can’t be sure. Who else should we call in?”


“What is it?” Maggie looked from Clay, to his parents, to the strangers, back to Clay. “What’s wrong?”

It was Clay who answered. “It’s my right hand, Mag; it seems there’s been some nerve damage. That’s why it was numb.”

“I don’t understand.” Maggie pushed between the two men, coming to stand by the bed. “What does that mean, ‘nerve damage’?
What’s it mean, Clay?”


“It may mean looking for a tin cup, my girl.” He forced a grin. “Maybe I’ll qualify for handicapped parking. Think what that’s
worth in Boston.”


“What?” Maggie thought he must be joking, then saw the tears tracking his mother’s cheeks. She looked at the two strangers,
willing agreement. “That’s ridiculous. You’re going to be fine. You just have a cut. You’ll be fine in a few days. He will
be, won’t he? Won’t he?”


Lettie Bartlett put her arm around Maggie, snuffling. “Shh, shh. They don’t know anything for sure. It’s just a… tentative
finding, isn’t that right, Doctor?”


The man in the lab coat nodded. “Of course. We’ve got to do a lot more tests, and then there’s physical therapy once the injury
heals. We don’t know how much function he might recover. Why, I’ve seen—“


“But our skating… we’ve got to train… how soon… ?” Maggie clutched at Mrs. Bartlett; dimly, from down the corridor, she heard
children chanting a nursery rhyme. She thought she might be losing her mind. “Tell them, Aunt Lettie—tell them they’ve got
to get him well right away. We’ve got to skate!”


“Skate, miss?” The second man, the one in a suit, looked
at her reassuringly. “He’ll be skating in a couple of days, if that’s your worry.”


Maggie sighed, suddenly weightless. Mrs. Bartlett’s arm slid from her hands. “Thank God.” She reached for Clay. “I was so—“

“There’s nothing wrong with his legs,” the man continued, “he just won’t be picking anything up for a while.”

Hunter Rill stood by the side of the Charles River Skating Club rink, a frown disturbing the sharp planes of his face. In skates
he was almost six feet tall, and since he was a slender man—barely ten pounds heavier than when he’d been competing—he cut
a handsome figure in the red sweater with the yellowing “U.S. Figure Skating Championships” patch on it. This morning he wasn’t
feeling handsome, though, or dashing, or even “well preserved,” which he’d recently overheard a matronly woman saying of him,
to his disgust. He was feeling all of his forty-four years, the vodka he’d drunk the night before, and acute annoyance that
he had to attempt to instruct the uninstructible.


He ran his hand back through his thinning light brown hair as his eyes followed the pudgy boy working his way around the ice.
The arm movements, that was one problem. They were absurdly tentative: little, halting jerks rather than the florid gestures
demanded by the bombastic flourishes of the William Tell Overture. The boy, his face frozen into a rictus, might have been having some sort of fit on the ice, so graceless were his arms.


And the pliés—the boy was supposed to be bending his
knees and ankles, raising and lowering his hips while thrusting his shins against the tongue of his boots. Without a proper
plié he would never be able to control his edges, much less jump decently, yet the boy’s knees and ankles might as well have
been fused for all the movement they showed. Instead, every few seconds he bent forward at the waist, so that he resembled
a toy bird, bobbing its head over a glass of water. It would have been funny, if Hunter Rill could find hopelessly clumsy
skating amusing.


Unable to stand it any longer, he reached over and stabbed the tape recorder resting on the rail beside him. The boy was so
oblivious that he skated another fifty feet before realizing the music had stopped. He looked at his instructor, the pale,
doughy face reflecting his confusion as Rill waved him over.


Rill glared down at the hangdog adolescent. “Do you think, Steven, you might try doing it as though God had given you joints? Would that be possible, do you think?”


The boy shifted his skate blades back and forth. “I guess so, Hunter,” he mumbled.

“Look at me, Steven. I can’t hear you when you don’t look at me.”


The boy made unsteady eye contact. “Yes, Hunter.”

“Good. Now, Steven, let’s try it again, only this time try connecting your movements to the music, all right? Like this.”


Rill pushed the button and strode onto the ice. Half a dozen strokes had him speeding down the length of the rink. As the
orchestra’s “barump-pa-pa, barump-pa-pa” reverberated through the arena, he flung his arms, first one and then the other,
as though trying to grab the pennants hanging overhead. At the same time he did deep pliés, compressing his weight against
the ice, rising, sinking, repeating the motion.




