FINALE (Chapter 170)

Monday night, the Ice Dance finals, the free skate.

Amy and Ryan defeated Courtney and Evan by  the slightest of margins to win the battle for fifth place.

Then, the top four couples took the ice for the warm-up. Sophia and Warren would be skating last. They ran through some footwork and warmed up, then stepped off the ice. They went backstage, but in range of a TV, so they could watch the other couples skate.

The Canadians skated excellently. They got top marks and a standing ovation from their home country crowd.

The Russians were just OK, and came nowhere near to the Canadians. Sophia, in fact, said to Warren, "Amy and Ryan should've beat that. Courtney and Evan, too. That was weak."

"Ah, well, you know how it goes," Warren laughed.

Then came the Brits. They were good, but not as good as the Canadians. 

So, it was all up to Warren and Sophia. The medal winners were set. (Sophia and Warren would have to finish the free dance lower then seventh to not win a medal at all, which wasn't going to happen.) And the Canadians were higher than the Brits. The final color of the medals would be decided by the Kellehers.

"Ready?" Warren asked Sophia as they waited to take the ice.

"All ready already," Sophia laughed. "It's been a long road."

"It certainly has."

"We can do this. We can win this thing," Sophia declared.

"Yes, we can. We're the best ice dancers in the world. Let's go prove it."

"Damn straight."

They took the ice to thunderous applause. They moved to the center of the ice, to their starting position, and waited for the music.

Warren was dressed in all white. He was wearing a white sweater vest-with black and red trim at the v-neck--over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and white pants. He was also wearing a white hat. Sophia was wearing a blue dress with 'wings' on the sleeves that fluttered when she skated. It was a precise reproduction of the costumes that Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds wore during the 'dance on the soundstage' scene of Singing In The Rain.

The music started, the opening passage to the song Singing In The Rain, complete with Gene Kelly's doo-n-doo-doo's. The Kellehers started simply, with some side-by-side steps with arms linked, into a spin.

25 seconds in, the music shifted-to You Were Meant For Me, the same music used by Kelly and Reynolds in that soundstage dance scene. It was contrary to ice dance convention to have the 'slow section' this early in the program-but Warren and Sophia never let themselves be ruled by ice dance convention. This section was a little over a minute long, and was a tribute to the sustained romanticism of the original movie scene. It was gorgeous and still complex.

The complexity was quickly escalated with the next section of music, the brutally fast Moses. They started out with their side by side footwork, which was fast, powerful, and difficult-and a treat for the audience. It was fun and frisky, and the crowd responded. They continued through the Moses section of music, working in a couple difficult lifts amongst the snappy footwork.

With almost two minutes left in the program, the music shifted again, back to Singing In The Rain. This time it was the end, the sustained instrumental to which Gene Kelly does most of his staggering dance solo in the movie. Warren and Sophia, of course, did it not as a solo, but as a duet. Even so, they tried their hardest to be as faithful to the mood of the Kelly piece as they could.

It started with their circular footwork, in closed position, moving swiftly and surely through the moves. They moved out of that into a quick lift, and then a series of steps that could only be called ecstatic. They loved this program and it showed. They did a spin during a portion of the music that quieted a bit, then came out of that to a series of skipping steps during the crescendo.

After that, the music almost stops-it's the part in the movie where Kelly is surprised by the suspicious cop-and they pulled into a spin at that point. Then the main theme repeats slower, and they did a series of steps to that. Then they pulled into their final lift, a spinning one, at the part where Kelly sings, "I'm dancing, and singing in the rain." They come out of that into the final repeat of the main theme, which they skipped to, arm-in-arm. Then Warren spun Sophia towards him, and they ended the program on an embrace, grinning at each other, on the final note.

The applause was roof-shattering.

They left the ice ecstatic. "You couldn't have done it any better," June told them. "Just perfect." They kissed, and babbled happily, and waited for the marks.


In a mailbox in Oceanview, Massachusetts, sat a letter. It was addressed to Warren. It was from the admissions department of Boston University Medical School.

In her purse backstage, Sophia's cell phone had started ringing. Voice mail would, by the end of the night, have a number of messages from different companies, wanting to discuss more endorsement deals.

Somewhere in Sophie's body, a fertilized egg was making a journey. It had traveled down the fallopian tubes, and was now preparing, in the next couple of days, to attach itself to the wall of Sophia's uterus. The creation of the Kelleher's second child, another daughter, was well underway.

And, in an ice rink in Quebec City, two very happy people skated onto the ice after hearing their name called. They greeted the thunderous applause from the crowd with waves. Then, deliriously happy, they approached a podium, and climbed to the top step. They beamed with pride as the president of the IOC placed gold medals around their necks. And then they beamed, and cried, all at the same time, during the playing of the United States national anthem.

The past had been wonderful. Not without its problems, but wonderful.

The present was plainly glorious.

And the future? Well, that looked the best of all.

Warren and Sophia took their well-deserved victory lap with the gold medals gleaming around their necks. They took a second one with their daughter riding on Warren's shoulder. The crowd screamed its acceptance.

Then, they stepped off the ice, and into the rest of their lives.


THE END!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, there's an epilogue........

 

