Claudia
The year is 2006 and like any year, it is not without noteworthy and striking occurrences. Google buys YouTube for an estimated 1.65 billion. NASA launches the New Horizons space probe to Pluto, exploring the dwarf planet and taking first time photos of it. Sydney, Australia suffers through its hottest New Year on record. It is also when Claudia Vickerman seriously begins to contemplate that maybe it was time to go home, possibly for good this time.
It was not that she had not considered this before; after all, she was a woman of good old-fashioned Texas upbringing that had been taught to stay the course and not give up on marital commitment. However, she also had enough of her daddy in her to not just go along to get along and to not ever shy away from calling it as she saw it. Although she had been brought up in a conservative time and by a mostly conventional tropes, she was also by- and- large a free spirit with a healthy dose of common sense. She guessed she was an oxymoron of sorts, but really did not spend an inordinate amount of time on self-reflection. She only gave into it when she was feeling especially melancholy or fulfilled; there seemed to be a very thin line between the two emotions she had begun to notice. Even so, there seemed to be more of the former in her life lately than the latter, and this troubled her somewhat.
Something had begun to fill amiss as of late. It was a dulling ache that she did not want to acknowledge or admit to. It would awaken her a night at times or take her off guard when she did not expect it. It t would also invade her thoughts involuntarily during the day as she was busy with her job. Deep down, she knew this something was actually a someone: her estranged husband and father of her children. This someone was Burt Vickerman. And oh God, this inconvenient realization really pissed Claudia off.
Burt
The Academy was a balancing act for sure. One the one hand, gymnastics was his touchstone and something he knew like the back of his hand. On the other hand, it was like a child that never slept requiring an unending amount of his attention, energy, and patience. He felt more than a little short on all of those these days; especially since Haley Graham had made her official appearance at his gymnastics academy. When her father had contacted him after she had run into some trouble with juvenile court, he had mixed emotions about taking her on. On the one hand, he knew that Haley could possibly be the rawest natural talent he had ever worked with. On the other, he knew she had some behavioral and commitment issues that he was not sure he was up for. He was a gymnastics coach, not a shrink, for God's sake. He was also not as young as he used to be. His current students were overall pretty malleable and did not question authority or the need for structure. Haley, however, was a bird of a different feather. Her father had persisted though, and when he offered a sizeable chunk of change to entice Burt, he could not bring himself to say no. Even so, Burt made no bones to Mr. Graham that there would be no coddling or special treatment given to Haley. After all, Burt was already concerned about keeping the other mothers happy with their decision to put their daughters there. He literally could not afford to give more attention to one elite than the other, even though he had Ivan and Dori on staff to round out the training. He had made some pretty big promises that he was not exactly sure how he would follow through on with the Olympic hopeful mothers. He also worried about what impact Haley would have on their attitudes. To this end, Burt also stressed to Graham that he believed in discipline and was not going to tolerate any sass from his students, especially Haley. In other words, Burt demanded the reins to Haley if he was going to be able to tame her.
Sure enough, when Haley first arrived, she was a nightmare. Acting out, making faces, disrespectful, and refusing to train. Burt had been a high school gym coach years ago in another lifetime practically, and had to resort to remembering his old tricks in dealing with her. It was a mixture of psychology and old school discipline antics that he had to use to get her to come around. He even had to take her out of the gym, like taking a child out of church on a few occasions, in order to let her know in no uncertain terms who was calling the shots here. When all else failed, he would run her. He knew from experience this worked, and that it was hard not to hear your own thoughts when you are running your ass off. Slowly, it was working. Burt had to admit deep-down he was impressed by her intelligence and savvy, but he was equally concerned by her overly tough skin that seemed to be covering an abundant amount of sadness or something like it he could not quite put his finger on. What he was sure of was that she was extremely talented and needed his help channeling her powerful talent into a controlled routine.
Burt had also noticed that lately, which seemed truly impossible with all the irons he currently had in fire, Claudia was popping into his mind more and more frequently. He refused to admit he missed her. They had been married since they were babies in their early twenties, but had been on "break" as Claudia called it, for nearly three years now. The truth was they were legally separated and had given each other permission to see other people. It was complicated as to why they had never divorced, and it was not something that Burt discussed. It was nobody's business. Truth was he had never had problems attracting women, and he definitely kept his personal life separate from his professional one at all costs. When he first slipped off his band, it was a mixture of foreign and freedom that he didn't really like. After a while, he got more used to it but never to the point that he would ever consider getting rid of it. It was put up, put on hold he supposed, like their marriage. This was something he tried to not think about and instead focused on staying busy running his gymnastics academy and making sure Haley Graham didn't injure herself with her hard tricks. That was why Claudia showing up uninvited in his mind so often lately was really starting to get on whatever nerves he had left.