20. Olivia
DAY TWO OF THE 2024 OLYMPICS
“I don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” said Olivia.
“We’re definitely not supposed to be here,” said Arlo.
“We should go,” said Olivia, looking at the sea of athletes milling around them. She still hated feeling out of place.
“Olivia, trust me. Nobody will ask you questions if you act like you’re supposed to be here. People think you belong somewhere until you give them reason to think you don’t,” he said, confidently striding into the athletes’ canteen and toward the lunch line.
The athletes’ canteen in the Olympic Village wasn’t your average canteen. Every once in a while, an athlete did an interview and talked about just how magical it was. Olivia had spent years reading about how it included a menu of foods from all around the world, and she’d heard stories of athletes from different countries becoming friends while sitting at these tables. So, when she mentioned wanting to see what it looked like inside, Arlo snuck her in.
As soon as she walked through the shiny glass doors, she was immediately hit by the smell of the most amazing food she’d ever seen. There were rows and rows of tables filled with appetizing dishes, shelves stocked high with delicious-looking snacks, and a series of long curved counters serving food from all around the world. The Olympics was an international event, and the menu was too. Each athlete and sport followed a very different nutritional regime, so they couldn’t just walk in and eat anything. There were big, bulky athletes loading up on carbs; lean athletes whose plates only included meat; athletes who’d just popped in, grabbed a smoothie, and left; and athletes in line for preportioned meals planned out by their team’s nutritionist.
Arlo was on a mission to try out as many Greek foods as he could, and Olivia decided to join him, so they headed over to the Greek counter and loaded their trays with mezze, mini gyros, courgette balls called kolokythokeftedes, and a plate of baked moussaka. They found a quiet table on the outskirts of the canteen, and then went back and forth trying each other’s food as Arlo told Olivia about all the countries he’d traveled to over the past four years and Olivia told him about all the internships she’d done during the same time frame.
After Olivia talked him through the list of jobs she was planning on applying to when she got home that night, Arlo asked, “Have you ever thought about just letting go and seeing where life takes you at the end of the summer?”
“Not really. I like having a plan, it grounds me,” she said. What she didn’t say was that the uncertainty of not having a plan made her feel like she was opening herself up to every worst-case scenario. Her parents had made perfect, seemingly foolproof plans, but they’d still had to start again when they moved to the UK. So, she’d trained herself to be consistently overprepared. It was more practical to be driven by the fear that at any moment the bottom could fall out. At least that way she knew she’d always have a fire beneath her feet.
“What about taking a year off and going traveling while you’re still young?” Arlo asked.
She liked the way he saw the world; it just wasn’t the way she could. “I’ve thought about it, but I don’t have enough money in my savings and I can’t really relax when I don’t know when my next paycheck is coming,” she said, not mentioning the fact that it would probably take her years to get out of the debt she’d plunged herself into by self-funding one too many unpaid internships.
“I went on a silent retreat for a week, and it really helped me to figure things out. You should try it.” Arlo bit into a gyro.
“That would mean sitting alone with my thoughts for a week,” she joked.
“Gotta keep the existential thoughts at bay,” he said with a knowing smile and then changed the conversation. “What do you think yellow shirt over there does?” He nodded in the direction of a tall athlete who was walking past them wearing headphones and a bright yellow shirt.
Arlo liked guessing the sport of each athlete who passed them. And Olivia, who had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of Olympic athletes, could almost always tell him what they actually did.
“He’s got to be a hockey player, right? It’s in the arms.”
“Nope, he’s a cyclist on Team Ecuador,” said Olivia.
“That explains the tight shorts,” said Arlo. “Okay, how about her over there? I’m thinking equestrian.” They watched a brunette girl in a blue-and-green jacket walk past them.
“She’s a Croatian water polo player, but the ponytail does look very horse-esque,” Olivia said, nodding. “Do you ever wonder what sport people would think you played if they looked at you?”
“I’d like to think surfer, but in reality it’s probably golf. You?”
“Someone once said I have the energy of a lacrosse girl,” Olivia said with a sigh.
Arlo whistled. “That’s low.”
“Right?” she said indignantly. “Like, yeah, I get passionate and maybe I would feel more powerful with a net and stick—”
Arlo started laughing.
“Oh no, I do have the energy of a lacrosse girl!” Olivia covered her face with her hands.
While Arlo tried to figure out if the six-foot guy who’d just walked past them played basketball or tennis, Olivia glanced up and saw an athlete she immediately recognized. Everyone knew who Haruki Endō was. When Arlo spotted him, his eyes widened in recognition.
“Hey! We met the day before the opening ceremony, right?” Haruki asked as he came over toward them.
“Yeah, we did,” Olivia said enthusiastically, happy to see him again.
“Is this table big enough for the three of us?” Haruki asked, smiling over at Arlo.
