He nods. “I still owe you a track team tryout, don’t I?”
“Don’t be scared that I’m faster than you,” I tease.
“You sure about that? I’ve had many years of experience chasing after Dre’s ass.”
“Wanna find out?” I tip my head back toward the class. The football tumbles in a wobbly spiral, landing on the ground with a distant thump.
He holds out his cast indignantly. “Have you seen my arm?”
“Look who you’re talking to. My coach made me run laps with a bum wrist.”
“First, there’s one more thing,” he says, and then he leans in as the branches sway above us and I forget all about running.
I THOUGHT CASSIE would make a dramatic gesture to earn back our friendship. Instead, she recedes.
Marcos makes up a test during lunch on Tuesday, so I walk into the cafeteria and sit with Andreas and Dimitri. Although there’s an empty chair next to Andreas, Juliana takes the one next to me. She spends most of the period making fun of Andreas’s hyperactivity the way everyone does, but there’s a fondness I never noticed in her before. She speaks like an older sister to a pesky and loveable younger brother. Before the bell, she balls up her aluminum foil and says to me, “See you later,” the same way she says it to Andreas.
I follow her into the hallway, where Cassie lingers by her locker. “Want to go out to the fountain?” I hear Cassie say over the burst of sneakers on linoleum.
“Nah,” Juliana says. “I have a project to work on.”
Seeing her with her head tilted, her golden curls rolling across her shoulders, I can’t forget her face in the woods. Her vanishing footsteps. The resounding silence the rest of the day.
“Remember, you owe me a gymnastics lesson.” Andreas bounds up beside me. “Do I need to wear a leotard?”
“Nobody wants to see that, Dre,” Dimitri says.
“What? You know I’d look freakin’ fly.”
“That’s one word for it,” I say, grateful for the distraction.
“Am I too tall?” Dimitri asks. “Would I hit the ceiling? I might hit the ceiling.”
They banter back and forth and I feel her looking at me, but I don’t turn my head.
When I crashed from my knee injury, there was nothing waiting for me at the bottom. Just Cassie. She wants all of me, in specific, moldable ways. A girl who will follow her lead, say farewell to gymnastics, tell Marcos goodbye, and understand every emotion that she’s not sharing. I can't be that person. I don’t think anybody can be.
While I wanted her to help me escape everything I was afraid of, it’s been up to me to put my world back together all along. I had to figure out what was right for me, not what Cassie thought was best.
All of these years, I chose her. But she didn’t choose me.
THERE’S ANOTHER STEP I need to take. After school, I write to Coach Englehardt and Coach Barry to tell them that I qualified for States (leaving out the “barely”). I tell them that my next meet is in January. Dad had said, “We let you off easy last time, but we’re coming to this one, like it or not.”
Then I shut the laptop and go for a run.
The first snowflakes of the season brush against my eyelashes. As I approach the bay, I ball my fingers inside my sweatshirt sleeves for extra warmth. The wind pushes me back as I make my way up the bridge. I grit my teeth and run harder. Force myself to be faster, the way I would for the final tumbling pass of my floor routine. To run as quickly as I did through the woods, except this time without the urgency.
Despite the wind and the gentle swirl of snowflakes that land on the sand and vanish, the tide is calm. I can almost see why Cassie chose here. There’s something soothing in the infinity of the waves flowing endlessly to the horizon.
I take strength from the waves. I will not sink.
When I return home, flushed from the cold air, there are messages. D and I are coming 2 open gym tonight. GET READY, OLYMPICS! Andreas writes.
Can your boyfriend hook us up with free food at Pav’s after practice? Wrong that I’m already pondering my next meal? asks Emery.
Andreas’s high-fives every time we pass in the hallway, Juliana’s acknowledgment that I’m a human, Emery and I sweating our asses off in the gym and immediately refueling with burritos–it’s not the same without Cassie. None of it replaces her. It’s not 2 a.m. Slurpees and driving around for the sake of driving and teasing each other while listening to our favorite songs. It’s not the same as knowing each other since we were seven. I’m starting to believe that something different is good for me, though.
