by Pol Robinson
Cass carefully sealed the bag, then called the attendant to her seat. While she waited, she searched her carry-on and grabbed the only spare clothes she had handy, a pair of soft, worn shorts. She briefly lamented her lack of any official Team USA gear, knowing that it waited for her at the end of her flight. Cass brushed again at her now damp legs. She knew trying to wash the remnants of her airsickness off her jeans wouldn’t work very well while in flight and there was nothing worse than sitting in wet jeans, so a quick change was in order. She was somewhat ashamed at the little bit of pleasure she got at the look on the attendant’s face as he took the bag gingerly between two fingers. Oh yeah, she thought. Don’t think I did not feel the plane suddenly level off as I finished losing my dinner. I’ll bet you were all placing bets up front, eh? Yeah, old 5C tossed her cookies first! Let’s hope my luck holds in China!
Chapter Five
Cass tucked her passport back into her bag as she pushed her luggage cart through the teeming mass of people. Her leg was aching from the long hours of inactivity and she was walking with a slight limp, trying to loosen the muscles. She maneuvered the cart to one side of the flow of humanity, searching the crowd hovering around the entrance. How the heck was she supposed to find anyone in a crowd this size? She realized suddenly that she wasn’t entirely certain she’d be able to spot Coach Sheila if she saw her. She’d only seen the coach’s photo once, in the team biography. Great. Searching the crowd, Cass shuffled to one side as an overladen baggage cart zoomed past.
Another wave of arriving passengers surged around her and this time Cass let the swell push her forward. She tried to steer to one side of the swirl of eager travelers, her limp more pronounced following a blow by an elderly woman’s bag. Cass stepped up onto the bottom ledge of the cart, trying to get a better view of the faces waiting behind the white-roped line. Through the crowd she caught a flash of red and white before the crowd shifted slightly, blocking her view. Stretching high on her toes, she leaned to the left a little and saw a face she vaguely recognized. She waved and the woman cocked her head, then lifted a hastily scrawled sign reading, “Flynn,” her expression questioning. Cass nodded and grinned, then began to steer her cart across the current of incoming travelers. She didn’t think the woman holding the sign was the coach, but at least she was holding a sign with the correct name.
Cass lost sight of the sign-bearer for a moment and growled in frustration. This was nuts. She stepped up again on the bottom shelf of her cart and craned her neck around, ignoring the complaints of her injured leg. A flash of sea green caught her as she connected again with the woman in the “Team USA” T-shirt, holding the sign with her name. Their gazes caught and held. Cass felt her breath catch and, for an instant, forgot her frustration with the crowd. The blazing depth of those eyes holding her own shot through Cass, reaching deep inside. For a single, blinding instant, Cass ached. Then, just as quickly, the green eyes shuttered and Cass was set adrift. She shook her head and hopped down, then, determined to cross the remaining crowded stretch between them, tried the approach everyone around her was doing. Just...push forward. It worked. The crowd around her parted and she found herself face-to-face with the holder of the battered sign. Cass reached around the cart and stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m—”
“Flynn?”
“Um, yes, I’m Cass Flynn. It’s—”
“I’m Laura. You’re late, let’s go.”
Without another word, Laura spun on her heel and headed toward the door, leaving Cass staring in open-mouthed amazement.
Welcome to Beijing.
Chapter Six
Cass stumbled as she tried to keep up with Laura’s long-legged strides. The woman had barely said two words to her after meeting her plane. Laura’s abrupt greeting and subsequent departure was an unpleasant surprise. Especially after... Especially after what, Cass? For a second, when she first spotted Laura, Cass had felt...something. A sharp tug inside as she’d connected with the green eyes of her new teammate, then it was gone. You are tired and you are imagining things. Laura was rapidly drawing away from her as she threaded her way through the crowd toward what Cass assumed were the exits. The airport around her buzzed with activity, people hugging, kissing, laughing and crying. Some doing so all at once. Slamming to a stop to avoid a bright-eyed five-year-old future Indy driver and his luggage cart, Cass lost sight of her companion. She used the cart as leverage as she looked for her, then sighed as two of her bags slid off the cart and landed with a thump at her feet.
