The Flip Side (3 page)

Gwen is already in her bunk, lying on her back, eyes closed, headphones attached. She left one lamp on for me. I tiptoe across the room, set my phone on the floor next to my open suitcase, and grab a towel. I dry off and slip into a flannel tank and shorts. I've got to pack sometime tonight. Gwen's suitcase stands upright at the door, waiting for her departure tomorrow.

I sort through my clothes, trying to figure out what to wear on the plane. This weekend has been a blur. In the end I choose leggings and an oversize shirt and toss them onto my bunk.

“Charlie?”

Gwen's voice takes me by surprise.

I pivot on my heel. Her eyes are open. She slides off her headphones. “Do you think we'll make it?”

It's the one thing on both our minds, so of course I know what she's talking about. Besides, we haven't trained together for countless hours for the last two years for me to be clueless about how her mind works. “I think so. We've got the best coaches, and we're beating up our bodies every single day. It's going to pay off. Nothing is stopping us. Tight mind, right?”

Gwen's head thumps the pillow. She shields her eyes with her arm. “I'm tightening my mind, but . . .”

“You pulled off Kovacs after Kovacs today,” I say, crossing the room in order to kneel next to Gwen's bed. “That's amazing. You're going to be one of the first ever to put that into a routine in competition.” I pull out one of the lines Mom always uses on me. “Let yourself enjoy it!”

Her lips tighten, but she nods. “Okay.”

The way she says it reminds me of the way she responds to Coach Chris when he's speaking in his nerve-racking, quiet voice. Gwen's “okay” means she's taking what he says and planning to do it ten times better. That's the way she is. A perfectionist to the core. It's no wonder we get along so well.

I take her hand and squeeze it briefly. We're friends, we're teammates, we're competitors. We both want a spot on that Olympic team, when there are only so many spots to go around.

It's one of those moments. When someone is vulnerable with you, it kind of makes you want to be vulnerable with them. I want to assure Gwen that inside I'm just as nervous as she is, that I'm not as strong as I come across a lot of the time. But instead I blurt out, “I wish I had a boyfriend.” Okay, so Zoe isn't the only one with guys on her mind.

That gets Gwen's attention. She rolls onto her elbow and stares at me hard, her eyes questioning. “What brought that on?”

I can't help but twist my lips into an ironic smile. “Zoe.” I've told her about Zoe, but I've never told Zoe about Gwen. Another thorn of guilt pricks me, because I consider them both my best friends, but I'm not completely honest with one of them. “She wanted to tell me about this guy who gave her some attention today, and I just . . . I'd just like a guy to give
me
some attention for a change. Don't you ever think about having a boyfriend?”

“I'm homeschooled. Where am I going to meet a guy?”

“But if you met someone who was interested in you, wouldn't you want to pursue the possibilities? Not just blow him off?”

“I get that it would be amazing to have a boyfriend, but it's not practical right now. We have to go steady with gymnastics, with practice and competitions, not a guy.”

“Don't you get tired of delaying everything?”

“Sure I do. But think about it. Where are you going to find the time for a boyfriend?” she asks, and raises one finger. “You have two hours of conditioning before school.” Another finger. “School.” Another finger. “Five hours of training after school. And when you get home, you have to eat and study. And sometime you have to sleep. How are you going to work this guy in? Do you think he's going to understand when you're too tired to even text him?”

“He might.” If he was the right boyfriend.

“You'd have to tell him about your gymnastics life.”

Then how would I know if he likes me for myself and not because I'm an almost-famous gymnast? I want him to fall for the Charlotte version, the one who wears thick-rimmed glasses and is far from being the most popular girl at school.

“You won't even tell
Zoe
you're a gymnast,” she reminds me.

“All this”—I flail my arms at the walls of the cabin, but I'm talking about the ranch and what it symbolizes in general—“I mean, would anyone at school get it? I mean,
really get
why I'm doing this? They'd just think I was weird. Or stuck up. Or something.”

And the pressure would increase because they might take more of an interest in my success and my failures.

