The Happiest Girl in the World: A Novel

Prologue

The Olympic Trials

I zero in on the spot across the floor, the exact spot—my launching pad. Nothing outside that spot matters. Not the white noise of the crowd, not my family in the stands, not my coach and what he did. It all fades into the background. And I run. I need to cover only fifty feet, but I put all my body’s strength into crossing that distance as fast as I can. I go to that spot like a cheetah goes for a gazelle. My senses are heightened and I feel the give of the carpet and the sendoff of the spring, and it’s as if the mat wants me to stay put but knows I must go, like a good mother, the kind mine intends to be. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and this: a spring floor.

As I sprint, I breathe deliberately in and out through pursed lips. My shoulders round forward to make my body aerodynamic, to slice through the air—a human imitating a rocket—and my arms are straight and swinging. Now I am a rocket, courageous and unstoppable. Maybe even a little dangerous.

I can’t think of that now. I’m not allowed to feel on the gym floor.

I bolt toward that spot, toward the gold, toward the end of my gymnastics career and freedom and womanhood and a new identity.

My arms outstretch and reach for the rest of my life. I hurdle off one leg, dive forward onto one hand and then the other, skimming over them. This part is child’s play. I’ve been doing roundoffs since I was six years old. I’m building momentum I’ll eventually need. Back when I had time for anything other than training and my dad didn’t look at me like I scared him, I used to play Super Mario Bros. with him and my twin brother, Joe, in our unfinished basement. It took three jumps to make Mario fly. The roundoff is my first jump.

When I’m inverted, I swing my legs together and my heels hammer into the floor as one.

Jump two: I bend my knees and throw myself backward. It goes against every survival instinct to jump without first looking where you’re going—especially when leading with your head. So much about this life has meant working against every survival instinct. More than that. It’s meant letting one self die so another could be born, over and over, reincarnating at every training stage. I’ve already died at least six times to get to this moment.

If I speak now, maybe I’ll remember who I was at the beginning. Maybe I’ll realize who I’m meant to become.

I land upside down on my hands and push back to my feet. This motion is effortless. I’m functioning on autopilot, muscle memory. I’ve been doing back handsprings since I was seven.

First the sprint, then the roundoff, and now a back handspring. I’ve gathered the speed of a locomotive. My wheels are whirring, my pistons are pumping. Hear that whistle? It’s telling you that I can’t stop now, so you better get out of my way.

Jump three: I land on the mat and hurl myself backward again, but this time all the gathered energy catapults me more vertically. I’ve trained so hard and so long, I’ve defied all reason, even gravity. I’ve learned to do what no one else can. I’ve uncovered an impossible secret. I’m flying.

Nobody achieves these heights without stepping on a few heads.

Midair, I cross my arms over my chest—like a corpse, but never more alive. I tense my core and swivel. Now I’m not just flying, I’m spinning too, a planet both rotating on its axis and orbiting the sun. When my dad first saw this move, he called me a spandex-wrapped football. He used to speak only the language of team sports—not uneven bars and vaults and beams. The day he called me that, I laughed hard and he looked relieved. We shared an understanding and, for an instant, something opened inside each of us and light passed through.

My feet, bound together as if by rope, pass over my head and return to their rightful position below me, but they’re still hovering eight feet above the ground. I continue revolving.

My name means winged, and in this moment, I am. I’m the Angel Gabriel, here to proclaim to everyone in this packed arena and everyone watching at home, holding their breath until my feet land, that there is more than the ordinary—there is another way. It takes sweat and blood. It takes failure and sacrifice. It takes a small lifetime. But at the end of all that, there is this. There’s no shame in greatness.

I keep spiraling and circling and soaring.

One year, my training paused after a wrist fracture, and I went to my town’s annual county fair. There was a ride called Gravitron, and it looked like a flying saucer. It spun, and when it reached a certain speed, the floor dropped out, but centripetal force kept you plastered against the wall. That’s what this feels like. I am a self-contained Gravitron. I am a centripetal force.

I’ve hardened in the air. I’m as compact as I can be. When matter is compressed into a small space it creates a black hole. I’m a black hole. I’ve sucked out souls. What will happen when I land?

