Gold Medal Summer

by Donna Freitas

  “What made you cry?”

  She pauses again before answering. “Wow. It’s more like, what didn’t? I’d just achieved a lifelong dream, and I almost couldn’t believe it, I was so happy. But it was bittersweet too. Because I knew I was going to retire, even if no one else did yet, and it was really hitting me in that moment that my life as a gymnast was ending. Then it’s almost like all those times you watch people on television when they’re getting the gold, someone drapes the medal around their necks and hands them flowers and they’re standing in front of the flag and the national anthem starts playing, and the tears start flowing — it’s almost, I don’t know, automatic. You’ve seen it so many times before but it’s never been you, and suddenly now it’s you.” Julia is quiet for a moment. “I could give you about a million other reasons, but that’s probably enough.”

  “Thanks for talking about it,” I tell her.

  “Sure,” she says, getting up from my bed. She glances one last time at the picture on my wall. “Thanks for putting that up, Joey. I hope I’ll have one of you up on my wall at college someday soon, so I can show off my little sister to everyone.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, I hope that too.” She’s halfway out the door when I call out to her again. “Julia?”

  She turns back. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve always thought that if I won the gold at a big meet, you know, like at Regionals, that I wouldn’t cry. That I’d probably just smile the whole time. That I’m not the crying type.” The truth is, a part of me is worried that this means I’m defective or something, that because I suspect I’d be happy and not teary, that somehow I’m not meant to ever have that experience. Gymnasts are really superstitious, after all.

  And Julia seems to get that. “Joey, when you win at Regionals on Wednesday, and you’re up there getting the gold, you’ll do whatever feels right. You won’t be able to help it. It’s just one of those moments of truth in life. And whatever happens, it will be the right thing. Because it’s your moment and yours only. Just enjoy it.”

  “Why do you have so much faith in me?”

  “You’re a natural,” she says like this is obvious. “It runs in the family, I think.”

  I smile. “Maybe it does.”

  She smiles back. “I know it does,” she says, and then disappears down the hall.

  The morning of Regionals arrives.

  Seriously, it’s really here.

  I’ve done a ton of mental prep and my regular beach workouts, but per Coach’s orders, I’ve yet to go back to the gym. I still haven’t figured out how to make him let me do the new routines. But maybe having had some distance between us will make things easier today.

  Mom cooks me pasta for breakfast. It’s tradition. Jordan girls always eat spaghetti before meets.

  “Pasta power!” Dad shouts when he sees me slurping noodles at the table. His saying this is another part of the tradition.

  I roll my eyes at him. Also tradition. Before today, though, Mom making me pasta and Dad shouting about it were the extent of their participation in my day of competition. Today, that will change, and this feels good.

  Dad sits down in the chair next to mine with a bowl of cereal. “Pasta power!” he shouts again.

  I look at him, now scooping up his Special K with gusto. “How am I supposed to get anything down with you yelling at me about my food?” I’m too nervous to say much of anything else. I hope that having a full stomach will help calm the nausea, instead of making it worse.

  Dad finishes his bowl and goes in for another. He’s about to sit down again when he notices I’ve just eaten my last forkful of spaghetti. “More?” he asks.

  “Okay,” I say cautiously.

  “Good, because you need all the PASTA POWER” — he says this so loud I jump in my seat — “you can get today!”

  “Dad!”

  “I can’t help it, Joey. I’m excited about the meet.”

  “You’re excited?” I want him to say more about this. Also, less about the pasta.

  Dad places another heaping dish in front of me and sits down with his second bowl of cereal. “I am,” he says. “I haven’t been to see one of my daughters compete in years. I used to love going.”

  I stop, surprised, my mouth full of spaghetti. After I swallow it, I say, “You did?”

  “Oh yeah. Seeing Julia compete was extraordinary.”

  “Really?” I’ve never heard my father talk about watching his daughters do gymnastics as a pleasant thing.

