Page 82 of The Favorites
“Where have you two been all this time?”
Heath puts his arm around Katarina. “Home,” he says, steering toward the exit.
Garrett Lin:My mother and Kirk dealt with their fair share of media attention back in the day, and Bella and I had some run-ins with the paps too. But this was on another level.
A montage of paparazzi photos from Shaw and Rocha’s first summer back in Los Angeles: Katarina and Heath leaving their apartment complex, Heath carrying both of their skate bags. Skating together at the Academy, blurry shots taken through the windows. Katarina falls, Heath helps her up. She buries her face in her hands, and Heath embraces her at the edge of the ice.
Francesca Gaskell:I know it’s not like theyaskedfor all that hoopla. But yeah, it was pretty disruptive for the rest of us at the Academy.
Inez Acton:They couldn’t have picked a worse time to become famous. It was like the Wild West in those days. The internet made the public feel entitled to intimate access to all their favorite stars—but social media hadn’t taken off yet, so celebrities couldn’t take charge of the narrative the way they do now.
Katarina and Heath return home after a practice session. They’ve moved to a different building, with a burly doorman who sternly shoos the crowd away, but the photographers still get what they came for: Katarina looking wrung out with exhaustion, Heath with a protective arm around her as though he’s her bodyguard rather than her boyfriend.
Ellis Dean:The general public had never been so interested in ice dance, that’s for sure. Hell, before Kat and Heath went viral, most people had never evenheardof ice dance.
Jane Currer:We wanted to attract more attention to the sport. But notthatsort of attention.
Ellis Dean:The figure skating association should’ve sent me a fucking fruit basket. Instead they tried to have my site shut down—emphasis ontried.
Screenshot of a Kiss & Cry headline: “Ever Heard of Free Speech, Bitches? (And By ‘Bitches’ I Mean the U.S. Figure Skating Association).” The website has been updated from the basic WordPress template to a more professional design, with a sparkling animated logo.
Ellis Dean:Maybe I should’ve sentthema fruit basket for all that free publicity. Ad revenue shot up so fast I had to hire an assistant.
Garrett Lin:Once Kat decided to partner with Heath, I thought about retiring. Possibly going to college. But Bella kept talking about 2010, the next Olympics in Vancouver. She didn’t ask if we could skate together again. She just assumed we would.
Video of the Lins learning choreography for their 2006–2007 original dance. They perform a one-foot turn sequence, but they’re out of sync. Garrett finishes a few notes ahead of Bella, and she has to scramble to catch up.
Garrett Lin:I thought it would be easy, skating with my sister again. But after four seasons with Kat, it was a tough adjustment. We were faring better than her and Heath, though.
Kirk Lockwood reports from Skate America 2006 in Hartford, Connecticut. “We were expecting a showdown this weekend between the new—or shouldI say old?—ice dance teams of Shaw/Rocha and Lin/Lin, but unfortunately Shaw and Rocha decided to withdraw after a rough practice session this morning.”
Ellis Dean:All this furor over them, and they hadn’t even taken competition ice together yet.
Francesca Gaskell:She was fine, physically, as far as anyone could tell. But injuries like that, they can really mess with your mind.
Garrett Lin:Kat and Heath stayed in Hartford and cheered us on. That meant a lot.
Katarina and Heath sit in the front row of the Hartford Civic Center, while Bella and Garrett skate the Westminster Waltz for the compulsory dance portion of the event.
When the Lins finish, Katarina and Heath stand and applaud for them, both smiling—except for a split second where Katarina looks down and brushes something off the sleeve of her jacket.
Cut to a screenshot of a post on the Kiss & Cry homepage, featuring the image of that unsmiling moment. “With Frenemies Like These…Bella Lin Better Watch Her Back” reads the headline.
Ellis Dean:Look, women supporting women doesn’t get clicks. I didn’t invent misogyny, I just shamelessly profited from it.
Back to Kirk in the commentator booth: “Skate America is the second event the reunited team of Shaw and Rocha has withdrawn from this season; they were also slated to compete at the Nebelhorn Trophy in September, but decided against it before making the trip to Germany. We’ll see if they show up in Paris next month for their second Grand Prix assignment.
“Until then, we’re wishing Katarina Shaw continued success with her recovery. And don’t miss my exclusive interview with her brother, Lee Shaw, next Wednesday at seven p.m. Eastern!”
Chapter 46
Ignore them.That was Sheila’s sage advice.
When paparazzi camped outside the rink and our apartment and my physical therapist’s office and the drugstore where I was just trying to buy some fucking tampons, she told us to pretend they weren’t there.
When reporters and sports agencies and event promoters called us at all hours of the day and night offering interviews and feature articles and endorsement contracts worth more than a whole Olympic quad’s worth of prize money, she said we should let the phone ring.
Don’t get distracted. You have work to do.
