Gold Medal Summer

by Donna Freitas

  “Um, yeah.” Suddenly, everything is awkward with all of this admitting of gladness, and I want to fix that. Change the subject. “So … do you want to swim?”

  Now he smiles. “Definitely.”

  “Be right back,” I tell him, and run upstairs to change, avoiding our mothers along the way. When I return, Tanner is already in the pool, his hair wet, his eyes shining.

  Oh. My. Gosh. I am about to go night swimming with a boy I think is really, really cute, who I’m pretty sure thinks I’m cute too.

  I shouldn’t be doing this. But I’m going to do it anyway.

  Then I step up onto the diving board, walk to the end, bounce twice, and rise up, up, up until I twist with all I’ve got, driving back down so my body slices into the pool almost without a splash.

  This is called showing off.

  Shameless, yes. But at the moment I don’t care.

  “Wow,” Tanner says, when I emerge from under the water.

  I’m glad it’s dark out or he would see that my cheeks are burning. “Alex and I do tumbling drills off the diving board all the time,” I say to try to explain away my grand entrance. “Your turn.”

  Tanner grins, then launches himself out of the pool. “Okay. I’ll be doing a double-back full twist into a spiraling somersault,” he calls out as he runs around the edge, across the board and straight back into the water with a cannonball that creates a giant splash. When he comes up from the bottom, he’s laughing. “So what’s my score?”

  I’m too busy wiping the water from my face and eyes to answer right away. “Um, I’ll give it an A for effort?”

  “I meant my gymnastics score!”

  “It’s difficult to know how to rate cannonballs,” I say, smiling and shoving a wall of water toward him.

  “But I was hoping for gold,” he says, and swims closer.

  “Maybe next time. I think you need to train harder.”

  Tanner and I are only inches away, treading water in the deep end, staring at each other, the slurp and gulp of the water as it hits the sides of the pool the only sounds aside from the crickets. My heart is pounding.

  What happens next?

  Apparently, me acting like I am still nine years old, since I propel myself up from the water with all the momentum I can muster so I can dunk Tanner — doing my best to evade his grasp once he gets his bearings — and swim away to the other side of the pool. I turn and see him shooting toward me underwater, his body a smooth line racing across the glowing blue bottom. He comes up just shy of where I am.

  “Jordan, I did not see that coming,” he says, shaking the water from his face and hair. “Retaliation is imminent.” He lunges for me.

  I quickly sidestep him, both of us laughing, shouting, chasing each other around. After we’ve gotten enough revenge for subsequent dunkings, we turn to other activities, like talking, and trying to see how long we can hold our breath underwater, and doing handstands on the bottom of the pool. We float on our backs and stare at the moon. Then we practice diving. Tanner wants me to teach him how to do a full twist off the board, though it becomes clear fairly quickly that this will not happen in a single night. I call out advice and direction about lift and rotation, but after yet another sideways crash into the water, Tanner gives up.

  He swims over to meet me in the shallow end. I’m still giggling when he comes up. “Don’t laugh, Ms. Perfect Gymnast.”

  “I can’t help it,” I say, laughing harder. “You should see yourself.”

  “Yeah. Well.”

  “Wow, great comeback.”

  I’m still laughing when Tanner leans toward me and looks into my eyes, the trace of a smile on his lips.

  He hesitates.

  And then he kisses me.

  It happens so fast but oh my God it happens.

  He pulls back quickly. Watches my face.

  I am shocked, elated, swooning all at once. My heart is racing so hard I’m sure it will burst from my chest. “Tanner, I —”

  But he cuts in before I can finish. “Can I do that again?”

  “Yes” is all I say.

  This time, the kiss isn’t quick. It’s slow and gentle, with time enough for Tanner and me to tilt our heads just slightly and part our lips a little. That we are in the pool in my backyard, swimming at night falls away. That our mothers are inside the house sharing a bottle of wine doesn’t matter. Gymnastics, all that it means, my hopes about winning gold, they disappear too. I am dizzy, zinging with energy, the kind I thought only possible from flipping and flying across the floor or on the beam.

  “Tanner?” Mrs. Hughes calls out suddenly, and we spring apart. She is on the back deck, looking into the darkness of the pool area. “We’re leaving in a minute, honey.”

