Gold Medal Summer

by Donna Freitas

  There will be mistakes, there will be falters.

  There will be things that are not a part of your plan.

  See the challenges in your life and accept them and embrace them.

  — DOMINIQUE DAWES, USA,

  1996 Olympic gold medalist

  “You’re awfully smiley lately,” my father says when I enter the house one afternoon following practice. He is sitting in an easy chair in the living room — his chair — with his legs stretched out, his feet resting on an ottoman, a book across his lap. He wears an outfit that would embarrass the entire family if we were in public.

  “Nah,” I answer him, sinking down into the couch.

  But my dad is right: I am smiley. I smile when I wake up in the morning, and when I go down to the beach to do drills and circuit training, and when I eat dinner at night, even if it’s fish, and when I read International Gymnast before bed. I smile at practice too. For the first time in my life, maybe since the moment I walked into the gym as a second grader and felt what it was to fly, I believe I can do anything, that anything is possible. The fact that Maureen and my sister are taking all of this time out to train me and nobody else, that Maureen gave me her old floor routine and music and I’m doing well with all of it — it’s having an effect on me. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve found that when I work to my strengths, everything else improves too.

  “No, really, Joey,” Dad insists. “You’ve had a smile on your face nonstop for the last two weeks. Ever since the fireworks.” He puts his book on the side table with a loud thunk. “Does this have anything to do with Tanner Hughes moving back to town?” He actually sounds hopeful.

  I look over at him. “Daa-add.”

  “You can talk to me about boys,” he says.

  “No. I can’t.”

  “Of course you can! I am good at boys. I am a boy, after all.”

  I give him an ick face. “Ewww. Stop being gross, Dad.”

  “Would you just tell me if the smiles are about Tanner Hughes? Your mother thinks they might be. If you answer, I promise I’ll go back to my reading.”

  “Okay, fine,” I say. In what other situation does a father wish for his nearly fourteen-year-old daughter to be into a boy in a like-him, like-him way? Answer: only when said nearly fourteen-year-old daughter is a competitive gymnast, and Dad is hoping that she’ll come around and see the sense in a normal social life. “It’s true, I have been smiling a lot. But it has nothing to do with Tanner Hughes.” I haven’t seen Tanner since the Fourth of July, though I’ve looked for him down at the beach during my morning workouts.

  Dad’s face falls. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Oh,” he says, and so disappointedly too. “Well then, what are you so happy about?”

  “Daa-addd!” I protest again.

  “What? What did I do now?”

  “You said you’d leave me alone if I answered your question, and I did.”

  “But you didn’t tell me the reason.”

  “You specifically wanted to know if it was about Tanner Hughes — you didn’t say in general.”

  “I’m your father! Don’t you want your dad to know what’s going on with your life?”

  “Not particularly,” I say, getting up from the couch. Whenever parents start referring to themselves in the third person, it’s always best to get out quickly.

  “Joey,” he sighs.

  “Dad,” I mock sigh back. “If you want to know what’s going on with my life, then you should come see me compete at Regionals.”

  He’s silent now. Notice how my father can handle boy talk, but not conversation about the thing his daughter cares most about in the entire world?

  I’m used to it. But I wish I didn’t have to be.

  “Bye, Dad,” I say and cross the living room to the stairs.

  “What’s up with Alex?” Trish wants to know at practice the next day. We are on vault. Usually, I’d rather have to do nonstop belly beats on bars until my hips bruise and bleed than do a single vault, but lately I’ve been improving. I haven’t kissed the vault once this entire week.

  “I’m not sure,” I say, even though this isn’t precisely true. Practice has been underway for over an hour. Alex is not merely late today, I think she may not be coming at all.

  Guilt stabs at my heart. I haven’t yet told Alex what Maureen, Julia, and I are doing on Friday nights. It never seems like the right time. But she is my best friend, and the fact that I’m keeping something major from her, something that could affect my entire future as a gymnast, is a serious friendship violation, way worse than some gymnastics equivalent like stepping out of bounds on the floor exercise.

