Taking the Fall (2 page)

Blythe carefully folded a tissue and blew her nose. “It was so perfect. Our life together was going to be so perfect. Just like the wedding. Wasn’t our wedding perfect?”

“It was beautiful.
You
were beautiful.”

“And then he had to be such a jerk!” On
jerk
, she waved the tissue aggressively. “Mitzi! He left me for a twenty-year-old named Mitzi!”

For a moment, I thought my chronically calm sister was actually going to throw the tissue. No such luck. She took a deep breath and flattened the tissue on the table, as though she were pressing down her fury.
 

Not even Jerky Jake could inspire her to throw a temper tantrum. The handsome, athletic husband. An Olympic judo coach with a lucrative business. At least he didn’t leave her for her sister. Like he did me. But Blythe didn’t know about that. And it wasn’t like we’d been married.

But I’d been in love with my long-time coach. I’d thought he was The One.

Blythe took a shaky sip of her coffee and dabbed at her tears. She smiled that incredible smile that made everyone want to love her. Even her puffy, red eyes smiled.
 

“Enough about me. Didn’t you have a doctor’s appointment this morning?”

I nodded. She looked at me expectantly. “He said I’m good to go,” I told her. “I can start training again.”

“Full force? That’s great news!”

Blythe might drive me a little bit—no, a lot—crazy, but she’d always rooted for me. Cheered me on as I tried to claw my way up in international ranking, with my busted-up, taped-up fingers. From the couch, clasping her own perfectly manicured hands anxiously and swearing at the spotty internet feed as she watched me fight in the latest judo Grand Prix, live, in Uzbekistan, in the middle of the night Arizona time.

How could I tell her the truth? What would Blythe do without me to fundraise for, to cheer for, to hope for? Especially now. She’d lost her dream, and I was giving up mine.

“What is it?”

“I’m done, Bly.”

“You’re … done? But, your knee. All that rehab.”

I’d worked hard at it, all these months, trying to get my knee back in shape—again. I’d dealt with my first catastrophic knee injury four years ago, a training accident that occurred right after I returned from my first Olympics empty-handed.

“But that’s the point, Bly. I went through surgery and gritted my teeth through months of therapy to get this knee working. For what? To step right back on the mat and ruin it all over again? Or to put my life on hold for another four years, only to have it—and everything else I’ve worked for—torn out from under me at the worst possible moment?”

I could still feel the pain of that literally happening to me as my knee ripped during my second Olympic Games. The physical pain was far from the worst of it.
 

“But you can do it. You can win an Olympic medal.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and her glossied-up lip quivered. “You’re not like me. You have the fire.”

The fire Blythe had never had, despite being far more talented than me. Our first two years in judo were nothing but my little sister whipping my butt every night in practice—when she bothered to even come to practice, and when our coach could wheedle her into getting on the mat. Blythe would shrug, tighten her belt, and put a hurting on all of us other kids who’d been working so hard to get better, like it was nothing, like she could do it in her sleep.

“I’ve lost it, Blythe.”

“The fire?” It was a whisper again. “You’ve lost the fire?”

I took a deep breath, and I said it out loud, for the first time ever. “I’ve lost the fire.” I searched my heart, expecting to feel it tugging those words back. But instead, I felt relief. I still loved judo, I still loved the idea of doing it all day long. I just didn’t have the drive for all the training, all the international travel, the constantly trying to prove myself to everyone, and well—to myself.
 

And to Jake
, that little, too-honest voice inside me said. I cringed. I was sick and tired of caring what Jake thought. Jake, who slept with me and then promptly dumped me for my sister. It had been two years since that incident. It was ridiculous that it still bothered me this much. What I needed was to get far away from Jake. What I needed was a new start. And what I needed was my sister, Blythe, to help me.

I reached for my sister’s hand. “It’s alright, Blythe. Because I’m all fired up about something else.”

Blythe perked right up. She blinked big, blue, red-rimmed eyes at me. “Who is it?”

I rolled my eyes. “Not a guy. A dream. A new dream for my judo.”

Blythe scrunched her nose at me.

“I want to have my own place.”

“You want to run your own dojo?” She was already shaking her head. “But Jake’s dojo is already the National Training Site for Arizona.”