  “Okay, Mom,” he calls back. “Be right there.”

  We hear her footsteps and the scrape of the sliding door opening and closing.

  What now? There is a smile plastered on my face, but I can’t look him in the eye.

  “Joey?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I guess I’ve got to go,” Tanner says, his voice almost a whisper. “I wish I didn’t.”

  “Me too,” I whisper, and I mean it. “I’m going to stay in here and swim a while longer. Then I can avoid facing our mothers.”

  “Lucky you.”

  We stare at each other again. How do you say good-bye to the boy who just gave you your first kiss?

  “So…?”

  “I’ll see you soon,” Tanner says.

  “Yeah?”

  “Next time for shakes. Remember?”

  After tonight, how could I forget? “I remember.”

  Tanner smiles. “Good.”

  And then I think: I just kissed those smiling lips!

  I smile back. “This was fun.”

  “Yeah, it was,” Tanner says with another grin, and then pulls himself out of the pool, grabbing a towel to dry off. He picks up his flip-flops and his T-shirt, and throws the towel over his shoulder. Before he enters the house, he turns back one more time and looks out at me from the deck, to where I am still bobbing up and down in the water. “Bye, Joey,” he says, and I can hear the laughter shining in his voice.

  Up in my room, as I get ready for bed, my mind races, going over the kiss once, twice, a million times.

  I can’t stop thinking about it.

  I can’t stop wanting to kiss Tanner again, like, this very second. As soon as possible, at the very least. My head is swimming with Tanner, Tanner, Tanner Hughes.

  And I learn something new about wanting something. In gymnastics, I want so much: the perfect routine, sticking the most difficult moves, wowing the crowd and my teammates and my coaches, and of course, winning gold. The desire for gold is insatiable. But tonight I feel want for something different, for a boy, for another kiss, for what that kiss made me feel because I want to kiss Tanner all over again. And again.

  I’m so caught up in Tanner that for the first time in as long as I can remember, I don’t bother saying good night to Nadia, Dominique, Nastia, and Ecaterina.

  Tonight, I found out that there are other kinds of magic.

  Things go downhill from there.

  On Saturday after practice, the second I leave the gym, my eyes scan the parking lot, searching for the boy who I can’t seem to stop thinking about, now that I’ve allowed myself to start. But I don’t see that wavy, longish hair, that green and white soccer jersey, and that grin that has me swooning. I’d assumed Tanner would be waiting for me today, that the kiss we shared last night somehow meant that we would automatically see each other every day; that when we decided next time we would go for shakes at the diner, we meant after my next practice.

  “Are you okay, Joey?” Trish asks, coming up behind me.

  I bite my lip. “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Do you want to walk home together?”

  “Sure,” I say. Maybe he forgot I have practice on Saturdays.

  As Trish chatters on about her predictions for Regionals, I
am distracted. I can’t think straight. I want to talk to someone about everything that is happening to me, all that is changing and so quickly. Someone who knows me better than everyone else in the world.

  Where is Alex when I need her?

  If she were here, I would finally confess to her about Tanner and my daydreams and how we kissed last night. I’d tell her all about my new floor and beam routines too. And then we could discuss the possible reasons why Tanner would kiss me last night and not show up today, analyzing every detail and feasible explanation, and I could feel comforted by my best friend.

  I love Trish, but it’s not the same.

  On Monday, the same thing happens again: no Tanner. Tuesday’s practice goes by, only to lead to disappointment when I leave. By Wednesday, I’m prepared for the day to end in frustration, but this kind of anxiety throws me off my game. I fall on beam. I fall on bars. I practically kill myself on one of my vaults. The only event I don’t mess up — at least not as badly as the others — is floor.

  How could Tanner do this to me?

  Doesn’t kissing, like, mean you’re going out?

  I want it to! So badly! Even though it could get me kicked off the team.

  I’m starting to understand Alex’s recent behavior a little better.

  She hasn’t been at the gym this week either, and she hasn’t been in touch about why. It’s not as though Alex and I have a plan in place for what to do if we aren’t at practice together because we’re always at practice together. This not talking at all is new territory for us.

