Gold Medal Summer (9 page)

When
I leave the gym after practice, I am beaming (so to speak), so caught up in the way things went from terrible to terrific that I don't notice the thick late July heat or that my hair is falling out of my ponytail or that tonight of all nights, Tanner is finally waiting for me outside. No, I truly don't notice this, at least not at first.

Then I do.

He's dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, as though he might be going down to the beach for the evening. Or, I don't know, on a date with me? My hand flies to my ponytail and I pull the elastic out, letting my hair down around my shoulders. Just like Serious Gymnast Joey showed up with Sarah, Boy-Crazy Joey is suddenly back.

“Hey, Joey,” he says, coming over.

“Hi, Tanner,” I say.

His hands are in his pockets and he looks nervous. “So I was thinking that today we could go to the diner.”

I put my hand on my hip. My eyes narrow. “Why today?” I ask. I'm not going to make it that easy for him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why not last Saturday or Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday? I had practice on all those days too.”

He nods, his eyes on the blacktop. “I know.”

“See, the thing is,” I go on, my blood still pumping with confidence from showing up Sarah Walker, “when you said
next
time, I thought you really meant next time. As in,
next
practice. Then you didn't show up, so I figured you didn't really want to go to the diner with me after all. Or even see me again. Which hurt my heart after Friday night.”

He opens his mouth like he might protest. Then he closes it again. Keeps staring at the ground. “I'm sorry, Joey.”

“Yeah?”

“I just thought —” he starts, then stops.

“You just thought what? That Friday wasn't that big a deal? That you could show up whenever you feel like it, since I'm always here and you know how to find me?”

“No, that's not it.”

I look at him hard. “Then what? Tell me.”

“Well, I figured that since you've been very clear you don't really have time to hang out with me, if I showed up again the very next day, you'd be mad.”

“You thought I'd be
mad
?” In all my obsessing over Friday, this possibility hadn't occurred to me.

“And I didn't want to look stupid,” Tanner goes on.

“Stupid?”

“You know, too eager or something.”

No, I don't know. Tell me more.

“So I tried to space things out a bit,” he says. “Put a few days between last time we hung out and my showing up here.”

He tried to space things out. Which means his absence was not from a lack of consideration or uninterest, it was from his caring
too
much about what
I
would think. Which makes his
not
showing up for the last few days kind of sweet. Wrong, but with sweet intentions at least.

His mouth twists. “Does this mean you don't want to go to the diner?”

“No,” I say, a smile forming on my face. “I think it means I
do
want to go. On one condition,” I add.

“What's that?”

“That this time, if we decide to hang out again, we also decide when and where before we say good-bye.”

Tanner's grimace turns into a grin. “Deal.”

“Good,” I say, as we make our way out of the parking lot together. “Because gymnasts don't know how to play games, not socially at least. We never have the time to practice that stuff, because we're so busy practicing everything else.”

“I think gymnasts may not be alone in that,” Tanner says as we turn down the street. “But that's just a guess.”

 

When Tanner and I walk in the diner, the first person I see is not the hostess, but Alex. With the boy I presume is Tommy. And she sees me too.

We stare at each other in shock.

Here we are, together again, yet not.
With boys.
Looking as though we're both on dates. And we are, kind of, aren't we?

She wants to smile, I can tell. After all the things I said to her about how she was risking her career as a gymnast and her place on our team by hanging out with Tommy, here I am doing the exact same thing. It's written all over her face that she's happy to suddenly have a partner in crime, and that this partner is me, of all people.

It's not what you think, Alex! It's just ice cream shakes!
I want to yell, even though, yes, it totally is what she thinks, while another part of me wants to yell,
Alex, oh my God I totally kissed Tanner on Friday! With tongue!
But I don't shout any of this, of course.

Tommy doesn't seem to notice what's going on with his girlfriend, or whatever Alex is, since he is busy sinking his teeth into a Gansett Burger with all of the toppings. I can spot one from a mile away because I'm not allowed to eat them.
Heart attacks on a plate
, my mother calls them.

“I might want a burger with my shake,” I tell Tanner. If I've gone all rebel without a cause, and I'm at the diner with a boy on a maybe date, then I may as well take advantage of the damage already done, right?

“I'm pretty sure they allow that here,” he says.

And I laugh.

Alex gets up and heads toward us. She's smiling, but when she gets close, I can see guilt in her eyes. “Hey, Joey.”

“Hey, stranger,” I say back.

Tanner nods. “Hi, Alex.”

“Do you guys want to join us?” Alex asks.

I try to raise one eyebrow skeptically, but I think they both go up. At least I tried. “By
us
, do you mean you and Tommy?”

Alex rolls her eyes — not a big roll, but enough that I can tell. “Yes, Joey.”

Tanner looks from Alex to me. “Cool, then I'll just go have a seat while you two catch up,” he says in one big rush, practically jogging away to join Tommy, who is still going to town on that burger.

“Where have you been?” I hiss.

Alex responds with a smirk, “Says the girl on the date.”

“I'm not the only one on a date.” But I'm not ready to admit being in a datelike situation, so I backtrack. “And I'm not even on a date. You're just misreading this.”

“Uh-huh,” she says disbelievingly.

“It's just ice cream shakes,” I try.

“Uh-huh.”

“Why haven't you at least texted to tell me what's going on?”

“Communication goes both ways, Joey.”

Guilt knocks into me. Alex is right. I haven't exactly been forthcoming either. “Are you quitting?” I ask, and not simply because I want to change the subject, but because I really want to know the answer.

Alex sighs. “Can we talk about this later?” she asks. “This is really hard for me, Joey. It's the hardest decision I've ever faced.” She looks like she's going to cry.

