Tumbling (31 page)

Don't fall.

But Monica could feel the tension, the depression, the worry filtering out of her body through her pointed toes, her arced arms, her soft smile, her pliés and split leaps. Her muscles flexed and sprung, balanced and flew.

She backed into the corner, her heels lined up in front of the floor's boundary, ready to flip herself around the mat for her first tumbling run.

Don't fall.

She said it one last time. Monica was relaxed now. She was relieved that she didn't have as far as Leigh to fall. She wasn't four feet up on the beam. And more importantly, her name wasn't at the top of the scoreboard.

Monica didn't fall.

GRACE

Grace landed her first tumbling run on a twisted left foot. Her right foot landed behind her left ankle so her body was contorted, and she stumbled trying to straighten her stance. She felt the fuzzy floor on the soles of her feet as she took step after step backward for what felt like minutes, hours, days to regain her balance. By the time she found it, she was so far out of bounds, she had to jog back to the floor and put her hands over her head.

Her face burned with embarrassment.

You shouldn't even be here
, she told herself.
You should fall on your head.

Grace moved into her dance positions, stumbling on a simple full turn. She could almost feel her father turn his back, turn away from the Olympic disaster that was his daughter and his athlete. His athlete who wasn't even his anymore. She tried not to care.

But she did.

You're a terrible person
, she told her herself as she backed her ankles into the southwestern corner of the floor.

You're a terrible person, but you could be winning the Olympic trials again.

Shut up!

She saw the red flag go up. She'd gone out of bounds again, this time on a simple step. She was imploding.

It wasn't on purpose. She was trying to focus. Even if it made her a terrible person, she was trying to hold on to her spot, to get ahead of Wilhelmina again.

Wilhelmina was right about Grace, but Grace wanted to prove her wrong anyway. Grace wanted to prove that she could beat the girl who was trying to disprove Katja, even without eating. She wanted to prove that she could be the best, she could go to the Olympics, even without eating.

The rest of them needed food like Wilhelmina said, but Grace was different. Grace was so much gymnast, she was practically magical.

It wouldn't be fair to go to the Olympics while Leigh sat rotting on a couch and watched her on TV. Not when it was maybe her fault that Leigh wasn't focused on beam, that Leigh was obsessed with her stupid secret instead of thinking about her gymnastics, that Leigh was . . . that Leigh was . . . where she was right now.

The truth was Grace didn't care about what was fair and what wasn't. Grace was awful, and even in her awfulness she couldn't force herself to think more about her friend in the hospital than her own gymnastics career.

Because without her gymnastics, who would she be?
A girl who loved her brother but had no idea how to communicate with him? A girl who was totally alone in a house with no mom? A girl who never had anything to say to her father when he wasn't her coach? Without gymnastics, Grace would disappear.

She tripped out of a full turn.

It wouldn't matter. No one thought the USA could win gold in Rome without both Grace and Leigh; there was no way the Olympic selection committee would make a team without either one of them on it. And without Leigh, Grace would certainly get a chance to compete in the all-around.

Grace thought this even as she lurched through another landing of a tumbling run. She managed not to go out of bounds, but she was totally off at this point. The music was two full bars ahead of her. She had to improvise some dance moves, move parallel to the northern boundary of the floor and launch right into her final tumbling run.

Her brain flipped back and forth between Leigh's broken body and Wilhelmina's stern voice.

But it wasn't because she hadn't eaten enough that she was imploding. That couldn't be it. She wasn't focused, that was all.

It wasn't fair for her to focus, not fair to Leigh who didn't have anything to focus on anymore.

It didn't matter what was fair. It didn't matter if everyone fell on their heads. It didn't matter if she starved or if everyone starved. Grace was scaring herself but if
she was honest, it might not matter if everyone died.

She wanted to be an Olympian.

Even if it meant being without Leigh. Even if that was all her fault.

WILHELMINA

As Wilhelmina watched Grace cave into herself on the floor, she found it impossible not to think about the huge hole, the missing link, the gap that Leigh had left. The spot that would need to be filled.

