Continued story Day 3

“He raised it so high that many of the people that had been with him forever quit. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it, you know with Alex and everything.”

“Anastasia! What are you doing? If you want that double twister ready by Pacific Rim, you need to practice! You hear me? Practice!” A bald man with a stubbly beard and an earring came up to us, shaking his fist. ”And Visa Championships are coming up, too. You want to be on the National Team, don’t you?”

”Y..yes. I’m sorry, Coach Chip! I was just trying to talk to my best friend that I haven’t seen in FIVE YEARS!”

“Well, talk to her later. You need to get to get working. Alex, what are you doing? You botched that tumbling pass again!” He ran over to where Alex, my twin sister, was practicing.

Ana saluted and stood tall. “Yes Sir!” We both giggled. Ana went back to practicing.

I was identical to Alex, and she had been in gymnastics since she was two years old with me. I quit after the first year because I wanted to do ballet, which I ended up doing for nine years. I had been forced to quit last year because I tore a ligament in my arm. Right now I was kind of bummed, because I was out of my favorite thing to do. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do next.

Ana came jogging over. “How did that look?”, she asked.

“Ummm…fine”, I said, feeling guilty for getting lost in thought and not watching Ana’s routine.

“Oh, no!”, Ana said,.

“What?”

“Here comes Hannah, the coach’s daughter. She’s a lot like her dad. I haven’t seen her in five years. You’ll recognize her.”

I remembered seeing her at Alex’ gymnastics meets. She was tall and plump with blonde curls. She was always bragging that, although she was a year older than us, she was a level 4. Most 7-year-olds are level 4’s. She sidled up to us now.

“Well, look who’s back. Little Miss Level 2.”

Ana tightened her ponytail.

“Well, actually, while we lived in Romania, I was advanced up to level 10.”

“Mmm-hmm. I’m sure, Hannah said tartly, as she jumped up on the bar and fell off, “that if I was seen with a girl who had to compete for Romania, I would go to bed without dinner.”

And with that she crisply walked away.

                                                                                       ***

That night, I walked home from the gym with Alex and Ana.

“Ana, I said as we walked around a puddle,“If you don’t tell me something, I’ll call you Stacy.” It was an old joke. Everyone knew that Ana hated that name.

“NO! What should I tell you?

“Keep telling me about why your dad went missing.”

“OK. So where was I? Oh, yeah. So I said he raised his tuition. The next thing he did was accept a lot more people, so the gym was really crowded. But that didn’t matter as much. Anyway, because he raised the tuition, we couldn’t pay for it any more. So my dad went to California to try to find work, and for some insane reason, he didn’t want anyone to know why he left.”

“I can understand that,” Alex said quietly.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“So this was all before we moved, and of course he couldn’t find any work, and so we moved to Romania because he wanted me to be at a cheaper gym, and because he heard that there were good jobs there.” Ana paused, pondering the thought. “We got to Romania and we lived in a really crummy apartment because they couldn’t pay for my gymnastics otherwise; He never did find a job there, and when you emailed me that he lowered his tuition, my parents practically got on the next plane here.”

I laughed. Ana’s parents were very eccentric sometimes, I imagined it was sometimes embarrassing for Ana.

“The thing is, no one knows why he had to make it more expensive, and everyone at the gym is practically sick with curiosity. I wish there was some way to find out.”

“Ana, there is! All we have to do is go there at night, and look through his stuff!” This was I, unflinchingly suggesting this although I barely knew him.

“Well…I guess it could be a start. But if anybody sees us, we’re done for.”

“Meet at my front door at 10:00 tonight?”

“Sure. You too, Alex?

“No Way.”

See, Alex is really cautious. She and I are twins, but we couldn’t be less alike. I like adventure, while she only does what is absolutely necessary. By then we had gotten to Ana’s new house, and we bid her goodbye.

“See you tonight?

“I guess. Alex, don’t tell anybody, okay?

“Okay…”

“Bye!