My Sergei (30 page)

Nothing helped the whole summer. The nerve in his left foot was so pinched that it was almost dead, so Dr. Abrams said he
had to do physiotherapy for his foot. Sergei couldn’t even stand on one leg. He couldn’t stand on his tiptoes. He couldn’t
walk on his heels.

So every day he went to the gym and ran through a series of exercises. From mid-July to mid-August we were in Simsbury by
ourselves, without Mom or Daria, but we were so frustrated we couldn’t enjoy our time alone. We didn’t take any romantic weekends
or explore parts of New England we’d never seen. We were just trying to get Sergei healthy again.

All day long he exercised, for his back, for his stomach, for his foot. Four times a day he did special exercises for his
foot. He worked too hard, if anything. I’d always been a little worried about Sergei, that maybe he wouldn’t take his conditioning
as seriously as he should when we were older. That he wouldn’t care so much. I don’t know. I can’t explain, but I worried.
But he showed me this summer that to take care of me and Daria, he would do anything. It was too much, some days.

He told me he felt terrible because he was not skating. He couldn’t lift me, but he had to lift something. So all the time
he was lifting weights. He couldn’t run, because he couldn’t feel his foot very well. So every other day we went to the swimming
pool, and Sergei would swim fifty laps. He was working out almost twenty-four hours a day.

And day by day he got a little better, but slowly, so slowly. We decided to try to get ready for a pro-am competition being
held in New Jersey in August. We started doing some lifts, and things were going fine. Daria and Mom had joined us in Simsbury,
and every afternoon Sergei took Daria for a walk and played with her outside. He was such a good father. He’d become so strong,
not only with his muscles, but as a person. More of a father. More of a husband. I felt so proud of him that summer.

Then one morning we started to do a spin together, and Sergei made a terrible scream. He tipped over, knocking me over as
he fell.

“That’s it,” he said, lying there. It was the back again.

We called Jay and told him we couldn’t do the pro-am competition, and we started to look for another doctor. The owner of
the rink flew a doctor in from Florida who was a friend of his, and this man said Sergei had to do lots of exercises for his
foot, and that he should have a lift put in the heel of his skate. But Sergei couldn’t fit his foot in the skate when the
lift was in, so it didn’t do any good. Then a doctor from Simsbury took X rays of his back and started telling us all these
terrible things about how badly his spine was shaped, how one leg was shorter than the other. I couldn’t listen anymore. I
didn’t even want to translate the doctor’s words for Sergei. It kept getting worse and worse.

In September we were supposed to go to Sun Valley to film
Pocahontas
for a television special. We’d worked with the Disney people before. In the past two years we’d also done television versions
of
Cinderella
and
Aladdin.
It was good money and not very hard work. But Sergei still couldn’t stand on his foot normally. Actually, we were in pretty
terrible shape, because I couldn’t fit my foot in my boot either because of a problem with corns. My left foot was useless,
and Sergei’s left foot was useless, so when we were skating it was just two feet for two skaters. Plus I’d lost about five
pounds. I didn’t eat anything, trying to be as light as possible for the times when Sergei had to lift me. I didn’t know how
else I could help him. We talked to the Disney people and told them that we couldn’t really skate. But they said, It’s okay,
we’re going to shoot you mostly off the ice. It’s just a story. Sergei doesn’t have to skate much. So we decided to go—all
of us, including Mom and Daria, because Daria was going to have her third birthday.

It was quite a tight schedule. They had us skating on something about the size of an ice cube that was set in the middle of
a forest, with leaves all over the ice. But they cleaned it all up. We only had one day to shoot the whole scene of Pocahontas
—skating, on a horse, and in a canoe. All in six hours. I had recently cut my hair, and they were very surprised, because
Pocahontas has long hair. They had to go get me some braids. Now I’m normal Pocahontas.

Relaxing in the hot springs at Sun Valley.

It was fun, but a lot of work. Not work, but standing around, waiting, many takes, too many to be standing in skates all the
time with sore feet. The sun was right in our eyes, and I got sunburn. All the time they were rushing, rushing, because we
had to do all these things before the sun went down. Finally they said they didn’t have enough time to do both the canoe scene
and the horse scene. They asked me which I would prefer.

I said I didn’t know. “I’m not very good with horses, and I’m definitely terrible with canoes,” I explained. “Whatever you
wish.” So they decided to try the horse scene. I talked to Sergei, and said, “Serioque, you know I’m afraid of horses. This
one is going to bite me.” A long time ago, a dog had bitten me twice, and since then I was sure that anything big like a horse
would bite me. This was a very big horse. I had to come out of my tepee and lead this big horse—a young horse, not an old
one—which was scary for me. I’m not good with animals. But this horse was good, and she waited for me calmly and listened
to me, and Sergei was probably proud of me.

The best thing that came out of that trip was that Sergei met a trainer in Sun Valley who taught him he had to really warm
up his muscles before he skated. So he stopped going to doctors and started seeing trainers. In Simsbury we saw another trainer
who lay Sergei on a table, took him by the arms, then stretched him for forty-five minutes. Sergei felt better right away.
He even felt taller. And that was the first time he smiled and believed that something was really helping him. This trainer
also showed us a machine for the back, from which you hung upside down and did special exercises. This, too, seemed to help.
We asked IMG if they would buy it for us so we could use it the whole season and take it with us on the tour. As it worked
out, the manufacturer donated the machine and we had it sent to Lake Placid.

