I don’t think so.
A kid blasts off the springboard onto the vault and jars me back to reality.
“Break’s over, ladies,” Pauline says, and I send back a quick heart emoji before tossing my phone aside.
“Who was that?” Emma whispers.
“Leo,” I whisper back, and she lets out a happy squeak before we turn our attention to Pauline.
“Both of you, full run-through like you’re warming up in the arena. A timer, then the one and a half, Rey. Emma, a timer and then the two and a half.”
Putting our water bottles down after another quick sip, we both race for the end of the vault run, just like we will in competition. The key to vault is to get as warm as you can, as fast as you can. There isn’t a lot of time to work up to your full difficulty like we’d normally do in training sessions. You’ve got to get your shit together fast.
“Air awareness, girls! Impress me.”
I shake out my ankles and then take a deep, steadying breath before striding at a measured speed down the runway. I vault a simple timer, letting my body flip just once through the air before landing on the mat and bouncing to kill the rest of the power. It feels okay—I mean it hurts, obviously, but the normal hurt—and I move back to the board to adjust it so Emma can go next.
“Good, Rey. Nice block on that one. Almost like old times.”
I was never a spectacular vaulter, but I’d been consistently landing a double and working my way up to a two and a half when my back let me know it wasn’t on board with that upgrade to the famed Amanar vault that every elite gymnast aspires to land. There wouldn’t even be double twists anymore, replaced by a comparatively easy one and a half that I need to nail almost perfectly to avoid getting hammered by the judges.
It’s a pretty well-accepted reality in elite gymnastics that the lower the difficulty, the harsher the judges will be on execution. Sometimes it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. An athlete might have lower difficulty because she’s not a good enough gymnast to execute more complex skills and routines, but after studying it pretty carefully over the years I’ve come to realize that it’s mostly just the judges being pretentious dipshits.
I move back to the end of the run as Emma vaults her own timer and wait until Pauline resets the springboard before I go through my vault routine again.
A deep breath, up on my toes, and then forward to the horse, a roundoff back handspring and block backward off the vault. I tuck my arms into my body, making myself as aerodynamic as possible as I spin, and then I’m opening up. It’s a blind landing, but I know exactly where I am in the air. I hop forward once, then stand tall and salute. That was a good one, but it hurt like a bitch.
“Nice! Bet it didn’t feel great, though,” Pauline echoes my thoughts, and I fight back the laugh.
I nod once, not wanting to dwell on the pain. “You want another?”
“Yep,” she says. “If this were Tokyo, that would have been the warm-up.”
As I walk back to the end of the run, Emma salutes with confidence and launches herself down the runway into a beautifully executed two and a half, with a small step forward for control.
“Yes! That was it, Emma!” Pauline yells with a sharp clap of her hands. “You bring that vault to Tokyo, and Kareva won’t be able to touch you—with or without her triple.”
They set up the springboard again for me, shifting it a little farther away from the horse.
Emma gives me a thumbs-up as I prep one more time, a graceful salute, toeing the perfect spot on the run to begin and then a back handspring into the one and a half. This one is a little overcooked, with a sharp lunge at the end that will cost me at least three-tenths in execution.Damn it.
“Well done,” Pauline says, but her eyes are narrowed and her mouth is tight. There isn’t much point in correcting it. As the weakest vaulter on the team, I’ll probably only go up in qualifications, when we’re allowed to drop our lowest score. Still, doing your best work in warm-ups is a waste.
I rise up and down on my toes. My back doesn’t feel any worse than before. “I’m going again.” Pauline opens her mouth to argue, but then closes it and doesn’t protest, so I spin away and make for the end of the run.
“Audrey, that last one was fine,” Emma says, taking a long drink from her water bottle.
“Just one more,” I whisper.
This rotation I do a timer and then a full and then finally the one and a half, and the final vault is much cleaner than my previous attempt.
“Good job, Rey,” Pauline says. “It’s noon. You two are done for the day.”
I shake my head, distracted. I want to go again, make sure that this combination of warm-ups is what will work. “Nah,” I say, walking away again, twisting back and forth at the waist. The pain is the same, no better, but no worse, so I push it to the back of my mind. I’ve gotten really good at that over the last two years. I’m fine. I can go again.
“I just wanted to go one more time,” I grumble from my seat in the pedicure chair in the salon around the corner from Emma’s apartment. It’s tradition to get mani-pedis before we head out to a major competition. The salon is super chic, way nicer than the one my mom and I go to back across the river in Queens, but Emma’s treating, so I wasn’t about to argue.
“And she let you go three more times. Youalwayswant to go one more time,” Emma retorts from the chair beside me. “It’s how you ended up with that whole situation to begin with.” She motions vaguely to my back. She’s right. I know she’s right, but there’s just so little gymnastics left in my future, I want to do as much of it as possible before it’s all over.