Well, crap.
Bending to pick up a bag, she was stopped by a pull on her sleeve.
“What is the matter, my friend? Lost already?”
Cass turned to find Captain Landers at her side. She smiled tiredly up at the pilot. “Well...sort of.” She looked around again, trying to spot Laura’s auburn curls through the crowd. “I think I have been ditched.”
Landers stretched slightly, peering in the direction Cass was looking. “I don’t see...wait. Tall, gorgeous, lovely curls?” At Cass’s affirmative nod, Captain Landers snagged one of the bags at Cass’s feet with one hand and tugged her along with the other. “I think I spotted her.” She led Cass through the crush. “How about that flight? Sorry about that bumpiness at the end, couldn’t be helped. Doing all right?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess.” Tired and distracted, a bit of Cass’s frustration at being left at the gate leaked through.
Glancing at her, Landers smiled. “Hey, I don’t think she was deliberately trying to ditch you. It’s just that you are, um...”
“Yeah, I know. Short.” Cass shrugged. “But still, I hope it’s not indicative of the team’s attitude toward me. She barely said hi before she took off!” Cass noted that unlike Laura, Landers was at least attempting to shorten her stride to match Cass’s.
God, I am exhausted. In the crowd up ahead, she spotted Laura’s distinctive hair, turning this way and that, obviously searching for her. Well, she wouldn’t have to search so hard if she had not taken off so fast.
She watched as Landers tapped Laura on the shoulder to get her attention. “Um, ’scuse me, but I think you lost this.” She quirked an eyebrow in Cass’s direction. Laura took note of Landers’ captain’s uniform, then had the good grace to look chagrined as she realized her charge was behind her.
“Uh, yeah.” Laura tilted her head at Cass, not meeting her eyes. “Sorry ’bout that. It’s crazy in here.” She glanced from Cass to the pilot, her gaze lingering on the almost proprietary arm Landers had around Cass’s shoulder. “The van is out front. We need to hurry.”
Cass turned to Landers and impulsively embraced her. “Thanks so much, for the upgrade and for the rescue.” She smiled.
“Not at all.” Anne reached into a pocket and pulled out a silver cardholder. She extracted a card and scribbled some information on the back before handing the card to Cass. “My cell and my e-mail, call me if you get lost again.” She gave the barest of winks in Laura’s direction.
“Got another one of those?” Cass borrowed Landers’ pen and scribbled her own information on the back of the woman’s own card. “Don’t know how the cell stuff works over here, but I’d love it if you could come and see some of the regatta.” She paused, then added, “We get some tickets. You know, for family. I’ll leave your name at the venues, if you’d like.”
The surprise on Landers’ face was obvious. “You sure? I mean, those should go to your family.” It was only then that she seemed to register that there was nobody at all traveling with Cass. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think. Did you leave someone behind in coach when I bumped you up to first?”
“Oh, no,” Cass hastily reassured the pilot. She looked over at Laura, noting that her teammate was checking her watch impatiently. “No, you’re good.” She bent to pull her bags from the cart, relieved to see that Laura grabbed one too. “I mean it. I’ll let them know at the venue. Have them look under my name.”
Landers helped Cass lift her backpack up onto her shoulder an
d then gave her a last, quick hug. “We’ll definitely make plans to see you race...and win.”
Cass flashed Landers a grateful smile and turned to follow a quickly disappearing Laura out of the concourse. Whatever else happened, she’d at least made one friend here.
Chapter Seven
The drive from the airport to the Olympic Village, just north of the city, passed in a blur for Cass. It was late afternoon and the streets were just as crowded as the airport had been. Her companion was silent on the drive, muttering occasionally at the scooters and pedestrians who darted in and out of traffic.
