It wasn't long before the gym was packed and buzzing over ESPN's report that morning. No one knew any more specifics, but rumors were flying, some ridiculous like the World Championships would be held again, like a 'do over,' others more realistic, that there would be an investigation and possibly a reordering of medals based upon what the FIG found. Even the realistic rumors were scaring the crap out of everyone.
"What if they take away our medals?" Emily asked Payson as they loitered around the balance beam.
Payson patted her on the shoulder, "That is not going to happen. The Romanians bribed the officials, not us. We had nothing to do with it. We didn't break the rules; they can't punish us for something someone else did."
Emily nodded, but Lauren couldn't help but put her two cents in, "You never know. They stripped the Chinese of their bronze medal from 2000." She knew it was pointless to point out to Lauren that it was the IOC, not the Federation of International Gymnastics who stripped the Chinese team of their bronze from the Sydney games, but the smug look on her face made Payson want to leap over the beam and smack her.
Payson watched as Emily's eyes grew wide with worry at the thought of losing her hard earned silver medal. Payson wasn't all that concerned about her own performances compared to the Chinese team, but Emily had edged out Genghi Cho for silver on the uneven bars by five hundredths of a point and the fourth place finisher, another Chinese gymnast had been behind Genghi Cho by a mere hundredth of a point. It was so close that if they reevaluated the routines, Emily could be knocked off the podium entirely.
"Sasha isn't going to let that happen," Kaylie said dully, as if she knew she had to say the words, but didn't believe them.
Suddenly, a loud crash was heard from the gym office and they heard Sasha's voice yelling in a language foreign to them all, but sounded a lot like Romanian.
"I didn't know Sasha spoke another language," Lauren said.
"Four actually," Payson told her, as she walked towards the gym office.
Lauren nodded, distracted by the new knowledge, "Huh, that's a lot."
Emily's eyes grew even wider as she watched Payson climb the steps off the gym floor towards the office, "Where is she going?" she hissed at Emily and Lauren. "Is she crazy? He'll kill her."
Payson approached the door slowly, but confidently. She heard Sasha still speaking, obviously on the phone. It was definitely Romanian. She'd been in rotation with a few of the Romanian gymnasts during the All-Around competition and that's exactly what they sounded like, a mix of French and Russian. It was more than a little sexy.
He was sitting at his desk, saw her in the doorway and waved her in, indicating for her to close the door behind her. "Inacceptabil. Voi suna mâine. Da, la revedere.*"
He hung up and she tilted her head at him, "Well?" she asked, concern etched across her pretty face. Sasha ran a hand over his face in frustration and then picked up a pencil on his desk and began twirling it between his fingers.
"I called a friend of mine, a club coach in Romania with no official ties to their National team. It looks like they definitely bribed the judges, but miscalculated. They didn't view us a threat, so they only included the scores for the Chinese team in the terms of their agreement. A few of the judges that weren't in on the collusion realized what was going on during the competition and reported the discrepancies to FIG. They're going to take it from there."
"This is really getting to Emily. You should talk to her," Payson said.
Sasha grimaced, "Damn it, this is the last thing she needed." He slammed the pencil back down on his desk." I want to look over the tapes of the event, score the routines myself. Hopefully get a handle on what exactly FIG is looking at."
"Any word from Beals or the National Committee?" Payson asked. Maybe they'll have some information we don't.
Sasha nodded, "They're still in the dark and I'm not about to share what I know. Like I said, I want to check the footage first." Suddenly a brilliant idea popped into his head, "Stay late? There's some popcorn and a judging sheet with your name on it." Subtle, very subtle, Beloff, you aren't supposed to be having romantic evenings, not yet. You could use her eye though. She's an excellent evaluator and it would be good for both of you to be able to drop the pretense for a couple of hours, wouldn't it?
Payson smiled and nodded, "Absolutely, I want to know exactly how this happened. You didn't happen to get a -"
"An official copy of the statement of results?" he said, sitting back in his chair with a self-satisfied grin. He picked up a binder and spun it on his hand. "Made sure to grab one on my way out of the arena on that last night."
It was then she gave him this look, one he hadn't seen her wear before, at least not with this level of intensity. He knew that if they were alone, really alone, she'd have crossed the room, pinned him to his chair and snogged the living hell out of him. He raised his eyebrows and smiled at her knowingly.
