Chapter Eight

 

Relative to her size, Shaye Sylvester was one of the strongest athletes on earth.

It didn’t come easy. Before school, she awoke at five o’clock and began her day with an hour of running, anywhere between five and seven miles depending on what meet was looming, any injuries she might be recovering from, and her level of fatigue. Between six-fifteen and six-thirty, she arrived at the gym for an hour of stretching and strength training. This included ten repetitions of doing as many sit-ups as she could in one minute, with fifteen seconds in between. The exercise was then repeated with push-ups. To strengthen her legs, she did between fifty and one-hundred squat jumps and the same amount of lunges. Thirty pull-ups on the high bar was routine, and in between all this, she worked on maintaining and improving flexibility.

As with any repetitive training regimen, there was concern she would sustain a stress injury, but there was no way around the workouts. Shaye was a graceful dancer, but she loved gymnastics because there was always the possibility of larger and more spectacular skills. To learn those, she had to be in optimal physical condition. Her muscles were naturally well-defined, which was both a blessing and a curse. In her arms and stomach, she was perfect, especially since the long-sleeved leotards worn in meets minimized her biceps. But her powerful thighs were larger and beefier than those of her competitors.

Compared to other women, her legs were incredibly thin and gorgeous. Compared to other elite gymnasts, they sometimes made her look like a body builder.

Shaye knew the tradeoff. The body she painstakingly developed over the past decade made her tumbling skills, vaults, jumps, bar releases, and everything else bigger and more impressive than anyone else on the floor. On the flip side, though she was scarcely five-feet and unerringly eighty-seven pounds, every meet she had to endure an interview or overhear a commentator refer to her as having an atypical gymnast’s physique.

After her morning workout, she arrived at school in time for second period. She stayed for five hours and returned to the gym for afternoon training. School would be out in three weeks, so she could spend the last two months before the Olympics preparing for it exclusively. Nationals were this weekend, and the top two would be automatically named to the Olympic team. It had been nearly three years since an American gymnast outscored her in a competition, and she doubted six of them would outperform her to the point where she’d miss the Olympic team. She didn’t plan on unveiling any of her daring new skills until the Olympics, so this weekend should be a mortal lock.

Most gymnasts at her level were home-schooled or had tutors in the gym. Shaye couldn’t possibly afford that. Besides, she liked school. High school was so inundated with cliques no one was overly impressed with her extracurricular accomplishments. She was simply another of four thousand kids trying to find a place in the world, and more importantly, gain a strategic foothold in the complicated echelon of teenage society.

Secretly, Shaye wanted to be a cheerleader. The uniforms were cute, and the thought of her peers cheering as she did back handsprings across the fifty yard line or down the center of the basketball court made her giddy inside. She was used to being cheered at meets, but something about gaining the approval of her school was both elusive and intensely appealing.

Maybe next year, after the Olympics. Galya would let her. In fact, unlike most coaches, he would encourage it.

Shaye’s school days lasted from nine until two in the afternoon. She was taking the five classes (English, science, math, social studies, foreign language) required to move on to junior year. Next summer, she’d make up the necessary electives, which wouldn’t be a big deal considering she would sign up for mostly gym classes. Maybe she’d meet a cute guy.

This afternoon, she was winding down practice on the balance beam. When she told Trixie she was going to do a one and a half backflip, she was half kidding, but the more she thought about it, the more she believed it was possible. She would do a full backflip in a tuck position, then another half and catch her hands on the beam, lowering herself down to a straddle.

How to control the fall, to grasp the beam without breaking her wrists or slamming her pubic bone against the beam itself, was still a quandary.

It wasn’t like Shaye needed to add more difficulty to her beam routine. Her opening sequence alone boasted more complexity than some athletes packed into half a routine. Shaye attacked her routine, and with the level of difficulty imbued in every second of her set, it was a sight to behold.

Still, she wanted to do more, and a back one and a half, in addition to the flare mount, which was a move that threw even the strongest male gymnasts off a much wider pommel horse, a double turn with her leg straight up in the air, pressed to her nose, something no other gymnast dared to attempt because everyone was terrified of falling on a simple compulsory pirouette, and an E level dismount, one of the most difficult on the books, would allow her the possibility of scoring above a seventeen, which was unheard of. Theoretically, she could fall and still score well above average.

