by Caela Carter
Grace sat across from her father and stared at the food on her plate. She wished for the thousandth time that she was allowed to eat with the other gymnasts so she could see what they were doing. There was no way they were all going to eat two full slices of bread. It was loaded with pointless carbs. And there was no way they were going to eat an entire orange, with all the fructose.
Beside her, Grace heard crunching. Monica had taken a bite of the sandwich like it was no big deal.
But what were the older, mature, wise gymnasts doing? What were Wilhelmina and Leigh and Maria and Samantha doing with this meal? She wanted to eat like a normal gymnast, not like a normal person. She didn’t want to eat so much that it coated her stomach, hung in there like a weight, and made her hit her hips against the bars.
“Don’t get distracted, Gracie,” her dad said when she turned to look at the other gymnasts behind her. “Eat.”
Monica crunched beside her. Grace wanted to elbow her in the ribs.
Grace peeled the top layer of bread off. She figured if she ate the lettuce and turkey out of the sandwich, that would be good. She wished there were more vegetables. She had been ready to eat a full serving of celery or broccoli or cucumber or carrots, not a full serving of meat or bread.
“Just eat, Grace,” her father said again. “This is a good lunch. Eat it.”
He glanced at her plate. He almost looked suspicious. And she couldn’t let him know. He could never find out. If he found out that she was only on the top because she was barely eating . . . If he knew she was a total fraud . . .
Grace took a small bite of the sandwich. At first her taste buds rejoiced at the flavor of the grain and the freshness of the turkey. The lettuce crunched between her teeth. A bit of mustard slipped onto the tongue, a spicy surprise. But her throat closed against it when she tried to swallow.
She had to talk to it. She put her hand on her larynx and said, Swallow it. It seems bad for you, but it will be good for you.
But she didn’t believe her own words. If she ate this entire meal, she’d consume more calories than she’d had in a single meal in weeks.
Grace played with her phone. She untied and retied her shoe.
The food from her first bite was still stuck between her molars when Monica finished off half her sandwich.
“Grace,” her dad said. “Eat.” His eyes were wide. It was a command.
So, Grace took small bites and was sure to chew them until they were nothing but a flavorless paste in her mouth before swallowing. She took several sips of water and a small sip of milk between each bite.
A plan hatched in her brain but she didn’t let it distract her from eating as slowly as possible.
Grace knew her father’s patience was limited. She could stretch this out. She would outlast him.
Monica finished most of her sandwich and a few bites of her orange and all her milk before Grace had eaten five bites of her sandwich. Grace would not eat the orange.
Monica left. Most of the other gymnasts and coaches left.
Her father finished eating and started fooling around on his phone while Grace took another slow bite.
Finally, when Grace was about a third of the way through the first half of the turkey monster, her father gave up on her.
“Finish eating and get some rest. Make sure your head is in the game, okay?” he said.
She nodded. She took another small bite for good measure.
Then, her dad did something remarkable. Shocking. He stood up, walked to Grace’s side, and leaned over and kissed the top of her head.
“You’re so close to winning this thing. If we do it like yesterday, like this morning, you’re winning. I can feel it. I can taste it. I’m so glad you’re my kid.”
Grace nodded, this time telling her tear ducts to suck the tears back in.
That kiss woke up the part of her brain that she had almost succeeded in shutting down completely: Grace as a non-gymnast daughter. Where was her mother? Why isn’t she here? Why do we have to stick Max with a babysitter? What’s wrong with me that I could lose my own mother?
Her dad was gone. Grace turned off those thoughts like it was as simple as spinning a faucet.
Grace looked down at her plate. She’d eaten close to half of the first half of the sandwich. She’d drunk a quarter of the milk. It was more than she’d consumed in a long time.
She had to do it like yesterday. Like this morning. Like her dad said. He thought she needed to eat, but he had no idea how little had been in her system yesterday. She had to stop eating.
Grace looked around. She was the last person in the ballroom except for a few of the staff who were cleaning. Slowly, she stood. She walked her almost-full tray to the garbage can and, with only a millisecond of hesitation, she dumped it. She spat the bite in her mouth out and into the black hole for good measure.
She would win. She had to.
It was only when she looked up that she saw the two eyes watching her through the doorway.
Wilhelmina.
MONICA
Monica was terrified. But she didn’t look it.
She looked ready. She had never looked more ready.
There was someone watching her. Katja had followed her career.
She had to treat herself like she mattered. She had to believe she mattered.
Katja had used Monica’s career to insult Wilhelmina. Monica couldn’t let that be what her gymnastics was all about.
Monica snapped the sleeve of her bright blue leotard in place on her wrist and studied herself in the bathroom mirror. Thanks to one of the USAG volunteers, her dark hair was done in twin French braids that twisted in the back of her head and formed a bun at the bottom of her skull. Her blue eye shadow matched the blue of her leotard and made her usually dull skin look creamy and mysterious. The star-patterned gemstones on her leo’s sleeves glistened in the light of the bathroom. And her butt glue was carefully applied and would do a better job than yesterday. She hoped.
