January (19 months until the Olympics)
I realize what Andrey is up to sometime in the middle of January. It’s cold as balls outside, but the pool is climate-controlled, so I spend extra time there every day, putting off going back into the charcoal-colored sky and slushy snow for as long as possible.
Okay, I should have figured it out sooner. It was probably obvious to everyone else on earth, but whether through well-honed denial or simply refusing to believe that Andrey could be so cruel, I completely failed to see it.
“This might be the worst idea you’ve ever had,” I tell him.
He gives me a level look.
“No, seriously.”
Andrey sighs. “You can say no.”
“No.”
“But,” he continues, as though he hadn’t just given me an out and I’d taken it, “you’ve trusted me this far to carry you to the Olympics. Maybe extend your trust a little further?”
Damn it.
I fold myself down onto one of the crash mats, using it like the world’s most uncomfortable bean-bag chair. These days I get the first hour of training to myself, preparing for the FINA World Series, which kicks off in Moscow in early March. Even Val isn’t around right now; she’ll get her own one-on-one session later, while I’m in class. But that means I can level with Andrey without the risk of anyone coming in and interrupting.
“It’s not going to work.” I hold my hands out in front of me, studying the chapped skin and bits of tape residue around my thumbs while I tick off the reasons. “He’s still hitting the water piked, and his timing is off more often than not. I’m not a team player. And I’m pretty sure synchro partners have to at least tolerate each other, let alone get along, in order to work together.”
Andrey waits patiently for me to finish. Then he launches into his own points. “He’s not diving vertical because he’s struggling to find his timing, and diving alongside you would help him figure that out.” He mimics me, holding up a finger with each sentence. “You’ve done synchro competitions before with no problem, which means you can work just fine in a team if you want to. And plenty of diving partners aren’t friends when they start.”
He seems to be done talking, but he hasn’t acknowledged the most important part.
“I hate him.”
When Andrey calls me on my bullshit, he really doesn’t pull his punches. He looks at me now, eyes a mixture of sad and determined and you aren’t fooling anybody. “The only person you appear to hate here, Jeremy, is yourself.”
Andrey’s words are still rattling around in my head a week later when he calls Brandon over from the foam pit to where I’m already waiting. He starts off by explaining how synchronized diving competitions work, how the scoring is weighted, but I can tell right away by Brandon’s restless fidgeting that he’s not interested.
He’s not the kind of guy who cares about how it works, he just wants to know that it does.
I’m standing at the edge of one of the mats, bouncing slightly on my toes while I stretch my arms and wrists out. Brandon’s a few feet in front of me, watching Andrey, and I wouldn’t be surprised if his eyes are glazing over a bit as Andrey keeps going into the details.
“Come on, let’s do this already,” I say when Andrey pauses.
It’s not a favor to Brandon, but he seems to relax anyway. Andrey just gives me a fond nod, because he knows how much I really do not want to be doing this.
“Okay, but I can’t dive like Jeremy does.” Brandon steps up onto the mat beside me, twisting his head to look at Andrey. “There’s no way I can match his dive perfectly.”
I make a strangled sound. “No kidding, but that’s not the point here. Same dive, same time. The synchronization is the important part, not your shitty execution. So you don’t enter vertical, whatever. You just have to hit the water at the same time I do. Get it?”
Brandon’s frowning, but not at me. He’s still staring at Andrey, and it’s actually nice to know that he’s not buying into our coach’s grand plan to make us diving partners any more than I am.
Across the room, Val smirks. She’s supposed to be working on her own exercises, but she’s obviously listening in and enjoying my torture immensely. If I have to dive synchro, I’d rather be paired with her, but mixed competitions are still a new thing—like FINA isn’t sure that we won’t all get cooties if men and women compete side by side.
“Right now, we’re focused on getting you both comfortable with each other’s technique.”
What technique? I eye Brandon, but don’t voice the words.
“I want you to start with flips on dry land. Get comfortable with them, figure out when to kick off, how much air you need to get to match one another.”
I turn to Brandon. “Backflip first, all right? I know you can do one, but this time watch me and see how high I push off, how far I move horizontally.” I line my feet up, straighten my arms, and demonstrate once, landing firmly on the mat with my knees bent. A step forward and I’m standing beside him again. “Your turn.”
He does the flip and sticks the landing way better than I did. I’m not surprised, but I’m not upset either. There’s no point in being jealous; it just means I need to work harder.
When I nod, he lights up.
“Now at the same time.”
Trying to get two men to flip at the exact same time won’t be easy. Brandon’s shoulders are wider than mine, though the fact that we’re almost the same height will definitely help. “I’m going to count, and on ‘go,’ you jump, all right?”
Brandon nods and turns to face the room, back to the mat. I mimic him. “One, two, three, go.”
We flip.
His feet hit the mat a split second before mine do. It doesn’t seem like much, but the thump-thump of two distinct landings is not the sound we’re going for. I glance over at Andrey, who raises an eyebrow.
“Again.”
We flip until we’re both lining up. Backward first, then facing forward. I’m starting to figure out how he dives by watching him on dry land. He doesn’t pause to take a deep breath like I do on the word go; he just jumps, no hesitation.
I learn to pause before saying go, to catch my breath, so I can leap with him.
But Andrey is right too, as much as it pains me to admit it, because the more we practice on the mat, the better Brandon is able to match his movements against mine. It’s little things, like pushing off to get more air so he gets the same height off the ground as me.
