Tumbling (24 page)

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.”

Camille hadn't paid attention to the rest of the names. She hadn't realized that she'd been placed opposite Grace and Leigh and Georgette and the others who would likely be named her teammates later this evening.

Her heart turned heavy. Leigh's vault wouldn't help her after all. There was nothing she could do anymore.

Camille felt her face betray her. She smiled back. She nodded. She said, “Thank you.” It was a lie. So was the smile. Why did she always have to be so obedient?

Camille joined the other gymnasts who gathered in the gray cave under the bleachers, waiting to be announced for a second time. Some of them hugged each other the way they did yesterday. Some of them stood still with their hands clasped, praying or meditating. Some of them stretched and jumped up and down. Some of them chatted in whispers.

Camille leaned against the wall. Her heart beat wildly. Her eyes spun in her head.

What could she do? Katja said she'd be an Olympian and so that was it. One vault would seal her fate.

Unless I don't go over it.

If only vault was first. If only she could march right out of the gate and immediately launch herself into this dream she didn't want anymore. If only she didn't have to get through two hours of self-torture before obediently committing herself to this dismal Olympic future.

Camille didn't want to be a weapon or a key. She wanted to be a person. A gymnast, yes. But a person even more.

When Camille watched those NCAA meets on TV, she rarely looked at the actual competitors. Instead, she watched the sidelines. She watched as a group of young women acted like a sponge, enveloping the competitor who had just dismounted from beam or floor. She watched the line of athletes on the sideline of the floor
who waved their arms and shimmied their shoulders and kicked their legs, dancing in unison with the one member of their team who was competing. Camille wanted a team to dance with.

So maybe she didn't want to go over the vault.

But she had just decided she would!

It was so exhausting.

Camille sunk into a sitting position on the floor. How could they still be here? How could this meet have not even started yet?

Camille saw Wilhelmina chatting with Samantha on the side of the crowd and she turned her head away. The last thing she needed was to see the fire in Wilhelmina's eyes right now.

When two blue sneakers appeared next to her eyes, she was sure it was Wilhelmina coming over to yell at her some more.

She looked up hesitantly, but it wasn't her roommate.

It was Leigh. America's Golden Child. Grace's number two. Despite the fact that everyone was predicting that all three of them would be on the Olympic team, Camille had barely ever spoken to Grace or Leigh. They were only a few years younger than her, but in gym time, they were a different generation.

Right now, Leigh looked down on her with wide eyes and a concerned smile. “Are you—are you okay?” she mumbled.

Camille shook her head no. Though she would deny
it to her mother or Bobby, or even Wilhelmina, she didn't owe this gymnast, this one who had actually beaten her vault score, anything.

Leigh sat cross-legged next to Camille. “Is this okay?” she asked. “I just thought, you know, you helped me out earlier today, so maybe I could help you out, if you want, I mean.”

Camille looked at her. She was wearing barely any makeup, and her dark blonde hair was in a simple ponytail and almost as frizzy as Camille's. She was pretty, but in some ways she was regular-girl pretty, not gymnast pretty. She had the scores of a young gymnast with the body of an old one.

“You go to high school, right?” Camille asked. She'd read this whole article in
Sports Illustrated
about how Leigh was single-handedly improving the face of gymnastics by being a balanced leader, by going to high school, and, most importantly, by actually eating. The article ignored the fact that there had been a mix of muscle among the stick-skinny gymnasts for a decade now.

The article made Camille feel invisible. Camille had enjoyed it.

Leigh nodded.

“Do you think that makes your life more normal?”

Leigh rolled her eyes. She leaned back against the concrete wall next to Camille. “I don't know. I mean . . . I have some normal friends. You know, who aren't gym ones? So, I guess. But . . .”

“But what?” Camille asked.

“But I still always wonder, you know? What it would be like to
be
one of them. To be normal. To only work out to stay in shape, to get to hang out after school, or try a new sport each season? To worry about your grades and stuff? To be able to tell . . . We all wonder these things, I guess.”

Camille nodded slowly.
I know that answer
, she thought.
I'm probably the only one here who knows that answer.
Maybe that's why it was so hard this time.

“So . . . what's wrong?” Leigh asked again.

Camille shuddered, but she said it. “It's hard to make a comeback,” she said.

Leigh raised her eyebrows. “But you're killing it! You're the face of comebacks. I mean, do you see all of these posters? People love you. And your vault—I mean, I know what happened yesterday but my vault isn't, like, consistent or whatever. I think I'm gonna do an Amanar today anyway. Oh . . . I probably shouldn't have told you that. Um . . . So yeah, your vault is, like, the best. Or whatever. Or . . . yeah.”

Camille was almost shaking. “No,” she said. “I don't mean it's hard to get your tricks back. That's not easy, but that's the part everyone knows about. It's so much harder than that.” Now that the words were coming out of her mouth, Camille couldn't stop them. “To do it. Just to do it. It's almost impossible and it's almost impossible not to. To give up that normal life once you've had it. To go back to gymnastics but change your personality and body and style and to be entirely unsure who you are . . .”
Leigh was nodding. Leigh shouldn't be nodding. Leigh shouldn't have to hear this. Still, Camille couldn't stop. “To have felt your body break . . . to know that gymnastics almost killed you once . . . and to still . . .”

“Line up!” The meet coordinator's voice interrupted their moment. “Get in order in your heats and line up!”

Leigh was staring at Camille wide-eyed, though. Like she was shocked.

“Don't tell anyone, okay? Please?” Camille asked her. “It'll just—”

Leigh interrupted. “Don't worry. I have . . . secrets . . . too.”

Camille nodded. “It's okay. I won't tell anyone about your vault plans today.”

And she wouldn't. Her face was already on fire. Her heart was a stone in her chest. She shouldn't have told Leigh all of this. Camille had scarred her, scarred another gymnast before she'd even managed to apologize to Wilhelmina.

Leigh stood and reached down to pull Camille to her feet. Camille turned to line up with the other heat when she felt Leigh's arms thrown over her body in a tight, desperate hug.

“I had no idea,” Leigh whispered, “what you were going through.”

“Look,” Camille said, wiggling out of the hug. “Don't think about it, okay? Don't worry about it. It's not that bad.”

Leigh let her go abruptly and they lined up.

Stupid, stupid.
Camille told herself. All she'd done since she got here was rain negativity on the happy gymnasts.

Camille marched behind Annie, out of the dark cave and into the applause. The other gymnasts would suck it in, savor it. It made Camille shrink inside herself.

One fan in the crowd started the “Comeback Cammie!” cheer.

Camille turned to smile at him the way she was supposed to. And her eyes went wide. He was in the first row. Green shirt that highlighted piercing eyes. Curly brown hair. Freckled face. Wide smile.

Bobby was here?

WILHELMINA

Wilhelmina realized she was free. Without Katja and the Olympics on her mind, she could focus on herself. She'd do this meet differently.