I’m about to reply to them when it happens:
Inbox: (1).
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“PULL AWAY FROM the curb,” the DMV employee says coolly.
I signal and obediently check the mirrors. Behind us are other cars with nervous aspiring drivers, their parents in the passenger seat. I’ve left Dad standing by the tree whose leaves were red and golden in October. Now they bloom verdant green in April. It’s taken until spring for my eighth road test. You could say that I’ve been preoccupied. Luckily, I’ve had some good instructors along the way.
I wait for the last-minute panic to kick in–the sweating palms, the doubt, the out-of-control thoughts. Instead, my mind is quiet.
The speedometer hovers at 36 in the 35. The man makes no comment. He gazes out the window as though we’re out for a nice afternoon drive.
I stop at the stop sign. And the next. And the next.
“Should I turn up here?” I say at the sixth intersection. I mean, this is getting excessive.
“Sure.”
Uh. “Which way?”
“Whichever.”
Unreal. Abso-freaking-lutely unreal. Who is this man?
He must have asked himself the same question. “Left,” he says, straightening up.
My left turn is dead on. Centered beautifully between the double yellow and the curb. I don’t know that I’ve ever turned so perfectly. I don’t know that anyone has ever turned so perfectly. I half expect the men standing outside of 7-Eleven to applaud. Can you get bonus points?
“Look, I don’t know what your life goals are,” the man says suddenly. “But make sure you never work for the state. Three-point turn here.”
I’m so startled that I hit the brakes too forcefully. With a hasty look in the side-view mirror, I roll to the left.
“You think that after twenty-two years, they wouldn’t screw you over,” the man says as I transition into reverse. “You never call in sick. Never take a damn personal day. Not one. And this is how they treat you. Like that plastic bag over there.”
I’m trapped in a vehicle with this man, ladies and gentlemen.
“Parallel park,” he says as I draw near an old Volvo that has two wheels up on the sidewalk. Where would the rest of the Volvo be, had its driver parked it successfully? In fact, where was the DMV when its driver took his road test? I halt a healthy two feet away.
If you do this, you’re home free.
My heartbeat kicks up.
Get this man back to the DMV, and you pass.
I cut the wheel three quarters of the way. Rolling past the Volvo’s windows…the tremendous dent on the back door…bumper-to-bumper and I’m only one foot away…
This is your moment, Gregory.
Oh, holy crooked parking job. I’m a mile from the curb. Toast. Dunzo. Outta here. What were Dad’s wise words about idiot drivers? Will I never have the chance to join their ranks? Will my parents have to escort me back and forth from college? Please, no.
“Hmm,” the man says.
I will the curb to move closer.
He opens the door and examines the distance. “Interesting.” Yep. I’ll never be able to look at Dad again without him laughing.
“All right, our work here is done,” the man says.
I don’t cry the whole drive back. I want to. I very nearly do. I manage to stay composed. Later, I keep telling myself.
I pull up acro
ss the street from where the hopefuls line up for their tests. As a young buck in a cowboy hat hugs his mother goodbye, I realize: Screw it. So what if Dad has to drive me to school for the rest of senior year and back and forth from college? So what if I’ll be able to hear Richard laughing when Mom tells him on the phone? So what if Dad, Richard, my mom, or some combination of the three will bring up the goddamn squirrel on my wedding day? At least I’ve tried. I’ve admitted all of my failures. I’ve done my best to improve. That’s all they can ask of me.
“Thank you for your time,” I say with all the dignity I can muster.
“Congratulations,” he replies.
Wait. What?
“Took one point off. That parallel park was a little brutal. But you’ll never need to parallel park again unless you’re in the city, and who wants anything to do with New York these days, anyway? Have a good one,” he says as he opens the passenger seat door. “And remember what we talked about.”
So this is how you pass a road test. It has nothing to do with your skills or how much you’ve practiced or how many times you’ve failed. It’s all about the kind of person you get on that particular day.
