Gold Medal Summer

by Donna Freitas

  “Joey,” my father says. “Your mother and I were just discussing you.”

  I fidget, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. Now is not the time for a heart-to-heart with the ’rents, especially since Julia is outside waiting in the car. “What about me?”

  “Sweetheart,” Mom cuts in. She sounds nervous. “We were wondering how you would feel if we came to watch you compete at Regionals.”

  “Really?” I stand straight and still. Wow. Between telling Mom off by the pool the other day and Julia’s guilt trip, it seems they’re coming around.

  “Yes, really,” Dad says, his voice filled with hope.

  They’re trying to make it up to me, which means that even though I feel alone and angry sometimes, they care about what I do and want to be a part of it. At least a little bit. At least once in a while. Which makes me happy. Better late than never. Better something than nothing at all.

  They look at me, anxious. “We love you,” they say together.

  “I know,” I say, taking in their eager faces. “Of course I want you there at Regionals.”

  “Good!” Dad exclaims. “That’s great to hear. We’ll be in the stands then, cheering you on.”

  “I might have to cover my eyes now and then,” Mom confesses.

  “That’s okay,” I tell her. “Sometimes I want to cover my eyes too.”

  When I get in the car, Julia has my floor routine music playing over the speakers. She keeps listening and then skipping back to this one part.

  “I think on that straddle leap,” she says, her eyes on the rearview mirror, “instead of having your arms to the side, you should extend them out in front of you, palms to the ceiling, fingers wide, like you’re reaching for the judges. Big smile on your face, of course.”

  “Let’s see what Maureen thinks.”

  “Just don’t forget to ask her,” Julia says as she backs out of the driveway. The sky is still pink on the horizon from the sunset.

  “I won’t.” I grab the iPod and press pause. The inside of the car goes silent.

  “Joey!”

  “Calm down,” I tell her. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Not uh-oh,” I say, mimicking her tone. Julia and I may be all buddy-buddy lately, but this doesn’t change the fact that we’re sisters and get on each other’s nerves easily. “Mom and Dad asked if they could come see me at Regionals next week.”

  “Oh, they did?” Her face brightens at this news.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “I told them to come, obviously.”

  “That’s great. Really great.”

  Then all my concerns pour out. “But what if Mom can’t handle it and rushes out of the stands, traumatized, and throws me off my game and then I mess up my event and fail to win even a bronze?”

  “Joey, don’t you think that’s a bit melodramatic?” Julia says.

  “No,” I protest, even though it totally is.

  “Mom will be fine.”

  “I hope so. At least she’s trying. At least they both are.”

  “Exactly. Stay positive.”

  “Thanks for helping to convince her,” I say, even though I’m not the gooey type.

  “I think you did most of the convincing before I arrived,” Julia says. Then she immediately gets back to business. She’s not the gooey type either. “Enough parent talk. Time to focus, Joey.”

  “Yes, Coach,” I say, only half kiddingly.

  Julia smiles. “No one has ever called me that before.”

  “Don’t get a big head. I was only joking. Mostly.”

  But Julia doesn’t lose the smile as we turn down the road for the gym. “Maybe someday I’ll be one for real,” she says.

  That night I go through my beam routine at least fifteen times.

  I practice the mount and the dismount.

  I practice the back handspring, back handspring, back layout sequence even more, not because of Angelo, but because I’m determined to keep it in my routine for me.

  I work on the presses and the handstands and the poses and that awesome pass when my head is underneath the beam and my arms are gripping it and my legs are scissoring away above it — the same one that showed up Sarah Walker at practice the other day, and that emphasizes my strength and flexibility and poise and style. All those things that will help me kick her butt at Regionals from here to, I don’t know, some remote island off the coast. Hopefully. It may not involve tumbling, but because of its degree of difficulty, it is worth a lot in terms of score.

  I fall only twice the entire practice. Not bad, right?

  On floor, my music plays over and over again, sometimes in its entirety, sometimes in pieces, with Maureen and occasionally Julia piping up to tell me to try my hands differently or shift my arm to a new angle or heighten my leap above their heads or some ridiculously impossible instruction like that.

  But I smile the whole time.

  I still think about Tanner in the imaginary stands. But only a little. Because I need to focus.

  When I finish my last run-through of the night on floor, I come out of my final pose, beaming.

  Julia whistles in appreciation from her perch on the vault.

  “I think you’re ready,” Maureen says.

  “I feel ready,” I say.

  Maureen walks toward me, her sneakers padding softly against the mat. “Good. Because tomorrow after practice, you’re going to show your new routines to Angelo.”

  My jaw drops in shock. “What, are you crazy?”

  “I second that,” Julia chimes in.

  “Joey,” Maureen says, shaking her head. “Did you think this day would never come?”

  “Um, kind of?”

  “Well, it’s here. You have to show Angelo, or you’ll never be able to perform these routines at Regionals.”

  “You mean, this whole time you haven’t had some other plan for how this would all come together?” I say. “You’ve always known I would have to show Coach Angelo, telling him that we’ve been going behind his back, giving him plenty of time to kill me?”

