“Where is she?” Mom asks, her voice getting a little high-pitched. Pauline called her after Gibby was arrested, and the last she heard we’d be competing today, not taking a van tour of Southern California. It took a while to get ahold of her since she was at work when everything went down. By the time she called me back, we were two and a half hours into a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway, and her freak-out level had hit maximum.
“I don’t know. On a flight back to New York, maybe? I’m with Mrs. Jackson from the United States Olympic Federation. Do you want to talk to her? She’s going to tell you the same thing I did.”
I shift in the captain’s chair. This is a luxury van, and I’m buckled into what feels like a first-class airplane seat. The air-conditioning is pumping, fighting and winning a battle against the heat outside, but it’s also making the leather seats almost slippery, and it’s been pretty hellish on my back. I twist back and forth, trying to loosen up the tightness.
“No,” Mom says, her voice resigned. It’s been a long time since she’s dealt with anything to do with my gymnastics. I started traveling without her and Dad when I was twelve. “Make sure you check in with me when you get settled.”
“I will. I promise.”
“I love you,” she says.
“I love you too.” My voice cracks as I end the call, but I swallow back the emotion again. No more. From here on out, I’m just going to focus on getting to the Olympics and winning gold and deal with everything else later.Sure, Audrey, a couple of decades in therapy should do the trick.
“Audrey couldn’t even tell her mom where we’re going. This is ridiculous,” Sierra says, not exactlytoMrs. Jackson, but more at her—just the latest in the running commentary she’s provided for most of the ride. “I feel like we’ve been kidnapped.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk?” Chelsea says, clearly fed up.
“Sorry, Chels, I didn’t realize you were the only one around here allowed to have an opinion.”
“We all know your opinion. You’ve been stating it pretty clearly for the whole ride. Enough.”
I lean forward in my chair, stretching out my back, but also bringing me a little closer to Mrs. Jackson, whose seat is in front of mine. “Are we almost there?” I whisper, trying not to feed into the bitch fest behind me.
We drove past San Diego a few minutes ago and went over a bridge. Unless we’re on a border run to Tijuana, I’m pretty sure we have to be close to wherever we’re going.
“Nearly,” Mrs. Jackson says, and I sit back, concentrating on drowning out Jaime, who of course had to chime in to back up Sierra’s crap.
A few minutes later, the van pulls to a stop. Mrs. Jackson wasn’t kidding.
The driver slides the van door open for us, and we’re met by the bright sunshine and the roar of the ocean. The air is salty and warm as I inhale and then exhale, glad to be out of the muscle-tightening AC. The wind whips strands of my hair loose from the bun I’d meticulously put together that morning, and I brush them away, squinting against the sun.Where the hell are we?
“Audrey?” a voice I didn’t expect in a million years calls from behind me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I whip around and there’s Leo Adams clad in board shorts—and nothing else—a surfboard under his arm, smiling widely.
We’re in Coronado.
That building behind me? That’s Janet Dorsey-Adams’s gym.
“Leo Adams, I presume?” Mrs. Jackson asks, looking between the two of us with something suspiciously resembling a smirk on her usually cool features. “Is your mother inside? I need to speak with her.”
“Er—sure,” he says, giving me a questioning look, but I gape at him. I cannot believe he’s here or we’re here or whatever. “Is she expecting you?”
“We spoke on the phone this morning,” Mrs. Jackson says, and my eyebrows shoot up toward the clear blue sky. That wasn’t exactly ayes. Are wecrashingJanet Dorsey-Adams’s gym? I’ve only met the woman a couple of times and never beyond a quick hello, but by reputation, that doesn’t really seem like a thing she’d be cool with.
When she comes out of the front door, my instincts are confirmed. A white woman, no more than forty and about my height, she looks fit enough to bust out an Olympic-medal-worthy floor routine. Except now, with her arms crossed over her chest and one eyebrow lifted in challenge, I’m not in awe so much as terrified.
“Tamara?” she asks, but she’s looking at us and not Mrs. Jackson. “What’s going on?”
“I presume you know who these young ladies are?” Mrs. Jackson says, striding forward with her hand extended.
“Obviously,” Coach Dorsey-Adams says, her mouth curving into a frown, ignoring the hand, “but I thought I made it clear this morning … Oh, I see, you thought you’d corner me into this.”
“I …” Mrs. Jackson begins, but then wavers. The coach’s frown deepens during the hesitation. “Is there somewhere we can speak privately?”
“Not really,” Coach Dorsey-Adams says, turning away and signaling to Leo, who’s still beside me, to follow her. He doesn’t move, and something in that gesture—his split second of solidarity—spurs me on.
“Wait, please,” I say before I can even think about it. “We don’t … we don’t have anywhere else to go …” I trail off, losing my nerve.
