The Go-for-Gold Gymnasts Read online

  I felt my redheaded flush creeping up my cheeks when she called me special, but I still wasn’t ready to give up. “So, doesn’t that mean you want me to try new things?”

  One corner of her mouth lifted, although I couldn’t see what I’d said that was amusing. “In a way, you’re right,” she said. “But remember that it’s not about what I want.”

  Yeah, yeah. We’d been over this before. “I know, it’s about what I want,” I said. That didn’t seem totally true—there were a lot of people in my life who all had different ideas, from Mo, who wanted me to be an Elite gymnast, to Layla, who wanted me to do a double twist, to Mr. Freeman, who wanted me to be a student. So if the question was what I wanted, then the answer was simple. I wanted to make each of those people happy and proud of me.

  At first, my birthday felt like any other day. I woke up with my muscles aching, my calves burning, as I pointed my toes underneath the bedspread. Then I smelled banana pancakes, a smell I would always associate with my birthday, since my mother always used to make them as a special birthday treat. Then, I’d been excited about the indulgence, but this morning my head felt woolly and I had a hard time mustering up any feelings stronger than irritation. I checked to see if I’d woken up on the wrong side of the bed, but I’d slept the way I generally did, spread almost diagonally, with my head closer to the wall and my feet hanging almost off the edge.

  It was still dark outside, and usually my mother would have been sitting at the table, blearily sorting through the mail while she sipped her third cup of coffee. But today she was standing at the stove, humming to herself while she flipped pancakes. I climbed up onto one of the barstools at the granite counter and watched her cook.

  “Are we going to have time?” I asked. We had to leave for the gym in twenty minutes, which didn’t seem like enough time to eat breakfast. Usually, my mom gave me something to eat in the car on the way.

  She turned around, sliding two pancakes onto a plate and passing it to me. “Happy birthday!” she said.

  “Mom,” I said. “I still have to get ready.”

  “You can take ten minutes to eat some pancakes,” she said. “I put extra bananas in them, just like when you were little. Do you remember that?”

  “Mom, I can’t have pancakes before workout,” I said. “They’re nothing but empty carbs. I’ll be starving by the time I get to school.”

  “I’ll make you a hard-boiled egg,” my mom said, crossing to the refrigerator. “Or would you like it scrambled?”

  It was like she wasn’t hearing me. “There’s no time,” I said again. “I’ll just have an energy bar.”

  “Jessie,” my mom said warningly, and I knew she was remembering a few months ago, when I’d started restricting what I ate to try to lose weight for gymnastics. I grabbed two energy bars, holding them up so she could see.

  “I’ll eat both of these in the car,” I said. “You can watch me. But right now, I have to go get dressed.”

  “Okay,” she said, spearing the two pancakes on my plate with a fork. She removed a plastic sandwich big from the drawer and slid the pancakes inside. “You can bring these, too; maybe you can have them for a snack later.”

  My mother had made me banana pancakes on every one of my birthdays for as long as I could remember, so I didn’t know what was bothering me now. But for some reason, it grated on me that she was pushing this breakfast. I snatched the plastic bag from her hand, even though I had no intention of eating the pancakes now or later.

  “I was thinking we could do something this weekend for your birthday,” my mother said. “What about Sunday, when you have off from gym? You could invite your friends over, swim in the pool.”

  “Sure,” I said, disappearing into my room to get dressed for gym. My mother followed me, talking through the door.

  “Your dad wants to take you to dinner tonight,” she said, “but I told him that was up to you. I could call in to work today, so I could drive you around and make you whatever you want for dinner. What about lemon pepper chicken? You love that.”

  I had thrown a pair of shorts over my leotard, and I had a bag packed with a change of clothes for school. I flung open the door to my room, and my mom stepped back.

  Dr. Fisher had told me I needed to think about what I wanted, and so now I was ready to take a stand. “I’m having dinner with Dad tonight,” I said. “You didn’t tell him to cancel, did you?”

  “No,” she said, blinking at me. “Of course not.”