Shaye did not need the one and a half. She wanted it. Even at her level, most gymnasts were afraid of trying new elements for the first time. Not Shaye. Either she had learned to block the fear for so long it did not register or it had never been there in the first place. Whatever the case, she was anxious to attempt new skills before her coaches thought she was ready. She considered it bravery and confidence. They considered it foolishness.

“We’ve been drilling and drilling and drilling,” Shaye argued. “I’m ready to try.”

“There are easier ways to add points,” Galya Prokhor argued.

“Sure, but this isn’t about adding points. This is about doing something no one else has done.”

“How much sense does it make to hurt yourself before Nationals?”

“How much sense does it make to hurt myself ever?” Shaye countered. “I’m ready. Let’s do it.”

“With a practice mat.” Galya threw a mat over the beam where she would land and stood close to the beam, motioning for another trainer to do the same.

Shaye hopped onto the end of the beam and raised her hands over her head. With a quick breath in and out, she stepped into a roundoff, back handspring, then the one and a half. She timed it perfectly, squarely over the beam, and her hands caught with grace and precision. With her remarkable strength, she was able to stop her momentum enough to lower herself safely.

Every particle in the gym froze momentarily, and then Galya jumped into the air with a hoot and a holler. The other girls clapped and cheered, and even Shaye couldn’t help but smile. She kicked the mat off the beam and turned around. Before anyone could stop her, she huffed quickly and repeated the sequence. Again she landed it perfectly, this time without a safety net, which was enough for her to swing her leg around, hop to the ground, and jump into her coach’s arms. He spun her around and kissed her cheek.

“I told you,” she whispered into his ear.

“You always do.” He set her on the ground and gave her shoulders a good squeeze. “It’s seven o’clock. Time to go home. Want me to walk with you?”

“Shoot, I forgot,” Shaye exclaimed. “Simone’s making dinner tonight, she told me to invite you and Zarya.”

“Hold on.” He grabbed his cell phone from his gym bag and called his wife. Thirty seconds later, he winked and gave her a thumbs-up, and they walked together the ten blocks to her apartment.

Shaye wasn’t one for hyperbole, but if asked to describe her older sister, she would say Simone was a saint who should be canonized immediately.

When Shaye was two-years-old, her mother had died in a diabetic coma. At the time, Simone was fourteen, and she instantly became a parent. Their father loved them, but he had no idea how to handle children, particularly little girls.

Simone graduated from college seven years ago. Since then, her little sister basically became her daughter, and Shaye would not change that. She couldn’t say the same for her sister.

Galya’s wife met them outside the apartment building. Zarya and Galya had grown up together in a small Russian town two hundred miles outside Moscow. They married when they were eighteen, and she supported him through four Olympics and later their battle to become United States citizens. Like his best young athlete, Galya was outspoken against abuse in women’s gymnastics, which made him a target for ridicule and violence in Russia.

Zarya was blond-haired, blue-eyed, willowy, beautiful, and one of the strongest people Shaye had ever met. Shaye admired the quiet calm the woman carried with her wherever she went. She wished for that kind of peace, tranquility she didn’t have to search for, that she simply carried without effort or pretense. Zarya was a police officer, and she certainly wasn’t like most cops she’d met.

Someday she’d ask Zarya how she managed it, but for now, she’d keep her questions to herself and settle for soaking up secondhand serenity.

“How’s the most beautiful gymnast in the world?” Zarya asked in her soft, almost whispery voice as she took Shaye into her arms.

They entered the apartment to wonderful warm cooking smells, and Simone shouted from the kitchen, “I made Cajun-Bean Casserole. Sit down, it’s ready.” In addition to the casserole, she prepared baked squash, summer salad, and spicy gazpacho as an appetizer.

Most of what Simone made was suitable for Shaye’s diet, meaning no fat, few carbohydrates, and low-calorie. Shaye’s strict eating habits did not begin until three years ago, when she came in second at the World Championships, and at first her sister made separate meals for them. That only lasted a few weeks, when the task became too difficult and the guilt too immense. Since that time, Simone had learned how to prepare excellent, healthy food. She’d also lost twenty pounds.

