I don’t. “Is there more?”
Marcos spins his hands in the air, looking for the words. “When Cassie’s around, you’re watching her the whole time. It seems that everything you say has to be approved by her, and God forbid it isn’t. Like that night you told off that douche from Galway Beach and she pulled you away.”
“Thank you.”
He doesn’t stop there, because surely I haven’t heard enough. “I feel like you’re so worried about what Cassie will say or do that you won’t let yourself go for what you want.”
What I want is to not break myself at the Golden Leaf Classic, for Coach Englehardt to e-mail me back, to feel confident that I’ve made the right decision in returning to the gym. None of that has to do with Cass.
“I’ve known Cassie for a million years. I am more than fine with myself, thank you.”
“You see?” Marcos calls as I storm down the walk. “You’re being the real you.”
I flip up my middle finger.
As the car rolls away, I hear him laughing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THIS HAS TO be the best Saturday practice I’ve ever had. The limbs-are-still-dreaming feeling disappears in warm-ups. I do a series of back handsprings down the floor. Instead of feeling shocks through my wrists and ankles, my body rebounds into the next and the next and the next.
The sun trickles through the windows as I raise my arms for my back handspring-layout step-out series. “Make ten flight series on the line,” Matt had said before he turned to the girls on beam.
In Level 10, you’re required to perform two skills in a row in which, at some point, both your hands and feet are off the beam in flight. Or for me, “in fright.”
Out of the corner of my eye, Erica lifts off the beam for her back tuck. Her feet separate as she tries to land. Bam. She straddles the beam and gets bucked to the ground. “Oww,” she moans, limbs in a heap.
Oof. I cringe in empathy. We’ve all been there. The shock of that pain never feels any better, no matter what level you are. Straddling the beam, faceplanting, taking a step back and discovering that there’s no more beam behind you–all of the joys of operating on four inches. “What kind of sport is this?” Cassie had demanded after a meet when I’d missed my layout step-out and slid down the side of the beam, earning a huge burn from the friction of skin against suede.
Matt doesn’t give Erica so much as a glance. “Tighten up those connections, Nicola,” he says instead. “No weight on the heels.” I wonder if Nicola feels the twinly pain, if she wants to get down on the floor and see if her sister is okay. Slowly Erica stands up, shakes out her legs, and climbs back on the beam. What else can she do?
Emery practices series after series. Front aerial, back handspring layout step-out, stuck. Layout step-out, tiny wobble. No matter the outcome, she puts her hands up and kicks forward without waiting. She is so focused, so deliberate, that I can’t imagine how any school could overlook her.
“How’s it going over there, Gregory?” Matt calls.
Oops.
I imagine the competition beam. There will be judges to one side, notebooks open and pens ready. Matt will stand on the other side, arms folded. He’ll mutter under his breath as I move through each skill, saying things like, “Come on, come on, hang in there.” It’s the end of the meet, the last rotation, and if I nail this now…
I don’t know what the imaginary payoff will be. Even so, I reach my hands as far up as I can, until my stomach can’t suck in any tighter. Then I swing my arms down and back past my head. My toes lift off the floor, my legs snap over into a split as my hands hit the line, feet back on the floor, punch up, flip once, land on the line.
The little girls on bars clap.
It’s just the floor.
But still.
DURING OUR WATER break, Emery looks down at her phone and her cheeks bulge out like a squirrel’s. She waves her free hand frantically.
“Are you choking?” I exclaim. “Can anyone here do the Heimlich?”
Emery manages to catch her breath, but her cheeks are still unnaturally red, and, frankly, I’m worried that she’s still choking or having some kind of allergic reaction to whatever she saw on her phone. “Savannah, did you e-mail Barry?” she demands.
Okay, that’s definitely not what I expected this ruckus to be about. “No, why?”
“This is a national emergency!” she shouts.
“Emery Johnson, is that a cell phone I see?” Matt calls.
“The press release on Owego’s new assistant coach,” Emery says. I shake my head. “You’re kidding me–you don’t know? Get thee to the Internet, my friend. ASAP.”
“Oh, my God, it’s Angela Cardena?” Nicola squeals then claps her hand over her mouth.
Am I hearing them properly? I did wake up much earlier than usual, after all. I might have returned to a dream state between balance beam and now.
Emery brandishes her phone in my face. “‘The State University of New York at Owego is proud to welcome–’”
“‘Olympic uneven bars champion Angela Cardena,’” I read. “Emery. Emery!”
“Savannah!” she yells.
“What the heck is she doing in Owego?” This can’t be real. Internet hoax, highly authentic-appearing?
“The quote from her says that her boyfriend is there for grad school.”
“What the heck is he doing there?”
“Who cares? If you don’t choose there, I’m driving you up there and forcing you into a dorm room. That is a promise.”
“Emery,” Matt calls threateningly. “You have three seconds to put away the phone, or I will happily put it away for you.”
She drops it like a hot potato, although not before Vanessa notices. “You girls are the ones setting an example,” she calls from where the younger ones do pliés against the wall. Ballet with Vanessa is its own special kind of hell. “As a reward, you’ll start strength early today.”