Laying Low in Hollywood by Jean Marie Stanberry Page A

face.  “Go away Maurice,” he snapped.

Chapter 10
     
     
       That first week I was in Hollywood flew by, and as the weeks turned into a full month, I have to say, I was beginning to see a tiny glimmer of hope in my terribly mismatched team. 
     
       As green as Ron was, he had more determination than anyone I had ever met.  Elena had also become quite inspired as Ron improved and they were actually starting to impress me with the way they skated together.  Soon, I was comfortable enough to introduce them to a few easy dance steps for opening night.
     
       I was still a bit aggravated with Ron’s arrogance, he had nearly ruined his feet by pushing himself with his extra skating.  Those first few weeks I spent at least 20 minutes before each practice, covering all his blisters with moleskin before he could even get his skates on.
     
       Our whirlwind month of training was drawing to an end, and we would now fall into a new routine as the actual competition began.  We were to have practices on Mondays and Tuesdays, then we would tape the first show of the season on Wednesday and it would air on Thursday night.  Then on Fridays we would begin working on the next week’s program, and start the whole process over again.
     
       I was dreading our first taping, as I sat in the conference room with the network executives as they went over the story line for the upcoming season premier.  The actual skating part of the show was going to be filmed in front of a live audience and the show itself, was going to feature clips of our interviews and, of course, clips of all the drama during our practices.
     
       The skating portion of this first show was merely going to feature a 30 second intro skate for each team, which would simply introduce the audience to each team and highlight a bit of what they had learned thus far.
     
       For my team’s intro, I had picked a 30 second clip from the song “Smooth” by Santana, for Ron and Elena to skate to.  I was teaching them a few dance steps that had a bit of a tango influence.  I didn’t want them to do anything too fancy, lest Ron might be laying on the ice. 
     
       I was a bit frustrated, even with the tango steps, the whole thing seemed a little lame.  I wanted something memorable, this was their intro for the entire season, I wanted my team to make a stunning impression on the judges and the viewers.  What could I have them do, that no other team would even try?  I wanted my team to stand out, but Ron could barely skate, let alone wow the audience with some technically difficult stunt.
     
       Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea!  If I could teach Ron and Elena a death spiral for their intro, it would completely blow everyone away.  I wasn’t sure if they could master it by Wednesday or not.  It should be easy enough for Ron, if he could plant his skate in the ice and maintain his footing enough to allow Elena to glide around him on the ice. 
     
       The hard part, was that Elena had never been a pairs skater, so she had no experience doing a death spiral.  Trusting your partner was an integral part of this move.  Elena seemed to barely tolerate Ron!
     
       Ron was staring at me blankly when I announced excitedly what I wanted them to do.  Of course, the name does sound rather daunting, though Ron was not the one who’s life was in danger.  Elena, at least, knew what I was talking about, and she downright refused to even try it. 
     
       “Are you crazeee?  He weel keel me!” cried Elena, glaring at me as if I were a complete idiot.
     
       I was frowning and rolling my eyes.  Why did Elena even come on this show?  Maybe since I had virtually grown up doing these things, they didn’t seem all that scary to me.  Personally, I thought she was being a big baby.   I had already decided, if we were going to stand out during our intro on Wednesday night, we needed to do it, unfortunately, my team was not convinced.  I frowned