Late November (21 months until the Olympics)
“You ready for this?”
Val tosses her bag in the backseat of my rental and slides into the passenger seat beside me.
“Five hours in a car with you, two days with your lovely family, and then a five-hour drive home just in time to crash before practice at eight on Saturday morning?” Val squares her shoulders, like a general preparing for war. “Yeah, bring it on.”
I let her pick the music as we get on the road. It’s already midmorning, but we should make it to my dad’s house with more than enough time for dinner if we don’t hit traffic. It’s a crap day, low-hanging clouds threatening snow.
We talk a little while I drive, but not much. Our only mutual conversation piece is diving, but Winter Nationals are so close that we can taste them, and the last thing either of us want is to be stressed out before we even get to Chicago.
Finally we’re exiting off the highway and pulling into a familiar neighborhood. It hasn’t snowed here yet—or if it has, it’s all melted. Everything is gray and shabby, including the house I grew up in.
I park on the street and stretch as I get out of the car. Val is glancing around, curious. I’ve always assumed that she’s comfortably upper-middle class, though we’ve never talked much about it, so I wonder what my low-class neighborhood looks like through her eyes. I try to see it fresh, like a stranger visiting for the first time, but I only see the same depressing street as always.
Val shoulders her backpack, and I pop the trunk, grabbing my duffel from the back in one hand and my small suitcase in the other.
“Light packer?” She’s watching me, amused.
I sigh. It’s a peace offering, but there’s no easy way to explain that to someone who has never met my brothers. “You’ll see.”
The front door is unlocked as always, so we just walk in. These days I feel like an intruder when I do that, but I wouldn’t want to make Dad get up off the couch to open the door for me when I have two perfectly good legs and can let myself in.
“Hey, it’s me.” My voice carries into the house, where the TV is on and I can hear the familiar sound of football.
Isaac appears while I’m untying my shoes. “Hey, little bro.” He freezes, catching sight of Val, and his eyes go wide. “Woah, damn. Hey, guys!” His voice raises to a shout, and I wince and duck before I realize it’s not aimed at me. “Jemmy’s brought a girl home!”
“Don’t call me that.” It’s halfhearted, because they never listen.
Heavy footsteps, then Nick’s bulk is filling the hallway behind Isaac. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He looks Val over like he’s eyeing a cut of meat in the grocery store. She bristles. “And here we all thought Jemmy was a homo. Dad will be relieved.”
Shame curls down my spine, and I clench my teeth until my jaw hurts. Val puts her hand on my arm, and it’s the focus I need to be able to calm down and take a deep breath.
“Nick, Isaac, this is Valerie. She’s my . . .” I hesitate for the slightest second, but Val already knows what’s going on here. “We’ve been together for a long time actually.”
There. It’s not a lie if you squint.
Isaac notices the bag I’m holding and steps forward. “Oh cool, you brought more swag.” He makes a gimme motion.
I hand the bag over without arguing, and he disappears past Nick to return to the living room.
Nick watches me and Val for another minute, then nods. “Happy Thanksgiving, little brother. Good of you to finally grace us with your presence.”
And then he’s gone too, and I can breathe again. Nick seemed almost . . . nice, at the end there. I know that’s partly because of the duffel that Isaac walked off with; both of my brothers treat my arrival like Christmas because I always bring whatever free gear and promotional merchandise we get at competitions. USA Diving is sponsored by Nike, after all, and I have no doubt that it’s the only part of diving that they appreciate.
“That wasn’t as bad as I thought.” After years of listening to me talk about my family, she probably imagined a trailer park and rednecks.
I shake my head. “It’s only just begun.”
The turkey is dry, but it’s edible. The mashed potatoes come from a powdered mix, and the stuffing from a box.
The conversation, however, is the most unpalatable part of Thanksgiving dinner.
We eat at the table, but the TV is on so we can watch the football game at the same time.
“What’s your favorite team?” Isaac asks Val. It’s not polite conversation; he’s hitting on her in the only way he knows how. I guess it’s not just the clothes and gear that my brother thinks I’ve brought home for him.
Val smiles sunnily at him. “I’ve never watched a game in my life.”
That throws Isaac, who I suspect didn’t know that such people existed. “Are you serious?”
“Totally.”
He sits back in his seat, attempted conversation skillfully disregarded.
I poke at my canned cranberry, and it wobbles alarmingly. I eat more tiny bites of turkey instead, and avoid the starches altogether.