We spend days on this. I’m not kidding: literally day after day, doing nothing but flipping in synchronization for an hour straight, until our feet hit the floor at exactly the same time. Then we move to the trampoline, adding another set of factors to the mix.
And in between all of that I have my own training. There are two months until I’m due to be on a plane heading to Russia. The World Series consists of four competitions in four different cities, over two months. It’s huge, and it’s my chance to prove myself in front of an international audience.
But instead, I’m wasting valuable time training with Brandon. And as much as he might be improving, he’s still holding me back.
When I bring it up with Andrey, he shakes his head and pulls out his iPad. “Let me show you something.” He queues up a video that I recognize from the previous week’s ten-meter training. He ran me through my entire set of dives, recorded them all, and then broke them apart to show me where improvements needed to be made.
This video is my third dive, and also my dive with the highest degree of difficulty: a forward four and a half somersault, tuck. He plays the video, and I watch, blank-faced, as I only barely complete the dive, my body entering the water with a splash as I fail to straighten out in time.
“Are we going to go over my worst dives from the last week? Because I can go get popcorn.”
Andrey shushes me. “This is from yesterday’s practice.” He scrolls through the videos and finds the same dive, from yesterday. I was having a much better day, and I ripped the entry smooth as anything. It’s a hell of a lot more satisfying to watch. “This, after one week of practicing alongside Brandon.”
There’s a pretty big leap of logic there to say that a week of training with a new partner has made me improve one of my hardest dives. But Andrey plays both videos again, and finally I can see what he’s trying to show me.
“You think it’s remedial, doing flip after flip. But you’ve adjusted how you jump to match Brandon, and your tuck is tighter.”
“Yeah, I see it.” Even I’m not stubborn enough to overlook something that’s clearly helping. “So I keep training with Evans, then?” The words leave a sour taste in my mouth.
Andrey nods. “I’m putting you two on the springboards tomorrow.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Little fast, isn’t it?” There’s still a long way to go.
“It is, but Brandon is competing in two weeks. I want him to have more practice in the water, and training with you has been helping him improve rapidly.”
My eyebrows can’t go up any farther, so I gape instead. “He’s competing?”
“In a local meet for the college.”
Andrey is so calm about it that my own disbelief ratchets up to compensate. “Andrey, no way is he ready for that.”
But Andrey shakes his head. “Trust me.” He’s always done his own thing, and his methods are different from most other coaches. It’s what makes him exceptional and helps him churn out Olympic champions like he’s running a factory.
And because I know Andrey, I’m sure there’s something else going on here. “What are you planning?”
He’s perfected the art of looking innocent too. “I’m not planning anything, Jeremy.” He tucks the iPad back under his arm; he’s made his point, and he knows he’s won. “I’m just trying to push you both to be as good as I know you can be.”
The second my training is done for the day, I track Val down. She’s been doing warm-ups on the five-meter platform, waiting for her own one-on-one training, so I pounce while Andrey is getting a cup of coffee.
“Andrey’s planning something.”
I swear Val spends most of her time staring at me like I’m a complete idiot. “He’s always planning something.” Her hair is starting to come loose, and she pauses to pull the rubber band free and tie it back up.
“Did you know Brandon’s competing in February?”
That gets her to pause, hands still in her hair. “He is?”
Brandon shares a lot more with Val than he’ll ever share with me, but the fact that he hasn’t mentioned this to her surprises me. “Apparently. Local college meet.”
“He’s not ready.”
“That’s what I said!”
Val towels off her face and arms, frowning. “Still, Brandon’s good, and he has the potential to be even better. You know he did gymnastics and ballet when he was younger?”
Two thoughts race across my mind, one right after the other. That explains how he’s managed to get so good, so fast. A lot of gymnasts turn to diving when they outgrow the leotards. But immediately on its heels is, Wow, how fucking gay can he get?
Shame curls up low in my gut immediately after, but I can only imagine what my dad would say if I told him I was taking ballet to improve my flexibility. Gay is the nicest term I can think of.
“Andrey is clearly pushing him hard, trying to see how fast he can get up to competition level.” Val’s eyes stay focused on the pool.
“Not fast enough.” Maybe it’s mean, but it’s true. “I don’t have time to do this synchro crap. And if anyone should be diving synchro, it’s you and me.”
That earns me a flat look.
“Okay, fine. I know you’re not interested, and we wouldn’t be able to compete together very often. But you know what I mean!”
Val shrugs. “I think you’re not being fair to Brandon.”
“How fair do I have to be? The guy’s an amateur, and Andrey has me stuck training alongside him.”
“I bet you’ll be surprised,” Val says. “He’s improved a lot since August. He’s got a long way to go, but I’d say he’s better than those college kids he’s going to be diving against in a few weeks.”
I open my mouth to argue, then close it. As much as it might pain me to admit aloud, Val’s right. I’m not competing in local meets this year—a deal Andrey worked out with the school because of my professional commitments—but I remember how simple they are. Brandon might not be ready to compete on the national or international rounds yet, but he’s probably good enough for a college meet.
“Fine. Maybe he is.”
But now I’m curious. If he can win at the college meet, it’ll show just how much he is improving. And if he keeps getting better . . . well, I’ve seen it, and so have Val and Andrey: Brandon has potential to be better than any of us, if he works at it.
Andrey finally comes back, signaling that I need to head out so he can work with Val.
“Think about it,” Val says. “Whatever Andrey’s planning, at least he’s making sure your partner is ready to dive at your side.”
I am. I’m thinking about it a lot.