Anticipation

And the applause stops.  It’s just her.  Alone.  She takes her position in center ice and waits for the longest seconds of her life to pass before the music begins.  A quick glance at the judges’ ridiculing eyes and she realizes that she is forgetting to breathe.  Implacable scruples fill her mind, and every possible thing that could go wrong runs through her head.  She glances down at her tawdry and baroque dress, the rhinestones glimmering on the ice like the sun on the ocean.  She knows that she needs this; she has to get a medal.  A glance at her father’s face says “Don’t let me down.”  Her father told her that if she did not perform well at this competition, he would impose a moratorium from figure skating.  She would love to have the cachet of her parents.  She knows she is capable.  What do the others have that she doesn’t?  An ounce of confidence surreptitiously seeps out.

But everyone else performed so well.  Every jump was clean, every spin perfectly centered.  What about her?  Well, she doesn’t land her jumps as consistently as she should, and she doesn’t have the grace of the ones who previously skated.  They all made it seem so easy.  She hears the familiar first notes of her routine.  There is no way to allay her nerves except to begin.