Monica smiled at her reflection and for once her cheeks looked high instead of puffy, her big eyes looked beautiful instead of mouse-ish.
She looked like her. Like that gymnast she’d always dreamed of becoming.
Monica felt like she’d finally figured it out. She had observed carefully all morning while Ted critiqued her teammate but barely said a word to her. She had watched Kristin after returning to her room last night when she had scrubbed away her makeup and untwisted her hairdo and transformed back into just some girl.
Monica could make herself look like an Olympian. She could make herself feel like an Olympian. She could make herself perform like an Olympian. The one thing she couldn’t make herself was an actual Olympian.
She couldn’t dream the way Wilhelmina had said she should last night, but she’d let herself get part of the way there: Today, I’ll beat at least one person. Today I won’t lose.
Then, she’d get a new coach. One who believed in her. She’d keep fighting. She’d try for the Olympics the next time.
The thought was terrifying. The cameras in her face yesterday at the gym. Her name on Leigh’s television speakers. Being relevant brought all sorts of attention and a lot of it didn’t feel like attention she wanted.
But the Olympics one day? That was worth it. Monica was going to let herself try. Hope.
Besides, Monica thought as she smoothed another layer of red lipstick on her thin lips, everyone might be this terrified. Everyone might just be better at pretending than I am.
With one more twirl in the bathroom mirror, Monica told herself, This is it.
Then she marched to the elevator to meet Grace and Ted in the lobby.
There was a hand strangling her elbow as soon as she walked out the elevator doors.
“I have to talk to you,” Grace hissed.
Monica shook her arm free. “What?�
� she snapped, pretend-confident.
Grace whipped her head around. The lobby was starting to fill with gymnasts and coaches. She seized Monica’s elbow again and dragged her into the corner.
Stay confident, Monica told herself. But she was shaking a little already.
“I don’t know what you think you’re up to,” Grace said. “But this crap has to stop, okay?”
Monica stared at her.
“You tried to get me yesterday, all right, but you failed. I am still ahead, still winning. And you’re not going to get me today.”
“I—I didn’t.” Monica didn’t know what to say. She didn’t try to beat Grace. She didn’t try to beat anyone. She hadn’t believed she could do it. But she couldn’t admit that out loud.
“Just shut up with the goody-two-shoes compliments crap, okay? You’re not going to be my new bestie. You’re not going to be Leigh’s new bestie. And you aren’t going to the Olympics. Stay away from me today and I’ll stay away from you.”
There were tears now. Some had even made it as far as her eyelashes. Why was Grace being so mean? What was this all about?
Be her be her be her.
“Sounds good to me,” Monica spat back. Then she stormed away.
An hour before the competition was scheduled to continue, the athletes and coaches gathered in the locker room at the Metroplex. They sat on benches or folding chairs or the floor with their backs leaning against the blue steel lockers. They extended their legs out before them or rolled their toes and ankles; they stretched their arms over their heads. Monica sat with her ice-taped ankles out in front of her and, like the others, didn’t pay much attention to Katja Minkovski and the other three members of the Olympic selection committee who stood in front of them.
Most of the girls weren’t making eye contact with Katja. Everyone in the room seemed a little uncomfortable. The more Monica had replayed the interview in her brain, the angrier she’d gotten. Even the small moments, like when Katja called gymnastics “our little sport,” started to bug her. It was like she needed permission to be angry. Wilhelmina gave it to her, and then the anger kept coming.
Maybe the other girls were angry, too, deep down.
They all knew what Katja would say anyway. That, after the final rotation, they should gather back in this room and wait until the selection committee was finished meeting. Then the committee would join the girls in the locker room and announce the five members of the next Women’s Olympic Gymnastics team as well as the three alternates. Because of the tight schedule this year, all eight of those gymnasts and their coaches would be expected to board a plane tomorrow for three weeks of training in Italy before the start of the Olympics. It was crazy: Monica had no chance of going, but she’d still had to pack as if she were leaving for a month instead of a weekend.
Katja did say all that. She said the words that the girls knew they would hear while they ran through performances in their heads and worked kinks out of their legs.
“Keep in mind that you must be physically present in this locker room at the conclusion of the meet in order to be placed on the team. If you leave the Metroplex for any reason, you will be automatically disqualified,” she said. Monica and the rest of the gymnasts began to gather their bags, shift, stand, figuring she was finished. But then Katja kept talking. “The USAG and the Olympic selection committee have agreed to do something a little unconventional today. We will be changing the squads and mixing up the gymnasts in order to look at different pairings. Do not try to analyze your new placement. Simply have your best meet while resting assured that the Olympic Committee will make the best decision for our country with the talent that we have in this building. Okay?”
She looked around the locker room like she wanted the girls to nod or say okay or something. They all stared. Monica had never heard of a shake-up in the middle of a meet. It was unfair to ask them not to analyze it.
It would be obvious, Monica knew that. She braced herself for what was coming. She would hear her name in the Nobodies column. She could not let this break her. She couldn’t stop pretending; she couldn’t be the cowering, terrified girl with a crushed face or slumping shoulders. She had to keep looking like this confident gymnast with braids and red lipstick and blue eye shadow. She grabbed the back of the bench she was sitting on, squeezing her shoulder blades and pushing her heart forward and begging herself to be strong. There would still be plenty of gymnasts to beat. She could still beat one person. She could do it. This didn’t need to change her goals at all.
