Gold Medal Summer (5 page)

A
few days pass, and by the Fourth of July, everything goes back to normal. Well, everything goes back to the
appearance
of normal, but I know better. Things are changing. I can't stop thinking about Tanner and wishing I'd run into him, and I can't stop thinking about Maureen's promise to help me figure out new routines either. Alex has lost some of her luster at the gym, but out in the world, she glows. The reverse used to be true. I don't know what to make of it.

“Alex, Alex!” Coach shouts at practice, heading toward us. We've just rotated from vault to bars, and I'm warming up on one set while Alex warms up on the other. She drops down from the high bar. “Your form is atrocious. Your back isn't straight, your legs are like jelly. What is going on with you?”

Alex just shrugs, like she doesn't care. “Bad day, I guess,” she says.

Coach stops at the edge of the floor and stares at her. “Champions can't afford bad days.”

She's at the chalk box, her hands sending up thin clouds of white into the air. “I guess I'm not a champion, then,” she mutters.

My jaw drops. Nobody talks back to Coach.

“What did you say?” he bellows.

She takes a deep breath. Plasters a smile on her face. “Nothing. Just that next time, I'll be more careful about my form.”

“You're right, you will,” Coach says, watching Alex for a long time before he turns to me. “Joey, you're up. Show me what you got.”

I give Alex a guilty look over the chalk box. “Yes, Coach,” I say.

“I don't care. Really,” she whispers.

But I don't believe her.

When I'm chalked up and ready to go, I approach the low bar, eye level to it. The chatter of my teammates falls away and so do all the worries about Alex. I take one step across the mat, and another, then I launch into a kip, my hands on the bar, my body gliding smoothly underneath until I shoot up over it, hips along the curve, straight into a back hip circle. The momentum shoots me into a handstand, followed by another kip, but this time, it leads to a release move, and the high bar is just within reach. My hands grab it, sending up two puffs of chalk on impact, my palm screaming in protest even under the protection of the leather grips I wear. When my feet circle all the way to the top, my toes pointing straight at the ceiling, I hover there a moment before swinging into a series of giants, one after the other, my body extended and whipping around the high bar. Each one gets faster, more exhilarating, even while the friction on my hands becomes more and more intense, the velocity making me fly until, at just the right moment, I release the bar into a double back dismount. My feet come down straight and solid, and once I secure my balance, I throw my arms behind my ears, my back a slight, graceful arch.

The smile on my face is huge. I can't wipe it away. Nailing a routine like that is one of the things I love most about gymnastics.

“What's gotten into you, Joey?” Coach asks, but his voice isn't unkind — he sounds impressed. “That was the best bar routine I've seen from you yet.”

I drop my hands to my sides and turn to him, still smiling. I don't know what's gotten into me either, but whatever it is — the additional conditioning, the hope of gold at Regionals — I'll take it. “Thanks, Coach,” I say.

Angelo shakes his head. “It's like you and Alex switched bodies.”

My smile falls away, and I can't look at Alex, that guilty feeling from before planting itself in my middle once again. Coach can be so mean, even when he's trying to say something nice. Then I hear a door slam, the one by the changing area. When I turn toward the sound, Alex is gone.

The clock says 5:55. At least practice is almost over. I wonder whether she'll wait for me like she's supposed to, or take off down to the beach for the Fourth of July celebration without me. To be honest, I can't decide which one I'd prefer. We've never dealt with this before — me exceeding Alex at practice. Alex has always been the star.

Before I can think too much more about this, Maureen waves me over.

“How are you doing, Joey?” she asks, sounding concerned.

“I'm okay, Coach.”

She searches my face. “Are you really?”

“Of course,” I say, but I can tell she doesn't believe me. She knows Alex and I are best friends and that I'm worried about her.

“You need to focus on you, Joey. You're only responsible for you when you're in this gym.”

If only that were true. But her comment reminds me of something that's been on my mind almost constantly these last few days. “Maureen, I've been thinking about what you said.” My voice is a whisper. I don't want Coach Angelo to hear. “About making some changes to my floor and beam routines.”

