Dark Night

Interview

The set was hot from all the lights. I walked over to my brother, who stood, smiling realistically at me, and he went for the hug, so I hugged back, then went over to John, who also had a hug for me that felt a lot more natural. I stood back and looked at the golden disk on his chest. "Now that, my friend, is one hell of a party favor," I said, and he laughed. I turned back to see my brother and Paul ending one of those handshake-half-hug things. Starry was laughing at something Paul had said, and we sorted ourselves into two siblings per small sofa. I turned slightly to my brother and examined his medal, hanging from a beautiful gold and red silk ribbon. "Nicely done," I said to my brother. "Flawless free skate, it looked even better than the last time I saw it. You added a lot of interpretation." He grinned.

"So what did you think of my program, Leia?" John said, and I knew something was up, but I didn't know what.

"Almost perfect," I said briskly. "Just the one little thing." He burst out laughing and motioned to my brother, who smiled and took out his wallet and gave him five dollars.

"Tang said that you would have seen it, but I thought, no, she's up on the second tier, no replay," my brother said sheepishly. I shook my head, smiling at my brother's foolishness, and the interviewer laughed.

"Did you see any replays, Delia?" Mr Williams asked, and I shook my head again, then turned back to my brother.

"Always bet on red, pal," I said, and everybody laughed. "So how's the ankle?" I asked John. He tilted his hand back and forth.

"It's been better, but it's also been a whole lot worse."

"Dude," Paul said in exasperation. John busied himself looking at his medal.

"Ok, Delia and Paul," Mr Williams said genially. "This interview isn't live, so it will be edited for broadcast later on in the States during the coverage there. So if there's a mistake we can fix it, but if we think it's cute, your embarrassment won't count. If there's something you don't want to talk about, you don't have to, but the point of the interview is to give a slightly different spin to these athlete interviews. Ok, are you ready?" Paul and I looked at each other; he rolled his eyes and I smiled.

"Now, Starry, you were the narrow favorite coming into the competition," Mr Williams said. "Are you disappointed with a silver medal?"

My brother held it up and looked at it serenely before addressing Williams. "I won't lie, everybody at this competition has dreamed, at one time or another, of winning the Olympic gold. I always say that if I skate a clean program, I can win, but I didn't. I have the medal that I earned. To look at it another way, thirty guys entered the competition, the best male single skaters from all over the world, and I was better than twenty-eight of them. I can't honestly be disappointed. An Olympic medal is an Olympic medal and I'm grateful to have won one. More errors and I wouldn't have because the field is very talented. It's something that few people can say."

"Delia, you look startled," Mr Williams commented.

"It's just surprisingly mature," I blurted out, then I felt horrified. My parents would kill me. My brother burst out laughing.

"Starry?" Mr Williams' tone invited comment.

"She's not wrong," he said, draping his arm over my shoulders. "I've been pretty self-centered since I got really serious about skating, and that's been to her detriment. But after the incident at her school, I found that I had to fundamentally evaluate my viewpoint." He was silent.

"What happened, Delia? This was at the high school you go to with Paul and John, isn't it?" Mr Williams' voice was gentle. Bastard. I was here to be a supportive sibling. Not to talk about It.