Monica was talking to herself so loudly in her brain that she almost missed the names being called.
“Starting on bars,” Katja said, “Kristin, Annie, Natalie, Samantha, Camille, and Olivia. Starting on vault: Maria, Leigh, Monica, Grace, Wilhelmina, Georgette.”
Monica’s jaw dropped. She felt both Kristin and Ted turn to stare at her. Kristin’s eyes were full of nails and Ted’s were full of question marks, and she knew why.
She was in the better squad.
She’d tricked them. She’d dressed herself up and stood tall and now they believed she could be worth something. It worked.
The gymnasts and coaches shifted, gathering their bags, pulling on their warm-ups.
“Hold on!” Katja exclaimed.
They all froze. Silent. Like good little gymnasts.
“I’d like to have a word with the girls,” she said. “Alone.”
Fifth Rotation
CAMILLE
Camille sat in a straddle on the matted floor in the locker room as the committee spoke about the Olympic selection process. She wasn’t listening.
She pulled her right arm across her body and held it with her left elbow, stretching her shoulder. I am going to vault today, she told herself. I’m choosing Mom. Bobby left me. She ignored the way the corners of her mouth tugged downward when she made this decision. One side of her brain argued so persistently, so constantly, that the other side, the one that wanted to curl up on her mother’s couch with Bobby’s body snuggled behind her, finally gave up. Thank God vault is first. She wasn’t sure she could hang on to this determination for too much longer.
And then boom. Katja made her announcement. The squads would change. Camille would start on bars. Vault would be last. Camille would not even compete for the first half of the meet.
She was still slack-jawed with surprise as the gymnasts began to stand. How would she make it through those first two rotations with nothing to do but panic?
The girls around her were acting like this was normal, pulling on gym bags and adjusting ponytails and leotards as if everything had not just changed.
“Hold on!” Katja’s voice cut through the room and halted all the action around Camille.
When only the Olympic team coordinator was left in the locker room with the gymnasts, Camille watched as her face changed. It was like Katja took off one mask and put on another. She went from competitor to grandmother in seconds.
Camille sat on the floor and kicked her legs out in front of her. She bent toward her ankles. Truthfully, she wanted to get up and stalk out of the locker room right there. This woman was never a gymnast. She didn’t know how it felt. How much fun it was. How painful it was. How it etched itself into your soul so you couldn’t be sure quite who you’d be if you ever stopped flying.
She’d called their sport little, for God’s sake. She’d called their lives little.
“It is time for me to apologize,” Katja said. She smiled and a million tiny lines appeared on both of her cheeks. She looked soft and dainty. “I did not know that word had gotten out about my interview on espnW. You all know I want nothing but the best from USA Gymnastics. I was doing what I thought was right for the sport. For our country. For us,” she said. Camille squinted. Calling them insignificant was best for them? What was this woman saying?
“But none of that was meant for your ears, okay?�
�� she said.
And then Camille realized she had missed most of the interview. What had Katja said after she left the room?
“No matter what you thought you heard, it meant nothing.” Katja’s eyes bounced all around them while she said this. Camille tried to follow where they went. “Here in this small room, among us, are the five ladies who will win me Olympic gold.” Katja somehow managed to smile wider, to multiply her wrinkles. “Why would I ever do anything to hurt them?”
Camille’s heart was swinging like a punching bag in her chest. What did this woman mean? What had she said?
“And you should all know how I work by now,” Katja continued. Now Camille could follow her eyes easily. Now Katja was staring directly at Wilhelmina. The grandmotherly smile was still there, but her eyes had turned hard as marbles. “If I had a message for you personally, I would get it to you personally.” Her eyes swung and landed on Camille herself. “If you don’t hear it from me in person, don’t believe it.”
They were frozen in silence for a few seconds until Katja finally said, “Now go! Do your best! Make our country proud!”
Camille sat still on the floor as the other gymnasts around her rose and began to file out. She tried to make her face stay calm while her brain freaked out behind it. What was happening? What had Katja said? Why did this matter when there were events to compete out there?
Camille wished there was one aspect of this sport she loved that wasn’t touched by Katja. And there was: the NCAA. But Camille would never get there.
Someone lowered herself onto the bench behind Camille, and she turned, expecting her coach. But it wasn’t him.
Katja Minkovski. Leaning to Camille’s ear. Giving her that so-called personal message.
“Do not worry,” she whispered. “Do not worry about your rotation today.”
Camille felt her eyes widen.
“It means nothing,” Katja was saying. “I saw you—we saw you—this morning. You are the best vaulter in the world. I need you on my Olympic team. You are consistent. Despite Leigh’s performance yesterday, you are our best weapon. You are our key to beating the Russians! All you need to do is stay in the gym. . . .” Katja’s lips stretched back into that smile. It looked a little more fake this close up. “And you will finally be an Olympian.”