  Maureen doesn’t even flinch. “Joey, this isn’t some movie where we dramatically overthrow the head coach,” she says, like I should know this already.

  “It isn’t? Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  I gulp. “Well, this has been amazing, and I want you to know ahead of time that it’s been nice knowing you, and I really appreciate all the time you’ve put into helping me, and —”

  Maureen sighs. “Joey.”

  “Yes?” I whimper.

  “Calm down. It’s going to be all right. Sometimes it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s just a saying. Anyhow, I think we should address your fears.”

  Oh great. Now Maureen is being a coach and a therapist.

  “What’s the worst that can happen?” she asks.

  “Um, death. I believe I mentioned that a moment ago.”

  “I want you to be serious now.”

  “I am being serious. You know how angry Coach Angelo can get, especially if we try to pull one over on him, and I think this qualifies as a massive pulling one over on him.”

  Maureen waits for me to provide another possibility.

  So I concede. “Well, aside from death, which I think we all can agree is pretty bad, let’s see … he could fire you and kick me off the team.”

  Maureen bobs her head, considering the idea. “Maybe. I doubt it, though. Angelo would be crazy to let you go.”

  “But —”

  “No buts,” she cuts in, not letting me protest. “You’re his brightest star.”

  An image of Alex standing on the podium to get the All-Around gold medal at our last meet pops into my head. That competition feels so long ago now, with everything that’s happened since. “Alex is the Darling of the Gansett Stars.”

  “I beg to differ,” Maur
een says. “I always have, Joey. I’ve always thought it was you. And don’t forget, Alex hasn’t been around.”

  “I know,” I whisper, the knowledge of this truth still painful to face.

  Julia hops down from the vault and joins Maureen and me in the middle of the floor exercise. “Do you two have any interest in what I think?”

  “Go ahead,” Maureen says.

  I just shrug. Maureen is totally right: I don’t know what I’ve thought all this time about what would have to happen to get us from secret practices and secret new routines to nonsecret ones that I would perform for other people, including Coach Angelo.

  “Coach’s possible realistic reactions could include the following,” Julia begins, brushing her long hair back from her face. “Sure, he could fire Maureen,” she says to me, and then to her, “or kick Joey off the team, but the chances of that happening are so slim we shouldn’t even worry about it.”

  “That makes two of you, I guess,” I mutter.

  “Let me finish,” Julia says. “What’s more likely is that he will not allow Joey to compete at Regionals at all, and he won’t let Maureen coach either.”

  This possibility makes me squeak.

  “He won’t do that, though. He can’t. It would hurt the team’s chances too much. Really, the worst possible scenario — and this is the one I think we should prepare ourselves for — is that he gets angry at you both for holding practices without telling him. Even that isn’t too bad, though, since you, Maureen, can simply claim that Joey wanted extra help and time on beam and bars, and you agreed to be here while she worked out, and one thing led to another and now Joey has new routines. This is all perfectly plausible and forgivable.”

  “Maybe if you didn’t know Coach Angelo, sure.” I’m back to muttering commentary. I can’t help myself. “But you do, so none of this makes sense.”

  “Joey,” my sister says, looking at me hard, her hands on her hips. Julia may be tiny in that gymnast sort of way, but she can be formidable when she wants to be. “I’m betting that all Coach will do is say you have to perform your old routines at Regionals.”

  “But that would mean all of these Friday nights and my awesome new floor and beam are for nothing!”

  “No, they aren’t,” Julia continues. “Because when the time comes at Regionals, you’ll just do them anyway.”

  “But as soon as I disobey him and do one unauthorized routine, he’s never going to let me do the other. Which one would you even pick? Or will it just depend on which event I compete on first?”

  “Joey, we’ll cross that bridge when — and if — we come to it,” Maureen says. “Right now let’s just think positive thoughts about Coach Angelo’s reaction tomorrow. You never know — he might surprise you.”

  I put my arms around my head protectively, as though Coach’s rage might overwhelm me already. “Oh, I know.”

  “Go home and get some sleep. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” I say as Maureen, Julia, and I walk toward the exit, leaving everything in darkness behind us.

  On Saturday morning, I wake up with a pit in my stomach. I have to tell Coach Angelo about my new routines today.

  Gah. Triple gah.

  The sun is already bright in the sky and the sheets are sticky. Mom must have turned off the air again, as if I needed another reason to sweat today.

  There’s only one sure way to calm down: go off to the beach for a swim before practice. I can follow the dip in the ocean with some circuit training to further clear my head, and then make a final decision about whether to go to practice or flee the country.

  Because right now fleeing the country seems like the best idea, you know?

  The water is surprisingly warm and I stay in longer than I originally plan, jumping with the waves, bobbing up and down, diving to the bottom, skimming along the ocean floor. For a while, I float on my back, thinking. I go over all the possible reactions Coach might have, according to me, Maureen, and Julia. The only possibility that we didn’t discuss was the one where Coach falls so madly in love with my new routines that he forgives the sneaking around we’ve done all summer.

