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the door.
    “Don’t let it get to you,” another one said, patting me on the shoulder, “and good luck tomorrow. We’re coming to your event. We got tickets a long time ago. We’ll cheer you on!”
    “Thanks,” said Benson.
    “I saw it all on the monitor,” said Coach Debbie.
    I nodded miserably.
    She handed me my shoulder bag. “Horrible. We’ll boycott him for the rest of the games.” She drew us into the circle of her arms. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he would do that. It was wrong, so wrong, to blindside you like he did.”
    “Asshole,” Benson said again.
    Coach Debbie took a deep breath. “Let’s leave.”
     
    Coach Debbie and Benson walked with me the entire way across the Olympic Village. We were a unit. We walked arm in arm, the three of us, with me in the center of their protective bubble, drawing comfort from them. We avoided the curious glances of the other athletes on the pathways—swimmers and runners and weightlifters and horse riders, chess players and soccer players and badminton players. Did they recognize me? Did they wonder at my teary face? Americans and Germans and Chinese and Koreans—and, always, everywhere, Mexicans. Could they tell we were sexual gymnasts? Did we look different from anyone else? Were we different from anyone else?
    We belonged here, didn’t we?
    I wondered if any of the athletes I saw had won a medal. Had anyone heckled them ? Told them they didn’t belong in the Olympics? Made them feel like throwing up and hiding in a dark cave the day before competition?
    It wasn’t fair.
    But the fresh air felt good. The walk was helping.
    After a while, Coach Debbie gestured to a well-groomed path that veered from the main walkway. Thick with bougainvillea and other flowering vines, it had to be one of the twelve “secluded getaways” promoted in the orientation brochure. Sexual dalliances were heavily discouraged in all other public areas. This one would probably be mobbed.
    “Let’s follow it,” Benson suggested, “Leah? What do you say?”
    I nodded. Secluded was good. It was the middle of the day. Maybe no one would be there.
    We walked single file on the narrow path, batting away branches, and found a lone bench nestled in the bushes. No one was there. It was the perfect place for three people who needed to be alone.
    We plopped down and sat in silence. A bird twittered nearby. I clutched my knitting bag to my chest.
    After a while, Coach Debbie slid next to me and patted my knee. “Honey, those freaks used to taunt me too, back when I competed. You can’t let it get to you.”
    “I try not to.”
    Benson sighed heavily. “Markham had to know it would screw with her mind.”
    “And he didn’t care,” Coach Debbie said.
    “Or maybe it was what he claimed. Anything for a good story.”
    “Ratings, yes.”
    “Asshole.”
    Coach Debbie rested her head on the back of the bench. After a while she shifted and took a long look at me. “How are you?”
    I didn’t answer. I kicked at the gravel in front of the bench.
    “We should get going, I suppose,” she said after a moment.
    I took her hand. “I don’t want to. Not yet.”
    “Then let’s hang out for a while,” said Coach Debbie. “We don’t have anything scheduled until team dinner at six o’ clock and that’s three hours away.”
    “Okay,” said Benson.
    “My mother is coming to the dinner,” I said. “I can’t let her see me like this.”
    Benson picked a flower from a vine. He must not have read the part of the orientation brochure that warned against picking flowers in the village. “My parents are coming too. And a bucketload of relatives.”
    “And after dinner they’re going to take team photos,” said Coach Debbie.
    “I can’t deal with all that just now,” I whispered.
    Coach Debbie slid closer to me.
    I let my bag slide to the ground and she put her arm around my shoulders. I rested my head on her warm neck. Benson scooted sideways then lay down across our laps, his