Letters to Nowhere (3 page)

Stacey ended up coaching us the entire evening practice since Bentley had that parent meeting. After the awkward exchange earlier in the day, I couldn’t say I was disappointed by the head coach’s absence.

As expected, right after practice, while my face was still as red as my hair and twice as sweaty, Blair turned back into “best friend Blair” and drilled me immediately with all her concerns. She had no internal censor whatsoever.

“What if you’re, like, walking to the bathroom and Coach Bentley is coming out of the shower or whatever and you get a glimpse of him naked?” Blair had her head flipped upside down as she forcefully ran a brush through her long black hair. “Do you think that image will ever leave your head? How is he going to coach you after you’ve seen his bare ass or worse—”

“God, Blair!” Ellen groaned, “Ew.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not going to see him naked. Besides, I’m sure we’re both mature enough to deal with accidents that aren’t preventable.”

Okay, so I was totally not mature enough to deal with seeing Coach Bentley’s unexposed skin, but you could bet I’d do everything I could to prevent the incident from happening.

My clothes were on in record time and I skipped any amount of grooming to make a break for the lobby and end this conversation. By the time I checked Coach Bentley’s office and scanned the parking lot for his car, Blair and Stevie were walking out of the locker room. Stevie (pronounced Stev
ee—
a nickname for Stefani, but I was pretty sure she’d had it legally changed because I hadn’t heard anyone use her full name in years) was my oldest teammate.

“Karen!” Mrs. Martin, Blair’s mother strode quickly toward me;
cue dead parent face
. “Coach Bentley is still at the McKays’, we can give you a ride, honey.”

Blair’s mom was second only to Ellen’s as the scariest gym mom ever. Maybe it was her Asian heritage that caused her to push and push and obsess over every detail of her daughter’s career, but even before losing my parents, I had found it suffocating. Now it was even more so, because being around her reminded me of houses and families and things I didn’t want to think about.

From the corner of my eye I saw Blair’s face brighten. “Awesome! Can we get sushi, Mom? Maybe Karen can just sleep over?”

I sucked in a breath, feeling my heart race. Right after Coach Bentley had made his offer, the Martins had wanted me to stay with them, and Blair was still stung by my refusal, though she wouldn’t admit it, because you can’t be pissed off at your best friend after her parents died. It was like the best get–out–of–jail–free card ever.

Before things got any more awkward, Stevie spoke the most magical words ever. “I can take her. It’s on my way.”

I stared at her, wondering how she knew where Bentley lived.

After a serious injury right before Olympic trials and a yearlong retirement from gymnastics, Stevie had just come back to the gym two months ago, and I hadn’t really spoken to her outside of practice much. She was almost twenty now, and I kept thinking about her spending over a year out in the real world, and she’d seemed like a stranger. And Coach Cordes had been so broken up by Stevie’s abrupt departure that it’d become a silent rule that we didn’t bring up her name. Of course Bentley, the new guy, had no history of coaching her and welcomed her back to the group with ease.

Avoiding eye contact with Blair, I hurried behind Stevie as she opened the door, calling over my shoulder, “Maybe tomorrow. I haven’t even unpacked.”

Stevie’s brand new silver sports car was a much smoother ride than the rusty putter of Jordan’s vehicle, and I found myself relaxing into the seat. Stevie, a former world champion and daughter of an Olympic gold medal sprinter, was all business all the time, and I had no worries about her bringing up my parents or any other uncomfortable topic.

“So where does Bentley live?” Stevie asked, laughing. “I don’t know if it’s on my way or not, but you looked like you needed a Plan B.”

I blew air out of my cheeks, nodding before giving her the address and basic directions. I totally needed a savior in there.
Stevie’s very perceptive
.

“Bars are killing me,” she said after a couple minutes of driving in silence. She lifted a hand from the steering wheel to check out her calluses. “If I had known what a year off of gymnastics would do to my hands, I might have stuck it out.” She laughed and I made an effort to join her. “They’re letting me go to training camp next month,” she added.