  “Joey Jordan!” Angelo barks from across the gym. “Focus!”

  I am back on beam, trying to stick something. Anything. But nothing sticks. My feet are totally unstickable. I wish for Spider-Manlike sticky soles but to no avail. Once again I set up the back handspring, back handspring into a back layout, but I can’t even land the first back handspring and I come tumbling onto the mat. Slowly, I pick myself off the ground.

  “I don’t care if you’re up there all day and night,” Coach shouts from his place near the bars, where he has a clear view of all four events while we practice. “You are to stay right there until you stick that pass!”

  Here we go again. Imprisonment on the beam.

  My shoulders slump, my stomach caves, and I am tempted to sit down and curl up into a ball until lights-out at the gym tonight. I can’t deal with this right now. It sounds easier to wait out Coach’s rage than keep going. I inhale deeply to say his name, but before I can even get to the O at the end of Angelo, he’s yelling at me again.

  “Don’t even, Joey! Don’t even. I don’t want to hear it. You could be the best in the state, the best in the region, if you’d just get over these ridiculous hang-ups about tumbling! Just do it and don’t complain about it!”

  Yeah, well, I want to shout, maybe if you didn’t imprison me on a single event doing a single move the whole practice, I wouldn’t develop hang-ups!

  But of course, I don’t say this out loud.

  Both of my hands hover over the beam as though I am trying to cast a spell on it. Then I press them down, propelling my body upward until I’m standing on it once more, trying to ready myself to throw this pass again. Sometimes I can’t believe that beam is my favorite event. On days like today, it seems a rather painful choice.

  Trish is suddenly in my line of sight, positioned in the far right corner of the floor exercise. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head, and I know she is telling me without speaking, Don’t listen to Coach. He’s being unreasonable.

  Alex’s voice pops into my head too, and the words I know she would be saying to me if she had actually shown up for practice: We should quit. We should just quit and get this over with now.

  But the thing is I can’t. I won’t. Despite the fact that this week has been full of disappointments, it’s only one week. Next week, next practice even, things will get better again. So I shake off the fear and frustration. I throw my shoulders back, head high, take two steps forward, and extend my arms so the tips of my fingers are my focus. I am ready to do this. Again.

  “That’s it, Joey! I knew you had it in you,” Coach cheers when he sees me set up. I throw myself into the first back handspring, then straight into the second that is supposed to lead into my back layout, but my foot catches weirdly, my arms are suddenly flailing, balance gone, and I crash into a heap of limbs on the royal blue mats.

  “Get up,” Coach calls, his voice even but booming. “Again. Now!”

  On Thursday, things go from bad to worse.

  If that’s even possible.

  Midway through practice, Coach Angelo says, “Ladies, come gather. I have a surprise for you today!”

  Sadly, this surprise is not birthday cake for someone or pizza for everybody or even new team leotards. Instead, Sarah Walker and Jennifer Adams march through the doorway like they own the place, followed by the rest of the Jamestown Gymcats. I shake my head and blink my eyes a few times, but Sarah and Jennifer and everybody else are still there when I open them. Cue the doom music.

  “All right, everybody,” Coach says, gathering us around him in a huddle.

  The Gymcats stand off to the side, peeling off their warm-up jackets and shorts and beginning to stretch. Byron Thomas, their head coach, towers above even the tallest girls. Next to me, Trish keeps glancing over at them nervously. When Maureen catches me staring at them too, she gives me a face that says Pay attention to Angelo, Joey.

  Coach says, “I thought you all could use a little pre-Regionals push, so I invited Byron to bring his team here for practice today. He and I took the liberty of pairing you up.”

  A couple of girls gasp — the way I feel too. The Gansett Stars hate the Jamestown Gymcats. Everybody knows this. What is Coach thinking? Does he want us to kill each other? Does he think this might thin out the competition at Regionals?

  “I expect all of you,” Coach continues, referring to the entire team yet looking specifically at me for some reason, “to be mature about this and to take advantage of this opportunity.”

  Opportunity? Seriously?

  Coach takes the clipboard from under his arm and begins to read. “Alison, you’ll work out with Katie Janson.”

