Chapter 25
“All right, everyone, let’s bring it in!”
It’s a quarter past nine on Monday morning, and Sasha’s standing at the edge of the floor with Danny and the girls’ coaches (whose names are possibly Sarah, Lyndsay, and Chelsea, though he wouldn’t bet his life on it).
There’s about thirty campers running laps in front of them, a mix of boys and girls, ranging from scrawny five-year-olds to teenagers taller than Sasha.
At a distance, with their neon t-shirts and leotards, they could almost be mistaken for a flock of tropical birds; up close, they sound more like a herd of elephants.
At Danny’s call, the campers gather in front of the coaches, some staying on their feet, others flopping onto the floor. Most of them glance curiously at Sasha, who tries not to look as awkward as he feels. He hopes he’ll be able to remember even half of their names.
“Hey, guys,” Danny says once the kids are settled. He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet like he’s had several cups of coffee, though in fact it was just the one. “We’ve got an awesome week lined up—”
“Who’s that?” a boy blurts out, pointing at Sasha. He’s around seven or so, with shaggy brown hair, an angelic face that could get away with murder, and an impish grin like he knows it.
“Angelo, buddy, you’re already ahead of me,” Danny says with a laugh.
“Everyone, this is Sasha Zakaryan, he’s gonna be our guest coach for the next two weeks.
He came here all the way from Russia—he actually competes for the Russian national team—and he’s got some serious talent, so we’re really lucky to have him here. ”
Sasha waves, then wonders if Danny’s expecting him to say something. But before he can decide if Hello, nice to meet you is enough, Angelo asks eagerly, “Did you go to the Olympics?”
Sasha’s answered this question so many times by now, he’s almost convinced himself it doesn’t bother him anymore. “I was alternate. I went, but I did not compete.”
“You guys better watch out for him, though,” Danny chimes in, thankfully, so Sasha can stop talking. “I’m telling you all right now, he’s gonna be on that team in Tokyo.”
Sasha flushes as thirty pairs of eyes swivel back to him with renewed interest. He wishes Danny hadn’t said that—it’s at least two years too soon for making predictions, no matter how good anyone is, and career-ending injuries can happen at any time.
Besides, Danny had also thought he would make the team for Rio, and look how that turned out.
After some more announcements—from “Guys, there’s like a million fidget spinners in the lost and found” (Danny) to “Ladies, please, for the love of God, do not throw your tampons in the toilet” (Sarah?)—it’s time for stretching.
At Danny’s instruction, they all form a wide circle on the floor, with the other coaches spacing themselves out among the campers.
Sasha sticks close to Danny, who smiles at him like he isn’t fooling anyone.
Since stretching at Round Lake means shut up, do what you’re told, and don’t complain when the trainers push you into uncomfortable positions, Sasha’s not sure what to expect at Sunnyside Gymnastics Academy; he can’t picture Danny holding anyone down in a split.
But he’s still surprised by how casual it is, Danny and the other coaches chatting with the campers about their weekends and the new Marvel movie, no one keeping count at all.
It’s not Sasha’s gym, though, and Coach Garrett doesn’t seem to care—he even comes out of his office to join a debate about favorite ice cream flavors, waxing nostalgic over something called “root beer floats.” So apparently this is normal, or at least normal for summer camp; and if there’s a small part of Sasha that can’t help wondering what Kirill would say if he could see this, he ignores it.
Besides, he likes watching Danny interact with the kids, likes how he can talk shop with the teenage boys—who all seem to hero-worship him, visibly perking up under his attention—and then turn around and converse about the most random, asinine shit with the eight-year-olds.
He gets along easily with the girls, too, although Sasha’s pretty sure half of them have a crush on him, and he notices Danny’s careful not to tease the more flustered ones.
There’s an art to it, some sort of skill that Sasha doesn’t have, probably couldn’t acquire even if he tried.
Maybe you have to be born with it, like he assumes Danny was; or maybe you have to have it drilled into you from birth, the way Kirill’s mother dragged him to all her functions, made him watch and learn and read the room until he could work it to his advantage.
Regardless, Sasha’s more than happy to observe from a distance, sitting there quietly in a straddle stretch while Danny mingles with the campers—except he’d forgotten about Danny’s tendency to drag him into conversations.
