Chapter 11: On to Nationals

JENNIFER WAS EXPANDING our routine, based on the letter she’d received from the qualifying committee. They suggested that with the lack of jumps Tara could do, we emphasize more of the throws that look like she’s jumping. We worked on a new entry for our cannonball mount and tried going into a pike position double salto. The pike position worked well for this because as soon as I launched her, Tara could grasp her legs and hold them in the proper position. I caught her as she landed in front of me.

We got pretty good at the move, but we still had to figure out how to work it into our routine. Another thing the committee said in their letter to Jennifer was that even though our storytelling was good for a normal routine, we needed to up our artistry even more to compensate for the lack of elements that required Tara to land unsupported and to propel herself in a jump.

When I first started training, Coach Dawson had drilled me on building my strength with body weight. I did pushups, pull-ups, sit-ups, knee bends, and any other exercise that used my body weight. Most of the men’s events depended largely on upper body strength, so my chest and shoulders and core really developed well. Of course, that didn’t mean I ignored my lower body. The vault and floor exercises depended on lower body strength as much as the rings and high bar depended on upper body strength.

Tara had been in great physical condition at the time of her accident, but after that she went through a long and arduous process of regaining control over her lower body—a process that still continued. She didn’t slack off on her upper body work, though, and was almost as well-developed in the torso and shoulders as I was. Um ... With the rather attractive addition of her breasts that she said grew during her time of enforced rest. Believe me, I’d never mistake whether I had hold of her boobs or not. I’d touched them a few times while we were making out and they were spectacular.

Oh. I wasn’t intending to get side-tracked there. I just ... I’m a nearly-nineteen-year-old male. What else can I say?

I meant to talk about her upper body strength. There was a real difference between what she could do with her arms and shoulders and what Madison could do. Madison depended on her legs to get her in flight as much as she depended on me launching her. Tara helped in the mounts and throws with her arms. In our balance routine, she could slowly push herself up as I lifted her into a handstand, but in the dynamic routine, she could use a slight bounce on the sprung floor while I supported her to give her enough momentum to vault into position with her arms. It was pretty amazing. Her core strength was phenomenal!

I wasn’t clear on exactly the nature of her injury. Jennifer said the extent of her recovery was off the charts. She wasn’t expected to walk again at all. It was a sign of her determination and possibly stemmed from her upset at her partner’s suicide. I just knew that I loved her all the more for it.

Love. I didn’t think I’d ever actually said that out loud to her. Everything else in my life took a back seat to what I felt about her. But was that love? How were you supposed to know? I knew what lust was. I wanted her. I wanted to spend more time caressing her breasts while we kissed and then go further. I wanted to make love. That was my lust. I was willing to wait until she was ready. I guess that was my love.

I kept working with Tara every afternoon. I no longer had to take time out to go to cheer practice. I was through with them. I went to my classes in the morning, worked with Tara all afternoon, and studied all evening. My work with Tara also included massage instruction. Jennifer said that most certifications required 500 hours of practice. I was getting about an hour a day. And then things changed a little. I went into the massage room after knocking as usual and found another person on the table.

“It’s time you started working on more bodies than just your girlfriend’s,” Jennifer said. “We’ve posted a notice in the front of the gym asking for volunteers for a massage. You’d be amazed at how fast our schedule has filled up. Today, your first new client is Coach Anders. He’s used to giving you instruction on rings and high bar, so he’ll be providing feedback as you work on him. I will continue to be in the same room, monitoring your progress and giving instruction as needed.”

“Welcome, Coach,” I said, moving to the side of the table. “Ready to relax?”

“Bring it on,” he chuckled. “We’ve been talking about expanding the services here in the gym and are beginning to attract more adults.”

“That’s good. I wouldn’t want to be working on any children,” I said. “I’m sure they’d be fine, but I just see too much potential for miscommunication and problems. I’m glad to have a guy for my first new client.”

The massage went well, I did the same work on him as I usually did on Tara and discovered he could take more pressure than I used on her. A lot more pressure. His muscles were incredibly strong and it took some significant work to get them to relax. Like me, he was really strong through the torso, shoulders, and arms. Not that he had weak legs, but he specialized in aerial events and they really required upper body and core strength.

It also showed me more clearly that working on the body in massage was absolutely non-sexual. It was easy for me to drift off into a little fantasy when I was working on Tara. She often gave me a kiss after a massage. She was my girlfriend. There was no fantasy with Coach Anders. I didn’t think there would be any with any other clients, either.

After the massage, I went out to work on the mat with Tara and Jennifer. Rachel, our choreographer, was waiting to work with us. She had a tariff sheet with our moves on it and we talked for a long time about our story. She started working with us on some very specific poses and throws she wanted to work into a song about flight. That sounded pretty cool. We didn’t have an idea of the music yet, but she was working on sequence and transition before we got to rhythm and synchronization. She said she didn’t want us limited by the music before we’d had a chance to develop the moves.

