Letters to Nowhere(12)

From the corner of my eye, I saw both Blair and Ellen grind their teeth, hating that I had moved on before them. Chances were that they’d both nail their routines this time around.

Evening workouts meant maneuvering around the many team girls at lower levels and all the recreational classes. I had to share the pit bar with a small group of level 6 girls and their coach, Jeff.

The more I nailed my competition routines, the more new skills I was eager to try. This was usually Blair’s department. She got bored with the repetition of doing routines on every event several times in a row, but whenever we worked new skills, she’d do something amazing and totally out of left field. I was the consistent one—clean routines, average difficulty, nothing flashy or original but not a whole lot to deduct either. Lately, I’d been feeling a bit caged. Bentley’s coaching style was different than Coach Cordes’s. Bentley wanted ten clean routines—no major mistakes—every day, between the morning and evening workout. Cordes rarely had us doing full routines until a couple weeks before a competition.

As I swung around the pit bar, I couldn’t stifle the desire to try something new, despite the group of level 6 girls and their coach watching. And to my credit, it wasn’t exactly a new skill. It was a release move I did in a piked position. But if I did it in a layout position (totally straight body—like a pencil), the difficulty went up about two notches. Which was the gymnastics equivalent of two touchdowns, assuming I could catch the bar.

Right before I let go, I played the videos I’d been watching of the layout Jaeger in my head, visualizing which direction my momentum would be headed and when to reach for the bar again. I figured I’d end up facedown in the pit on my first try, but instead, one of my hands caught the bar and the other brushed it before sliding off. I hung with one arm, swinging until I could drop and land feet first into the pit.

“Awesome!” Coach Jeff said. “I didn’t even know you were working on those. Where have I been the past few weeks?”

I smiled and gave him a high five as I climbed out. I glanced over at the uneven bars and sighed with relief when I saw that Bentley had his back to me, watching Stevie’s routine with a careful eye.

Coach Jeff turned to address his group. “See, girls? That’s what you’ll be doing if you get your swings higher and work hard on all your basics.”

One of the little girls rolled her eyes behind Jeff’s back and I laughed under my breath. That would have totally been Blair a few years ago.

Stevie was the next in my group to join me at the pit bar and by that time, the level 6 girls had moved on to another event. We both chalked up in silence and I avoided eye contact with her before making my third attempt at the new release, hoping she wouldn’t even watch me. This time I got both hands on before sliding off. When I climbed out, Stevie was standing over me, her mouth hanging open.

“What the hell was that?”

“It was an accident,” I muttered. “At least it kind of was the first time and then I just thought maybe—”

“It looks great. Really great. But competing it…” She shook her head in disbelief and before I could stop her, she shouted across the gym. “Hey, Coach! Karen wants to show you something!”

Ellen landed her bar dismount with a thud that echoed through the entire gym, because Stevie Davis, the three–time world competitor, had just spoken loud enough for everyone to hear, and people always hung on every word Stevie said.

“What are you doing?” I hissed at her, keeping my head down.

She grinned, wider than I’d ever seen her smile. “I didn’t say what exactly you were going to show him. That’s up to you.”

Anger and adrenaline both flamed inside me. I could see Stacey, baby Olivia latched to her breast, stop her beam coaching with the level 9s and 10s to glance over in this direction. Most of the other coaches in the gym had stopped to watch, therefore the gymnasts were also at a halt.

Finally, Bentley turned around and walked in our direction. “Karen?”

I glanced wearily at Stevie, who was still grinning. Realistically, I wasn’t screwed. I had several options. I could do something he already knew I could do and pretend to be excited about it. Or not. Hadn’t I said that the dead parent excuse was the best get–out–of–jail–free card? Sure, normally I would have been worried about getting in trouble for taking risks without permission, but seriously, what would he do to me?

I felt a determined anger surge through me as I swung into the new release. This time, I felt the perfection of my timing and knew before I even saw the bar again that I’d catch it perfectly. When I did, everyone in the gym clapped.

“So awesome,” Stevie whispered after I’d climbed out of the pit.

Bentley just stood there with his arms crossed, face totally unreadable. Stacey handed baby Olivia over to one of her team girls and came striding our way, looking either really impressed or totally pissed off. Both expressions were very similar on Stacey’s face.

I busied myself in the chalk bowl, waiting for one of them to say something.

“It would be an easy upgrade,” Stacey said right away. “She wouldn’t have to redesign her bar routine at all.”

“She caught it on, like, the third try,” Stevie chimed in. “That has to mean something.”

I was surprised Stevie got involved in this discussion, but I wasn’t about to stop her. However, I knew better than to open my own mouth. Stevie and Stacey went back and forth for several minutes weighing the risks and rewards of upping the difficulty during the season. Neither of them mentioning me heading off to UCLA in June. Neither of them mentioning the end of my elite career. Maybe I wasn’t the only one secretly planning to stick around longer?