We had decided to forget competitions for a while and just focus on being able to skate the fifty-five-city tour. We again
rented a condominium in Lake Placid so that Daria and my parents could visit us, but since Daria was already in school, they
were just coming up on the weekends during the month of rehearsals. Everyone knew that Sergei had a problem with his back,
and that we wouldn’t be trying any difficult elements. We talked at length with Sandra Bezic and Michael Seibert, who were
choreographing the group numbers. We were just going to take it easy for a while.

The television exhibition, Skates of Gold III, was also on our agenda. It was being held in Albany, and only Olympic gold
medalists were invited. Since we were the only pairs skaters who could make it, they were very anxious that we come, and Sergei
and I decided to skate to Verdi’s
Requiem,
a program that Marina had made for us the year before. It was the easiest program we had in terms of technical difficulty.

We shared a limousine with Scott Hamilton and Kristi Yamaguchi, two other gold medalists in Stars on Ice. I told Sergei that
when we skated in this Skates of Gold, not to express himself too much. To be careful with the lifts. No emotions, skate carefully,
and everything will be fine. We had taken out the double axel. But we were both very nervous. I could see it in Sergei’s face.
We had to pay attention to every movement, and when we finished and everything had gone okay, it was such a great relief.
The back had held up fine.

Sergei, though, was absolutely white. I didn’t know why, but he told me that on his very first move, his lace had broken,
and the longer the program went on, the looser it got. He didn’t know whether to stop or not. But after we did our last jump,
he decided he was going to stick it out unless the skate actually fell off.

Before the last Skates of Gold performance
(left to right)
Jenni Meno, an acquaintance, me, Sergei, Renee Roca, Brian Boitano, and Jayne Torvill.

On the way back to Lake Placid with Scott and Kristi, we had the limo stop at Wendy’s. We’d done exactly the same thing the
year before after Skates of Gold II. Sandwiches, salads, and french fries, and then we talked the rest of the way back. That
stop was now our tradition. We decided we would make this stop every year.

M
arina was coming to Lake Placid on Sunday, November
19, to help us work out the finishing touches of the Grieg program.

On Friday, Sergei and I skated a little bit in the afternoon session then went to see the movie
Goldeneye
, which Sergei liked very much. When we got back to the car, we noticed that the driver’s-side rearview mirror was broken.
We thought probably some young boy had done it. It was only later that I remembered that this was a sign of bad luck.

We went home, drank some Irish coffee, and spent a quiet, romantic evening in front of the fireplace, since it was a very
cold night. Daria and my parents had stayed in Simsbury for the weekend. I don’t remember why.

On Saturday we did nothing—our favorite kind of day. We woke late, went for a walk, and bought a lot of Christmas presents
for Daria. Sergei bought her a skirt and a T-shirt, and together we picked out some hand-crafted decorations for our condominium.
It was fun, shopping and walking through town.

On Sunday, since Marina wasn’t due in until the afternoon, we again woke late, had a long breakfast, then just sat around.
We didn’t even go outside until we left for rehearsal at three o’clock. We had to rehearse the group numbers, choreographed
by Sandra Bezic and Michael Seibert, with the entire cast. I have always been amazed how professional Sandra is in these situations.
How confident she is. How she is able to control everyone so easily. She is a very beautiful, sexy woman, but also strong
and powerful and creative. Everyone loves her.

At five o’clock Marina arrived. There are two rinks at the Lake Placid training center, and Sandra let Sergei and me leave
the group rehearsal so we could work with Marina on the Grieg program at the smaller rink. We ran through everything, and,
as often happened, if I wasn’t doing something exactly the way Marina wanted it, she had me follow Sergei, to watch the way
he moved his arms to the music. She added a double flip jump. One of the things we still needed to do was find an ending pose
to the program, and that evening we found a beautiful one, in which Sergei laid me across his knee and touched my upturned
face with his cupped hands, as if to say, “Now, dear one, now you can rest.” Marina said it would even be nice if I closed
my eyes as if I were sleeping. We were satisfied that we were ready to perform this program for an audience.

We didn’t leave the rink until nine-thirty at night. We had a reservation at a good restaurant, and by the time we got there,
we were the only patrons. We had a nice, late dinner. Marina was in a good mood, the fireplace was blazing, and it was very,
very cozy and comfortable. Marina talked a lot about some new programs she was thinking of doing for us, since there were
now so many competitions every year—seven or even eight. She talked about her son, Fedor, who was thirteen, and we told
her about Daria. We talked about costumes, Skate Canada, Skate America, Michelle Kwan—lots of fun skating talk. We left
after midnight, I think.

The next morning we came over to the rink about ten o’clock. Marina had to leave that afternoon, before two, and we still
had to rehearse the group number. The first hour we rehearsed with the others. I remember Marina was talking to designer Jef
Billings about Sergei’s costume. She said, “He’s got big, beautiful arms, and he knows how to make beautiful movements with
his arms, so you should not make a costume that covers his arms.” Marina was worried that we wouldn’t have enough time to
work with her before her plane, since the group rehearsal was lasting so long. I was worried, too. But Sergei, who was always
so calm, told us, “There’ll be time. Don’t worry.”