“They'll get it when you make the Olympic team,” Gwen says. “Then they'll all be proud to know you.”

“But then they'll treat me differently. And they'll ask me about gymnastics at school. And I'd have a lot of friends who aren't real friends.” School is my safe place right now, my place to get away from the pressure, to be an average kid. I don't know how it would affect my gymnastics if at least half my life weren't
normal
.

“A boyfriend isn't practical, Charlie,” Gwen says kindly. “Not now. Not when so much is on the line. Not if you really want the dream.”

“Of course I want the dream! Are you serious?” That's why I'm keeping up this balancing act, because it's helping me get there. I want the dream more than anything else.

Gwen falls back onto the pillow, smiling. “Good to hear. For a minute there, I thought I'd lost you to
being normal
.”

“I'm planning to be anything but normal at the gym, so you'd better watch your back!” I punch her playfully in the arm.

“Oh, I have no doubt.” She's laughing. “I believe in you, Charlie. You got this!” She ducks sideways, clutching her sides with laughter, to avoid my second play-punch.

“You got this” is our inside joke. Back when Gwen was in level eight—the first level where a gymnast chooses her own routines—at her Georgia gym, I guess someone from the crowd yelled “You got this, Gwen!” right before she started a run on vault. She was competing with a Yurchenko—round-off with a back handspring onto the vault, with a full flip off the vault—but she over-rotated and landed flat on her back. It was one of those catastrophic moments that brought an edge of superstition to Gwen's competitive career. After that the phrase “You got this!” became a serious taboo. When Gwen moved to Gold Star two years ago, we were all ordered not to say it.

“We're so close to making it,” I say, letting out a ragged breath of excitement. There are certain moments when I think about what we're doing and how far we've come, when the Olympics seem not only reachable but right at my fingertips. There's a bubble of excitement that grows in my chest, making me so light that I could float to the ceiling.

“Close,” Gwen agrees, seizing my hand again and squeezing. “Just remember that you've got to follow your heart, and right now, as much as I wish the reality were different, it can't go chasing after boys.”

My heart. What my heart wants is easy. It wants an Olympic gold medal. It's my brain that confuses things.

In the end, is my wanting to be ordinary going to cost me my dreams?

“And what did Coach Chris say?” Mom leans forward, a piece of glazed chicken dangling from her fork. Dad picked me up at the airport. Now we're sitting around the dinner table. I've just finished telling Mom about my new series on beam.

“He didn't say much,” I say. “You know Coach. But I could tell he was happy.”

Dad grins at his plate. He's not one to say much either. “That's great, Charlie. I'm proud of you.”

I can't help but smile. “But that wasn't the coolest thing that happened. There was Gwen's Kovacs! She has totally nailed it. I was so excited.”

“What's a Kovacs again?” Mom asks. She and Dad are pretty good about keeping up with my gymnastics skills, but they certainly don't obsess about it. Since I've never even attempted a Kovacs, this is new territory for them.

“It's that release move I was telling you about. Here, let me pull up a video.” I pick up my phone—second nature.

Dad clears his throat. “Dinner rule.”

“Oh yeah.” I push my phone back under the edge of my plate. “I'll show you after dinner. It's so amazing!”

“Eh.” My brother, Josh, shrugs me off, but his dimples are showing. “You know, flip around a bar a few times. No big deal.”

I poke him in the arm, hard. “Whatever.”

“Ow! Watch it! These biceps are an endangered species!”

“I know, right? Fading away before our very eyes.”

My phone buzzes before it starts ringing. I glance at the screen, cheating on our no-phones-at-the-table rule. But I've got to silence it, right? It's Zoe.

“No phones at the table means no phones at the table,” Josh says, deepening his voice to sound more like Dad. We're only eleven months apart, and Josh is a year ahead of me in school. Thankfully. He gives me enough grief as it is. I can't imagine what it would be like if we were in the same classes.

“I didn't answer it!” I cry. “You are such a pest.”