I’m too old and tired to come back. I’ll never again be the object of a crowd’s awe. I’ll never again be what the whole world is looking at. A black hole sometimes occurs when a star is dying. (Am I dying?) And because light can’t escape from black holes, they are invisible.

I might soon be invisible. Will my success matter when no one sees me? Or will I be alone and haunted by the memory of what it cost to be special for an instant?

I’m careening back to earth now. A back handspring and double twisting double layout are almost behind me. That’s a lot of velocity to diffuse and convert. I have to stomp this energy out like a fire.

My feet punch into the mat. The impact rushes up my ankles, into the contracted muscles of my calves and thighs, through my hip bones and abdomen, rattles across my rib cage like a xylophone, and vibrates into my raised arms before settling, as a pulse, in my fingertips.

I stuck the standard layout at nine years old and the double at twelve. It took another two years before I performed the full twist, and another after that before it became a double twisting double layout.

I’m not done, and the next move is the hardest. After the physical exhaustion of that series, I have to take all the impetus garnered from the run and flips in this direction and reverse its thrust into a front tuck. It’s often more horsepower than I can handle. It wants to fuel a larger movement, and I sometimes have to contain it with a stutter step forward. But that single step—one step in a lifetime of many million steps—could cost me fifteen years of work. That step cannot be undone. I know that, my coach knows that, my mom knows that, my entire town knows that. They’ve been discussing this crucial moment for months.

And I imagine they’re watching me now, those small-town people with their nine-to-fives, household chores, and favorite sitcoms, their clear notions of right and wrong—what simple pleasures. I haven’t had time to know them as more than people in cars I passed on the way to the gym in the next state. But they know me. One form of me, at least. I don’t even know the real me.

My dad wanted to name me Sarah, a typical, everyday name. He never cared about being somebody. He had my mom and his house and his kids and that was enough for him. My mom hoped I’d be more than her, a housewife without a college degree, and my father, a used-car salesman who was too honest to be successful in his trade. More than Waynesville, Indiana. More than just another girl. She wanted me to be a fiery winged thing. My dad got his name, but my mother got hers too, in what was perhaps their last real compromise.

I am Sera. And this is my truth.

Part I

Chapter 1

In the beginning, we flitted around the gym like dandelion seeds in the wind. Skipping. Cartwheeling. Somersaulting. Leaping. Arching our spines the wrong way and tumbling through a back walkover. Our bodies were lean and limber. Generous and forgiving. They didn’t know limitations, only what they couldn’t do yet. They didn’t know injury, only elasticity, amusement, and wonder. They didn’t know starvation, only hunger. They didn’t know the wrong kind of touch, only the guidance of a spotter. The pull of being hoisted up after a fall. A celebratory high five. This was before our voices were stripped. We’d spend decades restoring our diaphragms, larynxes, lips, tongues, and teeth.

Back then, when we felt whimsical, we pranced the mats like nymphs. When we were dogged, we strutted the perimeter as if we owned the place. Like we were child queens, the fantastical kind that jointly, harmoniously ruled over the same land. But instead of from robes, our long legs stemmed from sweaty leotards that were sometimes too small. Instead of crowns, we wore buns and barrettes, our hair secured with pins and enough hair spray to light up the place. The gym was our kingdom, our playground, our altar. The sport was our discipline and our ministry. It was how we rejoiced, Lucy and I.

We loved gymnastics in a way other girls didn’t. This arrogance, combined with the sheer amount of time we spent at the facility, afforded us authority over those who considered gymnastics an after-school activity, not a lifestyle. We called them pretend gymnasts. We were the real things.

Only we knew where Coach Jennifer stored the extra chalk. Only we knew the exact spot on the vending machine to pound when the Gatorade stuck. Only we knew 2008 Olympian Shawn Johnson’s middle name (Machel).

Shawn Johnson. Peanut. America’s Sweetheart. Adorable but powerful. Approachable but accomplished. She soared higher and spun tighter than we thought possible. But when she exhaled through pursed lips before a routine, and when her face broke into a smile after she nailed it, we imagined her as a normal girl, drumming a pencil as she worked through a math equation or chatting with her family in a Dairy Queen booth.