Maureen's eyebrows arch. She looks interested. “And?”

I take a deep breath. “And … if you're willing to help, I'm in.”

A smile appears on her face, as if she has a secret. “Can you meet me here on Friday night at nine
P.M
.?”

Now it's my turn to smile. We
are
keeping secrets. I'm surprised how satisfying it feels to defy Coach Angelo, even a little. “Is it okay if Julia brings me?”

“Yes, I think that would be fine,” she says. “So you'll make the arrangements?”

I nod. Maureen turns, but before she can go, I reach out and stop her.

“Thank you,” I say. “For being willing to do this.”

She gives me a serious look. “Ultimately, Joey, this isn't about me. It's all up to you,” she says, and walks away, calling out to the girls on the low beams, “Chin up, Avery! Poise, Tanya!” as she goes.

And intimidating as this is, I know it's the truth.

 

Alex
does
wait for me. But our walk down to the ocean is silent. Awkward. Tense. I want to fix things, but I don't know how. I've always done my best to fight the feelings of jealousy I have sometimes about Alex when it comes to gymnastics, so I can't help wondering now if Alex is jealous of me for once, and how I performed today at practice.

“Hey, girls,” my mother says when we find her on the beach. She's sitting with Mrs. Tamsen, Alex's mom, on a series of blankets spread across the sand. Before they noticed us, they were deep in conversation, and Mrs. Tamsen has a guilty look on her face as she turns our way. I bet they were talking about Alex and me.

“Hi, Mom,” I say and point to her cheek. “You have a spot of blue on the side of your face.”

“Oh well. I'll get it later.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes at my ultrastereotypical-artist mother. On top of the paint splotch, she's dressed like a hippie, with a long flowing tank dress covered in flowers. “Hi, Mrs. Tamsen,” I say to Alex's mom.

She smiles. “Nice to see you, Joey.”

Alex doesn't say a word to her mother or mine, just drops her gym bag onto one of the towels and kicks off her flip-flops. “I'm going to the bathroom to change,” she says to no one in particular and heads toward the pavilion.

Mom raises her eyebrows. “Rough practice?”

“Not for me,” I say, leaving my flip-flops next to Alex's and stripping off my tank top and shorts. Unlike Alex, I changed into my swimsuit before I left the gym.

The beach is already packed with people celebrating the Fourth, getting ready for tonight's fireworks and whatever else kids who actually have social lives do. Gymnasts, well, we hang out with our families and other gymnasts, because those are the only people we have time for in our lives. So Alex and I sitting with our mothers at the beach is not unusual. It's just what we've always done.

My eyes search the beach to see if Trish's family is here yet. Instead, I spy Julia and Madison playing volleyball a ways off with a bunch of guys and girls who must be in college too. College students always have this look about them, you know? You can just tell they're no longer in high school from their confidence. A few blankets over from us, I pick out Mrs. Walker, Sarah Walker's mother, which means Jennifer Adams's family must be somewhere nearby as well.

I really don't feel like engaging in gym rivalry drama tonight. It's bad enough that Alex is acting so weirdly.

Speaking of Alex, she's making her way back from the pavilion.

And she's wearing a bikini.

Red, with little white polka dots all over it.

My old, faded black tank suit suddenly feels ugly and immature. Like it's more appropriate for someone far younger than a girl who will turn fourteen this fall. I look down my flat board of a body and notice the frayed edges of the nylon material. It may as well be another practice leotard that I wear at the gym, it's so unflattering, especially now that Alex looks so sparkly in her new two-piece.

“So what do you think?” she asks, tugging at the thin red strap that's tied in a bow around the back of her neck. Her long hair flows in soft curls around her shoulders.

“Depends how you mean,” I say.

She sighs. “Joey, just say it.”

“Technically, you look amazing. I mean, most girls would kill for your body.”

“But…?”

