Jennifer Mack stood centerstage, seemingly stoic. Head high, shoulders back, she projected quiet confidence. In actuality, she was quietly disintegrating. She scrunched and scrunched her toes inside her too-new shoes. She shifted on the crisscrossed blue floor tape, the "X" she’d been instructed to stand on, then off, then on again in fragmented moments, all morning long. She adjusted the microphone stand for what seemed the thousandth time but was all sweaty-handed and butterfingered. It slipped and slammed down to the lowest level. Thud! Followed by wailing feedback.

She didn’t dare look out into the crowd. She scooched it back up to the proper height, her face blazing. Jennifer imagined her olive skin now burnt sienna, the same color as her hair. She felt like a giant skinny, melting crayon. Embrace the ice. Her father’s baritone voice echoed through her, as did the opening bassline of “their song.” This was her very first national championship and was televised to boot. She would need every syllable of his words of wisdom.

 “Pack those emotions away in the deep freeze. Embrace the ice, baby.” He always paused between “ice” and “baby,” and then tapped the inside of his forearm to the second and fourth beat of some old Nineties song. That earworm of a song, “Ice, Ice Baby,” the one that had sampled an even older Eighties song. Two golden oldies that her dad loved, though she couldn’t remember who sang either. Regardless, that backbeat and his lessons served Jennifer well.   

He was known to the rest of the world as “Big Mack,” and he knew a thing or two about conquering clutch situations. He’d spent just over a decade in the NBA, and led his basketball team to eight championships, usually with one of his epic buzzer-beater shots, always with his wife and daughter in the stands. Jennifer was well accustomed to the spotlight, but she’d never stood in it solo.

 Her mind scrolled back through the last decade— which was, at age eleven, mostly her only decade. It was a hodge-podge of real recollections and digital montages: At the age of two, Jennifer slept through her first NBA finals. Her snoozefest was caught on camera and woven into the game highlights. ESPN set it to music and replayed it annually, and so far, eternally. The following year, Big Mack nestled her in one arm and raised the trophy with his right. Again, she’d made the highlight reel. She fast-forwarded to “almost-like-yesterday” moments atop her father’s shoulders as celebratory confetti rained down on them, year after year. “Daddy lets me wear his rings, but one day I’ll win my own, ” she’d told the crowd after his last game, to raucous cheers. Big Mac retired with a championship ring for every finger, just after Jennifer’s tenth birthday. 

Cameras hovered around the happy family at his final press conference. Jennifer was by then telltale tall, with the long, lithe limbs of an athlete. Reporters openly inquired about her inherited athletic prowess. She'd been a sort of co-star during his annual "Small Fries Basketball with Big Mack" kids' summer camp, landing shot after shot. Videos of her "nothing but net" shot on campers (and their parents') cell phones had gone viral. The internet exploded with speculation, high on hope for the next generation of basketball. Was he prepping her for eventual Big 10 college, the WNBA? Big Mack just smiled, threw out his oft-repeated, “Lets just say I’m teaching my Mini Mack everything I know.” 

And what a teacher he’d been. Big Mack coached Jennifer to over-prepare and under-emote. Failure wasn’t a bad word; it simply wasn’t in their vocabulary. Plenty of other words, however, were. Words like esquamulose (not covered in scales), and pococurante (caring little), and virtually every winning and losing word in the history of the national spelling bee. That might have surprised the reporters, and the majority of fans, especially in the age of social media, where celebrities were afforded little privacy. Big Mack's "everything I know" wasn't just basketball. He coached his daughter to be a second-generation spelling bee champion. He'd only made it to the state bee as a kid, but Jennifer had already one-upped him by advancing to nationals, and today, she could go all the way. She could bring home the title.

Jennifer buzzed through the competition. Her voice rang strong and steady, even as others stammered and fell. She ascended with poise to the top of the hive. But then came that moment, which was supposed to be her shining moment—her lone remaining competitor misspelled plumbiferous. The buzzer blasted.

Jennifer spelled it correctly. 

Ting!

She was but one word away from victory.

“You’ve got this,” Big Mack had said just before the bee began.

You’ve got this, Jenny silently reassured herself. 

Except that’s when she realized the mic was too low, and tried to raise it. And that’s when the mic stand crashed and her face caught fire—Jennifer reminded herself to breathe. In and out through the nose, to a four-count. Mack said it prevented the “fight or flight” response, and kept her heart rate low like a pro athlete. Like him. This was her big game. In and out, two three four. Ice. Jennifer’s hazel eyes blurred as she battled back tears. 

“May I please–” Her voice cracked. She swallowed. “May I have the definition please?”

 The Official Pronouncer, a pudgy-cheeked middle-aged man, met her gaze. He peered down at a screen, and monotoned into his microphone, “An icy coating on rock.” 

 It came to her with a shiver. The S is silent.

“Ver-Glah” Jennifer repeated, then spelled slowly into the mic, “ V-E-R-G-L-A-S.” She bit down on her lip, to stifle her grin, and pronounced the word a final time. That was the winning shot, the buzzer-beater, every sports analogy her dad had ever lived and passed on to her. 

Through a technicolor blizzard of confetti, Jennifer saw her parents standing and cheering. She focused in on Big Mack. His seven-foot frame placed him more than head and shoulders above everyone else, and he appeared to be using his entire wingspan to clap. Tears sprinted down his face. Jennifer caught his gaze and tapped the inside of her forearm. She smiled full-faced, rolled her eyes, and mouthed a one-syllable, tongue-in-cheek command. 

“Ice.”