  We just have an inverse relationship to gymnastics right now. The happier I get about it, the sadder and more frustrated she is.

  Trish’s eyes are wide. “If she’s not careful, Coach is going to —”

  “Trish!” Coach Angelo shouts. It’s as though he has special sensors in his head that let him know whenever we mention him at the gym.

  “Yes, Coach?” she squeaks.

  “You’d rather gossip than train? Is that it?”

  “No, Coach.”

  He crosses the gym to stand next to the thick blue crash mat behind the vault, his muscular arms crossed and his eyes fixed on where we stand at the other end of the runway. “Then what are you waiting for?”

  Trish knows better than to answer him. The only correct response is to salute the imaginary judges and start to run. Which she does. Unfortunately, her handspring into a full twist is so off center that she practically knocks Coach over, tumbling past him after her landing — if you could call running off the mat into the wall a landing.

  Coach’s expression, when Trish almost topples him, nearly makes me laugh out loud, and I have to put a hand over my mouth to cover the fact that I’m giggling. Trish is grinning herself as she heads back to the start of the runway. Like Trish before me, I smile at the invisible judges, then line up at the spot on the floor where I set up my run. It’s marked JOEY with tape, which is a few inches farther back than the TRISH tape, but before the ALEX tape. The ball of my left foot pounds out my start, and in seconds, I am hitting the springboard and flying up and over the vault into a Barani — a somersault with a half twist — until I land on my feet, solid, my eyes level with the horse, arms behind my head.

  Wow. If I vaulted like that at Regionals, I could even medal.

  “Yeah, Joey!” Trish cheers.

  I release my arms to my sides and turn to Coach for his assessment.

  “Joey,” Coach says, and I wait for it — the devastating remark about my lack of form, the flex in my left foot, the slight bend in my right knee, the microscopic twitch in my fingers. But he asks, “Is Alex all right?” as though he didn’t see my vault at all.

  Coach doesn’t even sound angry. More concerned than anything else. I guess the Gansett Stars Darling gets her sins forgiven more easily than the rest of us. Gold medals win you at least that much.

  In my mind I respond, No. She’s not all right. She’s tired of practice day in and day out. She’s sick and tired of the aching muscles and the endless hours of training. She’s decided that it might not be worth it anymore. And by the way, I miss her like crazy.

  But I don’t say any of this. Instead, I just shrug and walk back toward Trish, the smile on my face gone, trampled underneath my feet.

  After practice ends, I half expect Alex to be waiting outside for me with an explanation and maybe even an introduction to Tommy. But she’s not there when Trish and I push through the exit into the parking lot.

  Instead, Tanner Hughes is in the grassy area next to the line of cars, bouncing a soccer ball from knee to knee to knee. He’s wearing a green and white soccer uniform and Adidas sandals on his feet, with a black gym bag on the ground nearby. The door opens and slams behind me and Tanner turns my way.

  “Joey,” he calls out, catching the ball and tucking it under one arm. He picks up his bag and runs ov
er.

  My heart leaps as if it’s on beam.

  Trish gives me a nudge and a knowing smile. “Bye, Joey.”

  “But I thought we were heading home together,” I say, giving her a pleading look. As much as I’ve wanted to see Tanner, now that he’s in front of me, I’m nervous to be alone with him.

  “Rain check,” she says, and heads off.

  Tanner stops a few paces away. His hair is a wavy mess. There is a smudge of dirt on the right side of his face and more streaks on his arms, his jersey, and across one leg. “Hey,” he says.

  “Hi. Did you have a game today?”

  “Yup.”

  “Did you win?”

  He grins. “We did.”

  “Cool. That’s great,” I say, then nothing else comes to mind. I don’t know what to do next. “So … ah … what are you doing here?”

  Tanner rolls the soccer ball from one side of his body to the other and back again. “I know you said you don’t have time to hang out after practice — dinner and then bed and the same thing again the next day and all that.”