  Interesting, isn’t it? That this is the one outcome none of us could see happening? But it’s a possibility too.

  Eventually, I start to shiver, so I wade toward the shore. The beach has begun to fill up. Little kids dot the shallows and a couple of parents stand ankle deep, chatting with one another. An old man has set up a lounge chair in the wet sand where the waves keep rolling through, to keep cool on this sweltering August morning.

  I dry off with a towel and do backflips down the beach to calm my nerves, but it’s just not the same, flip-flopping without Alex. So I stop suddenly, the balls of my feet digging into the hard sand, my knees bent, absorbing the landing. I don’t rebound because it’s as though even my gymnastics is too stressed out to be normal today. Since forgetting about my life doesn’t seem possible, I work on my shoulder strength with timed handstands, followed by sprints in the hilly, dry sand. Then I make my way over to a lifeguard chair so I can grab one of the wooden slats on the side. I rise up on my left toes, holding the position until my calves start to burn, then holding it some more until I switch to the right.

  That’s when I notice a group of boys playing soccer a few yards away. I take a good, long look in case Tanner is one of them.

  He is one of them.

  Tanner is running back and forth across the sand, pointing at players and shouting things like “Over here!” and “Stay on that defender!” He gets behind the ball now and then, or stands there for a minute, shading his eyes from the sun. His dirty blond hair is tied back into the shortest ponytail I’ve ever seen, though some strands escape and fall around his face, so he has to keep brushing them out of the way.

  Oh, he’s so cute, I think. Then I wish I didn’t feel this way. Then I wish it didn’t have to be so complicated, so it would be okay that I feel this way and not something I have to resist. By now I am no longer up on my toes, but simply standing in the sand, still gripping the wooden slat under the lifeguard chair, peering through to the other side like some weird beach stalker.

  Should I turn around and sneak away before Tanner notices me here? Should I call out his name and see if he happens to hear me, and if he doesn’t, take it as a sign that I’m not meant to talk to him right now and walk away? Should I waltz right up to him, making sure he notices me, and act like I didn’t leave him outside of the diner the other day in a melodramatic fashion? Or should I waltz right up to him and directly address what happened after we left the diner and why I did what I did?

  Regardless of what the best plan is, I know one thing for sure: I want Tanner and me to at least be able to talk.

  A surge of courage rises up inside me, and I emerge from my hiding place behind the lifeguard chair and head over to wait and watch the players.

  It’s not waltzing, but still.

  I am going to talk to him, give him more of an explanation. I am. I owe him this much. I owe me this much too.

  There is a time-out in the game. This is my chance. “Tanner!”

  His head snaps my way. “Joey?”

  I give him a little wave.

  He turns to the other players and says something that I don’t catch, then runs in my direction.

  “Hi,” I say when he gets here. But nothing else. I am nervous.

  “Hey,” he says, but nothing else either. Maybe he’s nervous too?

  What next? Where to from here? Where’s that familiar grin of his? He’s not smiling now. He stares at me as though he’s waiting for me to say something. His eyes are sad.

  I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry about the other day.”

  “Sorry how?” he asks. “Sorry and you’ve changed your mind and want to hang out, or just sorry that nothing has changed?”

  “The second one,” I say, even though it’s difficult when I am this close to him, and all I can think about is leaning in
and kissing his lips. “Tanner, I can’t go on dates.”

  “But we agreed it wasn’t a date,” he responds automatically. “It was just ice cream shakes. Well, and you had a burger.”

  “Can we at least agree it was datelike, then?”

  Tanner smiles a little. “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “The thing is, I can’t do datelike either. Not right now, and especially not with a boy I’ve been kissing. I think the kissing stuff is what, um, made things more datelike in general. At least for me.”

  Did I really just say that out loud?

  Now Tanner grins. “I thought you liked the kissing. Seemed that way, at least.”

  My cheeks are in bloom. I stare at the sand. “I did. I do. Which is exactly why I can’t keep doing it.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” Tanner says.

  I make myself look at him again. “Gymnasts can’t afford distractions.”

  The waves crash and pull away, crash and pull away, providing a soundtrack to our little heart-to-heart.

  “I’m a distraction?”

  Honesty is always the best policy, so I go for broke. “Listen, Tanner,” I begin. “You totally are a distraction. I can’t be thinking about whether or not you want to hang out with me while I’m trying to land a vault or stick my beam routine. I can’t even be thinking about how I’m certain you want to hang out with me and how nice that is. And I definitely cannot be thinking about kissing you while I’m doing anything remotely gymnastics related!”

  Tanner’s grin gets bigger, if that is even possible. “You’ve been thinking about kissing me that much?”

  I don’t bother to answer this, just give him a look. “The only thing I can be thinking about while I’m at practice or a meet is the task at hand. I need total focus. Gymnasts have it tough enough as it is, with all of our hang-ups and fears and other people psyching us out and saying nasty things while we’re competing. We don’t need to add boy drama to the mix.”

  Now Tanner’s giving me a look. “I count as boy drama?”

  “Well, you are a boy.”