by Caela Carter
“Quiet, quiet!” Katja shouted, even though it was already silent as a grave in the room.
“First, we all need to congratulate the athlete who has placed automatically onto the team,” she said, stone-faced. “And she is Wilhelmina Parker.”
Mina’s jaw dropped and the locker room filled with a smattering of applause. Her brain rewound through the day, through every thought she’d had, through everything she’d felt, and tried to make it all make sense.
I won, she told herself. I actually won.
“Come stand by me,” Katja said.
“I—” Wilhelmina stood. “I—” She was trying to speak but no one was listening. She was trying to say, “That’s it. I’m done. I retire.”
But Wilhelmina was surrounded by naked hope. Now there were gymnasts looking at her, wishing they were her, the same way she had looked for years at Camille and others. Wilhelmina couldn’t quit in this moment, in this locker room. These girls would start to hate her the way she hated them.
It was confusing. Everything in her life had been unfair until this moment. And everything would be unfair from this moment forward. This was the one moment she should be enjoying. And Katja was making that impossible. Or the hope radiating from these other girls was making it impossible. Or something. Something was making this moment different from what it should be.
Mina should be allowed to be happy. But she was confused.
Monica was hugging Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina was frozen.
“Get up there,” Monica said.
But as Wilhelmina walked toward Katja, the locker room swung dangerously in her vision. Georgette had to reach out and catch her.
“Overwhelmed?” Georgette whispered with the joyful tone of someone who was sure she was about to be chosen for the Olympic team and treated fairly once she got there.
Wilhelmina managed to make it to the front of the room and stood next to Katja. She focused on kissing Davion. She couldn’t begin to think of the enormous task she had ahead of her now: quitting even when she’d won the trials and made the team. She was an Olympic athlete and her life still wasn’t fair.
“And now,” Katja said, “will each of today’s athletes please come forward?”
Wilhelmina watched as the girls slowly rose from the bleachers or the floor or the walls they were leaning against. She watched Maria step carefully over a bench and stand, facing Wilhelmina. She watched Grace fall in line next to Maria, Monica next to Grace, Kristin next to Monica. Annie. Natalie, Samantha, Olivia. Their eyes bore into Wilhelmina’s heart and she was almost knocked over by the solid wall of hope standing in front of her.
Each girl here wanted what Wilhelmina had just gotten. What Wilhelmina was about to give up.
Because she was about to give it up. She deserved something better than this. Right?
Then she saw it. It was Grace who started it. Grace, the broken girl.
Grace raised her arms so they were at ninety-degree angles, flipped over her hands, and offered up her palms to Monica and Maria. Within seconds they were a line of gymnasts clinging together, bound by a tangle of fingers and their insurmountable shared hope.
“Alphabetical order. If you hear your name, come stand by me,” Katja was saying.
But Wilhelmina didn’t want to be on this side anymore. She didn’t want to be facing Grace or Monica or Samantha or any of the others when their hearts got broken. She wanted to be with them. She wanted Grace on her team, Monica on her team, Georgette on her team, Kristin on her team, Annie on her team, Samantha on her team, Maria on her team: all of them. She wanted Leigh on her team. It was awful that they had to be divided. They had all worked so hard, all given up so much.
Maybe they all deserved it, or they all deserved better than they were going to get. Maybe that’s what made this moment so confusing.
Just as Katja opened her mouth to say the first name, Wilhelmina broke from her side. She backed into the line of gymnasts and it opened to accept her. She squeezed Grace’s hand in her left palm, Monica’s in her right, and she sent hopeful vibes to all of them. For a second they were all connected.
Wilhelmina realized they always would be. She would quit the sport. She’d talk to her publicist after this meet and she would make an announcement that she could no longer comply with Katja’s rules. She’d be out. But even then, she would still be connected to these girls. She would not be a gymnast anymore, but she would forever be an ex-gymnast. She would always carry the girl gymnast in her bones. And only this chain of girls would ever really understand that.
“The first gymnast selected is . . .” Katja paused for dramatic effect. ”Camille Abrams.”
Oh yeah.
The locker room was silent and still. Then everyone’s heads started whipping back and forth. Wilhelmina looked at the floor and bit her lips to keep herself from grinning. At least Camille had gotten what she deserved. That was one person.
“Where’s Camille?” Katja asked the crowd.
Only Wilhelmina knew the answer.
“I . . . I’ll go find her!” she said. And she darted out the door before anyone could stop her.
CAMILLE
The smell. It hit her like a wall when she sprinted through the automatic glass doors in the front of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She wasn’t expecting the smell. Of sterilizer and lemon cleaner. Of nursing scrubs washed too many times in discount detergent and of upholstery cleaned so often it was mildewy anyway. Of tile and bright ceiling lights and pure white sneakers.
It was the smell four years ago, the smell of lost dreams.
Camille almost gagged. She ran back out the door and watched as Davion’s navy Camry drove up the hospital driveway. She could run after him or call Wilhelmina and tell her to tell him to come back. It wasn’t like Leigh was expecting her.
But where would she go? Not to the Olympics; she’d slammed that door shut, thank God. Not to NYU with Bobby.