“But
what's
gotten into you lately?” I notice our mothers have stopped talking in order to hear what Alex and I are saying. I yank her farther down the beach and lower my voice. “Since when do you prance around the beach wearing a bikini?”

Alex's face colors.

Ugh. I am being a judgmental jerk, I sound like her mother,
and
I've embarrassed her. Awesome. “I'm sorry,” I say. “I'm not being supportive, am I?”

She shakes her head and turns away.

“You're right. And if I showed up dressed like that, I would want you to tell me I look amazing and leave it there.”

Alex's eyes land on me again and she is glaring. “Dressed like
what
?”

Oops. “I can't say anything right at the moment, can I?”

She shrugs, searching the sand, shoving some of it around with her left big toe. “I should've told you I bought it and that I planned to wear it tonight. I don't know why I've been holding things back lately. I just, I don't know — some things feel so new and different I don't even know how to talk about them. So I don't say anything at all, I guess.”

“Alex, I'm sorry. I know you have a lot on your mind” —
like potentially quitting the sport that involves everything you've ever dreamed of your entire life
— “and I want to be a good best friend, not a pain. Sometimes I don't know how to talk about this stuff either.”

She looks at me again. She's coming around, I can tell.

“Forgive me?”

She smiles a bit sheepishly. “There's nothing to forgive, so yeah, of course.”

“The bathing suit is adorable, by the way. Though I couldn't get away with wearing it.”

“Why not?” she asks, frowning.

“Because my parents would never let me hear the end of it. They'd take it as a sign that I'm” — and I put on my best imitation Mom face, conjuring my version of her tone of voice — “
finally developing into a young woman
, which is code for Joey is ready to retire from gymnastics and have a normal life. At least that's how my dad would put it.”

“All that from a bikini?”

“I know. Seems crazy, right? But that's the way the Jordan parentals roll.”

Alex laughs. Things are getting back to normal. Hoo-ray. I decide to go for broke.

“So,” I say. “How's the ankle feeling?”

Alex eyes me. “Better. Much. Why?”

“Well, shall we try the back handsprings today or the hand walking?”

A smile grows on Alex's face as she pretends to ponder the difficulty of this question. This makes me happy. Some things
do
stay the same. Some people play volleyball at the beach, some people just sit around in the sun, some people go running. And gymnasts, well, we do gymnastics.

“I think back handsprings, since it's the Fourth,” she decides.

I give her a mock quizzical look. “Why are handsprings better for the Fourth?”

“Oh, I don't know. They're flashier, I think.”

“A double back would be flashier.”

“Yes, but not as fun to do in the sand, and you can't get as far down the beach with double backs. You do one and then it's over.”

“True.” Then I realize there's a potential wrench in our fun as I take in Alex's choice of swimsuit. “Um, I hope you tied that top on tight,” I say.

“Oh. Right.” She walks back toward the beach blankets where our mothers are trying not to stare at us, but doing a terrible job at hiding their interest. She scoops up a T-shirt, pulls it over her head, and tucks the ends underneath the edge of her bikini bottom so it doesn't ride up, the same way we sometimes do with our leotards when we are at practice. This cracks me up.

“What do you think?” she asks, giving a turn.

“I think it works.”

“Let's go, then,” I say, and we take off jogging toward the water where the tide has gone out, leaving behind the firm sand that's perfect for doing gymnastics.

 

“Do you think you can make it past that lifeguard chair this time?” Alex points down the beach toward an old wooden perch with the number 3 painted on a sign attached to the side. A girl in a bright orange swimsuit sits at the top, her eyes on the people swimming in the surf.

We've been flipping for almost an hour, long enough for the sun to have begun its descent toward the horizon. It's amazing how doing gymnastics at the beach can feel so different from doing it at practice, how the fun of it can make us forget everything that happens at the gym.

“I don't know. Can you make it?” I ask her.

“Sure. Why not? Let's see who gets there first.”

I laugh. “You're
really
going to challenge me with back handsprings?”