Tumbling

by Caela Carter

  And, Grace thought, if they wanted to keep any mystery to these new rotations, the committee should have changed which apparatus the squads were starting on. It was clear that all the leaders, all the best gymnasts, were put into the same heat. Having this squad move through the meet in Olympic rotation made it more obvious. Grace had basically been placed on the Olympic team already.

  That wasn’t enough. She needed to win the meet.

  But, despite all of those logical issues and disadvantages, Grace was glad to be starting on vault. Even if it meant Leigh would be beating her for at least one rotation. She was glad to be starting on vault for one reason: vault was the shortest.

  And Grace wasn’t sure what was going on inside of her right now. Was this buzzing a sign that her body was betraying her again?

  It wasn’t fair. Grace had eaten. She’d had all of that peanut butter at breakfast and then so many bites of turkey sandwich. She’d had the equivalent of at least three normal-people bites. Grace looked down at her legs and she swore she could see the peanut butter on them already, coating the inside of her thighs in a layer of fat that brought them closer to touching. Clearly, if she’d eaten enough to see the fat obliterate her bones and muscles, she must have eaten enough to keep her body calm, to keep her heart in one piece, to keep her organs under her control.

  Just before she knew the judges would raise her green flag, Grace pressed her hands together, squishing the zinging veins in her left wrist against those in her right. Calm down, she told them. Act normal.

  For so long, for months and years and in some ways for as long as Grace could remember, her focus had been her food. Her focus had more than made up for the calories she cut. It had kept her graceful and helped her add new tricks and kept her on top.

  Her focus filled her up. There was no Monica or Dylan Patrick in the back of her brain. There was no confusion over Leigh flirting with boys. There was no fear over Leigh making other friends. There was no missing mom. There was no food. There was nothing in her brain or her body except gymnastics. That’s all Grace was: focus and gymnastics.

  The green flag was raised and Grace took a deep breath. Let’s do this.

  She took off down the runway. By the third step she was calm again. Her blood ran normally. Her vision lasered in on the vaulting table in front of her. She felt the mat press against the bottom of her toes and the air rushing by her face as she ran.

  And then she was over it, safely on the other side with heavy breath and a toothy smile for the judges. She’d done it. Not a hop or a stumble. Not a single organ out of rhythm or splitting into pieces in the air. Grace was Grace again. She’d done so well, her dad gave her a big hug.

  Leigh would still catch her this rotation, but Grace should be able to get her lead back by bars and then keep it.

  Clearly it had been only nerves. Her focus was still on target. Her body was perfectly happy with her.

  LEIGH

  Leigh was mortified. Too mortified to focus on her vault even as her competitors went over it one by one and her turn got closer. Why had she sounded so corny? Why had she given Camille that hug?

  Why couldn’t she ever shut up?

  When Leigh had approached the veteran gymnast, she was sure Camille was upset about being placed in the other squad, the B squad. She’d thought of a few things to say. She had reminded herself of Camille’s help at the beam earlier that day and talked herself up until she managed to approach her crush.

  She hadn’t been ready for what Camille said.

  It made Leigh think more about what she and Grace had discussed before going to bed.

  It made Leigh think more about the normal girls who were her friends from school. Or they were kind of her friends from school. They were friends because they talked about homework and complained to each other about teachers. Leigh knew who their boyfriends and best friends were. She sometimes knew what they did over the weekend. Maybe, if they happened to ask on an off day, Leigh might go to a movie with them. They were nice girls because they let Leigh be a periphery friend. Because they still invited her places, even though she said no eleven times out of twelve. Because they shared tidbits of their lives, like what their boyfriends got them for Valentine’s Day or why their mothers grounded them, without insisting that Leigh also share things about her own outside-of-school life. And Leigh never did. Because she couldn’t. Because regular girls who think about boyfriends and movies and groundings would never understand what it’s like to be a professional sixteen-year-old. Sometimes it felt like she only bothered trying with those normal girls because it made her parents happy.

  But, Camille had asked Leigh if she was normal, if she was one of them. Camille hadn’t been able to tell that the high-school life was her other life, her second life, that Leigh was just like the rest of the gymnasts. Except she wasn’t.

  No one understood her. To one group she was the professional teen, and to the other she was the one who went to high school full-time.

  Even Grace had never really understood Leigh. Leigh saw that now. They were being friendly like usual but something had shifted last night. Leigh wasn’t sure she and Grace would ever be whole again. She wasn’t sure she’d ever trust Grace like she once had.

  Leigh felt like Camille felt. Totally misunderstood. She wondered if that’s what she had recognized in Camille in the first place.

  Leigh was staring at the empty air above the vault. She wasn’t seeing anything.

  Phil grabbed her arm as he walked by. “Focus!” He almost spat the word in her face. “There’s no point in Nice Leigh if you can’t focus!”

  She nodded and shook him off her. Focus, she told herself. Focus on your Amanar. On sticking the landing.