Dad appears at the door. “Any furry friends along the way?” he asks. Waiting for me to surrender the keys so he can drive and I can sulk the whole ride back. It’s the system. Or, rather, it was the system.
I crank up AC/DC and say, “Oh, did you want a ride?”
I HONK OUTSIDE of Emery’s apartment. “I don’t freaking believe it!” she yells, gym bag bouncing against her back as she runs to the car. “Should I wear a helmet?”
“Earplugs.” I turn up “Live and Let Die.” And then I almost roll into a garbage can.
Cruising at a blistering thirty-five miles per hour, we arrive at practice fifteen minutes late. By now, all of the recreational class parents have cleared out, so I drift into a spot without fear of sideswiping anyone. There’s Matt’s SUV, Vanessa’s sporty little thing, me, and a blue minivan with tinted windows.
When we walk in, the first thing I notice is how quiet the gym is. Second, there are Nicola and Erica’s super wide you won’t believe what’s happening eyes as they turn at the sound of the door. Third, there’s the bona-freakin’-fide Olympian standing next to the floor.
She’s shorter than I am. I’ve never met anyone simultaneously older yet shorter than me. I blame this for why I can’t say anything.
“Great to see you again!” says Coach Barry with a clap on my back. Oops. Didn’t notice he was here. “We were in the area to watch the Manhattan Invitational, and we thought we’d swing by and see how your comeback is going.”
Nobody “swings by” here from Manhattan. My palms are sweating profusely. The two coaches are here for me, Savannah Gregory and her Beast.
“Admissions let me know that you were accepted,” he continues, reaching out to shake my hand in congratulations, except I’m blatantly staring at the girl next to him. “This is our new assistant coach, Angela Cardena.”
“Well, duh,” I say. “I only account for half of the thousands of YouTube hits on your gold medal routine from the Olympics. You’re the reason that I ate Champion’s Choice turkey for an entire year.”
Great. They’re going to slap me with a restraining order before I set a foot on campus.
Bless her soul, former Olympic champion Angela Cardena laughs like she’s genuinely amused and maybe a little flattered. “And you are–”
“Kaitlyn Savannah Gregory,” I say, shaking her hand. Too much information. Might as well offer up my firstborn while I’m at it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“DAD, I’M GOING to Owego,” I yell into the phone at our first water break. Due to the Olympian walking among us, Vanessa actually looks at me and smiles when she sees me on the phone.
Does my father break down in relieved tears? Chide me for making this decision without telling him? Tell me how proud he is?
“About damn time,” he says. “Now, what were you calling me about?”
TODAY, I’M COMMITTING.
Ponquogue Commits Day is dedicated to all of the students who will be joining college teams come the fall. While Division I athletes–the ones receiving athletic scholarships–are the ones who actually sign letters of intent, those of us competing for Division II and III schools are welcome to the event, which primarily involves everyone loitering by the crumb cake table and making awkward conversation. Andreas will be playing soccer for Suffolk, and he shakes everyone’s hand like he’s singlehandedly won the World Cup. There’s a lovely table set up with a maroon cloth and a backdrop of our mighty Dolphin. On the table rests a silver fountain pen.
Grant Klein–the athletic director who called my dad in for a conference when, in ninth grade, my ripped palms started bleeding in paddleball and I told him it was the stigmata–lives for this day. “Let’s get signing, folks!” he says when the first local sportswriter walks into the library, a lost-looking man with a camera around his neck.
Each athlete takes a turn posing at the table, pen in hand. Handshakes. Parents with hands on the shoulders of their child. I can’t help it: I’m excited to be part of this. Like I’ve done something worth celebrating and photographing, something that should be remembered.
“Next up, Kathryn Savannah Gregory,” Klein says. “Kathryn is a gymnast committing to Owego State College.” He emphasizes the “nast” rather than the “gym.”
“It’s Kaitlyn,” I say to the reporter, who nods miserably.
“Stand right there, Mom and Dad,” says Klein.
