Letters to Nowhere(52)

“Let’s go, Karen!” Bentley shouted at me from the ground.

My pause at the top of the rope to stare at Jordan in his warm–up pants and coach’s polo had lasted at least five seconds. I scurried down as fast as possible, but Bentley was shaking his head when I touched down.

“You’re three seconds over,” Bentley said. “Two more.”

Because of extra physical therapy sessions and two more dance classes Bentley had recently added to our schedule, and a big load of tests I had to take online, I’d hardly seen Jordan over the past few days, and I couldn’t help being distracted for those short five seconds.

I suppressed a groan and headed back up the rope. By the time I’d finished my two punishment climbs, Ellen and Stevie had moved on to standing back tucks and Blair had gone to the training room for ice, since she was still resting her leg.

That left only Bentley to count my back tucks, and he was relentless with conditioning, not letting us get away with even an ounce of bad form or less than a hundred–and–twenty–percent effort. And I was pretty beat tonight.

“If you want to compete that tucked full on beam, you should be doing tucked fulls for your conditioning,” he said. “I don’t know why you haven’t been.”

I stood on the line, my arms still shaking a little from the extra rope climbs, and did my first tucked full.

“Your chest has to be higher,” he said. “That one doesn’t count.”

Okay, Nina Jones…

Stacey walked up beside Bentley. “And tuck your hips under.”

I did another backflip, landing square on the line, but Bentley shook his head again. Then he got up and grabbed a long foam, stuck it out in front of him, lining it up so it was just below the level of my shoulder. “I want you to land with your shoulders higher than this.”

I took a deep breath and went again, not making the cut for a third time. At this rate I’d be here until midnight before I finished twenty of these. After ten attempts, I got one right, and I thought he’d let me go on to the next thing, but he just nodded and said, “Nineteen more like that.”

Eventually, Bentley elected one of the injured level 77 girls to sit on a mat, icing her leg while holding up the foam for me. Bentley threatened her with forty pull–ups if she cheated for me. It took an hour for me to finish and my leotard was soaked with sweat.

And this wasn’t the first time he’d had done something like this to me. We had had several similar situations last summer, and I remembered crying to my mom in frustration, saying that the new coach hated me. Now I knew Bentley didn’t hate me, but I wondered if he was trying to make me feel better about my old safe routines and maybe make me think about just letting these new skills go.

I watched, fuming with anger as Ellen got all the praise and attention from Stacey during beam workout while I finished up the rest of my conditioning. I didn’t even get a chance to do any full beam routines before it was time to move on to bars. By then, I was pretty pissed off at my head coach.

“You can’t miss those handstands, Karen,” Bentley said after my third full bar routine, even though I had caught my layout Jaeger in two of the three routines.

I turned my back to him and headed over to get more chalk.

“I mean it. Hit the handstands.”

“Okay, I got it!” I grabbed the file and started attacking my grips with it. I didn’t watch anyone else’s routines, but a few minutes later, Blair came over looking just as ticked as me.

“I’ve got four releases. I catch them all and it doesn’t count because I missed one handstand,” Blair sneered.

Forty–five minutes later, Stevie and Ellen had moved on to floor with Stacey. Blair and I were still doing bar routines. My arms ached and my lower back was killing me. I bent down to touch my toes, trying to stretch out the tensed–up muscles. Blair was in the middle of her routine, though she still wasn’t doing dismounts yet with her leg, so I kicked up into a handstand on the mat, squeezing every muscle in my body, trying to memorize the feel of it. I just wanted to get it right. I wasn’t about to tell Bentley I was too sore and tired to finish.

“That’s a wrap, Blair.” Bentley gave her a little smile when she collapsed onto the mat in dramatic Blair fashion. “Karen, you’re up.”

I shook my arms out and squinted at the bars, narrowing my vision and trying to focus on the task at hand. One more routine…just one more. Handstands. Handstands.

On the third handstand, I felt the mistake. I had come up short and it was right before my over–shoot to handstand on the low bar. I managed to overcompensate and land perfectly in a handstand on the lower bar. Then I nailed my layout Jaeger, the best one yet by far, and stuck my double front half out dismount.

“You came up about fifteen degrees short on the first high bar handstand,” Bentley said. “Try again.”

I felt like collapsing into the floor, which probably would have been wiser than opening my mouth. “Come on, that was my best routine ever, seriously.”

“I agree.” Bentley kept his voice calm as usual despite my uncharacteristic back talk. “But it was also the only routine tonight where the missed handstand deductions didn’t outweigh the extra points you’re getting for the new release. Every other routine you’ve missed at least three handstands, racking up seven tenths in deductions.”