She blushed prettily and turned to look out the glass door at her friends still standing by the beam staring at her in disbelief and a little bit of awe. She sighed lightly. "I better get back. We could use your presence on the floor. It's freaking everyone out that you're in here screaming your head off in Romanian. No one is getting any training done at all."
He nodded, "I'll be out in a minute. Listen; spread the word that I'm working on it okay? I don't want everyone speculating without knowing that I'm on top of this." His brow was furrowed, a sure sign that he was concerned and much more than he was letting on. She resisted the urge to walk towards him and brush the worry lines away with a touch or a kiss. Control, I've got to stay in control of myself.
"Sure," she said, looking back out on the floor. Nearly everyone was looking at her, but when they realized she'd seen them, they quickly averted their eyes.
Payson made her way back towards the beam where her friends were still waiting. She was silent for just a moment, but Lauren couldn't contain herself longer than that, "Well? What did he say?"
Payson grimaced, wishing she had more information, "He said he's working on it and that he's depending upon us to set an example and focus on training. Hopefully everyone else will follow our lead."
The other girls nodded and began to circulate, and slowly the other gymnasts went about their daily routines. Ten minutes later when Sasha emerged from the office and surveyed the floor, everyone practically stopped and stared. "Is everyone done chit chatting or should I go back in my office and give you another ten minutes or so?" he demanded harshly with the perfect combination of sarcasm and gravitas. His voice echoing through the Rock sent every scurrying to their tasks.
"Kmetko, on the beam," Sasha called out sending the other girls training near the beam racing out of his path. It's better to be respected than to be feared, Beloff. But fear works too.
Emily came jogging over from the water cooler, "Yes, Sasha."
He looked at her, trying to find a trace of the anxiety Payson had mentioned and there it was, written across her face, clear as day. The old insecurity he thought she'd conquered was back. He took a deep breath. "We're going to start working on a new acrobatic skill for your beam routine today. A front tuck salto from both feet." He regretted the choice of skill already, but it was something she needed to do.
"Sasha, another blind landing, I…" she trailed off at the look he was giving her. He raised his eyebrows. "Okay, where do we start?" she asked.
"On the tape," he said, pointing to the line of white tape on the floor next to the balance beam. "Show me one." She did the skill, slowly, but perfectly. "Good, ten more, increasing the speed each time. I'll send Tara over here in a little while; make sure your hitting it consistently on the line before lunch break today."
Sasha began to walk away from Emily, but stopped himself, "Emily," he said and she turned to look at him. "The Chinese think they've got you figured out. They're already planning next year's World Championships, breaking down the American athletes, looking for weakness. You're going to go to World's next year and absolutely nail the beam. It starts today with the front tuck salto, but this is a long term plan. We're going to make you an All-Around gymnast, Emily and the world isn't going to know what hit them."
She smiled and then her eyes focused behind him on whoever was running down to the vault full speed. He turned and watched Payson land her Straight Yurchenko with a double twist. "How does she do it?" he heard Emily mumble. Payson landed easily and frowned, looking at the horse unhappily.
Sasha saw his opening, "She does it because she's fearless. I believe that's something you helped her with, Kmetko." They watched Payson run down the line again, this time for her Produnova, the ridiculously difficult vault that helped her win at Worlds. Emily turned back to tape on the floor, "If she can fly through the air full speed on a Produnova, I can do this fucking front tuck salto," he heard her mutter.
He decided to pretend he hadn't heard the profanity and walked away. He saw Payson coming towards him and he nearly groaned. He knew that look. "No," he said and walked away, "At least not today."
Payson gaped at him incredulously, "You don't even know what I was going to say."
He pursed his lips and quirked an eyebrow at her, "You want to add a half twist to your Yurchenko landing."
Her jaw dropped. He just walked away chuckling to himself. He knew she was staring at his back as he made his way towards the floor where Kaylie was once again going through the motions. His smile faded. She really was too thin and she was losing muscle tone. He didn't even bother to address the major problems in her routine. He knew something drastic needed to happen soon. He made a mental note to call Alex as soon as he went back into the gym office.