“Really? You’re going to Houston with us?” Both junior and senior elite gymnasts had to endure four–day training camps under the judgmental eye of USA Gymnastics Coordinator Nina Jones. It wasn’t exactly your fun kind of camp, despite the woods and the animals on the property. It was a test. A four–day–long exhausting test, both mental and physical.

Stevie rolled her eyes, acknowledging the lack of excitement revolving around this event. “Yep. It’s now or never, right? Either they welcome me back or tell me I’m a disgrace—too old, too fat, too slow, too sloppy, too weak…what else is there?”

I laughed nervously, not sure if it was a rhetorical question. “Or completely unnoticeable, like me,” I said, thinking about my last training camp, when Nina Jones gave individual corrections and comments to nearly everyone except me. I’d done the same routines for years, she knew them well enough already. I had nothing to wow her with.

“Well, that’s not happening this time,” Stevie said. “It’s Bentley’s first National team camp.”

“Yeah but—”

“I know, I know, he’s coached elite guys and pre–elite girls,” Stevie interrupted. “He’s plenty experienced, but you know how obsessed Nina and the rest of her committee are with Ellen, so they’ll be watching Bentley’s every move to make sure he’s coaching her to her full potential.”

I wasn’t sure if this revelation made me more excited for next month or less. Probably less if they were looking for a reason to criticize our coaching in an effort to protect Ellen, the thirteen–year–old phenom and current Junior National champion.

“At least we have time to mentally prepare for that.”

The conversation ended there because we’d arrived at Bentley’s place. I shouted thanks to Stevie and crunched through the week–old snow on my way to open one of an entire row of identical red front doors. I unlocked the door with the key Coach Bentley had given me this afternoon and quietly stepped into the foyer, leaving my coat and boots by the door.

My stomach growled loudly in the near silence, steering me through the living room on my way to the kitchen. I let out a much too loud and very un–cool gasp when my eyes took in the two tangled bodies on the living room couch. Jordan’s red striped tie lay on the floor and his khaki pants were twisted around skinny, spray–tanned, carefully shaven legs, his hand inching toward the hemline of the red and blue plaid skirt.

“Oh God!” slipped out of my mouth as my eyes unwillingly traveled up to the brunette’s hair, which was covering Jordan’s face and keeping me from seeing their mouths locked together. “Sorry—
God
…uh…totally sorry.”

I dove into the safety of the kitchen, wanting nothing but to crawl under the table and never come out. Instead, I knelt down on the floor and stuck my head in a cabinet full of pots and pans, pretending to look for something really important. I could hear voices talking softly, then the girl’s laughter, followed by the front door closing. A few seconds later, Jordan was in the kitchen, flinging open the fridge as if nothing had happened.

My face was hotter than hell and I must have looked like one big mess of chalk dust and sweat, but I wasn’t too chicken to at least apologize. I mean, this was his house and I’d just walked right in. I should have knocked or something. The key was probably for emergencies, like when nobody was home. Why else would Jordan lock the front door while he was inside? Obviously he had wanted to prevent situations like these.

“Um, sorry,” I said, standing quickly and turning to lean my back against the counter. “I should have knocked or rang the doorbell or something.”

He shrugged and tossed several items from the fridge onto the counter. “Don’t sweat it. She had to leave, anyway.”

“It won’t happen again,” I promised, crossing my fingers that he wouldn’t find something to complain about to Coach Bentley and have me shipped off to the Grandma’s or Blair’s house. Mrs. Martin was too much of a mom and Mr. Martin too much of a dad. I wouldn’t last a day in that house.

Jordan gave me a lopsided grin that was too genuine to be fake. “It’s fine. Really.”

It occurred to me, right then, that maybe
he
was concerned about me getting
him
in trouble. He had gotten caught in a pretty intense make–out session.

Coach Bentley had left a huge stack of forms for me to fill out, finalizing my change of address and insurance and a whole bunch of small details that no one ever thinks about when they decide to live with a nonrelative. I grabbed a pen and sat at the tiny kitchen table, which I just noticed had only two chairs, and went to work on filling in my social security number five hundred times. My stomach continued to grumble as I worked. I hadn’t eaten since eleven thirty, right after morning practice, and it was now nearly eight at night. I gulped down half of my water bottle while Jordan continued to mess around in the fridge and kitchen cabinets.

