Chapter 16: Karma
Darby gave Emily an hour off for lunch each day and Emily was spending it with Summer, James and Chloe. They were at the local park feeding the ducks. Emily laughed as James clapped his hands together happily whenever the ducks ate the crumbs he threw at them. Her son had the same natural happiness that Chloe did, she was grateful for that, she wanted him to be happy more than anything, and not have a childhood fraught with anxiety and disappointment as she'd had.
Summer cuddled her son and kissed him on the head, making James giggle. Summer grinned at Emily who reluctantly smiled back. James was going to be okay. He had a stable life and lots of love. But he didn't have his birth parents. Once again the crippling feeling of guilt took over her. She had totally changed the course of her son's life all because of a dream she didn't even know she wanted.
Chloe came over to her daughter and put her arm around her shoulders. "Let's take a walk."
"Mum, I've got training."
"It'll only take a little while." Chloe nudged Emily around the other side of the pond. Emily rolled her eyes. It was lecture time again.
"What Mum?"
"I just wanted to chat with you sweetie, you seemed a bit blue today."
"Yeah I guess. Mum?"
"Yes honey?"
Emily took a deep breath "I'm going for the Olympics. I'm not taking the scholarship. I did not take James away from his family for some college scholarship that was a second best option, he does not deserve that."
Chloe was quiet, which shocked Emily, she'd expected her mother to squeal with delight. Instead, tears in her eyes, she hugged her daughter and with tears streaming down her face she whispered "I am so proud of you my beautiful girl."
Emily started crying too. "Thanks Mummy."
The two Kmetko women stood still for a full minute holding each other in silence before Chloe said "and you didn't take James away from his family, you simply made his family bigger. He will always be a part of us, even if it's not a conventional thing, and it's not like we're conventional anyway."
"This is true. We have a family reputation to uphold." Emily winked at Chloe.
Chloe giggled, she might be more serious and determined than her but Emily was her daughter through and through.
Emily strode into the back room of Darby's gym. Darby still wasn't back from her break. Emily quickly pulled on her training gear and started warming up. She forgot everything else around her and focused on making her body flexible. As she was stretching she envisaged all four of her routines, a trick Damon had taught her and Payson had encouraged her to do. Breathing deeply Emily walked over to the beam, saluted the invisible judges and mounted the beam. Her mount was a simple one. There was no point adding unnecessary risk to her weakest event. She did her first line, 2 flips into arabesque, she wobbled slightly on the connection but held it. She let no other thoughts into her mind except her next move. She continued the rest of the routine as well as she could – finishing with her one and a half twisting dismount. It wasn't the most difficult dismount there was but she stuck it. Emily let herself smile slightly before mounting the beam again. She did ten routines in a row before taking a break and stretching again. It wasn't until she'd finished stretching that she let herself out of her zone and was shocked to see Darby and Sasha both standing there grinning.
"Emily – that was amazing." Sasha said, astonished.
Darby didn't say anything, instead she ran over to Emily and hugged her tightly. "Welcome back Kmetko, we've missed you."
"I take it this means you've made a decision." Sasha said hopefully.
Emily grinned. "Yale has nothing compared to seeing Ellen Beal's face when I'm named to that Olympic team. Now I need to work on my tumbling – you good to spot me Sasha?" Emily walked over to the mat, back straight and head held high.
XXX
Ellen Beals sat in her office. It was small and the only window had a depressing view out to the other side of the street. It was a downgrade from the one she'd had before Lauren Tanner had sent that stupid photo in and it chafed her pride that she'd been on probation simply because she'd wanted a team that the NGO could rely on to be obedient. She was even more annoyed about how her decision to move nationals had pissed everyone off. Things were completely a mess at the NGO headquarters. Everyone was rushing around looking panicked. Ellen herself had only just managed to get a moment to sit down and have a coffee and it was already 1.30pm. She sighed at least she had something to look forward to today. She picked up her phone and dialled a familiar number.
"Steve Tanner" Steve said pretentiously.
"Steve? It's Ellen – listen I've got some bad news. I can't move nationals around. We've pretty much got everything organised" she lied.
"Are you sure, I could ah make it easier for you financially. I know the owner of the stadium I'm sure we could figure something out."