“Alex,” I say, then stop. Even with all the tension between us, my heart breaks hearing those words from her. It breaks because I know it's the truth. If it were
me
in Alex's shoes, I don't know that I could stand up underneath all that weight.

So instead of pushing Alex further, I lean in and give her a long hug.

And just like that, I know that things between Alex and me will be okay no matter what happens. Boys and quitting are no match for best friends.

“Ice cream shakes, right?” she says after a while.

“Yup. And burgers too.”

Alex looks surprised.

“Maybe,” I add. “I'm considering ordering one.”

“Good thing your mother isn't around to hear that.”

“I know,” I say and follow her to the table, where Tanner and Tommy are waiting.

 

I'm squished into a booth next to Tanner, across from Alex and Tommy, who is on his second Gansett Burger, because he sure can put them away. We're sipping ice cream shakes and acting like this is all perfectly normal — Alex and me hanging out with two boys in public at the diner. Like we might do this all the time or something. The conversation is going okay, and I even like Tommy too. I don't know that I like him enough to warrant Alex quitting her lifelong dream of being a National Champion for him, but he seems like a nice guy, in a jockish, older boy,
I'm Tommy and I drive a truck
sort of way. And he clearly likes Alex, which is important.

But then.

Julia walks in with her friend Madison and a bunch of other people. Girls, guys. A crowd of them.

“Hey, look, there's Joey,” says a voice I recognize as Madison's.

“Where?” my sister says, sounding distracted. Then,
“Oh.”

This is not a good-sounding
Oh
either.

Which makes me respond,
Uh-oh
, inside, even though I'm not doing anything wrong, right? I mean, I'm just having shakes with friends —
isn't that what everyone agrees this is?!

“Hey, Julia,” Alex says.

“Hi, Alex,” Julia says, her voice friendly but not
completely
friendly. She's standing by our booth, watching me.

Gah and double gah.

“Can I talk to you, Joey?” she asks. She is smiling, but her eyes say something else. Something particularly sisterly and judgmental.

“Um, sure,” I say, getting up to follow her outside. The air feels warm and sticky after the cool temperature of the diner.

Julia grips my arm. “What are you doing, Joey?”

“What does it look like?” I hiss. “I'm having shakes with my friends at a diner. It's not a big deal, so
calm down
.”

I keep telling myself this to make this situation seem okay, but it sounds hollow when I repeat it to my sister.

“Is
he
the reason you were so out of it last Friday at practice?”

“No,”
I protest, but the very emphasis in my voice gives the real truth away.

“You shouldn't be here,” she says. “Not like this.”

“Like what?” I ask, even though I know what she means.

Julia's expression softens. “Listen, Joey, I know it's difficult — believe me, if anybody knows, it's me. You think it's not a big deal to be here, hanging out after practice one day —
just once
, you told yourself, right? That it's not a big deal to be on a date.”

I open my mouth to protest again, but she silences me with her hand.

“And I know that you're
telling
yourself that it isn't a date, but this is how it starts.”

“How
what
starts?”

“How what Alex is going through starts,” she finishes.

“How do you know what Alex is going through?”

Julia tilts her head. “Believe me, it's obvious.”

“It is?”

She nods. “Well, I've seen Alex hanging around that guy a bunch lately. And I know what's she's going through because I went through it once too. There was a time when all I wanted to do was quit. Because of a boy.”

My jaw drops.
“What?”

Julia purses her lips but doesn't say anything.

It's impossible. Aside from her injury —
despite
it — my sister sailed straight through her gymnastics years without a hitch and right on up to the top of the podium at Nationals. Hers was a gymnastics fairy tale. That's how everybody remembers it. “You thought about
quitting
? You almost had a
boyfriend
?”

“Yes.”

“Who?” I can't help asking.

“Who it was doesn't matter,” she says. “What matters is that it made me realize that if I wanted my dream to become reality, then the sacrifices were necessary. And that I could wait a few years for boyfriends. You know, that boys would still be there after I won gold.”

There are tears in my sister's eyes. I blink back a few of my own. Julia never talks to me this way, especially not about her career as a gymnast. Her life always seems so breezy and perfect. “And
was
he?”

Confusion crosses her face.

“Was the boy still there after you won Nationals?”

“It doesn't make a difference,” she says, but from her tone I don't believe her. Julia goes on before I can press any further. “You need to make a choice, Joey. Do you want to be the girl who wins gold? Or the girl who has a nice run for a while and then gets asked to homecoming?”

I shift from one foot to the other, then back again. “Can't I be both?”

Julia shakes her head. “Sadly, no. Really, you can't. Trust me. There's a reason why gymnasts aren't supposed to go out with boys. The drama is too distracting. At your level of competition, distractions can injure you permanently, or worse. And they certainly won't help you get gold.”

I don't say anything. Not yet.

“So what is it going to be, Joey? At some point, some point
soon
, you are going to have to decide.”

I open my mouth, close it, open it again.

Then I just shrug and turn away, leaving my sister standing there, waiting for an answer.

 

When I go back inside, I slide into the booth next to Tanner and take a long pull on the straw in my shake, pretending like nothing happened in my little talk with Julia, as if she's not staring at me from across the diner where she's rejoined her friends.

And everything is fine for a while. Really. For a few minutes longer, I can pretend that I'm the kind of girl who goes on non-dates. But then, my shake starts to taste melty and thin instead of yummy and thick, and the burger I ordered arrives and looks overwhelming and gross instead of juicy and tasty. Most of all, what Julia said begins to sink in.

I think about how much I messed up at practice this week, that tumble off the beam on Tuesday, how disappointed I was every single night when Tanner didn't show up. I think about how good it felt to do those new moves in front of Sarah Walker on beam today, not just wiping the smug look off her face, but
nailing it
once and for all, showing her and Coach Angelo and myself that I can be a top-level gymnast if I want to.