He turned away from Kaylie just in time to see Lauren flying down towards the vault, springing off the board and chucking herself into the same vault Payson had done, the straight Yurchenko double twist, except instead of measuring the power she generated off the springboard, she simply struck it as hard as she could, sending herself reeling onto the mats in a heap, missing the apparatus entirely. Sasha had enough. He marched over to her and led her away from the group of girls waiting to work in.
He wasn't going to yell. She expected him to yell. He was going to whisper. "Do you think that was impressive? Do you think that I'm somehow in awe of your powerful springboard jump over the horse?" She opened her mouth to respond, but he kept going, "You were an alternate at the Worlds because your head is always on anything and everything other than your gymnastics and you weren't asked to compete because you let your emotions get the better of you when it counts. Either get it together, Lauren or you can kiss 2012 goodbye."
"Sasha." He looked up to see Kim Keeler beckoning him from the platform outside the office. He left Lauren standing there absolutely speechless.
"What's up?" he asked, walking into the office and seeing Summer hard at work at something that resembled the scrapbooks his mum used to make.
"We've been fielding phone calls all morning, people looking for interviews with you and, well anyone who was in Rotterdam really, even Lauren."
"I hope you've been refusing them?" he asked, looking through the stack of messages.
"Of course we have, but we also got a call from MJ." Sasha made a face and Kim laughed, knowing and understanding his dislike for the agent. "I know, but she called to say that Sports Illustrated wants to expand the article they were going to do on Payson to an article about the Rock gymnasts and their coach."
Summer finally looked up from her glue gun, "I think it's a good idea. It'll save Payson the difficulty of having to answer all the questions the reporter will have about the controversy on her own and it'll be easier to present a human side to the story, when the reporter sees how close you all are and how the Rock is more like a family than anything else," she said, quickly going back to strategically placing drops of hot glue on the the large red star she was using as the mounting for a picture of Emily at the World Championships.
Sasha snorted, "A large, loud, slightly incestuous, completely dysfunctional family," he muttered just low enough so Summer couldn't hear him, but Kim did and she barked out a laugh. And you're the biggest culprit, Beloff, the rest of them just don't know it. Oh, shut up. "Tell MJ we'll do it."
"Ladies, I have a phone call to make and it concerns a private medical issue with one of the girls. It shouldn't take too long, but would you mind stepping out?"
They both looked confused at his odd request, but quickly left the room. Now, this phone call is going to be the most difficult thing you do all day, Beloff. Don't muck it up. He dialed the number and waited, "Alex, Sasha Beloff calling. Listen, do you have a minute to talk about Kaylie?"
"And what did he say?" Payson asked as she lounged on the futon they'd moved from against the office wall to in front of the television.
"Confidential, sorry," he said and she shrugged. "I can tell you that he took me seriously though. You'll probably get a text or a call from Kaylie tonight."
"Probably not, knowing Kaylie she'll be too angry at everyone to call. She'll just lock herself up inside her room." Payson shook her head and sighed, leaning back up against the armrest and resting her head against the high back, watching him pour the popcorn into a bowl. "I'm sorry; can we just not talk about Kaylie right now? She's one of my best friends, but sometimes…" she trailed off, her meaning clear. She moved her feet up so he could sit.
"Okay, time to work then. You've got the official scores, let's go," he said, taking a seat next to her and then depositing her feet in his lap. They watched the first rotation of the Chinese gymnasts carefully.
"Stop, stop it back a couple of seconds," Payson said, grabbing the scoring sheet. She quickly deciphered the score Genghi Cho got from one of the judges. "Look right there, on that split jump, one judge deducted, I guess for lack of flexibility, it's a ticky-tacky call, borderline at best, but only one judge did it. I think they judged that legitimately and it's just a hundredth of a point. Then look at her landing on the dismount." He tracked through the footage and found her dismount. "Look, she took a small hop on the landing. Three of the six judges took one tenth; the other three took three tenths off. I know judging is subjective, but she only hopped an inch or two. They're trying to mask what they're doing."
"It's brilliant, really," Sasha said, looking over her shoulder at the binder, "they didn't deduct for nothing, no imagined errors, they simply piled harsher deductions onto errors that were already there."
Payson sighed, "If all of them are like this, Sasha, it's going to be really hard for FIG to prove, other than someone confessing." Payson bit her lip, trying to hold down the question she'd wanted to ask him all day, but she wasn't able to. "I'm going to ask you something, as my coach, not as well – anything else, so be brutally honest."