“Jesus, you even eat like a fairy.” Dad’s frowning like I’ve personally insulted him.
The shame returns. “I’m in training for Nationals in a few weeks. I have to be careful what I eat is all.” My voice is weak.
Dad snorts. “It’s meat and potatoes. And there’s green-bean casserole too.” He picks the dish up and sets it down in front of me. It’s from a can, and there’s so much sodium in it that I can practically feel my arteries clogging. Plus, it’s dairy, which I’m super strict about these days.
“I’m good, thanks.”
Dad’s face goes red.
“Mr. Reeve, this turkey is really excellent,” Val interrupts smoothly, smiling her Podium Smile, dimples and just the right amount of teeth. It’s charming, unless you know that she’s only putting on an act.
That’s enough to reroute Dad, and dinner is saved.
Nick is wearing one of the T-shirts I got from a World Series stop last year. I know Val recognizes it, and she gives me a curious look before noticing that Isaac has one of the fitness trackers we got at a competition a few months ago. I guess it’ll tell him how many steps it is between the couch and the fridge. Realization flashes across Val’s face, and she shoots me a frown that I pretend not to see.
I escape the house as soon as the dishwasher has been loaded, Val in tow. I told Dad that I was going to show her around town, and he grunted, balancing a piece of store-bought pie on his stomach while opening another beer in front of the TV.
“Your family is . . . nice.”
“They’re awful.”
She pauses, then nods. “There are different types of awful,” she says, and I’m reminded of her own family and the way her mother cares too much about her diving career.
We drive around for an hour, until I’m calm again, and then I bring Val to my favorite place in the entire town.
“This is where it all started for me.” The building is closed and locked now, and we’re the only car in the parking lot. “It’s like one step up from the YMCA, but they had a single three-meter springboard and a swim coach who had some idea what he was doing.”
Val props her feet on the dashboard and looks out at the squat brick building. “I’m imagining a tiny version of you, all focus and hair falling in your eyes. I bet you were adorable.”
I laugh. “Focus and hair sums it up. I used to come after school three days a week, until I determined that I needed to practice more and invited myself to lessons five days a week instead. The coach was probably a bit surprised to have a seven-year-old making decisions like that, but even then I wasn’t going to stop until I was the best I could be.”
Val laces our fingers together. It’s not romantic, simply a connection between us. “You’re just about there,” she said.
“Yeah. We both are.” Nationals in a few weeks. If I do well there, it qualifies me for the World Series. Then the World Championships, and the Olympic qualifications, and then . . . “I want this more than anything in the world.”
“I know.” She’s the only person in the world who really does, other than Andrey.
We sit in silence for another minute.
“What do you think Brandon’s doing for Thanksgiving?”
I turn to her so quickly that I can hear my spine pop. “What the hell, Val?”
She puts her seat back, legs extended before her, and relaxes. “He watches you. Like, a lot.”
I press my lips together. “Do you have a point?”
She closes her eyes. “It’s something that I was thinking about, over dinner. Your family’s choice of words to describe you.”
“They don’t know. And they can’t.” I exhale. “It’s bad enough now, but at least now they sometimes smile at me, treat me like I’m part of the family. If they knew . . .” The thought is too scary to contemplate.
“You don’t want to disappoint them.”
“I already disappoint them. I’m a fag diver, instead of a man playing a real sport—or watching a real sport while drinking beer.”
Val clicks her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “I hate that word. Even more when it comes from your mouth.”
I wince and think about what I said to Brandon. “Evans came out to me the other day.”
Val looks over at me, eyebrow raised. “Took him long enough. He was telling me about his old boyfriend at practice a few weeks ago, just dropped it in conversation and didn’t blink.”
That hurts for some reason, knowing Brandon talks to Val. But, then, I don’t actually want him to talk to me, so it’s for the best.
“Is that why you were thinking about him just now?”
Val nods. “He’s all alone, you know. They found him in Texas and recruited him. He said it was a Cinderella story without the awesome dress.” She laughs softly, then falls silent. I assume she’s fallen asleep, but then she says, “That boy watches you like you’re a Greek god.”
Val needs her eyes checked. “He really doesn’t.”
“Oh, he does.” Her voice is heavy, barely audible. Maybe the myth about tryptophan is true. “You should give him a chance. Teach him.”
“I don’t want anything to do with him,” I say, but my words fall on deaf ears, because Val is already asleep.