  They were using her normal Amanar today because it was much more consistent than her TTY. And she didn’t need the extra points from a TTY anymore. If Leigh hit on her Amanar, she’d get enough points to pass Grace, who only did a DTY. She’d be on top at the end of this rotation. The challenge would be staying there.

  Leigh climbed the podium, chalked up, and stood ready for her green flag. Stick the landing, she told herself. But she wasn’t even hearing her own internal warnings. Inside she was still cringing and wondering what Camille thought about that stupid hug.

  Leigh glanced around. Phil was staring at her. Grace was not. She was digging through her bag. Monica was pulling on her warm-ups. Camille was pacing next to the bars. Were her friends from home watching? Or had That Girl been alone the whole time?

  The green flag went up and Leigh was running over the mat before she even knew it.

  The lightning nerves jolted her again. What do I do? Oh, God, what do I do? Why didn’t I visualize it?

  Leigh’s hands were on the mat. You can do it, she told herself, but she could feel she was off. Her right hand landed inches ahead of her left on the table, so she was a little twisted; her body got into the air but not as high as yesterday; she stumbled sideways on the landing but still stood it up.

  Not great. Not a disaster.

  “You have to focus,” Phil whispered as he pulled her off the podium. “You gotta get your head out of your being a nice kid. Friends are for later. Focus!”

  Leigh nodded.

  Then she heard her score. She turned to the scoreboard and watched as the scores updated. And her jaw dropped.

  She was now tied for first place. In the Olympic trials. With Grace.

  Leigh felt her heart speed up but she took a deep breath to calm it.

  She couldn’t make this about beating Grace. That wasn’t nice. That was something Grace would do.

  STANDINGS

  AFTER THE FIFTH ROTATION

  1.

  Grace Cooper

  74.905

  1.

 
Leigh Becker

  74.905

  3.

  Georgette Paulson

  74.705

  4.

  Wilhelmina Parker

  74.700

  5.

  Maria Vasquez

  71.250

  6.

  Kristin Jackson

  70.620

  7.

  Monica Chase

  70.555

  8.

  Annie Simms

  70.410

  9.

  Natalie Rice

  67.150

  10.

  Samantha Soloman

  45.205

  11.

  Camille Abrams

  30.980

  12.

  Olivia Corsica

  29.738

  Sixth Rotation

  MONICA

  As she walked behind Georgette from the vault to the bars, Monica glimpsed the scoreboard. Okay, she looked at it. She made that ultimate mistake and turned her head and looked for her name.

  Worse, she forgot herself for a minute. She forgot all her rules and rituals. She looked from the top down.

  Seventh.

  At the end of the third rotation yesterday, she’d been in fourth. Two rotations later, she had plummeted, and Natalie and Annie were right on her tail.

  All of that happened despite the fact that, a minute ago, she’d beaten yesterday’s score on vault.

  The precise makeup and the sparkly leo and the braided hair didn’t mean anything. She wasn’t good enough.

  Her mom and dad and grandmother and stepdad and brothers and sisters and stepbrothers and stepsisters were all here to watch her fail. And if anyone had finally recognized her face on the TV, that person was watching her fail now, too.

  Monica’s cheeks burned as she put her bag on her new chair and waited her turn to warm up on bars. Grace was right. She was only placed in this squad because they needed a sixth gymnast and they didn’t want to make Ted run back and forth constantly like he had yesterday. How could she have let herself believe that this was where she belonged? That she mattered?

  Monica mounted the bars for her warm-up. Maybe it was time to go back to her old goal, the one Wilhelmina had convinced her wasn’t big enough. Don’t fall. If that was her focus, it wouldn’t be so disappointing when Natalie or Annie climbed past her on the scoreboard.

  Except Monica had seen that four next to her name yesterday.

  No matter what, she’d go home disappointed. Monica hated how hope compounded on hope until she built herself up to be higher than she could be, and all of those piles of hope meant that she was never happy. It was why she usually tried not to hope at all.

  No falls, Monica told herself as she swung through a series of giants. No falls and no looking at the scoreboard.

  Monica landed a watered-down dismount and hopped off the podium.

  “Nice dismount,” she heard Grace’s garbage voice say.

  Monica turned her head, startled. She hadn’t realized anyone had been watching. She hadn’t seen Grace approach.

  And before she knew it, she’d rolled her eyes.

  Grace’s own eyes grew in surprise. “What?” she asked.

  Oh, come on.

  “I just said it was a good dismount. You know, you stuck it.”

  Monica shook her head.

  “What?” Grace said again.

  You’re not my coach. I don’t have to care what you think.

  She looked around. Ted was sitting slumped over at the end of the row of folding chairs. He had his phone in his hand. He hadn’t even seen her warm up.

  Even her own coach didn’t think she was worth the effort. What was she doing here?

  “I’m being nice,” Grace whined.

  Monica was sick of it. She was sick of Grace and Ted and Leigh and everyone.

  She was sick of hoping. But Monica didn’t think she could stop the hope from pulsing through her veins anymore, so she dove into it. She wasn’t going to make the team, she knew that. But she was going to get as close as she could.