Everyone there could see it clearly. Not just in the empty folding chair where Leigh would normally be sitting. Not just in the silences that would usually be filled with Leigh yelling, “Come on, Grace!” You could see the hole in Grace's gymnastics. You could see it in Maria's tentative landings, in Kristin's lip-biting, in Monica's sad brown eyes. You could see it all over.

Wilhelmina had managed a close-to-perfect beam routine, managed a 9.587 execution score, even right after Leigh changed the way they were all thinking. And still, she wouldn't be going anywhere. Right now, Wilhelmina was the best gymnast in the room. She knew it. She was better than this shell of Grace, and Leigh was gone. She was the best. And she was about to perform for the last time.

Even if Leigh's injury meant Wilhelmina won the meet. Even if that happened, Wilhelmina wouldn't go.
She didn't want to go to the Olympics and be the bane of Katja's existence if Katja could tell the other countries' coaches and espnW and Kerry and even Wilhelmina herself that she was only there because of Leigh's fall.

Wilhelmina wanted to go honestly. She deserved to go honestly. She wouldn't go as some second-choice alternative who had to talk about how great Leigh was to every reporter the whole time.

Her whole life Wilhelmina had settled for less than she deserved. She wouldn't do that for the Olympics.

Stop!
she told herself.

She bent down to stretch her hamstrings, to stop looking at Grace, to stop thinking about Leigh, to tell herself,
Nine-point-five, nine-point-five, nine-point-five.

One more nine-point-five and I get to kiss Davion. To be a real girl. To spend the rest of my summer making out in the back row of the movies and exploring beaches and theme parks with my hot, goofy boyfriend.

Grace spun on the floor in front of them, stumbling over her toes. Wilhelmina was scared for her. She was in a more dangerous situation than Leigh. But Wilhelmina couldn't do anything else about it, not until later.

Kerry came up beside Wilhelmina and she straightened up.

“Nine-point-five, huh,” Kerry said. “So far so good.” She was smiling, but sad.

“That's the plan,” Wilhelmina said.

She hated that she'd have to hurt Kerry when she chose to slip out the back gym door.

Kerry nodded and stared into the distance. Grace's floor music plunked to its conclusion and there was a spattering of polite applause throughout the arena. Grace looked close to tears as she exited the podium.

“There's another thing,” Kerry said. “Now.”

Wilhelmina's heart fell. In about thirty seconds her name would be announced and she'd have to chalk up and focus. She was looking forward to it. To forgetting the way Leigh's head slammed into the beam. To being able to choose her last routine when her competitor hadn't had that choice.

So she shook her head. She didn't need Kerry to suddenly turn cutthroat like Ted. She didn't need the added pressure of trying to climb on top of an injured gymnast the way others had tried to climb on her tired body for the past three years.

It was impossible not to think about the new hole in the Olympic roster. But Wilhelmina and Kerry didn't have to talk about it.

That's not what Kerry said.

“This is a sad stadium, now, huh? Everyone is thinking about the poor girl. Everyone is thinking about the end of dreams, about the price of your kind of a life, a childhood.”

Wilhelmina stopped shaking her head and studied the dark blue eyes of her wise coach.

“Maybe if you put on a performance like bars today for you, maybe you will help everyone smile for a little, huh? You can show everyone the joy of your kind of life.
Maybe you can give Leigh credit for the way she spent hers so far?”

And that was a good enough goal for Wilhelmina's last routine.

She took a step toward the podium thinking Kerry might be her hero in life, not only in gymnastics.

Get ready for some real gymnastics
, she prepared the crowd.
Get ready for joy. Leigh, this is for you.

CAMILLE

I have to get out of here.
Camille turned her phone over in her palm like a precious stone. She looked over her shoulder to see that yes, Bobby was in the stands.

Camille went to the side of the floor to cheer on Wilhelmina. She would watch her friend clinch the meet, then she'd leave.