“I don’t want to run a dojo in Arizona, and I don’t want to run a high level training center and fight for funding from Judo U.S. I want to go somewhere new, and start my dojo as a business. I want to teach kids. Kids who have no idea what judo even is. Kids who’ll love it once they do.”

“It’s my fault, isn’t it! You don’t want to train at Jake’s because it would be too weird now that we’re—”

“Divorced? You can say it, Blythe. But, no, that’s not it. If that was the problem, I could go to the National Training Site in California. Listen to what I’m saying. I want the joy back. I want to share the joy with kids.”

“Being at Jake’s kinda took the joy out of it, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it did, but … Jake or no Jake, wouldn’t it be great to do judo again, just for the fun of it? I want you to come with me. I need your help.”

“
My
help?”

I nodded. “I can’t start a new dojo from the ground up without someone else who knows what they’re doing. Besides, I want you with me.”

Though she’d never competed beyond the local level, Blythe had stuck with judo and earned her black belt. She knew her stuff, and she was a good teacher.

Blythe’s smile brightened. “We can’t let Jake take judo from us!”

Inwardly, I sighed. Did this
have
to be about Jake? Her divorce had just been finalized. Of course everything was about Jake right now. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that I had her support. “Exactly!” I said. “Come with me and make a fresh start.”

Her smile widened. “Okay, Brenna … ” She frowned. “Wait—where exactly are we going?”

I smiled and tried to hide my nervousness. This was the moment of truth. “Bonney Bay.”

“Bonney Bay? That sounds nice,” Blythe said hesitantly. Then her eyes widened with realization. “No! Isn’t that where Aunt Jane lived—in Washington State?”

On “Washington State,” her nose crinkled big-time. “Ye-es,” I said.

“Doesn’t it
rain
there?”

“It’s beautiful! It’s so green. Look!” I pulled out my phone and navigated to the “Historic Town of Bonney Bay” website. “It’s the cutest little town, right on the water. And guess what that rental property she left us is perfect for?” I scrolled to another page and zoomed in on the Little Swans Ballet Academy, a big, rectangular space with huge windows all along the front. No annoying and potentially dangerous pillars or posts to interrupt the space or to get in the way of a heated judo match. And there was a restroom in the back.

“It’s right on the main drag,” I added.

“But it’s already a ballet school. What are you going to do, kick them out?”

I shook my head. I’d been handling the rental property for Aunt Jane, the owner of the building, since she passed away the year before. “I just spoke to the tenant—Miss Ruth, the ballet lady—last night. She called me to ask if she could get out of her lease a month early. She wants to retire. She
is
pushing seventy. She just doesn’t have the energy for all those little girls anymore. I believe her exact words were, ‘They’re driving me to an early grave.’ Imagine it, Bly. Dozens of foofy pink tutus traded in for judo gis. We’ll transform them from dancers into warriors!”

“They’re
ballerinas
, Brenna.”

“They’re young and malleable! And they live in a small town, without many options for activities.” Blythe still looked skeptical. “I researched it. Trust me. They have scouting and church groups, and that’s about it, unless they want to drive over half an hour.”

“Ballerinas … ”

“Have great balance. And I hear they’re really tough.”

“The place is called
Little Swans
.”

“Names can be deceiving. But if I’m wrong, imagine the opportunity to change young lives.
Little Swans
will become
Bonney Bay Battlers
! Besides,” I pointed out, “they must have brothers.”

“Or tougher sisters.” She gave me an appreciative smile. Blythe would’ve loved a relaxed place like Little Swans when she was a kid. She was a gifted athlete, but she hated to be pushed. Hard physical work wasn’t her thing any more than the hard mental game of competition was.

Blythe tucked a strand of her expertly highlighted, dark blond hair behind her ear. “I don’t know … you want to move to the West Coast—not to California, but to Washington—to this little town where we don’t know anyone, and start a judo school. It’s a big move, a big gamble. It’s not just teaching judo, it’s running a business.”

“I know most new businesses go belly-up. I’ve been reading up on these things.” Blythe raised her eyebrows at that. Yes, I was guilty of quietly plotting my escape from World Class competitive judo for quite some time now. I quickly steered the subject back to her before she could psychoanalyze that news. “That’s another reason I need you. You’re the one with the head on her shoulders. You’re organized. Efficient. If anyone can learn how to run a small business, it’s you.”

