Letters to Nowhere(19)

Jackie waved a hand to stop me. “You have to translate gymnastics terms. I’m sadly deficient in this area.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “An Arabian is like a half–turn in the air to a front flip. But you do it standing with no lead–up skill. It takes tons of leg power.”

She was quiet for an agonizing forty–five seconds before saying, “I think a lot of things could contribute to your recent success, but let’s hold off on that question for a while, okay? See if things change or continue as they are now.”

“Sure.” I sank back in the armchair, slightly disappointed that she didn’t have a magic grown–up answer for me. We’d talked about my online classes, but we hadn’t talked about college. I sat there for several seconds considering asking her if she thought I should head for NCAA fame in June or keep training here and push for elite goals. Goals my mom had been so afraid I’d work for and not achieve. She was afraid of my heart getting broken and me having nothing else to work for.

Jackie returned her attention to my list again. “Do you really think Coach Bentley would depend on you to keep an eye on his son?”

“Uh, I guess not?”

“But that’s the only truly personal answer you put down on this list.” She looked up at me again. “Everything else relates to gymnastics and Coach Bentley making this decision with his career in mind, rather than something personal.”

“Like what?” I asked. But I did remember one thing. The ring on Bentley’s finger. His wife was gone.

“It’s not my place to tell you specifics.” Jackie sighed. “It seems you and Jordan have more in common than you realize, and I’m sure if you really think about it, you can find the answers that you need.” She gave me a wry smile. “Teenagers are savvy like that.”

I nodded, understanding her directions but not wanting to speak them aloud. We moved on to new topics for the rest of the hour. But when I got back to Bentley’s and sat in the safety of the kitchen with no one else home, my laptop already open, I typed in, “Gymnast Henry Bentley wife died” to Google. The top result, just the headline, was enough.

FORMER OLYMPIAN LOSES WIFE, DAUGHTER, AND PARENTS IN LONDON BOMBING

Nausea swept over me, and it felt like a twenty–pound brick had just settled into the pit of my stomach.

“Oh my God,” I mumbled to myself.

Bentley never talked about anything personal. But how could I have been so self–involved that Jordan’s loss or Bentley’s never occurred to me, not even the other night when Jordan made me say it out loud. My parents are dead. His mom is dead.

I didn’t even know Bentley had a daughter. Jordan’s sister.

How did they even stand up? How did they keep going? I wanted to ask a million questions and at the same time, most of my mind was so occupied with my own loss, I couldn’t even begin to feel someone else’s.


January 31

Jordan and Coach Bentley,




I’m so, so sorry for what happened to your family. I hope that I can find the courage to tell you in person, even if it doesn’t really help.




—Karen



***

I couldn’t make direct eye contact with Coach Bentley all during evening practice. Every time I looked in his direction, the newly acquired information returned to my thoughts and shook me from the inside out. How could Coach Bentley be hiding so much under all those unreadable expressions he wore?

“How are you feeling?” Blair asked me, while in line for vault.

“Fine, I guess.”

She laughed under her breath. “Who knew periods could carry superpowers. If it’s true, then I want mine right now. What can I do to make this happen?”

I shook my head at her, not able to help the smile now forming on my face. “Move in with two guys and ask yourself what could be the most humiliating situation imaginable—then you’ll get your wish.”

“Sorry,” Blair said. “That must have been awful. I think I’d still be in my room hiding…God…So did Bentley have to drive you to the store or something? I can’t even imagine.”

“Something like that.” And yeah, I had left out Jordan’s part in the last few days, because Blair was slightly more interested in boys than I was and she’d exhaust me, asking for details. Plus, it seemed wrong to tell her about Jordan without him knowing. Maybe he didn’t want people to know about him going tampon shopping. It wasn’t only my secret to tell.

“Karen,” Bentley said from the opposite end of the vault runway. “You’re up.”

I kept my eyes on the apparatus in front of me and not on Bentley. The vault, which resembled a giant tongue from a distance, was insanely dangerous at my level. I had to focus on what I was doing or I’d break my neck. Today, we’d moved on from landing on mats stacked in the pit to real competition landing mats. I quickly visualized the Yurchenko double full vault, closing my eyes briefly, and then took off at a fast run. I had learned a Yurchenko vault when I was eight years old, but since then, it had evolved to include a layout backflip and not just one twist, but now two.

It was scary because you had to do a round–off, which is like a cartwheel, but landing with both feet together on the end of the springboard. Then you dove backward onto the vault table (aka—giant tongue). The benefit of this style of vault—going on backward—was that it allowed smaller gymnasts like me to get a bigger push off the apparatus, which meant I could get much higher, which led to more flips and twists and essentially more difficulty points from the judges.