Ellen rolled her eyes. She hated how rich people could just worm their way in everywhere. It was one of the biggest regrets for her: not making the Olympic team meant that she missed out on heaps of endorsements. That, more than anything was probably what made it hardest watching the current elites.
"I appreciate the offer, really but it's just not possible Steve, I'm so sorry. I'm sure Lauren will do just fine though. She's the most powerful tumbler in the country at the moment. And she's rock solid on beam. I mean I know beam's the USA's strongest apparatus at the moment but I'd be very surprised if she wasn't used on beam in team finals at least."
Steve Tanner used all his self control to stop himself swearing at Ellen. She was truly the most odious person he'd ever met, and she had some pretty stiff competition among his commercial clients. "Well thanks for trying Ellen. Take care."
Steve sat in his office, completely dejected. How did things become so messed up? All his life he'd thought he was doing the best for his daughter but he'd ended up embroiled in bribery and blackmail. He'd effectively ended Emily's career and worse still, he'd encouraged the same behaviour in his daughter. She'd almost done the same to Payson. There had been only one person in his life who'd seen that in him but cared about him anyway: Summer. And now Chloe was going to make both Summer and Lauren despise him for going to that strip club. He gripped his temples, pulling at his dark hair. There had to be another way. Who else had sway over Beals? He looked out to his mountain view. There had to be someone.
The answer came to him as he was drinking his morning cup of tea. Lauren had become obsessed with lapsing oolong and Steve had found it surprisingly tolerable. Then he remembered a conversation he'd had when he was trying to find a new coach for the Rock after Sasha left. Steve had been talking to the parents' committee and Darby's name had come up, and Ronnie Cruz mentioned how Darby had made Ellen change her mind completely about inviting her to Olympic Trials – which Darby had subsequently won. Steve knew Ellen, she didn't make decisions about those sorts of things unless she was forced to.
XXX
It was national team practice at the Rock and Kelly and Lauren were in their element: Sasha had forbidden them to say anything catty but that didn't stop them from giving pointed looks when girls didn't completely stick a landing or made small mistakes. Payson spent the entire time trying not to roll her eyes at their behaviour and Kaylie kept to herself. Most of the girls had come up and told her how brave she was about fighting anorexia but she saw lots of whispers behind hands. Sasha wasn't the national team coach despite being the worlds coach. The new coach was Nigel Peterson – he coached Andrea Conway and her young teammate Rosa Reynolds. Rosa was a first year senior and had petitioned onto the team successfully. She was an amazing gymnast – slight, graceful and powerful, she was considered by many to be USA's best all around hope.
Payson tried her best not to worry about Rosa. She was nice to the girl and encouraged her with her elements. She saw the same fire and passion in Rosa that she saw in herself. And that terrified her. Payson hadn't come back from a broken back to win a silver medal. Sure silver was fine, but it wasn't the colour of her dreams. Silver also didn't bring you endorsements that helped your parents to pay the mortgage. Kelly was a bit unnerved by Rosa and Andrea too. Kelly knew she wasn't dynamic or amazing artistic, but what she had over the other Rock girls was that she was super consistent and fairly strong all around, especially on bars, beam and floor. But she knew that Rosa and Andrea could both beat her easily – if they hit.
"Nice try Rosie, you did really good. I mean not everyone can do a perfect beam routine, and that was only a small step on your landing, and that wobble on your second turn wasn't that big. I hardly noticed it from halfway across the gym." Kelly said in her best fake-nice voice.
Rosie looked terrified and scampered over to the uneven bars. Andrea marched over to Lauren. "Her names Rosa, not Rosie and leave her alone! Just because you're not exactly doing amazing is no excuse to pick on everyone else!"
Kelly rolled her eyes "whatever teamie I was just helping the kid out."
Andrea resisted the urge to slap Kelly. The two went way back and were the oldest two on the national team. But that didn't stop Kelly driving Andrea sometimes, well most of the time actually. Andrea took a deep breath and fiddled with her long black plait. "Listen Kell – I heard about your Mum, and I'm here for you ok? Just please lay off Rosa and the other young ones. We're meant to be leaders."
Kelly glared at her friend. "I really don't want to talk about it" she started out staunchly before feeling her heart rise to her throat and tears form in her eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut: she was not going to cry in the middle of practice. Instead she turned around and marched out of the gym.
