Summer Attractions (6 page)

Positioning herself in front, she tried to get the right angle for a selfie, but there were too many people, and at one point, Jemma decided to give up. Glancing around, she saw a thin, tall girl approach where Jemma was standing. Like Jemma, she too was clearly alone.

“Hi, could you take a picture of me in front of the statue?” she asked. The girl flinched as if she was completely shocked anyone would speak to her, and Jemma only caught a brief glance of her face, almost completely hidden by the hood of her sweatshirt. She was wearing sunglasses too, but Jemma thought she somehow looked very familiar, even though she couldn’t place the face.

“Sure,” the girl said, her voice low and almost muffled.

Jemma handed her phone over and the girl took the picture quickly, handing the phone back so fast that Jemma’s interest was piqued.

“I could take one for you too, if you like?” Jemma asked gently, not wanting to spook the girl any more than she already had.

Jemma could see her hesitate, a hand flying to her hood and then freezing right before she drew it down.

“It’s okay,” Jemma reassured. “It’ll be quick. But you wouldn’t want to come all the way up here and not get a picture.”

“You’re right,” she said, but her tone still sounded unconvinced. Her hand wavered near her hood.

“My name’s Jemma, and I won’t bite. Promise.”

The girl finally, slowly, lowered her hood, but kept her sunglasses on as she passed her phone to Jemma.

She posed and Jemma snapped a series of pictures, hoping that she’d managed to grab a good one.

“There should be at least one you shouldn’t be ashamed of,” Jemma said, handing the phone back. The girl already had her hood back up and she accepted her phone back with a quick, grateful smile.

“Thanks,” she said softly.

They both glanced up at the same time, ready to part ways, when the crowd surged toward them, all wearing US Olympic Team insignia, accompanied by security and other personnel who would all, Jemma was almost certain, be able to identify the girl standing in front of her—just as Jemma eventually had. The girl’s face caught and froze. Jemma only had a split second to do anything, and it was all instinctual.

She slid an arm around her shoulders and turned them, abruptly, quickly, away from the oncoming group, dodging some other tourists, until they were in the far shadow of the statue and nobody was likely to guess who she was with.

“There,” Jemma said kindly. “You’re good now.”

She looked up at her, eyes still full of fear. “I’m good,” she parroted back. “Yes,” she repeated after a moment, “I’m good.” And then she turned to leave.

Jemma watched, a pang of regret that she hadn’t been able to get the fearful girl to say more than a few words.

The girl’s words stopped her in her tracks. She turned back, contrition obvious from her expression. “I’m sorry. God, I don’t mean to be rude.”

Jemma smiled. “You weren’t rude. You don’t know me . . . we don’t have to be friends. I just wanted to make sure you got a picture. Coming here is special, I think.”

The girl’s face crumpled, and Jemma instantly regretted saying anything. “No, it’s okay, I promise,” she continued. “Here, there’s a café over there.” She gestured to a number of umbrellas shading a corner of the mountaintop. “Let’s go have a cup of coffee.”

The girl hesitated, and Jemma had begun to wonder if she was truly all right. There was so much misery etched on the parts of her that Jemma could see: the hunch of her shoulders; the way she shoved her hands into the front pocket of her sweatshirt; how she kept trying to make herself smaller and less significant.

“I’m crazy hungover,” Jemma confessed. “And if I don’t get some more coffee in me, I may actually fall down. You probably don’t want to be responsible for that sort of public
meltdown.”

Finally, the girl nodded her head and followed as Jemma led their way to the little café. It was overrun, but they managed to grab a table in the back. The girl insisted on sitting with her back to the rest of the occupants, and Jemma could only shrug her agreement. She seemed terrified of being seen, and Jemma was pretty certain she knew why.

“I’ll go grab some coffees,” Jemma said and went to go stand in the line. While she was waiting in line, she hooked onto the wifi and googled to confirm her earlier suspicion. She wasn’t sure how she felt when the pictures loaded and she turned out to be right.

Having her hunch confirmed, Jemma didn’t even argue when the girl kept her hood up and her sunglasses on when she returned to the table with the two cups.

Sliding one to the girl, Jemma shot her a frank look. “Do you want to talk about it?”

The girl’s lip trembled as she took a sip of coffee. “Not really,” she admitted softly.