Rachel gave the sequence and Jennifer worked on the execution of the pieces. Even working without the music, we could tell the piece was really emotional. Occasionally, we’d get into a throw or something when Tara was balanced up on top of me and Rachel would shout “Fly!” We got the message. This whole piece was about Tara flying. Our ending pose was going to be unusual. I was to lift and hold her in a flying pose as if she was truly taking off.

We worked hard and then headed back to the massage room. This time I worked on Tara’s very tired body. By the time I was done, I was exhausted. Tara was feeling more energized. We headed for the locker rooms and then met to go to dinner at her apartment. It was fun to be in her place instead of with my parents. Of course, Jennifer was also there, so it wasn’t like we were tempted to skip dinner and jump each other, but we were all feeling pretty wistful and dreamy after the session.

It was the new pattern for our workouts. School. Massage client. Mat work. Massage. Dinner. And on the weekends, I worked in a little time for Madison.

Saturday the sixteenth, I was surprised that after my class of toddler tumbling, and my two-hour session with Madison, and an hour of working on my own routines, I had no massage session and no working time with Tara. Instead, I was told to get showered and dressed. We were going out.

Maybe I was a little dense, but I’d completely forgotten it was my nineteenth birthday. Mom, Dad, Mikey, Jennifer, her boyfriend Bob, and Mikey’s date of the week Dean all joined Tara and me at Charlie’s for my birthday celebration. Wow! That was a fancy meal.

The original Charlie’s Café was long before my time. I guess it was pretty special, but closed last century sometime. This one is located in the Minneapolis Club, a kind of exclusive membership club frequented by a lot of politicians and company presidents. Dad’s boss at the university was a member and did a great job of promoting us to the club to get a seating for us on a Saturday night. Usually, non-members can only be seated during limited hours on Tuesday through Friday.

Dad’s boss had told the club that a national champion gymnast and her new partner were celebrating a birthday prior to the Olympic Trials in June. It would be a great opportunity for the club to do a little promotion of their support for Minneapolis athletes. I don’t think anyone there actually knew either Tara or me, but the sales job was sufficient to get us a Saturday evening reservation. The décor included the bar and frieze from the original Charlie’s and the furnishings were just plain elegant. The whole building was over a hundred years old and had an athletic club, library, guest rooms, and meeting rooms. Tara and I were photographed for a promotional poster the club planned.

Okay, so I was suitably impressed that my parents thought enough of me to take eight people out for an expensive dinner at this place. It made me even more determined to do well in our exhibition in three months.

I rode with Tara, of course, and that meant we had a pretty delicious make-out time before she dropped me off at home. It was getting harder for both of us to restrain ourselves from going someplace to book a room and not come out for a few days.

Nineteen or not, I was still in high school and I was making progress. Spring Break was the first week of April and I was determined to use the time to finish my English Literature assignment and to at least make sure I was completely caught up on my other coursework. Life didn’t agree.

First off, Jennifer was scheduling three massages a day for me to practice on. She kept a timesheet and at the end of each massage she had the client sign it and give an evaluation score. The client could comment on the service as well. I asked her about it, not understanding the significance.

“Certification, which is required in some areas of Minnesota and in most other states, has a recommendation of having completed 500 hours of practice and education. This is how we’re tracking your progress,” she said. “And we need to get you graduated so I can assign your anatomy coursework to you.”

“Are you an official teacher?” I asked.

“Yes, in fact, I am. Arizona requires 700 hours of schooling for licensing. It’s national board certification that only requires 500 hours. I taught at the Phoenix LMT Institute for a few years before taking the challenge of working with Tara,” Jennifer said. “I’ve served on the National Board for some time.”

“Okay. I’ll do whatever you say,” I said.

“You always do,” she chuckled.

That gave me some additional motivation to get finished with high school. I needed to start the coursework study for my massage work. Somehow, 500 hours seemed like a lot. I didn’t even know how many I had so far. It turned out Jennifer had been tracking my time from almost the moment we met.

I massaged an older woman—I mean lots older, like seventies—and after I was finished, she sat with Jennifer and me and assessed everything I did. I found out later that she was on the Board of Directors of the state massage therapy alliance and had pretty much written the state laws on requirements. I might have learned more from her in the hour after her massage than I ever learned in high school. She was cool.

She had a few good-natured jibes with Jennifer, including saying that the only people who truly benefited from licensing massage therapists were massage schools. They are the ones who make money from training the initial 500-1000 hours required by the state and the additional 20-50 hours required every two years to renew the license. While Minnesota did not require a license, she recognized the sense of my getting National Board Certification if I didn’t know where I would live in the future. Certification was a requirement in most states that had licenses.