Sasha looked at her curiously and nodded his agreement, "Go on then," he said, intrigued.
"Do you think they posted higher scores for me to try to distract from the fact that they were underscoring the Chinese?"
It was a serious question, one that Sasha didn't have the answer to. He took a deep breath and sighed, "It's possible and I'd be lying if I said the thought didn't cross my mind." She nodded, biting her lip. "But, Payson, purely on the gymnastics side of this, throw the scores out the window. You were absolutely incredible. We could watch the routines, but they'd tell me what I already know, your technique was stunning and your execution was flawless."
Payson pursed her lips in disbelief, "Execution is never flawless. Sasha, they gave me a ten for execution on the floor exercise. That's like I don't know, there's nothing even to compare it to, but I know I had some errors in that routine, not enough to change the way things turned out, but there were errors."
He shook his head, "It doesn't matter. I absolutely forbid you to feel badly about this. You are the best gymnast in the world and you performed up to and beyond that standard."
She looked at him for a long moment. Suddenly, the energy seemed to shift in the room. Swirling emotions were one thing, those were easily calmed, but this was different, this was a white hot cord of energy linking one body to another. Payson felt her breath catch from it. She leaned in and brushed a soft kiss on his cheek, trying to ease the electric currents running through her body. "Thank you," she said. She barely got the words out before his mouth was upon hers. This kiss was different from their others. She hadn't taken him by surprise and he hadn't begun slowly, as if asking for permission. This was a complete and utter possession of her by him. He pulled her closer and she readily complied, as she shifted over him.
Her long blonde hair created a curtain around them as she moved astride his legs, his arms coming around her, pulling their bodies flush together. He buried a hand in her hair, practically anchoring her to him, while his other hand ran down her back coming to rest at the small of her back. Her breasts pushed up enticingly against his chest. Their tongues battled for dominance over the other, their teeth sometimes clashing in their furious need to get closer.
As they came up for air, he latched on to her neck, "Don't leave a mark," she managed to breathe, shifting her hips forward, creating a devastating friction between their bodies. "Sasha," she murmured in his ear, fueling his need to be even closer to her. He shifted slightly and groaned in pleasure when he felt his thigh push between her legs. She threw her head back in pleasure, never having felt anything quite so intense before.
Then, much like at the hotel in Rotterdam, she was suddenly gone, on the other side of the futon, reaching for the remote and pressing play. A half second later, when he regained his senses more fully, he saw that someone had turned on the gym's fluorescent lights and he heard the telltale click-clack of high heeled shoes on the metal stairwell. He looked at her wide eyed, even more thankful than before that she was so observant.
"Sasha, oh, hi Payson, what are you still doing here?" Summer asked as she entered the office, completely oblivious to the tension in the room that could be cut with a knife.
"We're looking at the footage from Rotterdam and comparing it to the official record submitted by the judges after the meet trying to locate the discrepancies," Payson calmly explained, though her face was still flushed and her lips were swollen in a way that screamed she'd just been thoroughly kissed.
"Sounds interesting," Summer said, obviously not nearly as enthusiastic about the idea of assessing minuscule details of elite gymnastics routines. "Any luck?"
Sasha finally spoke up, "Yes, we think we understand their strategy, but we've only been through one rotation so far."
She smiled encouragingly, "Well, don't let me interrupt you. I just came back for the scrapbook I've been working on. Good night, you two. Don't work too hard."
They didn't sigh in relief until they heard the door to the gym close.
"Well, that was close," he muttered and Payson couldn't help it, she began to laugh. After looking at her for a moment, he joined her. Yes, you're laughing now, but one of these days you're going to get caught, Beloff. And then what? Think about that tomorrow. Right now, you've got a conspiracy to figure out.
"Come on, let's finish this. I want to be able to tell Emily that she earned her silver medal tomorrow," Payson said, picking up the binder again and fast forwarding to the event finals on uneven bars. Sasha nodded and picked up his pen, ready to score the routine and compare it to the official book.
Tomorrow, after he and Payson documented their proof, he'd call his old friend, Andrei and blast the bastard into the next century.
*Translation: Unacceptable. I'll call you tomorrow. Yes, goodbye.