  “Good,” I said, holding up my bag with my clothes and the little sandwich bag full of pancakes, so she wouldn’t hassle me about them again. “Are we ready to go now?”

  That night, I waited in the living room, where I could see out the front window to the driveway. My dad had said he would pick me up at seven, but it was seven thirty and he wasn’t there yet. Deep down, I knew he probably wasn’t coming, but I didn’t want to get all worked up and mad, in case he did show up. It would be awful if I ruined the dinner by being upset.

  My mom checked in on me periodically and said it wasn’t too late for her to make the lemon pepper chicken. I felt bad about being so snippy with her earlier—she had only been trying to give me what she thought I would want. I couldn’t fault her for that. At the same time, I didn’t want to hear her say, I told you so, which was pretty much what she was saying every time she offered to turn on the oven and get the chicken roasting.

  Then Rick came to tell me he’d heard them talking about Nadia Comaneci on SportsCenter. Usually, they only discussed baseball and football and basketball, so he knew I was always excited to hear about a gymnastics mention.

  “What did they say?” I asked, although my heart wasn’t in it.

  He scratched his chin, looking up at the ceiling as though trying to remember. “Well, let’s see,” he said. “They were talking about a home-run hit by Evan Longoria, and they called it a perfect ten. That has to do with Nadia Comaneci, right? Didn’t she get the first perfect ten?”

  It was a stretch, but I gave him a little smile anyway. It was nice to know he listened to all the stuff I rambled on about at dinner sometimes.

  Even Josh stopped on his way out the door to tell me happy birthday. “Maybe if I don’t get home too late, we can play Super Mario on the Wii,” he said. “How does that sound?”

  I nodded, though I knew I’d probably be asleep by the time he got home, unless my dad showed up. At that point, if we went to dinner right away, it would have lasted past my usual bedtime. Not that I would have minded, of course.

  “Do you want to open your birthday present?” Mom asked tentatively. “It might cheer you up.”

  Another way of saying, I told you so, but I decided to give her a break. “Sure,” I said.

  She left the room for a minute and returned with a small box, wrapped in bright pink paper and tied with a curling white ribbon. She handed it to me, taking a seat next to me on the couch.

  I slid my finger under the seam in the paper, taking care to fold it back in a way that left the paper intact. I used to save all of my wrapping paper; I had red-and-white candy-cane stripes from Christmas, yellow with daisies from an Easter gift my grandmother had given me, and even some gymnasticsthemed wrapping paper that my mom had specially ordered once online. I still remembered what had come in that package: my very own grips for the uneven bars, a sign that I was at a level high enough to need my own equipment—extra tools to help me swing higher and grip the bar better.

  It was a jewelry box. I opened the velvet lid to reveal a pair of diamond earrings glittering up at me. And then suddenly, all I could see was a watercolor of that sparkle, prisms of yellow and pink and blue, and I realized I was crying.

  “Do you like them?” my mom asked worriedly.

  “They’re beautiful,” I said. I leaned my head against her chest until she brought her hand up to stroke my hair. It was like I was eight years old, but it felt good. I wanted to thank my mom, tell her that I loved the gift, apologize to her for the way I’
d acted earlier that morning. But the lump in my throat was too huge, and so instead all I said was, “Lemon pepper chicken sounds nice. You know, if it’s not too late to make it.”

  I felt my mother smiling into my hair. “It’s not too late,” she said.

  Nine

  My mom had said I could have a pool party for my birthday, so I invited Noelle, Christina, and Britt over to my house on Sunday. But then I’d been at cheer practice—my compromise with Mo was that I only attended one cheer practice a week, instead of two, so I didn’t miss so many gymnastics sessions—and somehow I’d found myself inviting Layla, Stephenie, and Ashley, too. I was a little nervous about how everyone would interact, given the age differences and the fact that neither group really knew the other.

  Christina and Noelle were the first to arrive, and they started stripping down to their bathing suits as soon as their feet hit the linoleum, with the ease of those who had been to my house many times before.