Sasha saw Kelly storm out and groaned. Why was it always his gymnasts who stormed out of national team practice? He looked over to see what Ellen Beals' reaction was but to his surprise he couldn't see her anywhere. He gave a relieved sigh and went to see Kaylie, who was about to follow Kelly.
"Leave her Kaylie."
"I can't – she's my friend Sasha" the national champion looked desperate. She was still far too thin in Sasha's opinion and the stress of upcoming nationals and Olympic trials was clearly getting to her, she really couldn't afford to carry the other girls' problems as well.
"Andrea's going, Kaylie. Please stay here and work on your routines. You care about your friends and I admire you for that but you need to be the best you can be."
Kaylie nodded, glad about what Sasha was saying. She was terrified about nationals and trials. Looking around the gym she saw girls who were confident, had supportive families and loved their sport. Kaylie felt like a total failure in comparison. Hesitantly she approached the floor where Nigel wanted her to do her routine.
Sasha glanced worriedly back at Kaylie before heading out of the building to try and find Kelly. He really hoped he could get her back inside and training again before Beals noticed. Kelly was probably the only one of his gymnasts that Ellen actually liked. As he was rushing out the door he got stopped by Darby.
"Hi Sasha." Darby said quickly.
"Hey, are you ok?"
"I'm fine, um what are you up to?"
Sasha narrowed his eyes, something very odd was going on. "I'm actually just about to catch up with Kelly, she uh ran out of practice, I want to get her back inside before Ellen sees her. Speaking of which, have you seen Ellen? She's normally always lurking around during these practices. She's like a vulture or something."
Darby laughed "a vulture?"
"Yeah - ok bad analogy, sorry."
"No I agree with you, although this probably isn't the time or place to tell everyone that the lady who helps determine the girls' future is like a vulture."
"Thanks for the tip." Sasha said caustically, but he smiled anyway. Darby had a way of charming people - even irascible Romanians.
"Oh and Ellen Beals is currently with her boss, and I wouldn't be surprised if nationals is pushed back to its original date and Ellen is on probation – at the very least."
"What?" Sasha started to ask, but Darby had already gone inside the Rock. Sasha rolled his eyes and went to find Kelly. He hated the politics of gymnastics.
XXX
Ellen Beals had been enjoying presiding over national team practice. She loved the way the girls were awed by her and she loved the feeling that she had the power to alter their lives significantly. About forty five minutes in to the practice her phone rang and her boss, Ewan had demanded angrily that she come meet him in his office immediately.
Ellen had tried to stay calm but by the time she reached work her hands were shaking. She wasn't sure of the specific reason why Ewan was mad but she'd done many, many things that would bring the sport into disrepute if they were made public. Ellen pulled her hair into a tight bun and took a deep breath. She'd always covered her tracks perfectly: Ewan couldn't possibly have anything on her other than pure speculation. She knocked on Ewan's door.
"Enter" said a deep, smooth voice.
Ellen turned the door handle and walked into her boss's office. It was large as Ewan often had large meetings and the occasional press conference, Ellen looked around wondering whether she was meant to sit or stand. Ewan briskly nodded to a chair directly in front of his desk. It was noticeably lower than his and Ellen was sure he'd planned it like that. Ellen had used that trick on many occasions herself.
"I'm going to cut straight to the chase, Ellen. I've two incredibly serious allegations made about you."
Ellen clasped her hands in her lap and didn't meet her boss's eyes. Ellen was a bully but she couldn't handle being told off herself.
"The first is that right before the 2000 Olympic Games you instructed a gymnast to take a strong pain killer for her ankle. You knew this would make her fail her drug test. She was sent home immediately and the gymnast who replaced her was interestingly one who's father had given you a substantial amount of money two weeks earlier."
Ellen looked at Ewan with cool malice. "Those are unfounded rumours. The girl took the drugs of her own accord. I tried to stop her actually, but she was in so much pain that she was desperate."
Ewan slapped his hand on his desk "enough!"
Ellen flinched.
"I'm sick of your manipulative behaviour. This sport has enough of a bad reputation for scandal without your match fixing and bribery! I have written statements from all of the gymnasts on the team, and the team doctor who said that he recommended the girl did not take the medication but you were insistent that it would be fine, despite him telling you that it would make her fail a drugs test." He threw the documents at Ellen. She contemplated grabbing them and tearing them up but she knew that Ewan wasn't stupid and that these would only be copies.