He skated back. “Now, do you think you can do that, Steven? Because if you can’t, we’re going to have to go back to the exercise
bar for the plié drill. And that’s not as much fun, is it?”


The sudden change in the boy’s expression told Rill he remembered all too well how his Achilles’ tendons had felt after Rill
had plopped him in front of the exercise mirror and drilled him through fifteen minutes’ worth of pliés, all the while barking,
“Up, down, up, down,” occasionally showing him what “down” meant with a heavy hand on his shoulder.


The boy didn’t know Rill was bluffing—his mother had made it all too clear that the next time her precious came out crying,
she was going to find another skating instructor. That wouldn’t do; there were already too many holes in his day, and now
he’d lost Bartlett and Campbell—$36,000 a year, gone. He had to temper the wind to the Stevens in his stable; they couldn’t
skate, but they paid the rent.


He softened his tone. “Remember, Steven—you have to be able to do a nice plié before you can jump or spin. You want to start
spins soon, don’t you?”


“Yes, Hunter.” The boy sounded uncertain.

“Of course you do—and you will. You’ve got real talent, Steven. Don’t think you’re not making progress—I’m always hardest
on my best students.”


Something like hope came into the boy’s eyes. He mumbled his gratitude.

“Sure—you’ll be doing Axels in no time.” When pigs fly, Rill thought. “Now why don’t you go out and try it again.”

The boy made his awkward way back to center ice, and Rill punched the tape recorder button. He glanced at his watch. Thank
God there were only five more minutes of this. Then he had a down hour, since the Purdue girl had quit on him.




Good riddance, except for the money. Kelly Purdue was a rich, lazy brat who’d be overtaxed skating third dwarf in the ice
show chorus line. She’d run out bawling when he’d finally had enough of her shirking and chased her from one end of the rink
to the other, swatting her with a skate bag, until she’d dropped.


Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Darcy Hazel—fourteen years old and one of the top juniors in America—about to step
on the ice. His hand shot out, grabbing her by her braid.


“Ouch! That hurts!”

Rill kept a firm grip on the pigtail. “I told you, Darcy, that you were not to set foot on the ice until you lost three pounds. Don’t you remember?”


“But Hunter, I did! This morning at home…” The girl’s eyes filled.

“I don’t care about your scale at home, dear.” He dropped the fat braid and bent over to look the girl in the eyes. “We weigh
in on the scale in the locker room, and Linda told me that scale said you’d lost only two and one-half pounds.”


“But Hunter, I…” She started to snivel.

“Two and one-half isn’t three. Is it, dear?”

“But…”

“Is it?”

“No,” she quavered. Other skaters, scurrying out of range, cast nervous looks over their shoulders.

“You go down to the exercise room, and you lose that half pound. You will not go on the ice until you have lost it. Do you hear me?”


“Y-yes, Hunter.”

“Good—we can’t have you going into SkateAmerica one ounce overweight. Now, get going.”


Rill watched the girl slink off, not the least concerned that
she’d run out on him. If she broke a leg, he’d have to tie her down to keep her off the ice, and her parents worked two jobs apiece
to support her skating. Those were the kind who complained only if they thought you were being too easy on their little investment.


Parents like that wouldn’t admit they viewed the coach as their pension fund manager, of course; they didn’t want to be quoted
saying, “Yeah, I worked my kid like a plow horse, took away her youth, gave her an eating disorder, transported her a thousand
miles from her father, and saw to it that the only book she’d ever read was the USFSA rules, all so I could cash in when she
hit.” Not the kind of copy that contributes to a wholesome, marketable image. So they talked about “building character” and
“just wanting what’s best for Susie.” That’s why he knew he could grab Darcy Hazel by her braid and haul her off the ice;
her mother would rip the thing out by the roots, if that’s what it took to make weight.


The thought cheered him so much, he actually meant the smile he wore when Mrs. Hotchkiss arrived to pick up her son.

“Oh, we had a fine lesson today. Didn’t we, Steven?” His hand kneaded the boy’s shoulder. “Yes, ma’am—this boy is going to
be a skater. I’m delighted I made room for him, just delighted.” He rubbed the boy’s head and didn’t look at the check she handed him
until mother and son were out the door.