  She was going to believe in herself. Alternate. Olympic team alternate. She had three more rotations to get there.

  “That wasn’t my real dismount. And you know it,” Monica said to Grace. Then she marched over to their coach.

  “Do you have anything to say about my warm-up?” she asked. She tried to make her voice strong, but of course it sounded squeaky.

  Ted looked up. He lowered his bushy eyebrows in surprise. “You did great,” he said. He looked back at his phone.

  Monica didn’t move. She didn’t care that she was only in her leo and totally exposed to everyone in the stands. She didn’t care that she was tiny and she probably had chalk in her braids and streaked across her thighs. She was at the Olympic trials. She was alive. And though she wouldn’t make the team, she owed it to every gymnast who hadn’t made it this far for one reason or another to try her best, push her hardest.

  Finally Ted looked up again. “Yes?” he said.

  “Did you see it?” She hated how her voice sounded weak and raspy when inside she was finally feeling strong.

  “Huh?” he said.

  Behind Monica, Georgette mounted the bars and began her official routine. Monica would be up next, in only a few minutes.

  “Did you even see my warm-up? Did I miss a handstand? Did I bend a knee? Did I look strong on the first release?”

  To Monica’s surprise, Ted smiled.

  “You want my real critique?” he asked.

  Monica felt herself shrink. She’d started this conversation so confident. But he was smiling at her like she was a three-year-old with a messy lollipop. Monica didn’t want to be cute. She wanted to be good.

  Still, she nodded. “For real,” she managed.

  “You hit your handstands,” he said. “But you almost always have an inch or two between your ankles. Your release move is precise, but I always think you’re about to hit your foot on the bar on the way down. You barely get any height.”

  Monica nodded.

  Ted kept talking. “When you kip to the low bar, your right hand always looks too loose on the bar. And if you think you’re making that connection between your release moves, you’re fooling yourself. You hesitate half the time, almost. The judges will always see that, always, no matter how well you cover it up.”

  Monica stared at him wide-eyed. Now? He chooses to tell me this stuff now? For the first time?

  “Oh, don’t give me that look,” he said, wrinkling his face in a way that made him look like his daughter. “Don’t give me those big hurt eyes. You asked for it. You marched up here and demanded a real critique, so there you have it.”

  Monica’s eyes fell to her toes and she shook her head. But she wasn’t hurt. “What?” Ted said.

  She was pissed.

  If you’ve known that all along, you should have told me before. If you were taking me seriously, maybe I’d have taken myself seriously. Maybe I’d have a chance.

  “Nothing,” Monica said.

  Ted turned around and went back to his chair.

  But, a few minutes later, when Monica’s name was called, he stood and walked to the side of the podium. “Ankles together,” he yelled. “Remember, keep those ankles together.” She nodded. She mounted t
he bars and, ninety seconds later, when there were red half-moons on each of her inner ankles from being pressed together through her whole routine, Monica knew her score would be even higher than yesterday’s.

  But she didn’t look.

  GRACE

  Grace spat into her grips and rubbed the wet chalk across the leather. There was a camera circling her like a kid at a roller rink.

  She thought about what they’d be saying on television right now:

  “And here we have one of our leaders. She made a good case for the guaranteed position yesterday, didn’t she, Jim?”

  “Why, yes, she did, Cheryl. The top spot is certainly on her mind right now. But we’ve seen some mistakes from her in the past.”

  “Mistakes or no mistakes, are we going to see this one competing for our country in Rome?”

  “Cheryl, I’d be shocked if Grace Cooper wasn’t on that Europe-bound plane tomorrow.”

  Grace remembered watching meets as a child. The announcers had made it all seem simple. She thought it was simple. Gymnasts were talented girls who wanted to win the meet. Who enjoyed hugging each competitor after each routine. Who were friends with their athletic enemies. A gymnast was able to be happy for people who got what she herself wanted, what she had worked hard for. A gymnast cared more about her country winning gold than herself going to the Olympics.

  A gymnast would be thrilled to take a step to the left on the podium and share that gold medal with her best friend. She wouldn’t hate her for tying her score.

  Even Dylan seemed to think this way. After Grace’s vault he posted: I’m still watching you, Grace Cooper, even though it seems pretty obvious you and Leigh are both going to the Olympics. Woo hoo! Can’t wait to watch you there.

  For the announcers and spectators it was as simple as “she wants it, and she wants it, and she wants it, and she wants it, but only one of them will get it, and, hey look, they’re all friends.” They were friends, some of them. But.

  The announcers and spectators didn’t know what it was like to have fire running in your veins because you just heard your name for the sixth time at the Olympic trials and you know you’re less than two hours, only three quick rotations, away from the final step to achieving your wildest, grandest dream and that the only thing possibly standing in your way of going to the Olympics as the world’s best gymnast is your best friend, who is now tying you, and how that’s the most exciting and scary and overwhelming place you’ve ever been.