When it wasn’t our turn on the equipment, we re-created the wrap-up interview with Shawn Johnson after she made the Olympic team, alternating who got to be Peanut. As the journalist, I stuck an empty toilet paper roll near Lucy’s mouth and asked, What’s it like to be Shawn Johnson right now?

Lucy bit her lip the way we’d practiced in front of the bathroom mirror. It’s amazing. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

Happiest, I corrected.

It was important, as two future Olympians ourselves, that we got it right. We were young dreamers who thought it possible, if we just believed strongly enough, if we just worked hard enough, that we could both triumph in an arena where so few did. Where so few survived at all.

After I landed my first back handspring on the beam, Lucy’s knees popped in and out as if she were doing the Charleston while her fists punched the air. Her face opened with delight and turned up toward the rafters, like she was Snoopy from Peanuts. She was maybe nine years old at the time, almost a year older than me, as our birthdays bookended 1999. Her hair was the color of fox fur, her freckles prominent, and her teeth banded in patriotic braces. It’s one of my memory’s most genuine examples of bliss, even all these years later.

From that point on, we performed her dance whenever we progressed onto a more challenging movement. I did it when she stuck a layout stepout on the high beam. She did it when I perfected a front aerial. I did it when she was first invited to the Talent Opportunity Program camp, known as TOPs, down at the Balogh Ranch, and she did it when I was accepted the following year.

At Elite Gymnastics in Indianapolis, a city home to the headquarters of USA Gymnastics, we were among the few girls Coach Jennifer believed had that special quality. She knew if girls, even at six years old, had what it took by the way they held themselves, the fearlessness with which they bounded into new movements, and the grace with which they leapt. Either you had it or you didn’t, and Lucy and I had it.

Since we both lived an hour from Indianapolis in opposite directions, we had gymnastics to thank for our friendship. The girls at school were poor fools who weren’t in our secret, who hadn’t found what we’d found, who didn’t speak our language. Lucy and I were soul sisters, pure and simple.

But in an unclean world, nothing pure remains that way for long.

July 2010

The Balogh Ranch was the epicenter of our country’s gymnastics. It was a mecca. The mother ship calling us home. Smack-dab in the middle of the Texas wilderness, the ranch was an autonomous world of gymnastics, made up of training facilities, forest trails, fields populated with animals (goats, miniature horses, chickens, peacocks—even a camel), and log bunkhouses named for host cities of the summer Olympics: Athens Motel, Sydney Inn, Atlanta House, Barcelona Resort. There wasn’t anything within an hour’s drive. Not a grocery store, a gas station, a hotel—nothing. The place was devoted to gymnastics and gymnasts alone, and the ideals of those inside were enclosed within a chain-link fence. The rest of the world was not welcome. Parents weren’t allowed to stay, and with no cell service, they were nearly impossible to contact at all.

In addition to being the official USA Gymnastics National Team Training Center, it also hosted camps for younger girls. They accepted only fifty in each age group, and Lucy and I, against all odds (although it was no surprise to us), were both in. The ranch was going to advance our skills, expose us to new coaches and, of course, Rudi and Vanda Balogh, the husband-and-wife duo who owned the ranch and were two of the most influential personalities of USA Gymnastics. Vanda was the United States national team coordinator and head of the Olympic team selection committee. She decided who made it and who didn’t. Impressing her and staying in her good favor was the difference between a dream crushed and a dream realized. It was everything.

What a story Lucy and I would become, the 2016 Olympians the media fawned over: two best friends from small Indiana towns competing for it all on the world stage in Rio de Janeiro. We’d be on the covers of Seventeen, Time, and Sports Illustrated, arms looped around each other’s necks, grinning into the camera. They’d put us on cereal boxes. We’d advertise women’s razors and flavored Greek yogurt. And in interviews, we’d tell journalists, We feel like the happiest girls in the world.