Camille had nowhere to go. Maybe she had to be back in this smell in order to truly come out of it.
She called her mom. “Camille!” Her mother’s voice came through clear and excited. “Camille!”
“Yes, Mom—”
She cut her off. “Did you get it? That vault was the best I’ve ever seen, did you get it? Are you in the locker room? Did they name the team yet? Oh, I wish I could be with you.”
“Mom,” Camille said. Her voice was small.
“Oh, honey,” Camille could hear her mother’s broken heart in her words, in her tone. “Oh no. Oh, no. You did everything you could, right? You vaulted like a champ. I can’t believe they wouldn’t take you! What does that mean—is Leigh Becker all right after all? We should have known she had the triple-twister. That was sort of dirty of her, don’t you think?”
Camille took a deep breath. “Mom, I left. I’m at the hospital.”
“What?” Her voice was shocked and worried, more worried than disappointed. Camille felt her heart warming. Maybe her mother did care more about her well-being than her gymnastics.
“No, no,” she said quickly. “I’m okay. I’m just . . . I came to see Leigh. I disqualified myself. I . . . I don’t think I ever really left that last hospital.”
“What?” her mom said.
“I came because I thought Leigh would need me. I thought I’d be the only person who could possibly understand her. And I think she might be the only one who can understand what happened to me, too.”
“What?” her mom said again.
She expected her mother to yell. To tell her to get her butt back to the Metroplex and beg forgiveness.
Camille couldn’t let Bobby run her life, so she had dumped him. It wasn’t easy, but it was possible. She couldn’t dump her own mother. But she couldn’t let her run her life, either.
Helen said, “I really wanted you to go to the Olympics.” She didn’t sound angry. She soun
ded depressed. That was worse.
“I know, Mom,” Camille said. “But I didn’t want to go anymore.”
“Why? Why couldn’t you do this one thing for me?”
Camille didn’t want to have to explain this when the smell was everywhere, when she was rushing to get to Leigh, when she was so close to tears. “I want to go to college, Mom,” she said. “I want to go now. Or soon. When I’m still sort of the same age as the other people on my team. I want to be a part of something: classes and gymnastics teams and all of that. I want a chance at the parts of school I missed before it’s too late.”
Helen didn’t say anything. Camille could hear her breathing heavily through the phone.
“Is that okay, Mom?”
“It’s your life, honey,” her mom said flatly.
“Is it?” Camille asked. “Is it my life? Are you going to forgive me for making this call?”
Her mom was speaking so slowly, Camille had the image of her from two years ago. Emaciated. Depressed. “I wanted you . . . I wanted to be . . .” She trailed off.
“I know,” Camille said. “But . . . I’m not.”
Camille didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t abandon her mother. But she couldn’t live for her, either.
“Will you come, Mom? Will you meet me at the hospital? It’s . . . it smells the same. I need you.”
“Okay,” Helen said.
“Really?” Camille said.
“If you need me, I’m there. All I want is for you to need me. . . . And without gymnastics . . . you won’t need me anymore.”
“I need you now, Mom,” Camille said.
“Then I’m on my way.”
She knew that it wouldn’t be easy. That she and her mother would need help turning their relationship into a productive one. That there would be bad days when her mother was bitter and Camille would miss Bobby. But she still breathed a sigh of relief. She’d never known she could ask her mother for anything. Yet her mom was on the way.
Camille held her breath when she went back through the doors. A nurse appeared in front of her. She was young, with violet scrubs and smooth brown hair pulled back with a part down the middle. She looked Camille up and down, and Camille knew. This was a fan. She could spot them from a mile away, the fans that were more than once-every-four-year fans, that recognized her in airports and supermarkets. The nurse walked right up to Camille and said, “I’ll take you to Leigh.”
GRACE
Grace’s fingertips were starting to go numb in Georgette’s and Monica’s hands. Her heart was getting pins and needles, too.
Where the hell is Camille?
Grace took a deep breath, pushing her hope through her arms and into the other gymnasts. A minute ago, she had looked at them all standing beside her, yearning for the same thing as her, with sore muscles like hers and lives on the line like her own. A minute ago she had felt like one of them, like she belonged here.
Grace was trying to stay that nice. She didn’t want to be the twisted, deranged girl anymore.
“Well, now we’ve lost Wilhelmina,” Katja said. “Guess it’s no surprise that one didn’t stick around.” She was speaking under her breath, pretending they couldn’t hear her. But she knew they could.
And Grace realized: she didn’t want to be like Katja anymore. Katja was twisted and deranged. Katja was like the worst parts of Grace.
But she still wanted the woman to say her name.
“Kristin, check the bathroom,” Katja said. “Samantha, check the floor.” The gymnast chain broke.
The wait was not good for Grace. Once she heard her own name, she could go back to wishing and hoping and dreaming for everyone else. But she didn’t know how much longer she could wait without her dark side surfacing again. Her brain twitched with insulting thoughts about all the other gymnasts. Her mouth wanted to put down Monica again. She hated when she wasn’t in control.
But for now she held that part of herself in check.