“I think you should. It was dangerous to come here alone and I think you know it, but you came here for a reason, didn’t you?”

The girl lowered her sunglasses, hazel eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “You recognized me!”

Jemma rolled her eyes. “I’m a sports blogger. I could probably identify every member of the US Olympic Team with my eyes closed.”

Panic bloomed on the girl’s face.
Not just a girl
, Jemma corrected herself,
Kimber Holloway
.

“You won’t write about this, will you?”

“About how you snuck off without your handlers or any security whatsoever to see Christ the Redeemer? Of course not.” Jemma opened her coffee cup and blew on the hot surface. “I’m not heartless. Frankly, I could care less what you choose to do with your free time. I’m only worried because you don’t seem okay.”

Kimber buried her head in her hands. “You’re right,” she mumbled between her fingers, “I’m not okay.”

“Tell me about it,” Jemma said as kindly as she could. “You can tell me and I swear to you I won’t write a word about it.”

Raising her head, Kimber gave Jemma a dubious look. “Why wouldn’t you? This is such a
great
story,” she said a little bitterly.

“Because I’m promising you I won’t? Because I’m not a shitty person? If I wanted to draw attention to you, I would have let the rest of the US team recognize you.”

Kimber’s eyes were weary and Jemma couldn’t help but notice the white etched lines underneath them. She looked exhausted and stressed. Hardly the United States’ greatest hope for a haul of gold medals in swimming.

“If you know who I am, you know who my mother is.”

“Julia Holloway? Of course. She’s a legend.”

“Exactly.” The bitterness in Kimber’s voice was growing more and more pronounced. “Not very easy being the daughter of a legend.”

“I can only imagine,” Jemma said sympathetically. “It must be really tough on you, all this pressure.”

“I think I could deal with the gold medal pressure and all those expectations,” Kimber explained, twisting the lid of her cup round and round again, “even the media writing stories about it. But living with it. . .it’s every single day. Unrelenting.”

“So it’s
her
, then,” Jemma observed.

“Oh it’s definitely her.” Kimber’s voice reached a new level of bitter. “It’s
always
her.”

Jemma’s heart ached with sympathy. God knew, she had her own problems with her mother—and what daughter didn’t? But she’d never been pushed or prodded by her. Her mom, good and bad, had always supported Jemma’s
own
dreams. She’d never considered herself particularly lucky before, but looking at Kimber’s drawn and weary face, Jemma realized just how blessed she’d been.

She opened her mouth to apologize, to comfort, to find whatever words she could to tell Kimber she was appreciated and
loved
by so many people around the world without a single gold medal, but Kimber kept going.

“It’s just . . . I want to experience college, not just go to college so I can swim. She makes every decision, watches every move I make. I’m in a cage, and it never gets better. If I win races here, it’ll get worse because she’ll want me to do more, and if I don’t win, it’ll be worse because I didn’t do what she expected and I’ll need to work harder.” Kimber glanced up, and the pain and desperation in her eyes pinned Jemma to her chair.

“You probably think I’m horrible,” Kimber continued, the edge of misery in her voice obvious. “Hating my own mother this way.”

“I don’t think you hate her, I think you hate the way she treats you,” Jemma inserted quietly. “And
anybody
would hate those things. You’re not a
thing
. You’re a person. You deserve to be able to make some decisions for yourself. You’re more than just a talented swimmer, Kimber.”

“I know I am, but it’s hard to believe it when she doesn’t treat me that way.”

“Have you ever talked to her about it?” Jemma asked.

Kimber nodded. “Usually she’ll bring up the Games as an excuse. Like if I want to succeed here, I need to follow what she tells me. That
she
knows best.”

“Maybe after the Olympics are over, it’s worth bringing up again,” Jemma suggested. “Tell her what you want; lay it all out unemotionally. Appeal to her rational side.”

“You think she might listen to me?” Kimber’s lips twisted into a cynical smile. “I just want her to let me go to school. Even a college where I’m on the swim team might be better than no college at all.”

From what Jemma had seen, Julia Holloway was unapologetically tough, and no doubt the person she was the toughest on was her daughter.

“I think it’s worth a try,” Jemma said. “And if she doesn’t, then at least you knew you tried and can decide what to do from there.”

