On a small table between our chairs, a few magazines are stacked up. The top one is a popular sports magazine. My face on the cover. Both fingers to my lips as I stare up at the scoreboard during Team Trials. The headline: Meadows Advances to the Olympics. People always refer to that look as my iconic concentration face, but I usually can’t even fucking remember doing it until it’s in print or online somewhere.
I tear my eyes off the magazine to look at the reporter.
“I’m really proud of Frankie.” I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear, the strand smelling like chlorine since I came to this hotel directly from the pool. “She swam great, and she deserved the win.”
I’m a blender of emotions, swirling together. Pride for her. Disappointment for me. Too mixed to pick apart. My stomach tosses and turns.
The reporter crosses her leg on the opposing chair. I’m not sure I gave her the answer she was looking for, and I notice how she scrutinizes my jacket—a red windbreaker.
I’m not wearing Team USA merch.
I’m wearing Akara’s windbreaker, sleeves bunched up to my elbows. Usually, I never wear red. Not since we confirmed our relationship publicly. It draws too much attention—paparazzi can spot me in the masses too fast, but I saw the jacket lying on Akara’s duffel in my room. And I just slipped it on before we left.
Like a layer of confidence.
To remind myself, I can be public. I can give an interview like the other athletes. I’m here.
But the longer she studies the jacket, I wonder if she’s going to ask who it belongs to. I sit on pins and needles and finally breathe when she glances at her notes and changes to a different question.
“You’ll be swimming with Tobias Kingly later tonight in the Mixed Relay. Twitter is buzzing with anticipation about that final. Are you nervous at all?”
Kingly.
I never imagined competing with my childhood idol, and even though I’ve seen an assholish side of him this year, I’m still looking forward to that event.
Even if I’m scared as fuck to let him down. Let myself down. With the way these Summer Games have been going, I’m probably looking at another silver. It’s hard to be happy about that result. Especially when the other swimmers on the relay team are relying on my time.
I choose my words carefully, so I don’t drop an f-bomb. “I’m a little nervous.”
I suck at lying, so I don’t even try.
“But,” I continue, “I’m more excited to get into the water and compete again.” To prove I’m not a second-place finisher. I have to prove it to myself and to my baby.
My baby.
Please don’t ask questions about the cinnamon roll. Not that the reporter has anything to go on. We’ve been very cautious and very secretive about my pregnancy so far. But we haven’t had to shelter the news for that long yet.
Plus, Akara, Banks, and I have a track record for being fucking awful at keeping secrets. Someone usually finds out. I just don’t want that “someone” to be the media, or worse, the world.
I risk a glance to my right. Crew for GBA News are gathered around camera equipment, and next to them, my boyfriends look dapper in white button-downs and black slacks. Earpieces in, they’re 100% on-duty and stand stoic and on guard, waiting for my interview to end.
Akara whispers something to Banks, while Banks nods subtly to me like you’re doing great, mermaid. I take a bigger breath.
And then Akara winks in my direction.
I try not to burst into a smile.
“Last Olympics, you had no nerves,” the reporter reminds me. “And I quote, ‘I’m too focused to let those feelings in’.”
Damn.
She had a quote from my eighteen-year-old self at the ready just to fling at my face.
Total seriousness in her perfectly penciled brows, she asks, “What’s changed from then to now?”
I know she’s baiting me.
I’m not fucking dumb. She wants me to broach the topic of my boyfriends so that it becomes free game to bring my relationship into this interview.
I hate thinking it, but my first thought is: What would Charlie do?
He’s run circles around my head before, and if anyone can help me navigate an interview where I’m being cornered, it’d probably be my cousin.
“The biggest change…” I say, building up the anticipation.
She leans forward in her chair.
I smile softly. “…is probably being in a relay with Tobias Kingly.” It’s not a lie.
She sinks backward, a little disappointed by the less than salacious truth. But I’m not done. I’m about to admit something that’ll be super embarrassing, but it’ll at least pry the attention off my poly relationship and give her what she wants—entertainment. “I never told the press this. But I used to have a poster of Kingly in my bedroom.”
Her face lights up. “Is that so?”
I’d bet Akara is internally groaning.
“I really wanted to be as great as him.” My heart hurts saying these words out loud because a part of me doesn’t feel as if I’ve earned that title yet, and with my lack of golds this year, I might not ever be that great.
The reporter nods. “He is one of a kind.”
Then what am I?
I just nod stiffly.
“We polled the audience to see which question they wanted answered most.” She glances down at her notes, and my stomach does a little nosedive. “The most popular topic is body hair regime.” Fuck me. I keep a composed face. “Do you wax or shave or do full laser hair removal like other swimmers?”
It’s a common question, I guess. I’m sure Kingly has had to answer it before.
“I like to shave my arms and legs to reduce drag.”
It's a pain in the butt, but I don’t want to permanently laser my hair off completely. I feel more like myself when I have hair on my arms and when it comes back prickly on my legs sometimes. Waxing is a fucking waste. You have to wait for the hair to grow to a certain length just to wax again, and in that time, there’s too much drag, and I’d rather just fucking shave.
The reporter smiles. “Taking notes from Kingly, I see.” She gives me a wink.
So Kingly did answer this question—and apparently, he shaves his arms and legs too. I restrain from looking at the crew because I know Akara is eyerolling the fuck out of this segment. I press my lips together to stop from laughing.
She changes topics to the Ziff Power commercial I did with my dad and then the interview ends. Easy enough. I actually thank her at the end. It was more painless than I thought it’d be, even if I feel a little raw. The most important information wasn’t spilled today, and that’s the best success.
Operation Keep the Bean Sprout a Secret is still very much in effect.
Akara and Banks lead me down the rooftop stairs to a carpeted hallway. An assistant with a tray of coffee rushes past us, delivering beverages to crew and hosts on the roof. The further we walk along the twisting hall, we pass posters of old Hollywood classics like Casablanca and The Philadelphia Story.
Press has been staying at this 5-star hotel just outside the Olympic Village. Coming here is a little more unnerving, but hopefully this interview was good enough to appease the higher-ups for the rest of the Olympics.
Banks braces a door open that leads into another hall.