Eventually, he sat down across from me, holding two plates, each containing a sandwich. He slid a plate over to my side of the table. “I made you one, too. Thought you might be hungry.”

Okay, he’s definitely worried about me squealing on him
. I stared at the deadly–thick, forbidden slices of white bread wrapped around cheese and meat. Would it be rude to ask for whole wheat pita bread?

Jordan jumped up and grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge, offering me one. I shook my head and nodded toward my water bottle resting beside my plate. He drank half the soda in about five seconds and started on his sandwich.

A hunger headache was already forming, along with an allergic reaction to paperwork. I rubbed my temples and sighed before finally conceding, throwing out any amount of manners I’d been taught in my sixteen years. I tossed the top piece of bread off my sandwich and removed both slices of cheddar cheese, setting them beside the bread before picking up a slice of turkey and munching on it, my focus still on the paper in front of me.

I could feel Jordan’s gaze on me, but he didn’t comment. Not a word. Not that I was really surprised. You could practically hear his internal debate in the near silence, always returning to the same words that followed me everywhere…
dead parents, dead parents, dead parents
. It wasn’t like he could ask me why I was acting so weird and get a better answer than…
dead parents
.

And nobody wants you to actually say that answer out loud. In fact, most people would do everything in their power to avoid hearing me speak those words. I could probably get away with murder. Or kidnapping. Or underage drinking.

Coach Bentley came home when I had just finished my third slice of turkey and Jordan was down to only the crusts of his sandwich. Bentley stood in the kitchen, sifting through a stack of mail in his hands, not looking up at either of us.

“Did you make it to practice okay?” he finally asked me. “Jordan was here when you got home, I hope?”

I swallowed my last bite of turkey, washing it down with a large gulp of water, while Jordan’s eyebrows lifted, waiting for my answer. “I got to practice just fine. And he was here when Stevie dropped me off.”

I could have sworn I heard Jordan let out a breath, but I wasn’t sure. Coach Bentley nodded his approval and started to walk out of the kitchen. He stopped suddenly and moved toward the table when he saw me picking a fourth piece of turkey out of my sandwich.

“I’m sorry,” Coach Bentley said quickly. “I didn’t think to ask what you liked to eat. McDonald’s is around the corner. I’ll run and grab you something else.”

Wow, he really is the complete opposite of Coach Cordes
.

I scrambled to put the sandwich back together and tapped the pen nervously against the table. “It’s not that I don’t like it.” I spun halfway around to face him. “But some of it’s not on the diet and…” I trailed off, hoping this would spark some kind of recognition.

“Diet?” Bentley’s forehead wrinkled and he scratched the top of his bald head.

“The team nutritionist’s diet. She meets with the elite girls and our families every six months and we get detailed menus to follow.” How did he not know about this? And here I was worried that he’d crack the whip on the food issue and he was seconds from buying me a Big Mac and fries.

“Maybe I do remember someone mentioning the nutritionist,” he said finally. “Does Stacey know the details?”

“Uh…yeah.” She was the one who got on us when any of us tried to cheat, like at competitions when we traveled as a team and went out to dinner together. Stacey was convinced that one meal without a leafy green food would ruin our immune systems forever. And white bread would make us all fall off the balance beam instantly. “It’s just empty calories,” she always said, and, “It doesn’t leave any room for good food.”

I could honestly say that I’ve rarely cheated on my diet. I liked all the foods that were recommended to us. But I’ve seen Blair go home after practice and eat nothing but two candy bars and a bowl of Lucky Charms, then work out again for four hours later that day. Everyone else cheated, but we’d never rat each other out. Ever. It was part of the teammate bond.

“I’ll talk to Stacey,” Bentley said. “She can fill me in.”

Jordan rolled his eyes and got up from his chair, tossing his plate into the sink with a loud bang. Coach Bentley sighed as his son left without a word. Obviously, this wasn’t a hugging kind of father/son relationship.