Shaye went into the bathroom to wash her hands and saw the red light on the answering machine in her sister’s bedroom blinking. She pressed the button and began scrubbing under her fingernails.

“Hey, Simone, it’s Dad. Give me a call when you get this. Later.”

Shaye felt her heart skip a beat then pick up too fast. She hadn’t spoken to her father in nearly two years, and she couldn’t believe he and her sister were on good enough speaking terms that he would leave casual messages on their answering machine.

The boisterous conversation coming from the kitchen petered out when Shaye stood in the entryway, hands on hips, a glare on her face. “Did you send him money?”

Galya and Zarya were like family to the Sylvester sisters, but even family could become uncomfortable with this type of confrontation. Their smiles, movements, and voices ceased.

Simone did not look up. “It’s none of your business,” she said as she sliced strawberries into the salad.

In response, Shaye lunged for her sister’s purse, and before Simone could stop her, she pulled out a money order. “Two-thousand dollars,” she shouted.

Simone slammed the knife into the stainless steel sink and met her sister, twelve years her junior, with a glower angry and heated enough to make her sweat. “Damn it, Shaye, I said it was none of your business, and I meant it.”

“We don’t have two-thousand dollars to send to him. We can barely afford training and competition fees as it is. What, am I supposed to take a break for the three months leading up to the Olympics?”

“You don’t have two-thousand dollars. In fact, you don’t have any money whatsoever. How I choose to spend my money is my business. It has nothing to do with you.”

“What, suddenly I’m not part of this family?”

“No, but not so suddenly, you’re still only sixteen-years-old. You don’t understand this.”

Shaye screamed, “How long are you going to let that man take advantage of us?”

Reflexively, Simone shouted back, “It must run in the family because you’ve been taking advantage of me since you were eight.”

It couldn’t have hurt less to be sucker punched. There was no comeback to that devastating blow, and Shaye could only storm out of the kitchen to her bedroom, where she slammed the door hard enough to make the windows rattle.

Their apartment was not large. After collapsing on the bed, even with a pillow pulled over her head, she could hear their muffled voices. Bowls, plates, and silverware clanked as her sister and guests sat down to eat. Simone gave her five minutes to cool off before there was a soft knock on the door.

“Go away,” Shaye demanded miserably.

“Come on, kid, your food’s getting cold.”

“I’m not hungry.”

There was a slight chuckle. “Give me a break. You’re always hungry.”

“Fine. I just don’t feel like eating.”

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

Her permission was not needed. There was no lock on her bedroom door, and Simone let herself in. It was rapidly growing dark outside, and she flicked on a lamp on the bookshelf. In the dim red light, the hundreds of medals and trophies Shaye had garnered over her career gleamed.

Simone sat down on the bed and gently removed the pillow from behind her sister’s head. “You didn’t hang around long enough to see, but I made brownies. The batter’s in the fridge, and I’ll put them in the oven during dinner.”

“I can’t eat brownies,” Shaye pouted.

“These are fat free. I made them with prune puree and hell-whipped egg whites.”

“Sounds disgusting.”

Simone leaned forward and lightly kissed her sister’s temple, near her ear. “I couldn’t be prouder of you if you were my own daughter, and I’d happily sell my right arm if that’s what it took to get you to the Olympics,” she whispered. “But he’s our father, and you didn’t know him before Mom died. I don’t blame you for being angry with him.”

“He’s a gambling addict, Simone. How can you keep enabling him by giving him money?”

“I don’t want him to get hurt, and I don’t want the publicity that will come with him getting in trouble.”

“I can handle the press.”

“You can handle anything. But you shouldn’t have to.”

Shaye sat up Indian style to face her sister, leaning close to her face. “I did a one and a half on the beam today.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s really more like a double, but I catch my hands on the beam and lower myself to a straddle. No one else in the world has done it.”

Simone’s grin was priceless. She pulled her little sister into a tight embrace and held her there. “You’re going to win that event at the Olympics for sure.”

“Now I need to figure out how to win the other five.”