Dad scoots back his chair. “Never a dull moment around here. I can tell you two missed each other. But as much fun as I'm having watching this display, I've got to get back to work.” Four years ago my dad got laid off from his job. It was the first time I encountered the fear of uncertainty, the possibility of losing my dreams. I didn't handle it very well, worrying that with no money coming in, I'd have to give up gymnastics. But somehow Mom and Dad scraped the money together for my lessons. It was a huge relief two years later when Dad patented an improved spring used in car suspension, which led to a start-up business manufacturing and distributing his invention. He always says his next big innovation is going to be an improved spark plug. Knowing about the sacrifices that my parents made for me, I'm even more determined to stand on the podium at the next Olympics, to bring home the gold.

Dad carries his plate to the dishwasher. “You know where I am, Charlie, if you want to show me that video of the kovanoff thing later.”

“Kovacs, Dad. Kovacs!”

“Kovacs,” Dad repeats, winking. “You might have to repeat that a few more times before it sticks.”

After loading his plate, he disappears down the hallway. Dad seems to be working all the time, locked away in his home office with the
QUIET, PLEASE. BRAINS AT WORK
sign pegged to the door. At least I know who I inherited my sense of discipline from.

Mom picks up her plate too. “I've got some bookkeeping to get done. Charlie, you're on cleanup duty tonight.”

I stifle a groan. The ranch isn't the best place to get homework done, and I've got a killer amount this week, including that stupid U.S. government exam. The last thing I need is dish duty. But everybody's busy around here. Dad with his business. Mom with the freelance accounting she took on when Dad lost his job—not to mention the bookkeeping she now does for Dad's business. Josh with his . . . video games. Okay, not everybody's busy. But I guess it's only fair that we all pull our own weight around the house.

I shovel the last of my chicken into my mouth. “I'm done too. Sorry to leave you all alone, poor baby,” I say to Josh, and carry my plate into the kitchen.

“We need to talk.”

I spin around. “What? What's wrong?”

Josh sets his plate in the sink, leans a hip against the counter, and crosses his arms over his chest. “I ran into Zoe at school today, and she wanted to know why I wasn't at my aunt's ranch in Texas.” He raises his eyebrows and gives me a pointed stare.

“You never run into Zoe at school.” Juniors and seniors have their lockers nowhere near freshmen and sophomores. And they seldom have the same classes.

“Yeah, I know. It was a freak thing.”

“So, what did you tell her?” I hold my breath, waiting.

“That it was a girls' weekend thing and I wasn't invited.”

My breath whooshes out. “Thanks, Josh.”

He shakes his head. “How's this double life working for you,
Charlotte
?”

He's calling me Charlotte to make a point. He knows why I'm leading this double life. He just doesn't agree with it.

“It's working just fine.” I retrieve a Tupperware container from the cupboard and grab some tongs. “I'm sorry. I should have told you what I'd told her, just in case you ran into her. It just never occurred to me that you would.”

Josh shakes his head. “This is so wrong. She's supposed to be your best friend.”

“I know that, but everything will change if I tell her.” I point the tongs at him. “Don't you dare say anything to her!”

“I won't,” Josh says. “I know it's important to you that people not know who you really are.”

I scoop the leftover chicken into the container, snap on the lid. “They know who I am. Just not that I'm in gymnastics.” So I'm weird. What's new! I'm also balancing an insane amount of schoolwork and an elite gymnastics career. Boundaries are important. My conversation with Gwen last night reminded me why I'm doing all this. But Josh has never understood.

“It's just that . . .” Josh pauses.

“I already know what you're going to say,” I tell him as I put the leftovers into the fridge. “No need to say it.”

I grab the washcloth to wipe down the counters. Josh brushes past me. He's got several inches on me, which would make him tall, if I weren't so short.

“Don't be mad at me,” I plead softly. “I'm doing my best.”

Josh gives me a sympathetic look. “I know. It just seems like there has to be a better way than living a lie.”

•  •  •

As I plop down onto my bed, I decide that I'm not going to let Josh make me feel guilty for not telling Zoe the whole story about my life. I hit my favorites contact list on my phone and tap her name. She picks up on the first ring.