Camille wanted to go over the vault. She didn't want to go to the Olympics. But she was already here. She wanted to spend the ten seconds it would take to give herself the thrill of landing that Amanar.

But she couldn't now. She had to get out of the room. The depression was stifling. It put weights on Grace's ankles so she stumbled all over the floor. It curved all their coaches' lips into permanent frowns. It slowed down the floor music; it divided the clapping; it hung in a taut tension over the shoulders of the fans and the coaches and the families and the gymnasts.

Camille had to get to Leigh. Camille was responsible. And Camille was the only person who knew what she was going through, who could comfort her. Also, Camille
could
get there. She was probably the only person in the entire room who had a spectator who would drive her away from here, who would support her choice to leave.

But she didn't want to ask him for something. She didn't want to owe him anything anymore.

Camille studied the face of her phone. She opened up a text window and typed letters and deleted them. She did that again. She did it again. She had about three letters when something made her turn and face the meet.

It was a sudden sigh of relief from the collective population of the gym.

It was a loosening of the shoulders, a straightening of the frowns, a hoot here, a yelp there. It was one person, then more, then more enjoying themselves again.

Camille felt her arms part and her hands come together, smacking her phone in the middle of her own clapping. She was joining in the pulse of the audience as Wilhelmina went through her first series of upbeat dance moves in the middle of the blue floor. Wilhelmina opened her arms and arced them so that in one swift move she was able to point to every spectator and coach and gymnast, every individual in the room, and their clapping got louder.

Camille dropped her phone, turned off her brain, and watched her friend. She gasped as Wilhelmina
leaped and flipped off the floor. Five feet in the air, then ten, then twelve. She whooped with the audience when Wilhelmina landed her double Arabian. Camille stuck out her hip and waved her arms in unison with Wilhelmina during her second dance series. She skipped and leaped on the sidelines as her roommate did the moves on the floor. She squealed and jumped when Wilhelmina took her final pose and stood smiling at the audience, her chest pumping to suck in air, her eyes shining with something between laughter and tears.

A few minutes later Wilhelmina sat pulling on her warm-ups next to where Camille stood.

“I'm sorry for cutting you off earlier,” Wilhelmina said.

But Camille didn't care anymore. “How did you do that?” she asked.

Wilhelmina shrugged.

“You changed everything,” Camille whispered, sitting down next to her.

Wilhelmina flashed Camille a smile. “I don't know,” she said. “I was just . . . enjoying it.”

“I have to get out of here,” Camille whispered. She felt like Wilhelmina could help her, like Wilhelmina could do anything. “I have to get to Leigh.”

Wilhelmina's eyebrows knitted together. “The Olympics—”

“I don't want to go,” Camille cut her off. “I'm tired. I'm done.” Her own jaw dropped along with her friend's. She couldn't believe she'd said it out loud. Finally. Her shoulders felt light, like she had never put on all of that
weight that she'd worked so hard to keep. “I never wanted this kind of comeback.” Camille studied her friend. “Maybe this makes me selfish or crazy or something, but . . .” She trailed off.

Wilhelmina nodded, like this made sense. “A day ago . . .” she said. “A few hours ago, even, I would have hated you for saying that. But . . . I get it.”

Camille nodded. They'd be calling her name any minute now. Once they did, she'd have to get to the vault and go over it. She'd be sealing her fate if she didn't run away soon. She flipped open her phone.

“I'm not going, either,” Wilhelmina said.

Camille froze. “What?” she asked. She didn't have time to hear the answer. But she needed to hear it anyway.

“I . . . I don't know,” Wilhelmina said. “I haven't seen the scoreboard. I'm probably not going to win and if I don't, Katja won't choose me. I don't want to be an alternate. And if I do win because Leigh fell . . . well, Katja hates me. She'll tell the whole world I'm only there because Leigh fell. She'll make me miserable. It's just . . . It's so unfair.”

Camille shook her head furiously. Alternate? What was Mina thinking? She was
winning
the meet.
She would have beaten Leigh anyway
, Camille thought,
if you added up Leigh's scores from yesterday
.