  I nod.

  “But then I found out about exceptions.”

  I bite my lip, trying not to smile. “Like the Fourth.”

  “Exactly. So I’ve been thinking about what might count as other exceptions, and I figured, somewhere between practice and dinner you have to get home, right?”

  “True,” I say.

  “So I thought I’d walk you and we can hang out on the way.”

  I find myself agreeing a little too eagerly. “Sure!” And we start to walk.

  “I was thinking we could cut through here toward Main Street,” Tanner says, his sandals scraping against the sidewalk.

  “You don’t want to walk by the ocean?” I ask, before I realize that this sounds like I am trying to get Tanner to take a romantic stroll on the beach.

  His eyes are straight ahead. “Well, I wasn’t entirely truthful when I said I was here to walk you home. At least not directly.”

  “No?”

  He shakes his head, but he doesn’t explain what he means, and his curls fall across his eyes in this way that makes me want to reach out and touch them….

  Get a hold of yourself, Joey!

  A car honks at us as it passes and I jump. Mrs. Hamilton, our next-door neighbor, waves from the driver’s side, so I wave halfheartedly back before turning to Tanner again. “You were saying?”

  He hesitates. “Well … I was thinking we could stop at the diner for shakes. You know, like old times.”

  Um, did Tanner just ask me out? Because last time I checked, yes, it’s true, we used to go to the diner downtown to get ice cream shakes when he lived here, but back then we went with our mothers. If I had to bet, I would guess that neither of our moms will be waiting in a booth when we arrive. If we arrive, since I need to agree to go in the first place for this to even be a possibility.

  “Ah … yes? And no?” I say, torn about what to do.

  “What do you mean, yes and no?” he says.

  Oh gosh. “I mean that I’d love to go —”

  “Great —”

  I have to finish this thought. “— but also that my entire life revolves around gymnastics and, except for special occasions, you know, like on the Fourth of July as we’ve already established, all I do is train, practice, compete, hang out with my teammates, eat, and sleep.”

  “It’s just hanging out and having shakes, Joey.”

  But is it?

  “I’m not asking you to quit or anything,” he adds.

  Or maybe I just need to lighten up?

  Tanner and I are stopped now, standing at the place where we would either head down to the beach on the way to my house or turn toward Main Street and the diner. He bounces the soccer ball once, then again, while he waits for my answer. There is a playful look in his eyes, which reminds me that this doesn’t need to become a drama like it has with Alex. That, really, it’s just hanging out and having ice cream shakes like Tanner said.

  “How about next time,” I suggest, thinking maybe a compromise is in order here. And also because I need some mental prep time for such an event, just like I do when I am about to perform on bars.

  “Next time?”

  “The next time you walk me home from practice.”

  His eyes light up. “So there will be a next time?”

  “I guess so,” I say with a smile of my own. “I just said there would be, didn’t I?”

  “You did,” he agrees.

  “So for today, we’ll swing by the beach. Maybe take a walk?”

  “Sounds good,” he says.

  We start on our way again and the conversation is easier now, as we talk about funny moments we shared in the past, his love of all things soccer, and why gymnastics means so much to me, among a million other things. It’s the kind of back-and-forth that only old friends can pull off, even ones who haven’t seen each other for a long, long time.

  It’s Friday night, and Maureen and Julia are discussing the precise line of my body during one of the possible beginning poses of my floor routine.

  Julia taps a finger against her chin. “If she just shifts the bottom half of her torso toward the right …”

  “… and her upper half to the left …” Maureen finishes, adjusting my shoulders so I manage just the right curve to her eye.

  The two of them take a few steps away to observe their handiwork, while I stand there, frozen in this one position. Then they engage in further debate about the angle of my hand and the twist of my back, for what might be seconds, minutes, or hours for all I know.

