Finding Her Edge - Hardcover

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Jennifer Iacopelli was born in New York and has no plans to leave, ever. Growing up, she read everything she could get her hands on, but her favorite authors were L. M. Montgomery and Frances Hodgson Burnett, both of whom wrote about kick-butt girls before it was cool for girls to be kick-butt. As a high school librarian, she frolics all day with her students, books, and computers and writes at night while cheering on her beloved Yankees. She is also the author of Break the Fall. Follow her online @jennifercarolyn.

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Chapter 1

The pair floats across the ice, hands clasped together, skates scraping against the surface in perfect synchronicity.

Or, at least, they’re trying to.

“Okay!” I shout, my voice hoarse after a long day of lessons. Despite my aching legs, I’m circling around them on my ownskates with a smooth, natural glide that, hopefully, they’ll be able to mimic one day. “Keep your grip firm, but not too tight. Don’t pull her with you, Jackson. Remember, she’s smaller than you. You need to adjust your stride to match hers.” The two eight-­year-­oldsI’m coaching are getting used to holding hands and skating together, one of the foundational basics of ice dance.

My voice echoes up into the rafters of Kellynch Rink of Greater Boston, the place I’ve spent more time in than my own home. It practically is home. My sisters and I were on skates before we could see over the boards surrounding the ice, because that’s what you do when you’re born a Russo.

“He’s not pulling you along anymore, Sadie, so you have to stay with him,” I remind her after he stops yanking at her arm and she drifts behind.

Finally, they fall into step, her shorter legs stretching a littlelonger, his longer legs striding a little shorter, and from my vantage point, it looks like perfection.

“That’s it!” They beam up at me, still holding hands. “Great job.”

Sadie barely comes up to my hip, and she casts her eyes longingly at my legs. “I wish I was as tall as you, Adriana. I wouldn’thave to stride so long.”

“You’re perfect exactly the way you are. Make sure you stretch tonight, especially your feet and ankles. Gotta keep them nice and strong for when I see you two again.”

“Ugh, that’s so long from now,” Jackson whines as I lead them off the ice.

“Not too long,” I say, clicking my skate guards on as soon as I pass through the gate. “Just until after Worlds.”

“That’s forever,” Sadie says, probably because when you’re eight years old, two months is an eternity.

To be fair, even at sixteen, it feels like forever for me, too, because by then Junior World Championships, the biggest competition of my life, will be over. It can’t get here soon enough. My ice dance partner and I qualified for the second year in a row, but this year, we finally have a great shot of winning gold. So two months from now, I’ll either be a World Champion . . . or not.

Right now, though, I’m a coach. I’ve been picking up more and more lessons in the last couple of years, trying to do my part to keep the lights on.

I wave to Sadie’s and Jackson’s moms as we approach them outside the rink. They’re sitting in the parents’ viewing area adjacent to the lobby. Banners cover the walls, citing the successes of the skating club in the half century it’s been open.

“Ah, Adriana!” Sadie’s mom says, racing up to me, her strides way faster than the ones her daughter can produce on the ice. “I’m so glad I got to see you before you left!”

“Oh,” I say with a small smile.

“Please tell Elisa I said good luck! We’ll all be watching her!”

I don’t let my smile slide at all, but instead let it grow. “Of course, I will.”

“You must be so proud of her. Your big sister going to theOlympics, what an accomplishment. Your father must be ecstatic.”

“He is.” I hold that smile, big and tight across my face. It’s not the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last. Olympic Games trumps Junior World Championships, obviously. Elisa is a ladies’ singles skater, and their careers tend to peak way younger than ice dancers. Four years from now, if everything goes as planned, I’ll be headed to my first Olympics.

“Well, we don’t want to keep you,” Sadie’s mom says, her eyes darting around the lobby, probably to make sure she didn’t miss Elisa or Dad. Jackson and his mom are already gone.

“Sadie, great job today. I’ll see you when I get back.”

I lock the doors to the rink behind them, the last lesson we’ll have for a while. It’s sad, but necessary. I flick off the lobby lights before turning thecome in, we’re open sign hanging on the door to sorry, we’re closed.

While Dad and Elisa head to Beijing for the Olympics, we’re hosting the other athletes and their coaches in the lead-­up to Junior Worlds. Dad’s always been able to charm people, especially anyone who understands our family’s legacy. We’ve had elite camps here for years, and before Mom died, she ran summer camp intensives that were famous for getting athletes ready for the next level. The lure of training at our legendary rink was just too much to resist.

The fees Dad negotiated with each individual coach are nearly double what we usually make in skating lessons and birthday parties and hockey leagues. And as much as I hate it, hate letting down our students and all the people who’ve supported Kellynch over the years, there was no way we could afford to turn down that kind of money. Because as famous and successful our family has been, we have this nasty habit of spending way more money than we bring in. Like,way more.

Kellynch was opened by my great-­grandparents back before evenmy dad first started skating. In the last fifty years, it’s become the most prestigious club in the country. We’ve won more World and Olympic medals—most of which belong to my parents—than some countries, and it’s a state-of-the-art facility. Dad won’t stand for anything less.

It would be impossible for him to work in a place that was anything less than what someone would expect for an Olympic gold medalist, the patriarch of the most famous family in figure skating. That would be okay if it wasn’talso impossible for Walter Russo to drive anything less than what someone would expect an Olympic gold medalist to drive or live in a house that was anything less than what someone would expect an Olympic gold medalist from figure skating’s first family to live in.

No amount of rink rentals and skating lessons can make up for that kind of spending, and it’s only gotten worse as we grow closer to Elisa’s Olympic year. Figure skating is an expensive sport no matter what level you’re on, but the Olympics is a whole other thing. Trainers and choreographers and consultants on wardrobe and makeup, not to mention the publicity firm Dad hired to really make the most of it. It all adds up to a hell of a lot of money we don’t have. No matter how much we bring in, it gets spent.

The business is in massive debt and we needed creative solutions, and even I can admit that letting all the junior skaters and their coaches invade was one of the better ideas Dad came up with.

Our home is set on Kellynch’s property, steps from the rink itself, but it was there long before that. It started as a small house my great-­grandparents moved into when they saved enough money after emigrating from Italy, but every generation has expanded it, adding on bedrooms and bathrooms and a massive swimming pool in the backyard and a gym in the basement and an entertainment room on the top floor. There’s even a rooftop deck where you can see all of our small hamlet of Kellynch up against the Charles River and then across it, the massive Boston skyline in the distance.

The original part of the house is old-­school traditional with brick...