Letters to Nowhere(34)

Blair sighed but nodded her thanks to Bentley for at least making her feel like she did the right thing.

“You may not have been able to wow them this weekend,” he said to Blair. “But the maturity you showed is worth points in the long run, and we all know this sport is more about the long–term goals than one weekend at National Team Camp.”

“It was Karen’s idea.” Blair flashed me a sad watery smile. “To tell you about my leg.”

Bentley gave me a nod of approval. “You girls do a fantastic job of supporting each other. I was told that by Nina and her team several times this weekend. And Blair, it could have been a real problem down the road had you pushed through that camp, ignored the injury, and out–performed the majority of the girls there. If they had picked you for the American Cup team only to find out days later that you were too injured to compete, that wouldn’t have sat well with your position long–term.”

I waited for Bentley to bring up my panic attack and realized quickly that it was not a topic for team meetings. More for the shrink that I’d see again tomorrow.

“Stevie,” Bentley said. “You aren’t going to be back to top form in only two months. We have to be realistic about your progress. You showed consistency in the easier versions of your routines. Every day you seem to get an old skill back again. Just give it time.”

“But we wanted to make you look good, Coach,” Ellen said. “It was your first camp with Nina Jones.”

She looked so young, curled up in a ball on the gymnastics floor, bright red circles on her cheeks, I half expected her to stuff her thumb in her mouth.

Bentley grabbed one of the sixteen–inch folded mats and scooted it closer, sitting down in front of us. “What makes you think I didn’t look good?”

Blair shrugged beside me. “I did nothing but bars and dance, Ellen puked in a garbage can in the gym and spent the weekend in bed or coughing on everyone. And Karen…well, we won’t go there…” I felt my face flush, but was glad she spoke up about the elephant in the room. “And Stevie basically did level ten skills all weekend, making a lot of people ask what she was doing there in the first place. Not that I’d ask that. Stevie’s the shit, in my eyes, always will be, of course.”

Stevie reached across Blair and gave her a high five, grinning at both of us. “Thanks, babe. I needed to hear that.”

“Your honesty is appreciated,” Coach Bentley said to Blair. “But you’re wrong. What we showed Nina and the committee is that I’ve been lucky enough to train four girls who not only support each other without losing the opportunity to compete against one another, you also have respect for your bodies. You aren’t desperate enough to lie about pain and injuries. As a group we out–performed the other kids on the physical abilities testing and all of you showed a twenty–percent improvement from the last camp.”

It was true that Bentley paid much more attention to strength and flexibility than Coach Cordes had. Over the past six months, we had all made tons of progress in those areas. Bentley had also hired a real dance teacher to specifically do ballet training with us twice a week. I’d be the first to admit that I had whined about it in the beginning, but of course Stacey was all for it, going on and on about how the Russians and Chinese have always trained ballet with their gymnasts from a very early age.

Bentley turned his eyes to me again. “And Karen? You were asked to change something, to try something new, and you did as you were told without question. I overheard Nina Jones telling another coach how compliant and willing to take direction you girls are. Apparently, some of the others need to work on this.”

Blair mumbled the name of a girl on the senior National Team whom we all referred to as the “Gym Diva.” Ellen and I both laughed under our breaths.

“I have some good news for you. The real purpose for this meeting,” Bentley said, standing again. “Nina suggested—since none of you got to show everything you could do this weekend—that I take the four of you to the big invitational in Chicago in April. It’s a little earlier than we had planned on competing, but because of the American Cup in Chicago the following weekend, the entire National Team Committee will be there, and hopefully we can show them four healthy elite gymnasts ready to perform near–perfect routines.”

Not a bad way to end our meeting, that was for sure. But I still left feeling a bit hollow about my problems over the weekend. Like Coach Bentley had intentionally danced around them without really hammering into me that I needed to figure my shit out before things got out of control.


Coach Bentley,




Do you really believe in me, or do you just feel sorry for me because my parents are dead?




—Karen



***


After physical therapy, Blair and I were in the locker room gathering our stuff when she begged me to come over and hang out. “Please, Karen. I’m going nuts, totally nuts! My mom is practically sobbing, saying I’m going to get so behind and I’ll never be ready in time for Nationals and she should have taken me for x–rays last week. I can’t deal with her right now.”

I kept my eyes on my locker and continued stuffing items into my gym bag. “I’m totally behind in calculus. I got a B minus on the last quiz. And now I’ve got three assignments to make up…” This was a complete lie. I’d never received a B on anything and I was way ahead in all my classes. I didn’t even have any work to do this week.