  “Let’s go swimming, already,” Christina said. “She is driving me crazy.”

  “Who?” I glanced at Noelle, even though it seemed highly unlikely that it would be her. Noelle was like the patron saint of patience. Maybe it was from having to watch her little brothers or work at her parents’ store all the time, but she always managed to keep her cool.

  “My mother, of course,” Christina said. “Who do you think?”

  Christina constantly complained about her mother, even though Mrs. Flores seemed awesome to me. She was superdevoted to Christina’s gymnastics and was willing to do anything or pay any expert it took to help Christina succeed. Not that my own family wasn’t also supportive, but my mom had her job, and Rick mostly talked about gymnastics in baseball analogies, and Josh and Tiffany seemed mostly to think it was really weird that I spent so much time on this sport. Christina’s mom not only accepted Christina’s dream, she actively participated in it.

  Still, I’d known Christina for a long time, and so I knew that she was prone to being dramatic. Sometimes it was best just to smile and nod rather than rile her up.

  “Enough about my crazy family,” Christina said. “Boring! Let’s talk about Noelle’s instead. How’s your cute brother, Noelle? Still single?”

  I didn’t know if Christina actually thought Noelle’s older brother, Mihai, was cute, or if she just said it to fluster Noelle. Either way, it was one thing guaranteed to challenge Noelle’s patience.

  “Gross!” Noelle said. “Seriously, quit it. Why don’t you ever ask Jessie inappropriate questions about Josh?”

  “Hey,” I said, “don’t drag me into this. I do not know anything about my stepbrother’s love life, and I would like to keep it that way, thank you very much.”

  Christina flipped her long black hair over one shoulder. “Whatever,” she said. “I’m ready to swim. First one in the pool gets to be Mihai’s girlfriend!”

  Christina was off, and Noelle’s naturally competitive spirit made her start to race across the living room before Christina’s words actually sank in. She slowed down before she got to the open doors leading to the pool. “Cut it out!” she called as Christina dove into the crystal-clear water.

  Christina emerged a moment later, grinning, her hair splayed out like a mermaid’s. “You know I’m just teasing. Come on, the water’s great.” She called to me, still standing by the front door. “What are you waiting for, birthday girl? It’s not a party without you.”

  Just then, the doorbell rang; I thought I knew who it was. I glanced back and saw that Noelle was wading into the pool. I hoped that both she and Christina would stay occupied long enough for me to get Layla and her posse into the house without awkwardness.

  “Hi, guys,” I said, holding the door open for them to enter. “Welcome to my party.”

  I hoped that that didn’t sound as dumb to them as it did to me. I didn’t have little candy party favors or anything like that. Although maybe I should’ve gotten some of those. Everyone liked candy, after all.

  I held my breath as Layla surveyed the house with that bored expression she seemed to wear half the time. “Swank digs,” she said finally, and I exhaled.

  “Thanks,” I said. It wasn’t a penthouse on Central Park, but I lived in a pretty nice gated community, and we had a maid come once a week to make sure the house stayed clean.

  “The pool’s this way,” I said, gesturing toward the French doors leading out to the screened-in porch. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

  Britt arrived while I was fetching their bottles of water, and I almost dropped them when she appeared at my elbow. I’d been holding one in each hand and had a third tucked under my arm, until Britt took one from me and eased the load.

  “Tiffany let me in,” she said. “Is she ever not on the phone?”

  “I think she’s seeing a doctor about having it surgically attached to her ear,” I said. Britt grinned. I smiled back. Usually, Britt was the comedian, so it felt nice to be the one with the quip for once.

  “I can hold my breath for almost two full minutes now,” Britt was saying as we made our way to the porch. “I’ve been practicing in the bathtub. My grandmother says that if I need something to occupy me for two minutes, she can give me something, but I pointed out that this was going to make me an excellent scuba diver one day. Then she said that scuba divers have tanks, but—”

  She stopped when she saw Layla, Stephenie, and Ashley on the lounge chairs by the pool. Christina and Noelle were awkwardly treading water in the deep end, looking everywhere but at us.