“The more the merrier,” said Arlo, not able to hide the excitement in his voice as Olivia internally screamed at the fact that Haruki Endō was having lunch with them. Olivia didn’t get starstruck easily, but Haruki was one of her favorite athletes in the world. She’d watched him compete at the World Aquatics Championship last year, and she’d been mesmerized by how easily he’d beaten his own 200m butterfly record. He was one of those one-in-a-generation athletes, and now, because Arlo had dragged her into the canteen, they were having a meal with him.
“What are you having for lunch?” Olivia asked. She knew all the athletes had different diets, but she was always surprised to see just how much the swimmers ate to balance out all the energy they needed to swim.
“I’ve got a big race later, so I’ve got to load up with some eggs, noodles, soup, and vegetables,” he said. “Want a taste?” He held his fork up in her direction. It smelled incredible, so she did have a taste. It was delicious.
So was that whole mealtime. She and Arlo sat in the canteen with Haruki for the rest of lunch. He answered all of their excited questions about what it was actually like to be an Olympic swimmer, debated the best sports film, and then asked Olivia and Arlo about what led them to the Village. Olivia knew that Haruki was friends with Zeke Moyo, but they were so different. While Zeke was annoyingly hot, dripping with charm and raw star power, Haruki had a warm boy-next-door vibe. Zeke brought out the impulsive, unpredictable side of Olivia, her quick tongue and her sometimes scalding wit. Whereas Haruki was the walking personification of “Do meet your heroes.” She knew that if she’d gone to university with him, they would have been firm friends. Haruki had the best personality of any athlete she’d met so far.
Olivia left lunch in such a good mood that for the rest of the afternoon she was sure nothing could bother her. When she was called to the referees’ offices to do an in-depth inventory of clipboards and whistles, she distracted herself from the boredom by listening to a podcast about what it was like behind the scenes of the anti-doping department. When she was called to pick up plungers and drain-unblockers to help a plumber fix a blocked toilet in New Zealand House, she distracted herself from how gross it was by listening to the plumber tell her stories about some of the most high-profile athletes he’d unblocked toilets for. But then she got a call from one of the “Village experience” managers in the facilities department.
“Olivia, we need a little bit of help down in the canteen,” he said.
“Sure, what kind of help?” she asked.
“We have a code one-oh-five in the East Canteen but we’re short-staffed, so could you resolve the situation?” he asked.
When she arrived, code 105 was even worse than she could have imagined. Olivia was equipped with a whole trolley of cleaning supplies, but nothing could have prepared her for the floor of shellfish-filled vomit. Though when the nauseous Norwegian boxer apologized to her, she assured her that everything was going to be all right. Once the floor was clean and smelled like lemon soap instead of bodily fluids, Olivia ran to the staff bathroom, showered, and doused herself in perfume. The smell had lodged itself so deep into her consciousness that she couldn’t shake it off. But the second she got onto her phone, she was hit with an even more sickening sight: Lars Lindberg’s newest post on Instagram.
She’d resolved to enjoy the rest of the Games and not dwell on the summer she’d imagined having. But she’d forgotten to unfollow Lars, and, in some sick twist of fate, his was the first face that popped up. Olivia couldn’t look away as she saw just how differently his day was going compared to hers. He’d started the morning at a fancy team breakfast, and then he’d gone to the velodrome to watch cyclists race with the free tickets he and the other interns were given. Tickets that Olivia should have been given.
He was living out the Olympic summer that Olivia had spent her whole life working toward. And to top it all off, he’d just posted a photo captioned: “So excited to be celebrating the launch of Zeus Athletics’ latest collaboration tonight with my friend the Olympic-medal-winning Zeke Moyo!”
Olivia let out a quiet groan as she clicked on the Zeus Athletics page and saw that Zeke was in fact being interviewed at an event that evening being hosted by Lars. Remembering that he was sponsored by Zeus Athletics was a bit jarring. After all, the Lindberg family business had just been the subject of a intense investigation into a years-long sweatshop scandal. Some part of her knew that it wasn’t fair to judge Zeke for being friends with Lars. Zeke was also friends with Haruki, who was kind and down-to-earth. Olivia knew better than anyone that sometimes you had to get along with people you didn’t necessarily like to get to where you wanted to go. But she couldn’t reconcile the idea of the funny, charming, slightly cocky guy she’d spoken to that morning being friends with a guy like Lars. So rather than trying to find excuses for him or separating the two very different sides of Zeke that his friendships suggested he could be, she resolved to take him at face value. And she decided to unfollow Lars.
If there was one thing that her last summer’s fling had taught her, it was just how easily she could cast aside her better judgment when faced with a guy she maybe kind of liked. But she couldn’t get sidetracked again. So, she vowed not to let herself get pulled in by Zeke’s charm. Or his smile. Or how outrageously hot he was. Because daydreaming about him would be irresponsible, wouldn’t it? Letting him flirt with her and flirting back would be a poor decision, right? Zeke Moyo was a bad idea. But that didn’t stop Olivia from wondering when she’d see him again.