"I don't know what to say, Ewan. I am truly sorry but I was young and I really thought the pain killers would help her. We all make mistakes, let's just put this behind us." She tried her best to smile brightly and failed.
"I'm not even going to dignify that comment with a response. Once this conversation is over you will pack up your desk and leave immediately."
Ellen felt like she'd been punched in the stomach. She knew who was responsible for this. Darby, the little weasel had found out her secret eight years ago and used it to get herself to the Olympic Trial, and now she was doing the same to make sure that Emily would get there too. Ellen refused to cry in front of Ewan "you haven't seen the last of me Ewan. I will get my name cleared." She stood.
"Sit back down, Ellen. We still haven't come to the second allegation against you."
Ellen sat back down reluctantly.
"I was intrigued as to why you were so insistent that nationals be brought forward. But I've heard recently that you wanted to do this to harm one specific gymnast who is trying to make a comeback. Now I know you dislike Emily Kmetko but the kid is amazing. Only two years of formal training and she medalled against the Chinese national team. Not to mention her amazing advertising potential. I know she has had some setbacks-"
"Set backs? The kid got arrested and then she got herself knocked up! She's a bad example to girls everywhere. She's a little slut!" Ellen was yelling now.
Ewan stood: he towered over Ellen "be quiet Ellen. Yes she has had a rough time but I think that having the courage to give up your child for adoption, work hard to get incredible SAT scores AND make a comeback in the most physically challenging sport in existence makes for a far better role model than a bitter, middle aged women who messes with children's minds. Now kindly leave. I want your office cleared out by this time tomorrow!"
XXX
Payson was exhausted. The extra one on one morning practices with Sahsa were really taking a toll on her. His focus was so intense, and Payson wanted so badly to meet his expectations that she'd started doing extra conditioning after her family had gone to bed. So when Sasha called an impromptu meeting in the smaller conference room, she was glad of the break.
"Payson, wait a second" Payson turned to see Austin jogging to catch up with her.
"What's up?"
"Not much, just the usual being my charming self."
"Slimy you mean?"
"Wow that was a terrible comeback. You're off form today Pay."
Payson elbowed him in the ribs.
"Seriously though, are you alright?"
"Yeah I'm fine why?" Payson said defensively. She already had Kim on her back about working too hard, she didn't need Austin chiming in too.
"No reason, just don't push yourself too hard Payson. You're too outstanding and special."
"I appreciate you looking out for me, but I'm fine: really."
Austin put his hands up in mock surrender "ok"
Payson rolled her eyes and went up to the conference room: Sasha was standing by the round table, when he saw Payson walk in his face lit up, quickly followed by a concerned frown. He came over and put his hand on Payson shoulder which sent fizzes down Payson's spine. "You look tired."
Payson forced herself not to groan. "I'm fine Sasha."
Sasha frowned and was about reply when the rest of the Rock elite girls as well as Emily and Darby came in. Darby closed and locked the door behind her. Once everyone had taken their seats Sasha began to speak.
"I called this meeting to give you some very good news. Nationals has been moved back to its original date. It is now a full two months and half months away instead of three weeks."
Emily's hand shot to her mouth and tears welled up in her eyes. This was a dream come true. Kaylie put her arm around her friend. Kelly and Payson high fived and Lauren beamed.
"I also wanted to say that Lauren was instrumental in this – it would never have happened without her. And I know that the five of you have had some issues in the past and I certainly don't want to tell you how to conduct your friendships but I want to remind you that you need each other to succeed and that you take this into account in the way you act around each other."
There was an awkward silence before Payson walked over to Lauren and gave her a hug. "Thanks Lauren, that was decent of you." She still spoke briskly, making it clear that they weren't friends yet but to Lauren it meant the world.
Following the cue of their unofficial leader Lauren, Kelly and Emily all hugged Lauren, somewhat reluctantly.
Sasha looked on and nodded his approval. His broken team was slowly starting to pick itself up and put itself back together again.
A/N so did you like what happened to Ellen? I think she got what she deserved. Next chapter we have nationals rapidly approaching and we get to see some other USA girls who aren't at the Rock, Damon comes back to town but things aren't the same between him and Emily. Please let me know what you thought :D:D