So far, her introduction to the team, or one member of it, had not been very positive. Hopefully the other women were more...personable. After two aborted attempts at conversation, Cass gave up and pulled out her camera. The little Canon was her one indulgence in the past year, and she was going to put it to good use. As the van whipped in and out of the endless stream of traffic, Cass snapped what photos she could in the dying light of the day. When the van jerked again to a sudden halt, Cass threw her arm up defensively. “Whoa!”
“Sorry,” muttered Laura. “It’s nuts out here this time of day.”
Wondering if she was warming up slightly, Cass ventured, “I thought they said no cars were allowed in the city for the Games?”
“Not till the actual events begin, and that’s not for another six weeks.”
Laura didn’t take her eyes off the road, nor did she offer any more information, and Cass gave up. At one intersection she watched as a man balanced a pole across his shoulders. From each end of the pole hung suspended two large—and presumably heavy, judging from the bend in the pole—packages. Musicians and vendors competed for attention, and Cass was certain the vendors were winning. One elderly woman in gray, loose-fitting clothing resembling decorative pajamas, held a large, orange bullhorn to her lips and was shouting into it to anyone who came near. Cass assumed she was hoping someone would buy the oranges piled in the cart beside her.
There were bicycles everywhere, two-wheeled and three-wheeled. Cass craned her neck to watch as a three-wheeled version, one wheel in back, two in front, creaked past. On board, in the cargo area up front, was a lime-green refrigerator and a woman. The woman caught Cass’s eye and bowed her head in dignified, if silent, greeting as Laura pulled the van past and whipped them around the corner.
It was a blur of color, sound and smell. As they passed one street, Cass saw a large crowd gathering around what looked to be an accident site. The normal volume of the street sounds was ratcheted up here, with men and women waving their arms, punctuating their words with sharp gestures. And over all of it lay the pervasive, stifling humidity.
It was hot.
Suffocatingly hot. Even at, Cass checked her watch, eight fifteen p.m., it was almost too hot to breathe.
Slowly the noise and chaos abated as they neared what was clearly a newer area of the city. Flashes of darkness flew past her window and Cass smelled bursts of green and damp. A park. A large one. More lights and sounds, but this time with a less frenetic feel, and then the van rolled to a stop before a well-lit building resembling an apartment complex.
Cass looked over at Laura, surprised to find her staring straight ahead, her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles were white. Her features, or what Cass could see of them in the growing darkness and in profile, were set, her expression hard. Cass cleared her throat softly, but no response. Perplexed, she tried again to catch Laura’s attention, this time giving a soft cough and reaching out to touch the other woman’s arm. Laura’s response was far from what she expected.
Laura whipped her head around, her auburn curls flying. She flinched at Cass’s touch, then physically recoiled.
Cass opened her mouth to speak but something stopped her. Something in Laura’s eyes. For a moment, a long moment, Cass realized that Laura wasn’t seeing her, Cass, but...something else. Or someone. Again, as it had in the airport, came that brief ache as she looked into Laura’s sea-green eyes. The pain that swam there...lurked. It tugged at Cass. Again she tried to speak, but this time it was Laura who stopped her. In a flash, that brief window into her teammate was closed. Slammed shut. Instead Cass was met with a steely gaze that very clearly said, “Back off.”
Recoiling from the sudden emptiness, Cass could only stutter, “A-are you, okay?”
Laura started again, almost as if she was surprised to see Cass in the van with her. Her face cleared and the lines Cass had seen were replaced by the blank, almost indifferent look she’d worn earlier. “Yes. Fine. Let’s get going. I think there’s enough light left for me to get out on the water.” Slamming the door behind her, Laura headed toward the building, leaving Cass inside the van, her mouth open.
“Uh, fine. Great.” Muttering to herself as she grabbed her duffel, Cass continued sarcastically to the empty van, “No, don’t bother, I’ve got it.” Now completely alone she continued, “Oh, you’re too kind, no really, I can manage.” This last was said to Laura’s retreating back; the woman clearly had no intention of helping her, or even welcoming her to the squad. It’s gotta be better inside, right?