  “Who are they?” Britt asked. I should’ve known she would cut right to the chase.

  Britt didn’t censor herself—she didn’t know how to. Christina could be fairly blunt herself, but for some reason, even she was looking a little intimidated at the sight of the new girls. A small part of me took a weird satisfaction from that. Christina was so used to being the pretty one, the forceful one, that it was kind of gratifying to see that even she could be unsettled by these older girls.

  “This is Layla,” I said, gesturing toward her as she lazily rubbed sunscreen on her arms. She was barely covered by her small orange bikini, and I had to look away. She was like a girl in one of those lotion advertisements: smooth, perfect skin, and not a blemish in sight.

  “And Stephenie and Ashley,” I added. They gave halfhearted waves and returned to the magazines they must’ve brought with them, since we didn’t usually keep any reading material out there.

  “And these are my teammates at Texas Twisters, Christina and Noelle and Britt,” I said, pointing to each of them in turn. Noelle said a small hello, but Christina’s head disappeared under the water; when she came back up for air, she still wasn’t looking at me.

  “They’re from cheerleading,” I explained to Britt.

  “I figured,” she said. She set one of the bottles of water next to Layla, and I set the other two down on the table by Stephenie and Ashley. Britt gave me an unreadable look before shimmying out of her shorts to reveal her turquoise one-piece underneath. I was so used to seeing her with her hair up in a ponytail that seeing it down around her face was disconcerting because I couldn’t see her expressive face to tell what she was thinking.

  “My mom’s making a parfait,” I said, and could’ve slapped myself. It felt like everything I said sounded childish.

  “A what?” Layla asked.

  “Parfait,” I repeated, a little more quietly. I didn’t know if she was incredulous at the choice of dessert, or if she just really didn’t know what it was. I assumed the former, since even McDonald’s had parfaits now.

  Britt, however, had no reservations about calling her out. “You layer fruit and yogurt,” she said, in the same tone you might use to say, A square has four sides, you idiot.

  Stephenie flipped her hair and leaned over to Ashley as if Britt hadn’t spoken. “What kind of self-tanner do you use? It’s not streaky at all.”

  Layla smiled, her white teeth gleaming in her tanned face, and jumped in to answer. “I u
sed to use that brand with the dancing starfish in the commercial, but then I switched.…” And they were off, talking about boring stuff I didn’t understand.

  “So why are they here?” Britt asked me in that stage whisper of hers. I didn’t say anything, but instead started to dip my toe in the shallow end of the pool, testing its temperature.

  “You can sit over with us, Jessie,” Layla said, indicating an empty chair. “There’s a lot to talk about, with winter Sectionals coming up.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t really want to leave my friends in the pool by themselves, but I liked the idea of putting off actually stripping down to my bathing suit. Even though I was in my leotard more hours of the day than not, I still felt vulnerable at the idea of standing there in front of Layla and the others wearing nothing but my yellow polka-dotted one-piece.

  Britt stared at me. I bit my lip, and she turned her back on me. “Cannonball!” she shouted, running and doing a tucked front flip into the deep end of the pool.

  I would just sit with Layla for a few minutes, I told myself—long enough to make her feel comfortable—and then I could join my teammates, who were splashing around in the pool. After all, Layla was my teammate now, too.

  The week after my disastrous party—Layla, Stephenie, and Ashley had left before dessert, and it had been awkward after that with the others—Christina and Noelle left for the training camp. Because they’d both made the top ten, they were now invited to a special camp with National team coach Piserchia, who would select the six girls to compete at the USA vs. the World event.

  In their absence, Britt and I mostly trained side by side in silence, which was weird, because Britt was never silent. If she wasn’t whispering in my ear about how pointless a particular stretch was, she was cracking me up with a rant asking why they couldn’t invent a leotard that didn’t give you an instant wedgie. I’d apologized about the last-minute additions to the party, and Britt had shrugged and accepted it.