  Alison groans. Coach gives her a look that will shut up any complaining instantly. “Tanya, you’re with Beth Bronski. Heather, you’re with Agnes Delmano,” and so on and so forth. Trish gets stuck with Jennifer Adams — poor thing. Meanwhile, I’m ticking off the rosters of both teams in my head, and with each name Coach reads, the dread intensifies until I know exactly what’s coming.

  “Joey, you’re with Sarah Walker. I want you two to start on beam.”

  This is officially the worst week of my gymnastics life. This includes that time when I was twelve and I developed five rips on each hand, including two excruciatingly painful ones in the centers of my palms, and one rare thumb one, and the blood was flowing freely, and it didn’t matter how much New-Skin I used or if I wore grips: My hands felt like they were on fire. When I dismounted from the most mind-numbingly painful bar routine of my life, I left four rings of red behind — two on the high bar and two on the low.

  Yes, they were rings of blood.

  Coach just told me that I needed to chalk up and go again.

  Basically, what I am saying is this: Having to work on beam with Sarah Walker is the equivalent of doing bars with ten rips on my hands. Of having to stay on bars indefinitely with ten rips on my hands.

  There is a snicker to my right. Sarah has heard the news that we are working together too. But of course, she takes it as an opportunity like Coach says we should — an opportunity to psych me out before Regionals.

  After trudging over to the beam — well, I trudge; Sarah practically skips with glee — she turns to me with a wicked smile on her face.

  “Johanna,” she says. Sarah knows I hate my real name. “Do you want to go first? It is your gym, after all. Though maybe you’d like me to start? That way you can see what a gold medalist looks like w
hen she’s working out.”

  This is a disaster. That’s all I have to say.

  Sarah hops up on the beam like she owns it, her ponytail swinging jauntily behind her. “I guess you want to watch me, then.” She does a switch leap with incredible height, then a quick pose, right into a back handspring followed by a back tuck, which she lands like the beam is the size of the mat below and not four inches across.

  How does Sarah do that? Where does she get the confidence?

  And she does it again. And again. She wants me to know that she is consistent. Without fears or hang-ups. That she can bang out leaps and flips on beam like they are nothing, and at a gym that isn’t even her own, and in front of her rival too. (That would be me.)

  But she’s also a big hunk of muscular athlete, I notice — all brawn, no grace.

  The one place where I’m confident about myself: I’ve got enough grace to support the entire team and the kind of flexibility that shows it off like nothing else could. It’s my greatest strength and it’s what’s going to help me do a little intimidating of my own.

  The fourth time she sticks the series, she crosses her arms, juts one hip out, and surveys the gym for a minute. “Hmm. I wonder where Alex is? Poor thing. Is that ankle injury still bothering her? Your team is really going to miss her scores at Regionals.”

  Could Sarah Walker be any nastier? Especially since the honest answer to her questions is I don’t know.

  But if Alex were here, she would have the perfect comeback ready to spit in Sarah’s face. I wish with all my wishing might that I could summon Alex’s attitude right now, that combination of sarcasm and biting wit that’s a perfect match for mean girls like Sarah Walker and Jennifer Adams, but that never stoops to their level of low.

  Then somehow, I do it.

  “My turn,” I say to Sarah. I hop up on the beam before she even has a chance to get down. “Move,” I tell her when she just stands there, staring at me like I might be possessed.

  Maybe I am possessed.

  Because what I do next seems to come from somewhere else, somewhere deep inside me that I’d almost forgotten. After Sarah jumps to the mat, landing with a heavy thud, I go into my favorite new series of moves on beam, the ones I’ve been developing with Maureen on Friday nights. First, I hit a series of pretty poses, including one that drops me to my knees, then I kick back into what looks like it will become a cartwheel. But then I drop my head below the beam, wrapping my arms around the bottom, my chin just below it, chest along the side, and my legs scissoring into a straddle split. I use this momentum to roll my way along the length of the beam in this same position — half turn, split, half turn, split — back and forth, until I’m almost at the end. After the last one, I straddle the beam, elbows down, swinging my legs straight up over my head until they are parallel with the beam. My toes are pointed, my back in a perfect C curve.