We form a trio in front of the Dolphin, me in the center, and smile at the reporter. I have a practiced smile from years of Picture Days. Always I’d look at the camera and think, “You’re posing after just winning the Olympic all-around.” This would require, I imagine, a healthy mix of joy and dignity–not too much joy, or otherwise my cheeks would swallow my eyes.
Behind the reporter, the library door swings open. First enters Marcos, backpack on his shoulders. He grins. Is he laughing at me?
Hot on Marcos’s heels is a blonde hurricane. Arms and legs pumping toward the table, camera in hand. “Excuse me, Mr. Klein? We’re going to have to start over.”
“Look who showed up,” Dad says over my head.
“We can’t start over,” says Klein. “We’re on the last recruit.”
“Well, you have to,” Cassie says. “The Ponquogue Compass needs a cover photo.”
Klein gestures to me. “Get her before she turns into a pumpkin.”
When Cassie used to lift the camera and take a photo of me, she held the power to make me look stupid or meaningful, skilled or sloppy.
Today, there’s a division. Cassie, who stays behind the camera. Me, who will be leaving. It doesn’t matter if I’m squinting from the smile or looking the wrong direction, or that Dad’s parabola tie is way too prominent.
She clicks, and I smile wider.
Cassie argues with Klein as my parents and I leave the library. Marcos wanders nearby, pretending to take an interest in the Board of Trustees plaque. As soon as my parents move ahead, he puts his arm around me. He comes over to my house almost every weekend and my parents like him, but there’s only so much teasing from them that I’m willing to tolerate.
“You committed,” he says, kissing my cheek.
“Don’t tell anybody.”
“Looks like you’ll be the cover story for the Ponquogue Compass.”
“What more could you want from life?”
“Well, an autographed copy, for starters. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but Rena has big plans to publicly embarrass you very soon. Something about decorating your locker.”
“Should I be absent that day?”
“You’re a big-shot college athlete now. You can do whatever you want.”
What does this commitment mean for the boy with the coconut smell in his hair and me? I lean my head on his shoulder and inhale. That’s enough for right now.
“Excuse me, Ms
. Gregory, shouldn’t you be in class?”
Thanks, Dad, I think immediately. No. Something’s off. The voice is too deep, too tall to be his. It’s one I haven’t heard in person for almost a year–
“Richard!” my mother says.
I beat her to him. “Holy shit!” I yell to the lobby of Ponquogue High School. My head collides with my brother’s chest, which vibrates against my temple as he laughs. I expected the smell of smoke and sunburn, but instead I inhale soap, the old skin scrubbed off him.
“Language, Savannah,” Mom says, but she’s laughing, too. Soon she hugs Richard and then he and Dad exchange a manly hug, the kind with hands slapped against backs. Richard offers a handshake to Marcos, who seems mildly intimidated but smiles regardless.
“How’s base? How long are you home for? I got into college and I finally passed my road test,” I say without waiting for his answer. It’s like I’m six years old again, jumping up and down in front of him so that he’ll pick me up for an airplane ride.
There are more than a few confused looks as students pass our reunion. Backpacks hustle away from our enthusiastic embraces. “Is Mr. Gregory actually hugging someone?” one scholar whispers. A kid knocks against me with a trumpet case as he asks his friend, “Is it, like, army recruiting day?” because although he’s not in uniform, my brother’s short dark hair and strict posture give it away. There are too many eyes on us, and somehow, I don’t mind.
Richard flicks my ponytail. “Mom told me you were signing your letter of intent today. Y’all and your surprises.”
“It’s been a little hectic. Since when did you acquire a Southern accent? Do you wear cowboy boots now, too?”
His hazel eyes crinkle. “You’ve got a month to break it down for me, kid. Maybe I’ll even take you to McDonald’s, get some breakfast sandwiches.”
“If you’re buying, I’m driving,” I say.
“God help us all,” Dad says.
The library door cracks open. I don’t need to look, but I do anyway. Two blue eyes watch us.
I PRETEND TO not see Cassie approach my locker, looking up at the last possible moment. “That’s really cool,” she greets me. “About Owego and stuff.”
Lessons in Falling Page 26