LUCY AND I requested matching gear each birthday and Christmas, so our ranch dorm had the symmetry of an open-winged butterfly. There were the backpacks screen-printed with a girl bent into a bridge and block lettering that read Warning: I may flip out. There were the white metal water bottles stamped with Hear Me Roar in pink cursive. And on our wrists, there were our rubber friendship bracelets, mine imprinted with She believed she could, and Lucy’s completing the phrase with So she did.

We recapped the day beat by beat, filed down each other’s foot calluses with a special pumice stone, massaged each other’s hands with a mint and eucalyptus cream, and snapped pictures of the other doing everyday tasks in the midst of gymnastics poses: brushing our teeth in a handstand, picking our noses in an arabesque, reading a book in an elbow stand, or eating an apple in a straddle jump.

We were often overtaken by whopping bouts of laughter, the kind that lasted well beyond the reasonable bounds of the joke. When one gained control, the other reignited the spell, and it was like we were daughters of Zeus passing thunder back and forth. We laughed until our chiseled abdomens ached and someone pounded on our shared wall and shouted, It’s midnight. Shut the hell up.

One night, Lucy sat cross-legged on her bed, flossing her teeth using a plastic tool to weave through her braces. Her words garbled around her fingers. I bet you’ll have your double tuck dismount by the end of the week.

If I do, you can buy me a cookie. I said, using a phrase we’d coined; because of our strict diet, baked goods were sacred currency.

The double tuck dismount was my current itch. In that way, gymnastics was like a pox. The more I scratched, the more it spread.

That afternoon, one of the beam coaches had directed me to drive my heels into the ground on my roundoff connecting skill, and I was already jumping higher. My family hadn’t eaten red meat for a year to afford new leos, the trip to Texas, and extra training at the gym in Indiana—we were up to twenty hours a week now. Every additional skill on my roster was something tangible to legitimize their sacrifices.

I was treating hand rips from working the uneven bars. I’d trimmed back the dead skin with sterilized nail clippers, dabbed the raw flesh with bacitracin, placed a saturated black tea bag on the tear, and was wrapping my hand with gauze and tape. All gymnasts’ palms were wounded. When our rips were gory, we showed them off. I’d taken pictures and would post them to Facebook as soon as I had access to the internet, but for now taped them with arrogant flair.

Think the Baloghs will come to practice tomorrow? I asked.

The attention of the famous duo was reserved for national team members, but they’d greeted the campers at our arrival. Rudi had a bushy white mustache like a long toothbrush head. He commanded the room with his flailing arms and thick Romanian accent. Vanda was more reserved. Her hair was dyed the same shade as her tan skin and she spoke through a tight smile with her chin jutted toward the ceiling. Vanda said that if we were good, she’d have Shawn Johnson demonstrate her gold medal skills.

Peanut was on the grounds. Her fingers gripped the same uneven bars I gripped. She was coached by the very people who critiqued me. I was quite literally following in her footsteps, sharing her road to greatness. It didn’t matter that the ranch gym was sweltering in the heat of a Texas July, relieved only by oscillating fans that puffed hot air like a dragon’s exhale onto my neck. It didn’t matter that my training tank was drenched with sweat, and the hair on my nape dripped. It didn’t matter that I was dizzy with weariness, that my muscles were spent, that exhaustion radiated from me after a morning of conditioning and an afternoon of routines.

Shawn Johnson had been weary. Her sweat had dripped onto the mats at my feet. Working hard was just part of the deal. Becoming an Olympian hurt. Peanut had done it. Lucy was doing it. I could suck it up or get out. I was only ten, but I’d already learned to suck it up.

I hope they come when I’m on floor. I feel like that’s my strength right now, Lucy said.

You are rocking floor.

Lucy’s hand fell from where it was flossing and her lips waxed, as if she’d tasted something acrid.

Is it the pulled muscle in your back? I’ll go plug in our heating pad.

No, I keep having these weird stomach pains. And they’re getting worse.

Want me to rub it?

That’s okay.

The ranch was quiet at night but for the occasional chirp of cicadas and hoot of owls. Do you think you’re gonna . . . puke?

It doesn’t feel like that. It more, like, hurts. She shook her head and hunched over, cradling her belly. Her lips bulged around her braces. It’s bad. Like, really bad. Can you get Jennifer?