Cass checked in with the security at the front desk and endured the paperwork and identification-check process to get her official credentials. She did stop and stare in wonder at the official plastic-encased identification tag the guard handed her. There it was, in neat black lettering on a white background. “Cassandra Flynn, United States.” Just below her name were the five Olympic rings and despite her exhaustion she couldn’t resist running her fingers slowly over first her name and then the rings.
The guard cleared his throat and Cass sheepishly ducked her head and shrugged. She glanced up to find him smiling back at her, his eyes sparkling with kindness. Cass thanked him again and reached down for her bag. She hung the badge from her neck and looked around in confusion. Laura was nowhere to be seen. Now dead-on-her-feet tired, she numbly followed the guard’s directions to the elevators and prayed she could stay awake long enough to be coherent when she met the remainder of the team.
Chapter Eight
Cass slept for nearly eight hours. She gradually came awake to the sound of muffled conversation and soft laughter just outside her door. She was stiff, the kind of stiff that came from sleeping in one position for a long time. She rolled onto her back and began to stretch, slowly bringing circulation back to limbs that still felt leaden with fatigue. As she woke she took note of her room, taking in details she’d missed the night before. The ceiling looked closer than she expected and it took her a moment to remember that she was on the top bunk. With a loud sigh she extended her arms and arched her back, a soft groan escaping as she indulged in the stretch. The door to her room opened and a blond head peeked around the corner.
“Hey roomie, you’re awake?”
“Um...yeah. Hey, Amy.”
Amy Lindquist, coxswain of the eight-member crew, stepped all the way into the room and closed the door. Cass vaguely remembered being reintroduced to her the night—or was it day?—before. Cass’s memories of her arrival in the village were hazy, but she had managed to exchange a few words with her roommate before she’d climbed up and into bed. Amy grinned up at her and plopped into a small plastic chair.
“I’m surprised you remember, you were pretty out of it when you got here. Long flight, eh?”
Cass nodded as she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bunk. With a light grunt she pushed and dropped down onto the floor to continue her stretching. It felt good to be up and moving. Now that she was awake, however, her body was making it known that it had been neglected too long.
“Yeah. Excuse me a sec.” Cass ducked into the small bathroom, Amy’s voice following her.
“I totally get it. We, the team I mean, we trained in Japan for six weeks before coming here. When we landed there I was really wiped out. But that made the transition to here a lot easier. But man...that flight.”
Cass came out, wiping her face and swallowi
ng the last taste of the toothpaste she’d just used. She felt almost human again. Next up on her agenda were food and meeting the team, hopefully in that order.
“So, what’s on the schedule for the day? How much have I missed?” She glanced around then asked, “What time is it?”
“It’s just after two thirty in the morning.”
“Oh.” Cass sat on the lower bunk and stared at her roommate. “Wow.”
Amy fished in her gym bag and pulled out a Power Bar. She tossed it to Cass, who tore into it eagerly. “Here, this should hold you till morning. You were out. Coach came by after practice but you were already asleep. She told us to let you sleep it out and we’d get you hooked up with the team in the morning.”
“Thanks.” Cass waved the now empty wrapper at Amy. “How come you’re up? I mean, it is two thirty in the morning.”
Amy grinned again at her, her wide smile prompting Cass to smile in return. “I ah, was out a bit later than I’d planned tonight. My guy’s on the men’s team and we had a late dinner.” Amy grabbed two bottles of water and tossed one to Cass who drank gratefully.
“Thanks, I hate long flights. I always get so thirsty.”
“Me too. Coach says to make sure we stay hydrated here.”
Cass nodded and stretched again, enjoying the flexibility of well-rested muscles. She extended her left leg and then bent it, aware as always of the increased tension along the scarred skin.
“Mind if I ask?” Amy gestured with her bottle of water to Cass’s leg.
“No, I don’t mind.” Cass took another long swallow of water. “Me versus a pizza guy. I lost.” She flexed her leg again, pleased that despite the long flight she had no pain or stiffness.
“Ouch.”
“Yup.”
Amy studied her for a moment. “That’s why you were off the circuit last year.”