  “Of course. Your sister was amazing! But the better she got, the more pressure there was, and the pressure became overwhelming eventually. More so for your mother than for me, to be honest —”

  Dad is about to say more but Mom comes in the kitchen. “Did I hear somebody talking about me?” She is dressed in a long, red, flowered skirt that flows to her ankles, and a pale green tank top that makes her look tiny.

  “Nope,” Dad says quickly, going back to his cereal.

  I know the red is Mom’s show of support for the Gansett Stars, since it’s one of our team colors. I smile, then scoop up a big forkful of my pasta.

  “Is it good?” Mom asks me, joining us at the table with her coffee and a book.

  “Great, thanks,” I say, and we each focus on the task at hand: Mom becoming caffeinated, Dad slurping breakfast, and me getting carbo loaded and trying to calm my anxiety.

  Until the doorbell rings.

  “Who could that be?” Mom asks, looking up from her reading.

  “I’ll get it,” Dad says cheerfully.

  A part of me — maybe more than a tiny part too — wants it to be Tanner. I haven’t seen him since we talked on the beach, and I keep trying to forget about him, but it’s not easy. It’s as though, once I allowed myself to experience the possibility of a me and Tanner who are more than friends, I can’t seem to go back.

  When my father reappears in the kitchen, he’s not alone, but he’s not with Tanner either.

  Alex is standing there.

  “Hey, Joey.”

  “Hey!” I jump up and run over to give her a hug.

  “Well, I’ll leave you two girls alone,” Dad says and ducks out of the room. Mom follows him, coffee in hand.

  Alex says, “I wanted to come by and wish you good luck.”

  “So you’re not coming to watch?” I ask, even though I already know her answer.

  She shakes her head. “I want to cheer you on, but I just can’t. It’s too hard. Too soon. Too sad. You know?”

  I nod. It’s sad for me too, not competing alongside my best friend for the first time ever in my life, but I understand why she doesn’t want to go. “It won’t be the same without you, though. I can’t imagine you not being there.”

  “You’ll do great,” she says. “Don’t let Angelo ruin your day, Joey.”

  “Easier said than done,” I say and we both laugh because we both know so well what Coach is like. “But I took your advice, and I’ve been preparing a speech that’s going to make Coach want me to do my new routines.”

  “Go, Joey,” Alex whispers, her voice hoarse. “You can do it.”

  “I know,” I whisper back, trying not to get teary. “So I need to get ready. Want to come upstairs?”

  Alex hesitates, like she can’t decide. “I should probably go.”

  “Okay,” I say, wishing this wasn’t so weird, me going off to Regionals while she stays home.

  “Good luck,” she repeats.

  “Thanks.”

  “Well …”

  “Yeah,” I say, when it’s my turn again. “I hope you find something fun to do today. To distract yourself and all.”

  “I’m going to hang out with Tommy,” she says quickly.

  “That sounds like a good plan.”

  Alex leans forward and pulls me into one last hug. “Joey,” she says. “You can win. I know you can. Whenever you start to doubt, remember that I’m cheering you on, even if you can’t see me.”

  “I know,” I say, un
able to stop my eyes from welling up this time.

  Why does this have to be so difficult?

  “I’m going to go now.” She pulls back, her cheeks streaked with tears. “I’ll let myself out,” she says and disappears through the doorway.

  I don’t know how long I stand there, sniffling like a crybaby, before my mother finds me. She gives me a mom-consolation, don’t-worry-it-will-get-better hug. “That was hard, wasn’t it?”

  I nod. It’s too difficult to speak at the moment.

  So we don’t. Mom pours me a glass of lemonade and herself another cup of coffee, and we sit there quietly together until my eyes dry up and I’ve finished my second bowl of spaghetti and things feel like they are going to be okay again.

  Mom gets up from the table and futzes around the kitchen, putting dishes in the dishwasher and rinsing out her coffee cup. I get up to rinse my things too, and after I’m done, I turn and see that she’s watching me, a weird, excited look on her face.