Our coach’s cabin was across the facility, a long dark walk away. Going out would be like falling down a well with only the liquid moon as my rope. It’d offer just enough light to see the faces of the coyotes. Or worse, Rudi’s guard dog.

Lucy knew what she was asking. Tears collected in her eyes. I’m sorry.

Even when she released the high bar and fell onto her chest, breaking her collarbone, Lucy hadn’t cried.

Oh, jeez, I said, because she was scaring me. I’ll be right back.

Her head dropped against the wall behind her and she squeezed her eyes shut. Thanks.

As I shoved my feet into Lucy’s sneakers—they were larger and easier to slip on—I noticed the ranch’s welcome letters on top of the dresser, the ones that had been resting on our pillows when we arrived. I thought of that long walk. The blackness. A foreboding howl. I grabbed the paper and handed it to Lucy.

Actually, we aren’t supposed to get Jennifer. Remember? They said if we have a problem at night, we shouldn’t call our coaches. We should call the doctor.

Lucy opened her eyes long enough to squint at the paper. Dr. Levett.

Our cell phones didn’t get service at the ranch, but each room was equipped with a landline for on-campus calls. I gestured to it. Should I call him?

Can you just call Jennifer then?

Okay, I said, happy for the compromise, and lifted the handset. What’s her number?

Lucy’s lip trembled. I don’t know. She moaned and held her belly. It really hurts. Call the doctor, I guess.

Okay. Good idea, I said brightly. We don’t want to get in trouble with the Baloghs. They’d remember if we disobeyed. Besides, Dr. Levett is famous. He treated Kerri Strug in Atlanta and basically every Olympian since. It’ll be cool to meet him.

While we waited for the doctor to arrive, I crawled into bed beside Lucy and read to her from International Gymnast Quarterly using different voices until I landed on a Cookie Monster impersonation that made her laugh.

Dr. Levett knocked, but I didn’t have to get up from bed; he let himself in. He had hair so dark it looked drawn in, a round face, rimless glasses, and a shirt tucked into pants that were hiked around his waist. He was pleasantly rodent-like; if he were to be made into a cartoon, he would have been a kindly chipmunk dad, but with a stethoscope hanging around his neck.

Hello, girls. So sorry to hear someone isn’t feeling good. He smiled at me and then his attention shifted to Lucy. I’m guessing you’re the patient? When Lucy nodded, he said, I’m sure it’s just indigestion. Sometimes when we eat new foods in a new place, it makes us feel funny. But let’s take a look just to be sure.

He was friendlier than the ranch coaches and the Baloghs, who were stern, especially in the severe way they wracked us, pushing us further and further into overextended splits. But this doctor didn’t even seem annoyed that we’d pulled him out of bed so late.

Mind if I borrow your seat? he asked. I scooted off Lucy’s bed and onto mine. He nestled the stethoscope tips into his ears and, before he dipped the tiny dish below the collar of her nightgown, asked, May I? With Lucy’s consent, he listened to her lungs and heart. Then his fingers, meaty with a spattering of black hair and well-kempt nails filed straight across, palpitated her throat.

He asked Lucy to lie flat on the bed. While he waited for her to get into position, he looked over his shoulder and asked me, Are you girls having a nice time at the camp?

Yes.

He pressed his fingers into the top of her stomach, over her nightshirt. It’s such a wonderful opportunity for you. He shifted his fingers two inches and pressed again. The Baloghs are some of the greatest coaches in the world. You’re so lucky to be able to learn from them and the rest of the staff. He tried one more spot and smiled back at me, sort of mischievously, like we might be in on a shared joke. You know Shawn Johnson?

Duh. I nodded.

I’ve been Shawn’s doctor for years. She’s really sweet, just like you girls seem to be. Then he regarded Lucy with the kind of paternal tone a doctor uses before he administers a shot, one that communicates, There is about to be some degree of unpleasantness, but it’s for your own good. "You have a little bowel upset. New diet, new routine, probably not enough water. I see it all the time. But don’t worry. A little adjustment here will clear it right up. This might feel uncomfortable, but it’ll be over before you know it, and you