Letters to Nowhere (21 page)

He nodded and his eyes immediately dropped to the guitar as if he wasn’t going to be able to look at me while doing this little performance, and it was starting to make me nervous, too. He held the pick between his teeth and did some more tuning before grabbing it and starting to play.

When I had first found out that Jordan had done gymnastics for years, I’d expected to see that spark on his face the day he jumped up on the tumble track, but I hadn’t seen it then, despite his obvious talent and build for the sport. But I was seeing it now.

I’d never heard this song before, but when he started singing, softly at first and then gradually growing in confidence, I wanted to hear it again before we even reached the middle. I wanted so badly to keep staring at him, but I was afraid he’d get more nervous and stop playing, so I lay back on the bed and let him finish the song before saying, “I know what I want to hear. Can you play ‘Hallelujah’?”

He was silent for several seconds before practically whispering, “Yeah, I can.”

I rested my arms behind my head, relaxing and falling into the long intro. It was a favorite of my dad’s. I’d always asked him what it was about and he’d say, “A lot of things. A whole lot of things.”

I had no ability to judge singing talent, but the second Jordan started singing the lyrics, I had to close my eyes and let the sound completely surround me. And maybe that’s because it was Jordan, and I wanted him to touch me so badly and he couldn’t do that now. This was as close as we could get tonight.

Even though it was a really long song, it felt like only seconds later we were overcome with silence again. I lifted my head and sat up on my elbows. “That’s my dad’s favorite song.”

“It’s one of mine, too,” he said.

“Do you know your mom’s favorite song?”

He stuck the pick back in his mouth and lifted his eyes to meet mine for a second. This was such a different Jordan. I couldn’t even grasp how shy and humble he seemed.

The pick returned to his fingers and his mouth turned up into a charming half smile before he started playing something much faster than the two previous songs. The opening line was, “Mama Pajama rolled out of bed and she ran to the police station .
. .
”

It was about someone named Julio and a schoolyard, and sticking someone in the house of detention.

He got nearly to the end and I was laughing really hard and Jordan had a big smile on his face when Bentley suddenly appeared shirtless in the doorway, rubbing his eyes.

Jordan slapped a hand to the front of his guitar, cutting off all the sound. His eyes were wide and he looked ready for an argument.

“It’s late, Jordy,” Bentley said. “Karen’s got practice and you’ve got school in the morning. Let’s get to bed, all right?”

There was no trace of anger or frustration in his voice, but Jordan leapt to his feet anyway, stuffing the instrument back in the closet. “Sorry, Dad.”

Then I saw Bentley, so very briefly, like it almost didn’t happen, step inside the room and pat Jordan on the head before leaving. I followed after him, shutting the door behind me. “He’s really good,” I said, deciding to break the icy silence.

“His mother was very musical.” Bentley already had one foot on the steps, ending this discussion.

His mom. That’s where he got it from.

I went into my room and shut the door before pulling out my phone to do what Jordan and I had been doing for the past few nights. Texting.

Dear Mom,

I’m going on a date with a boy…a really cute older boy (Well, a few months older). Please don’t tell Dad.

Love, Karen

W
hen Jordan walked into the kitchen for breakfast, Coach Bentley was leaning against the counter reading the paper and drinking coffee, like every morning. Jordan grabbed a bowl and a box of cereal and sat down across from me. I knew he had said he’d take care of Bentley and the date issue, but I had no idea it would be right away and that it would be so easy.

“Hey, Dad? The new Batman movie comes out Friday…”

Bentley looked up from the paper. “I’m filling in for Patrick Friday evening. Sorry, bud.”

Jordan faked disappointment and shoveled a bite of cereal into his mouth before speaking again. “Karen? What about you?”

I looked up at him, my eyes wide, then stared down at my bowl, trying to shrug like it wasn’t a big plan he’d come up with without notifying me. “I guess…if I’m not too tired after practice.”

Jordan shrugged, too, and picked at his fingernail. “Cool.”

“Not too late, though,” Bentley said to me. “You’ve got practice Saturday. You and Blair were a little sluggish last week after that sleepover.”

“Yeah, okay.” I couldn’t look at either of them, so I don’t know if Jordan reacted to that at all. Jordan finished his cereal without another word, and that was that. We officially had a date.

***

Before I started my tucked fulls for conditioning (the skill Bentley had made me do at least a hundred of last night), I made sure he was watching. I wasn’t going to have eighty failed attempts today.

Bentley was helping Stevie through her press handstands, but I caught his eye after making sure Blair held the foam tube at exactly the right height. My lower abs screamed at me from last night’s overuse as I launched myself into the first flip. My chest came up a little short.

“Tuck your hips under, Karen!” Stacey shouted from across the gym.

“It was really close,” Blair said. She was being unusually sweet. I think me getting kicked out last night created this walking–on–eggshells atmosphere for everyone except my coaches.

I drew in a deep breath, channeling my frustration from last night into my next attempt, which I nailed, finishing with my chest higher than the foam. After five more attempts (three good, two bad) I was starting to get the feel of timing the flip and twist just right to be able to open up sooner and land with my chest upright like Bentley wanted, all while still keeping it in the back of my head that I’d be doing this on a balance beam only four inches wide and four feet above the ground.