  “There’s something I want to show you,” she says in a cheery voice and beckons me down the hall toward her studio.

  “I should probably get ready. We need to leave soon.”

  Mom stops, turning around. “It’ll just take a sec. Come on.”

  So I go. I haven’t been inside my mother’s studio in ages. She’s very private about her painting and likes to be left alone until she’s ready to do a show. We all know to stay away from that end of the house out of respect for Mom (and also so we don’t get yelled at).

  Mom halts suddenly at the door and I almost crash into her. She looks at me. She seems nervous.

  Uh-oh.

  “Ready?” she asks.

  “Um, I think so,” I say, and we go inside.

  At first, I don’t notice anything unusual. The studio seems the same as always. Bright and airy, the sunlight filtered by gauzy white curtains, the concrete floor splattered with paint of every color and hue. Drop cloths are draped over the few pieces of furniture; canvases clutter the room, some stacked ten deep in places, others set on easels. A few paintings from Mom’s artist friends hang on the walls — she refuses to hang her own in her work space.

  I look around, wondering what she wants to show me.

  Then I see it.

  A painting almost as tall as I am is propped against the wall. There I am in a swirl of color on canvas, smiling from ear to ear, my arms in the air, hands flicked outward, head thrown back as though I’m about to laugh, as if I’m having the time of my life. My legs are outstretched in a perfect split, toes pointed, my body leaping high above the beam, the red stripe on my leotard a bright streak.

  “Mom,” I exclaim. “I can’t believe you did this!”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I love it,” I say, wiping a tear from my eyes because today is clearly a teary day. “How long have you been working on it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “Here and there over the last few months.”

  This shocks me. “Months?”

  “More or less.”

  “You mean, even before I got mad at you?”

  My mother puts a hand on her hip and gives me a look. “Joey, have you met me before? Do you really think I could do this in less than two weeks’ time?”

  I laugh even as tears stream down my face. “I guess not. I just had no idea. I wish I knew you’d been planning this.”

  Mom comes over and puts an arm around my shoulder and gives me a squeeze. We stand there in silence, admiring her newest piece.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, Joey?”

  “I’m kind of surprised that you chose to portray me so happy. And on the beam too.”

  Her eyebrows furrow, hearing this. “But isn’t beam your favorite?”

  “It’s kind of a toss-up with floor right now,” I say.

  “You love beam, though, right?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then why do you ask?”

  “Well, I’ve always had the impression that whenever you think of me and gymnastics, all you can picture is me crashing to the ground and hurting myself.”

  A look of guilt comes over her face. “You heard me say that to Julia?”

  I nod.

  “Oh, Joey. I’m so sorry. It is true that I have a lot of fears about watching you — I’m just so aware that gymnastics is dangerous and that you could injure yourself so easily.”

  “But I won’t,” I say.

  “I hope you don’t, sweetheart.”

  “If that’s what you think about, then what made you paint this image of me?”

  “I don’t only think of you falling, Joey. I think of you out there, shining, and giving your whole heart to something you love.”

  “Really?”

  She nods. “Absolutely.”

  “I’m glad me being a gymnast doesn’t only make you feel fear, Mom.”

  “No,” she says, looking guilty again. “And even when the fear gets big, I’m going to do my best to get over it, because fear only gets in the way of our dreams, right?”

  I laugh. “I’ve heard that before.”

  “Me too. From both of my beautiful daughters.”

  That comment totally deserves an eye roll in this context, so I give Mom one and she laughs.

  “I seriously need to get ready,” I tell her.

  “Go, go. I do too.”

  I look at the painting one last time and head to my room.

  “Pasta power!” Dad yells like a crazy man when I come downstairs, dressed in my team warm-ups, bag over my shoulder.

  “Dad, you are not allowed to yell that from the stands.”

  “But if I do, you’ll know it’s me.”