A smile peeked out from the corner of Kimber’s lips. She was such a pretty girl, clearly in over her head, and Jemma’s heart ached for her.

“Is that why you came here today by yourself?” Jemma asked.

“I snuck out,” Kimber admitted with a rather satisfied smirk. “I bet she’s gonna lose her mind when she sees I’m not in the room or at the practice pool.”

A feeling that Jemma could sympathize with. She was not particularly looking forward to the moment she saw Gabriel again.

“I’m playing hooky today too,” Jemma said, finishing her coffee and setting the empty cup on the table.

“You’re a reporter; how could you be playing hooky?”

“Being an adult isn’t exactly unlimited freedom, you know,” Jemma confided. “There’s a lot of adult things that suck.”

Kimber raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “Okay,” Jemma revised, “there’s some great bits too. But a lot of it sucks. Bills and responsibilities and being nice to people you don’t like.”

“I do a lot of that now,” Kimber said. “Who do you have to pretend to like?”

Pretending to like Gabe wasn’t the problem; if she was being honest, that she liked him at all was the real issue, but Kimber didn’t need to hear the whole story. “A guy who’s supposed to be keeping an eye on me while I’m here in Rio,” Jemma confided. “He thinks he gets to go everywhere I go. It’s really annoying.”

Kimber grimaced. “That sounds terrible,” she said. “Is he even nice?”

Not really, but he’s
hot
, was right on the tip of Jemma’s tongue, but instead she said, “He’s not awful.”

“Not awful. What a compliment.” Kimber seemed amused so Jemma kept going. Seeing her smile was so reassuring, even though Jemma couldn’t quite put her finger on why. She’d just met this girl; even though she sympathized with her situation, she would hardly call them friends. Yet, anyway.

“He thinks he’s real hot shit,” Jemma said.

“
Is
he hot?” Kimber asked, and Jemma flushed.

“He’s not unfortunate,” she admitted. “Passable, I’d say.”

“Another huge compliment,” Kimber smirked. “Is he going to be mad you left today?”

“Oh, he’ll be pissed.”

“So will my mom,” Kimber groused, that melancholy edge returning to her voice.

“What colleges did you apply to?” Jemma asked, not caring if it was an obvious distraction or if the answer was easily googleable.

Kimber named a number of schools in Southern California. “But I really want to go to Stanford,” she said wistfully.

Jemma didn’t mention that her alma mater was one of Stanford’s major rivals. Also the Stanford Tree was just
weird
. “Home of a lot
of great student athletes,” Jemma said. “Including Andrew Luck.”

“But he’s not hot like Colin O’Connor,” Kimber said with a pensive sigh.

Jemma was doubly glad that she hadn’t mentioned where she’d gone to school or who her best friend was. Like a wimp, she changed the subject.

“It looks like it’s cleared out a bunch. I bet nobody will recognize you if we go take a bunch more pictures.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Jemma said, crossing her fingers mentally.

And it turned out that they were. Everyone had eyes for the statue and the view from the top of the mountain and ignored Jemma and Kimber. Kimber even took off her sunglasses and shook her hair out, eyes sparkling in the sunshine. She hammed for the camera, and Jemma was excited about how cute some of the pictures were. She hoped that someday the world—but mostly Julia Holloway—would be able to see the joy in Kimber’s eyes at being free, even for one measly day.

When it came time for Jemma to take the tram back to the hotel, Kimber reached out and hugged her tight. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I needed this.”

Jemma squeezed her even tighter. “You have my number. I promise to help if I can.”

“You don’t have to,” Kimber said softly.

“But I want to,” Jemma insisted. “You’re my friend now, and friends help friends.”

Kimber’s eyes shone. “Good luck with your not-hot bodyguard.” Her smirk told Jemma just how unsubtle she had been. And also casually reminded her how much trouble she was going to have dealing with him when she got back.

Jemma dreaded the moment she was going to come face to face with Gabriel the whole trip back to the hotel. She dawdled a bit outside and even thought about sitting down at the café and having lunch, but it was very busy and she didn’t feel much like waiting in line.

Better to go upstairs, she decided, and face the music, rather than let the anticipation ruin what might otherwise be a delicious lunch, now that her hangover had passed and her appetite was back.