He watched Doe Rawlings at the far end of the rink. Her skin had a luminescence, and even thirty yards away he could feel
the warmth she radiated. At eighteen she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. It wasn’t supposed to enter into scoring,
but of course it did; her face and figure were worth a few tenths of a point almost every time.




She was practicing her triple lutz/triple toe combination. He shook his head in wonder; the lutz took so much momentum that
it was astounding the girl had enough left for the triple toe, but Doe was stringing them together as though playing hopscotch.
It would dazzle the judges at the Nationals.


Rill’s pulse raced, as it always did when he thought about Doe’s future. His future, really. He strolled back to his office,
whistling noiselessly.


He decided a restorative was in order and was just reaching for the desk drawer when the door flew open. His hand jerked back
at Maggie Campbell’s bark: “I want to talk to you!”


She stood in the doorway, hands on hips, eyes boring in on him.

“Maggie—this is a pleasant surprise. I—“

“Don’t give me that.” She advanced on him, forefinger stabbing the air. “You fixed it. I know you did. Well, it’s not over!”

She stood, glaring, arms crossed over her chest, chin out-thrust. “Don’t think you can get away with this.”

He looked up at her calmly, though he thought her quite formidable for her size. “Maggie, what are you talking about?”


“I talked to the police. They told me there aren’t going to be any drunk driving charges filed against your little protégée.”

He gave her his boyish smile. “Well, I won’t lie to you—I’m relieved to hear that. Now—“

“Liar!” The finger shot forward. “You already knew. They said you told them she had a reaction to a new antihistamine.”




“That’s true. Her doctor backed it up.” Leaning back in the swivel chair, he locked his hands behind his head. “Doe has allergies.”

“That’s such a lie! She was drunk. Friends of mine saw her throwing back drinks all night. That’s why she flunked the Breathalyzer.”


Rill arched his eyebrows. “Odd Clay didn’t notice.”

“There were three hundred people there, and Clay wasn’t with her until they left.”

“Ah, I see.” He shrugged. “Well, Lofton Weeks told the police he didn’t see her take a drop. I believe several others spoke
to the same effect.” He turned up his hands helplessly.


“Sure—protect the crown princess. You haven’t heard the last of this, you know. I’ve written the association.”

Rill sighed. “That was silly, Maggie; the association isn’t going to do a damn thing. You’re talking about the United States
ladies’ champion. In a few months they’re expecting Doe to repeat at the Nationals, a month after that to take the World title,
and less than a year after that to win the Olympics. Do you really think they’re going to sanction her because you wrote a
letter? This case is closed. It’s exactly as though Clay blew a knee skating. Sad, but it happens all the time.”


Maggie clenched her jaw to keep from screaming. “We’ll see. We’ll see how the association feels about a skater destroying
another skater’s career like that—whether it thinks that ‘happens all the time.’ “


“I think you’re going to find that the association is far more concerned with the future than the past. But I want you to
know how sorry I am this happened. You deserved better. If you’ll let me, I’ll bend heaven and earth to get you another partner.”


Maggie looked at him disdainfully. “Sure—so you can
collect your fees. No, thank you. I don’t want anything from you.”


He shook his head. “I’ll do it even if you go to another coach. I’ve seen very few skaters with your sense of the relationship
between movement and music. A lot of skaters go into pairs because they don’t have the tools to be competitive in singles,
but you were a terrific singles skater when you came to me, and I don’t doubt you’d have gotten even better. Maybe good enough
to have pushed Doe—who knows? And you made Clay; I wouldn’t have given a nickel for his chances until you came along.”


Maggie’s nostrils flared. “That’s ridiculous; Clay’s a magnificent skater.”

“Thanks to you he became a great pairs skater. But five years ago he couldn’t keep a partner—he had a lousy work ethic, and
was getting by on raw talent. He was just about at the end of that game when you arrived and showed him what it took. Now
you should go on with someone else.”


“Who’s going to help Clay go on?” Maggie heard her voice catch and knew she had to get out. She whirled, bolting for the door.

“He will,” Rill called after her. “And if I know Clay, he’ll manage just fine.”


He watched the small, straight figure stalking down the hall, feeling he’d lost something. He was tempted to call her back
and tell her not to throw herself away on Clay Bartlett, but she wouldn’t listen.


He pulled the pint of vodka out of the desk drawer and took a sip; yes