  “Dad!”

  He changes the subject. “Your mom’s in the car and Julia’s in the other car, waiting for us. Who would you like to drive with?”

  “Julia,” I say without hesitation.

  “Are you sure? It’s a long drive.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” I say.

  Dad shuts the door behind us, locks it, and we are off.

  If anyone knows what a gymnast’s nerves are like on the day of a big competition, my sister does, and so she blares music the entire two-hour ride to the arena where the meet is being held. I appreciate the lack of fake, cheery conversation and the pep talks that would only make me more stressed out.

  When we arrive, the parking lot is packed with SUVs and minivans and people streaming toward the building. But out of all the bazillions of spectators and gymnasts, who walks right in front of our car?

  Sarah Walker and Jennifer Adams.

  They are so oblivious Julia nearly hits them.

  It’s almost too bad she didn’t. It would have made my day a whole lot easier.

  They turn and glare through the windshield, and I feel myself deflate by the time they’ve moved on. Will I really be able to beat Sarah today?

  “Joey,” my sister says, turning the music off.

  “What?” I ask, like I’m not imploding inside as we drive around looking for an open space.

  “You have nothing to fear from those girls. You are a million times better than they are.”

  I sigh. “Maybe.”

  She shakes her head. “No maybe! You are.”

  “I am,” I repeat, a smile creeping onto my face. Then I start giggling. Uncontrollably. “I think I might be cracking up from having to face Coach Angelo.”

  “You’ll be okay,” Julia says, and pulls into an open parking spot. She turns off the ignition. “And I have something to confess.”

  “You do?”

  “I talked to Angelo last night.”

  My jaw drops. “But Julia! I told you —”

  She doesn’t let me finish. “Not about you.”

  “Oh.” I wait to hear what she has to say. After a few seconds pass, I’m already impatient. “I can’t read your mind! Tell me what happened.”

  Julia looks smug. She is smiling.

  “What?!”

  “I went to se
e Angelo to see if I could work at the gym as an assistant coach, starting next summer.”

  My jaw drops. “But, Julia! You’ve always said that you were done with gymnastics, as in completely done, which means moving on and no coaching. Your words.”

  She looks thoughtful. “That’s true. But I may have been a bit hasty in that decision. Something happened that changed my mind.”

  I wait for her to tell me what exactly. “Which was?”

  “Are you really that dense?”

  “Um, I guess so.”

  “Um,” Julia says, mocking me. “Coaching you with Maureen.”

  “Really?” I am honestly flattered.

  “Yes, really. I feel good about it, Joey. Really good.”

  I watch Julia. She’s holding something back. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Julia grins sheepishly. “Well, the timing of my talk with Angelo wasn’t accidental. I thought maybe I’d butter him up a little before you spoke to him. Between Alex quitting and you going behind his back, and the fact that he’s been asking me to coach ever since I retired, I thought it might be good for him to feel like he won something.”

  “Julia! I told you: my career, my responsibility.”

  “I can’t help it! I’m your big sister.”

  Sighing, I say, “I know. Thanks for caring. And that’s really smart, about the winning.”

  “See? I knew what I was doing. And besides: It’s still up to you to make this happen today. Oh, but wait,” Julia says. “I have something to give you before you go inside.”

  “Okay,” I say, wondering what it could be.

  She rummages through her backseat and pulls out a well-loved and well-worn T-shirt.

  I gasp. I know that shirt. Julia was famous for wearing it during her warm-ups. She holds it up so I can read it, even though I already know what it says: GANSETT STARS on the front, and I KICK BUTT, in big block letters on the back. If I wear it, everyone will know who it’s from.

  “Are you giving this to me?” I always loved this shirt, and I wondered what happened to it too. I even went rummaging through her drawers for it one day a while back when she was away at college.

  “I am. To give you courage when you talk to Coach. And for luck. It’s important to always wear this before a big competition. If you wear it, you can definitely win gold.”