“Hey, Zack, are we gonna get your Tsuk this week?” Danny asks a gangly kid who looks like he’s around thirteen, a smattering of acne on his forehead.
“Maybe,” Zack says uncertainly, hunching his shoulders into a butterfly stretch.
“He’s super close,” Danny explains to Sasha. “It’s just that he’s not getting a huge block off the vault, so Coach still has to help him over—like, not that much, but just to make sure he doesn’t, like, blow out his ankles on the landing.”
Sasha nods, already thinking of some drills he knows that might be useful, depending on what Zack’s tried before. And whether Coach Garrett would even want his suggestions.
“Sasha got fourth on vault at the last World Championships,” Danny tells Zack. “He did the most beautiful triple Tsuk I’ve ever seen—it was, like, sky-high and he stuck it cold. His block is amazing, so I bet he can help you work on yours.”
“Yeah, that’d be cool,” Zack mumbles, darting a quick, hopeful glance up at Sasha.
Danny apparently can’t resist bragging some more about Sasha’s Tsuk, which then turns into a discussion about everyone’s favorite vaults from last quad, several campers close to Zack chiming in as well.
Sasha takes a backseat after a while—it’s hard to keep up with some of the younger kids’ slang—and does a few extra stretches for his shoulders, knowing from experience how sore they’ll be after spotting.
“Do you like sharks?”
At first, Sasha assumes someone near him is talking to someone else; but then the question gets repeated, more insistently, and he looks over to his left.
He hasn’t really been paying attention to this side of the stretching circle, and he’s startled to find a small slip of a girl staring at him, her eyes as round as chocolates.
“Uh…” He tries to remember what “sharks” means, then realizes the answer’s on her leotard, several rows of them swimming in a pattern across the bright blue fabric. Clearly, there’s only one acceptable response he can give here. “Yes?”
“I like sharks,” the girl says, very seriously.
She looks five years old if that, with a tangle of wispy brown curls and a gap between her teeth.
“Did you know they don’t have bones? My favorites are hammerheads and megamouths because they look like this.
” She opens her mouth wide, unhinging her jaw as she pulls back her lips.
“Wow,” Sasha replies, for lack of a better word.
He has no idea how to talk to little children, though he enjoys being around them, at least at a distance.
The ones at his gym are like tiny drunk adults, stumbling through their stations and shrieking in excitement every time they get to use the trampoline, and he can’t help but smile when he sees them bouncing around.
It’s just that he never actually has to interact with them, since they all know they’re supposed to stay out of the older gymnasts’ way.
“Did you know whale sharks have teeth on their eyes?” the girl continues, and he’s still trying to figure that one out when she puts her hands in front of her eyes, making her fingers and thumbs look like two chomping mouths.
“Wow,” Sasha says again. He’s definitely reached the limits of his English marine life vocabulary—what the fuck is a “whale”?—and he also hasn’t thought about sharks since he was probably twelve, so he has nothing to contribute to this conversation.
Luckily, Danny comes to his rescue. “Hey, Nicole,” he says, leaning over towards them, “when’s Shark Week?”
The way Nicole reacts, it’s like Danny’s just offered her a giant bag of candy. “July! July twenty-third!” she squeals, clapping her hands. “And guess what, they have hammerhead sharks!”
“Shark Week?” Sasha mutters to Danny.
“Oh, it’s this thing on TV,” Danny says; but then Zack calls his name, and he gets pulled back into the boys’ discussion.
Nicole doesn’t seem to notice that half her audience is gone.
She talks about sharks through every single split—left, right, and straddle—and if she were an adult, Sasha would have been annoyed.
But she’s just a cute little kid excited about sharks, which isn’t all that different from Danny talking about dogs, so he listens. And says “wow” a lot.
Still, by the time they’re done stretching, he’s snuck more than a few glances at the clock. He feels guilty enough about it that when the campers finally separate into their groups, he waves and says goodbye to Nicole.
In response, Nicole raises her hands, jams her thumbs into her ears, and sticks her tongue out at Sasha. Then she runs away, sprinting across the floor to join her group as if nothing had ever happened.
He can’t help it—he laughs, all the while feeling very thankful that she’s someone else’s responsibility.
*
Danny’s new favorite thing in life is watching Sasha coach.