Chapter 21 2004
“Chill, Patch,” Turbo said to get me to stop jiggling.
She was standing beside me, trying to be cool, but I could tell she was nervous as well, her long limbs twitching as we waited for our turn in the final event, vault.
We were in the Saint Paul High School gymnasium. Behind us, the apparatus for the uneven bars was being disassembled, the noise ricocheting off the concrete block walls and metal ceiling along with the clamor of the audience, mostly parents, coaches, and the other gymnasts.
In all the other events, the younger divisions had gone first, but because the eight-and-under vault required changing the mat to an elevated foam pad so they could perform the simple skill of flipping over the vault and landing on their backs, the youngest gymnasts were going last.
There were fifteen girls in our division from six different teams. The other teams all had matching uniforms, and their hair was uniformly styled in high, tight ponytails with ribbons that matched their leotards.
My hair was in two braids, the only style I could manage myself, and Turbo’s hair stuck out every which way as it was prone to do.
She wore a lime-green-and-yellow leotard that one of the older gymnasts had given her that bagged so loosely at her shoulders it needed to be safety pinned in the back.
I was wearing a plain pink leotard that Profe and I had found at a dance store in Minneapolis.
Profe wasn’t as good at shopping as Boodo, but I appreciated how hard he tried.
Our team was in fourth, but if Turbo did well, we had a chance at moving into third and earning bronze medals, which was pretty exciting since we’d only been a team a few months.
Turbo was a big reason we’d done so well.
She’d crushed it in her first three events, getting first in the uneven bars, third on floor, and second on beam—three points, one point, two points.
I’d wobbled terribly on the uneven bars, had done mediocre on floor, and had fallen off the beam.
Which meant I hadn’t contributed at all.
Vault was my chance for redemption. It was the only event that relied more on speed than strength.
All I wanted was to do well enough to prove to Coach Blood I wasn’t entirely hopeless and to not give up on me.
Turbo was up first. I watched as she walked to the start, addressed the judges with a beaming smile, then turned and faced the vault. I knew by the way she held herself, loose yet determined, she was going to nail it. The crowd hushed as she narrowed her focus and ran.
I held my breath as she launched herself off the springboard, planted her hands squarely on the vault, then flipped over it, her body long and perfectly straight. She flopped flat as a board to the pad, and I clapped and whooped and cheered.
Coach Blood high-fived her as she bounced from the pad to the floor.
Turbo smiled her enormous grin and returned to the start for her second attempt, which she executed almost as well except for a small bounce of her legs when she landed.
She was in first place and would likely get at least a point and could possibly get three, depending on how the remaining competitors did.
“Vivien Kendall,” the announcer said over the speakers.
My heart pounded as I walked to the start with my arms and legs extended and my chin lifted the way Coach Blood had taught us. “Convey confidence, even if you don’t feel it. If you believe, they will believe.”
I faced the four judges and counted to three as I’d been taught. The coach nearest me, a woman with tight-cropped dark hair, leaned forward and smiled encouragingly as if she was willing me to do well.
I turned to the runway, narrowed my eyes on the springboard, then just as I’d practiced a thousand times at the gym and another ten thousand times in my head, I ran, I leaped, and I flipped, stretching my body as long as possible and landing half a second later with a whoof on the pad.
I lay there, the gymnasium ceiling above me and a wide grin on my face. I’d done it, managed to not blow the final event of the day.
“Nice!” Coach Blood said as I slid off the pad to the floor.
She shooed me off for my second attempt.
I ran. I sprang. I stretched. I landed. Whoof.
“Nice,” Coach Blood said again.
I looked up to thank her, but she wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes were on the scoreboard at the far end of the gym. She tilted her head, and I watched as her lips curled into a curious grin.
I looked with her to see my name in the spot beneath Turbo’s, the glowing number two beside it. I blinked, thinking perhaps I was imagining it, but when I opened my eyes, my name was still there, lit up in second place.
Coach Blood and I walked to the sidelines, where Turbo high-fived me. And the three of us watched as the remaining four competitors performed, all of us holding our breath as each went and the scoreboard reset and my name and Turbo’s remarkably stayed in place.
I didn’t realize the full significance of my second-place finish until the last gymnast completed her second vault and the other groms swarmed us, all of them leaping around and hugging and high-fiving me and Turbo.
Thanks to Turbo’s outstanding performance and my surprising finish, the Winona State groms won the meet, eking into first by a single glorious point, a point I contributed.
It was the first gold medal I ever won, and though made of plastic with gold paint that chipped and peeled over time, for the rest of my life, it would be the most precious.
As we walked from the building, we passed the team that had come in second.
The girl who placed third in the eight-and-under vault, a pretty girl with strawberry blond hair and a face covered in freckles, leveled her gaze on mine and said, “The only reason you beat me was because of your face, because the judges felt sorry for you.”
Normally I would have shot back my standard quip: “My face? Is something wrong with my face?” But I couldn’t. Her words had hit their mark, and a hard lump had formed in my throat.
“Ignore her,” Turbo said. “You kicked her butt, fair and square.”
I wished I could have believed her, but doubt has a way of blooming like dandelion weeds in the brain, and I couldn’t help but think of the judge who leaned in and smiled like she’d wanted me to win.