“And of course I can do the books.”

“Right!” I ignored the slight trace of sarcasm in her tone. Blythe was a low-level accountant for a big company, stuck in a gray-blue cubicle all day long. “What good is sunny Sierra Vista, Arizona if you hardly ever get to enjoy it? Just look at this view!”

Blythe actually caught her breath as she took in the photo of a Bonney Bay sunset. “It
is
beautiful. But, financially … ”

“I own the property free and clear, thanks to Aunt Jane’s will. And,”—I grinned big, knowing my sister was really going to appreciate this one—“I’ve been saving all that rental income. That gives us a big leg up. Rent is a huge expense we won’t have to deal with, and I have a nice nest-egg now. Plus I have all those roll-out mats in the garage. They won’t fill the whole place, but they’ll be enough to get us started.”
 

Blythe picked up my phone and stared at the images of Bonney Bay. There was no sound, except for her finger tapping the screen.

I took a deep breath. “I’ve been wondering what I should do. I’ve been praying for an answer. I kept thinking of that building in Bonney Bay. And then I got that call from the ballet teacher. It
means
something, Blythe. This is what I’m supposed to do next. I know it.”

Blythe scrolled in silence for a minute. Then she set the phone down. “They have a salmon bake every summer. I’m in.”

I threw my arms around her and laughed. We both knew she wasn’t going for the salmon bake; she was doing it for me. But it would be good for her too.
 

3

Bonney Bay, Washington, One Month Later

“Do you think we’re going to be late?” Blythe said, for the sixth time. Not that I was counting. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that she was really just talking to herself. Blythe was a worrier, though she rarely expressed her concerns to anyone but her closest friends and family.

Blythe had sold her Camry and we’d hit the road in my old Ford pickup, with a rented fifteen-foot trailer in tow. Our road trip from the desert to the Pacific Ocean was finally coming to an end. We’d reached Western Washington this morning, but it had taken much longer than expected to get to Bonney Bay, thanks to several wrong turns, a ridiculous traffic jam on I-5, and the challenge of pulling the trailer filled with the judo mats and our essential belongings, especially around these curves.

“We’re almost there,” I said. “It should be right around the corner.”

Blythe pulled a brush from her purse and got to work on her hair. “I wish we had time to freshen up.”

I wasn’t much of a freshen-up-er, but this time I had to agree. Making our first appearance in a new town with hair that hadn’t been combed in at least twelve hours, a cramped-up knee that was killing me, wrinkled jeans, a sweaty T-shirt—and on a serious post-frappuccino crash—wasn’t exactly what I’d planned. But there was nowhere to pull over now and change, even if we weren’t worried about the time.

Miss Ruth, the ballet teacher’s going-away party and dance recital was scheduled to start in twenty minutes, and the elderly dance teacher had her heart set on us joining her as guests of honor.

We turned the corner, and a calm fell over us. A hush that seemed to be created by the maple trees arching above, forming a tunnel of gently rustling, dazzlingly green leaves. This was no orderly, planned planting of trees, but a lushness that nearly enveloped the houses nestled alongside the road, yet generously stretched out to give the street room to breathe. Like welcoming, open arms. Dappled sunlight shone through the leaves, hinting, whispering that there was something magical ahead.

“Oh, Brenna … ” Blythe said. So many times since we’d reached the west side of the mountains, we’d taken turns exclaiming, “It’s so green!” Not just the dark evergreens, but the startling brightness of the leafy trees and brush in the May sunshine, made Arizona seem like a colorless memory. But this … we had no words for this.

I smiled. The road snaked gently, then came to a sharper turn. There, nearly engulfed by a pink rhododendron in full bloom, stood a white wooden sign. It welcomed us, in gothic calligraphy, to historic Bonney Bay. We passed through the trees to a breathtaking ocean view. Below, jagged rocks and pebbly beaches sparkled with sunlight and salt water. A tiny house and simple, shed-like building interrupted the view. Another sign proclaimed it “The Pioneer House and Blacksmith Museum. Open every Saturday from May-September.”