  My attention drifts elsewhere. Ever since Tanner walked me home, I’ve been thinking about him. Soon I’m imagining him sitting up in the imaginary stands at a meet, tense as he watches me compete at Regionals, all his focus on my every move, how amazing I am, how graceful and perfect. You know, that sort of thing.

  A girl can dream, right?

  “Joey. Joey!” Bright red-painted nails snap in front of my face. Maureen looks at me with exasperation. “Where are you tonight?”

  “Sorry,” I say, relaxing my muscles. I don’t tell her where I am, for obvious reasons.

  Maureen crosses her arms. “Did I say to come out of the pose?”

  “No, Coach.”

  “Then what are you waiting for? Get back in position!”

  Wow. Maureen can be more like Angelo sometimes than I expected. We only see her helping the younger kids at practice, being all sweet and encouraging, but she can bark when she wants to. I swing my left arm back up into the air with a flourish, the right along my back, chin tilted upward, eyes on the very ends of my fingertips, left leg planted firmly and the right stretched behind me, toes pointed — and hold.

  “You need to have your brain in this,” Maureen goes on. “Regionals is less than a month away!”

  But hearing the word Regionals is like magic, and visions of Tanner cheering for me after a flawless beam routine dance in my head.

  Julia’s footsteps approach. “So during the initial notes of the music, she’ll swing her arm down and around, meeting up with the other,” she says to Maureen as though I’m not there. “And then on the first downbeat she’ll do the jump.”

  “That’s just what I was thinking,” Maureen agrees.

  “It’s a beautiful pose — the judges will love it.”

  Maureen claps with excitement. “I know.”

  “With music this time?” Julia suggests.

  “Yes, please,” I murmur.

  Their feet skitter off toward the stereo and soon the sounds of the beginning of my new and improved floor routine float into the air. I smile — I can’t help it. I love everything about this new routine. As the music approaches the moment I am finally allowed to move, I shift out of the pose in perfect time, straight into the jump, and the beginning choreography.

  Everything in life is better with music playing in the background.

  And now my daydreams of Tanner have a soundtrack t
oo.

  Later that night, Julia drops me at home and speeds off to meet up with Madison and some other friends downtown. As soon as I walk in the door, I know something is wrong.

  How do I know this?

  Because my mother is grinning. No, maybe that’s a smirk on her face. This means she has a secret and/or is about to embarrass me in some way.

  Uh-oh.

  “Joey! I’m so glad you’re home. We have guests!” Mom beckons me to follow, taking a sip from her wineglass along the way.

  Mrs. Hughes is in the living room, a wineglass in her hand too, a bottle sitting on the coffee table. “So nice to see you, Joey,” she says. “Your mother and I are just catching up. Tanner’s out back by the pool.”

  Tanner’s here? Tanner’s here!

  “You should go say hi,” my mother says with delight.

  First Dad, now Mom. Apparently, both of my parents are not above trying to tempt me away from gymnastics with boys. Despite the smug look she wears, I don’t argue. I just go. I’ve been thinking about Tanner all night, and now he’s at my house, as if my daydreaming and wishing have conjured him up.

  It’s dark in the yard, except for the twinkle lights strung along the fence, and the soft glow along the bottom of the pool that bends and shifts with the movement of the water. The crickets are singing, but otherwise it is quiet. I don’t see Tanner — not at first. Then I see feet, attached to knees, and I cross the deck over to him. He’s sitting in a lounge chair, looking up at the stars, listening to his iPod.

  I wave my hand in front of his face to get his attention.

  He yanks out his earbuds and looks startled. “Oh hey, Joey.” He sounds embarrassed. “This wasn’t my idea, I swear.”

  It wasn’t? Why not? I think to myself, realizing that I want it to be his idea and not simply our mothers’. “I’m glad you’re here,” I say and sit down in the chair next to his.

  “You are? But I thought that with gymnastics —”

  “I know what I’ve told you. I can still be happy to see you, though, right?”

  Tanner looks at me, like he’s trying to read my face in the darkness. “You’re happy,” he states, like he doesn’t quite believe me.