It took forty tries to make twenty good back fulls and I was the last one to move on to the rest of my conditioning. Of course, Blair hadn’t had to do any flips, and Stevie and Ellen were only doing regular standing back tucks—no full twists.

After beam and bars, Bentley left us with my old level 99 coach, Patrick. The one I’d had a major crush on five years ago. Patrick was coaching us on vault today while Bentley had a conference call in his office with Nina Jones, the God of gymnastics.

It was a well–known fact among us elite girls that whenever one of the other coaches filled in for Bentley, we could usually get away with things we couldn’t with him around. Something about them being excited to work with us and us being some of the top gymnasts in the country gave me and my teammates a tiny power trip.

A power trip I decided to take advantage of today.

I walked over to the vault runway that landed into the loose foam pit, rather than the competition landing mats, and shouted to Patrick, “I’m going to add the extra half twist this time!”

Even from the distance of over eighty feet, I could see his eyebrows push together like he was thinking hard. “I didn’t know you were working on Amanars.”

Okay, so truthfully, I hadn’t worked on Amanars before. It was the most difficult vault that female gymnasts were doing today, so difficult that when Romanian gymnast Simona Amanar had performed the Yurchenko with two and a half twists at the 2000 Olympics, the International Gymnastics Federation had named it after her. So yeah, it was hard. But Bentley had said several times in the past few weeks that if I kept nailing my Yurchenko double full, I could add another half twist. I’d seen Stevie train for this vault years ago and compete it, though she hadn’t yet progressed to doing them again since her comeback and was lucky to squeak around a double on a good day.

A thin mat sat on top of the loose foam blocks at the end of the vault table. That meant my landing would be easy; even if I didn’t make the two and a half twist all the way around, it wasn’t going to hurt or anything. Plus, the foam pit vault was lower than the regular landing mat vault and it gave me more time to finish the twist.

I took off running before Patrick had a chance to think about it too hard or ask Bentley if it was okay. The Yurchenko vault is tricky even without any twist because you basically cartwheel onto the spring board and then do a backward dive onto the vault table. If you don’t hit the board just right, it can screw everything up. Or if you don’t get a big push off the table with your hands, you might not make the flip all the way around, let alone two and a half twists. But I’ve been doing a Yurchenko since level 8, when I was only eight years old. The beginning of the vault hasn’t changed at all for me in nine years, only the part after I push off the table.

I got a huge push off the table and easily added the extra half twist, but landing in the pit with only one mat always caused me to over–rotate and I had to jump into a forward roll after my feet hit the mat.

“Wow!” Patrick said from beside the other vault Stevie and Ellen were using. Blair was over on bars doing more leg–free work with Stacey. “The block you’re getting is just incredible, Karen. You’re at least a foot or two higher than the last time I watched you. Your run is much more efficient, too. Have you been doing drills?”

I suppressed a groan, thinking about the monotony of drills I’d done recently. Last August, Bentley had—in his quiet manner—simply told me that I needed to remeasure my steps, and that led to me to starting ten feet farther back, and that led to dozens of drills with an orange band around my arms to keep them as tight to the sides of my head as possible while diving back onto the table. That was supposed to give a better push and obviously a higher vault. I think the reason the change had frustrated me was that Coach Cordes had never told me my run was wrong or anything, and when I asked Bentley about it, he said I’d probably grown taller and Cordes didn’t want to make changes during meet season.

“Thanks, it felt pretty good,” I said to Patrick before queuing up the video replay system we had rigged at every event in the gym. I didn’t use it too often, but with Bentley not here to correct me, I decided to see the first attempt at the Amanar before making a second try.

“I’m gonna do a two and half also!” Stevie shouted from the end of the runway.

I hit pause on the video using the remote and watched, holding my breath as Stevie charged down the runway, her dark, muscular legs flexing in response. Stevie hadn’t even attempted this vault in the pit yet since returning from retirement.

She made the two and a half twists just fine, which was a surprise considering her struggle with doubles, but she had to take a couple big steps sideways to control the landing. She headed right over to the TV and gently plucked the remote from my hands, fast–forwarding to watch her vault. I stood there beside her as she looked it over, then she flipped back and watched my vault.

“Yours is higher,” she said, setting the remote down without looking at me.

Shock at her blunt statement rendered me temporarily silent. “Well…I was landing in the pit. There’s only one mat in there right now.”

“Don’t patronize me, Karen.”

My hand froze on the remote. “I’m sorry—”

“And don’t apologize!” she snapped, spinning to face me. “I’m so tired of everyone treating me like I’m a diseased person and no one has the heart to tell me I’m dying! I said your vault was higher, but I meant to say, it’s higher
for now
.”

This scary and exhilarating tension built between us as we stared at each other. My fingers were tingling, ready to attack something. I tore my eyes from Stevie and glanced at Patrick. “I’m putting another mat into the pit.”

Hopefully that would get me closer to doing the Amanar on the real vault landing mats.

Stevie looked over her shoulder at Patrick, too. “I’m adding a mat here, too. A four–inch.”

I knew what she was doing. It was a technique Nina Jones loved to push on us at training camps—tumbling up—landing higher than you needed to in competition to add amplitude. And something about looking down at the vault from the other end of the runway and seeing the landing surface raised, mentally tricked you into getting more height. It was like if someone swapped your hurdle on a track for one two feet higher, you’re automatically going to jump harder when you try to clear it.