Her name would be next. She needed to hear it. She needed it to happen soon, please. To be relieved that she could keep working with her father, keep using her gymnastics to fill in the spot where her mother should be. She needed to hear her name to keep being herself. Grace was so tired. She wanted to hear her name, and then go directly to bed.
If Leigh were here, she’d maybe still be squeezing Grace’s hand.
If Leigh were here, her name would be next, alphabetically.
But Leigh wasn’t here. The guilt seized Grace’s heart like a cold, dead fist.
Kristin ran back into the room. “Camille’s not in the bathroom,” she said. She paused, then added sort of loudly, “But Wilhelmina is. That’s where she is. She didn’t leave.”
A few of the gymnasts smiled at Kristin’s guts. Grace didn’t have guts like that. Grace would never have the guts to stand up to Katja Minkovski. But she’d find the courage not to want to be her anymore.
Grace twisted her right fingers in her left hand. Was Camille gone? Could she have given up on herself?
Samantha ran breathless through the door. “She’s gone,” she said.
Elite gymnasts are stoic, so there were no gasps or jumps or startles. There was only a long row of jaws dropping.
Wilhelmina knew, Grace realized. That’s why she looked so dizzy up there. She knew that Camille was gone before Katja called her name.
“I ran into her mother walking out the door,” Samantha was saying. “She said Camille went to see Leigh. In the hospital.”
The icy fist squeezed harder on Grace’s heart and she was sure that it would burst again into a million moths that flew around her rib cage and reminded her that she wasn’t perfect. But this time it wouldn’t be because she failed to eat. It would be because she failed to care.
Camille had managed to love her best friend better than Grace did. Wilhelmina had helped Camille to care for Leigh. Grace was the worst.
“So . . . Camille is disqualified,” Katja was mumbling. She clucked her tongue and ran a pencil down her clipboard.
Grace would not be mean. She’d channel the best parts of Leigh to cover up the worst parts of herself.
Grace squeezed Monica’s hand again. She gripped Georgette hard enough to leave a black-and-blue mark. She was terrified that the committee would go back behind the closed door to figure out what to do now before announcing the rest of the team, before saying her name. She wanted her fellow gymnasts to form a wall and keep Katja here, force them to decide right here in this room.
“We will name the rest of the team, then the alternates. Then we will go back to decide who to promote.”
Grace breathed a whoosh through her teeth.
Here we go, she thought. Here we go. I’m next.
In a mere second she’d hear her name, she’d be officially on the team, the torture would be over. Once she heard her name, she could deal with everything else. Like whether she had a best friend anymore. And whether she had a coach anymore. And whether she even wanted either of them if they hurt her gymnastics. Grace had big questions to figure out about who she was and how much of her was a gymnast and how much was a feeling, thinking human. But she could figure all of that out in the next part of her life, the part that would start in a fraction of a moment when she was standing next to Katja as a part of the team. She’d figure out those big questions as an Olympian.
“And here are the Olympic team members.” That was all Katja said and Grace’s grip was already loosening. She was Cooper. She’d be called first. Only Becker was before her. “Wilhelmina Parker, Georgette Paulson, Samantha Soloman—
She didn’t hear any more names. A buzzing started inside her brain. It vibrated from one side of her skull to the other. How had she messed up that much?
I’m not on the team.
MONICA
Monica was clutching hands so tightly, she thought sh
e might break them.
It felt like a short chain of girls now, though. They were dropping like flies. Leigh was injured. Camille was disqualified. Wilhelmina was so surprised she won the meet that she was off getting sick in the bathroom somewhere. At least that’s what Monica suspected.
But Monica wouldn’t let that affect her. She wanted to be team alternate. She hungered for team alternate. She’d had to talk herself up to wanting it and now she was likely to be it. She would be happy.
“And Maria Vasquez,” Katja finished. “So that’s your team: Georgette, Maria, Samantha, Wilhelmina. And one of the alternates. We’ll promote someone to the spot Camille vacated.”
Monica felt the hand in hers go dead. She turned.
Grace.
Grace hadn’t made the team. She was staring, her skin ashen, her face so broken, Monica was afraid she’d cry.
But she couldn’t worry about Grace right now. Right now it was almost her moment.
“And the alternates are,” Katja said, “Monica Chase. Grace Cooper. Kristin Jackson.”
The chain of girls broke into the nine separate links, each one of them with open jaws and pounding hearts. The committee filed out the back door to discuss the last member of the team. For an instant, it was silent.
It was silent inside Monica, too. Nothing in her brain. Only Olympic rings in her vision. Only the sound of her own rushing blood in her ears.
Olympic team alternate.
She’d made it.
The locker room burst back into life, Olympic gymnasts clutching each other’s arms and dancing in circles, non-Olympic gymnasts hugging and rubbing tears into each other’s shoulders, Olympic team alternates standing hunched and tense awaiting that final name.
Monica was too shocked right now for the joy. She was too happy for the tension. She was too sympathetic for the sadness.
She backed up a few steps until the back of her knees found the wood of the locker room bench, and then she lowered herself onto it and sat. She was the frozen pebble in the middle of the swarming activity and emotion.