Free Sudden Exposure by Susan Dunlap Page A

she should be able to handle this, like she did the handstand on the ten-meter platform.”
    A meter is 39.37 inches. Upside down, 33 feet above the water? My stomach lurched. I’m better about heights than I used to be, much better. Hardly anyone knows I had a problem. But standing at the edge of a cement block 33 feet above the water … I’d cut off my foot before …“In a handstand?” I must have sounded more horrified than I’d intended.
    She reached out automatically and almost patted my arm before she caught herself. “Yeah, and they don’t cancel competition just because it’s windy. Of course, Bryn wasn’t afraid. Fear isn’t something she deals in. For her it’s all challenges to be mastered. Like life’s a finite number of trophies waiting to be moved into her room. There’s no question whether she’ll get one, it’s only a matter of when. If she makes a mistake, she learns her lesson and moves on. Athletes are trained to block out the thoughts of their mistakes, and concentrate, over and over, on the way the thing should be done.” Ellen paused, noting my reaction. “I’m hoping some of that rubs off on me.”
    She was observing me as carefully as I was her, as if assessing whether I was adequate to protect Bryn. Or maybe take her on. I’d heard the “past behind you” theory of athletic trainers: that thinking about the road to the mistake wears that sequence of thoughts into the brain and into the body and then, under performance stress, the athlete is likely to veer onto Mistake Road. So block out the errors, mentally rehearse how the performance should be, and create the freeway to Success. Useful in sports, and in life? If all-for-my-goal were a sign of character, Brucker would be up for Role Model of the Year! “How about social things? Relations? Does Bryn handle those as well?”
    “If she did, she’d be too perfect to tolerate. Surely you know that.” Ellen’s wide mouth pulled into an ironic smile—it looked like that was the kind of smile for which it had been created. “She’s tolerable, socially, but it’s not her medal sport. Really she’s had to focus too much on her performance to … or maybe it’s just that she’s never had to fit in.” She jerked toward me. “I don’t mean that as a criticism. You can’t be everything; what she does is important. For instance, she handles problems when someone else, a lesser person, would fall apart.”
    “Such as?”
    “Well, right before she had to dive at the very last Nationals meet, she heard that one of the other Cal divers had been seriously injured in a dive. It unnerved everyone, but she had to block it out and climb up on the same kind of diving platform and dive. Then at the Olympic Trials every time a reporter asked about her dives, her making the Olympic Team, overcoming her scoliosis and that year off, it was always coupled with questions about Tiff. You know the type: ‘Your problems are gone and your friend is in the hospital, how does that make you feel?’ Bryn couldn’t let it get to her.” She shook her head. “It would only have taken one look at a newspaper to make me a basket case; but of course, Bryn didn’t—couldn’t—let herself read those papers, let Tiff’s error taint her.” Ellen must have read my expression; she added quickly, “She’s not callous. Look at how hard she worked, and all the people she’s helped since then. There’s no benefit to wallowing. What’s done is done; she knows that.”
    “But do you—does Bryn—think the attacker could be someone from her diving days?”
    “She thinks it’s Sam Johnson.”
    I leaned toward her, matching her movement, trying to slip into her mental motion. “May be, but it may not be. Either way, I’ve got to have some leads. You’ve been thinking about this, Ellen, and I can see you’re concerned about Bryn. Who do you think might possibly, in the widest range of consideration, be angry enough, hurt enough, crazy enough