The Mighty, Mighty Kmetkos
Title: The Mighty, Mighty Kmetkos
Author: snowballjane
Fandom: Make It or Break It
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Prompt: 135 The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. -- Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne de Stael-Holstein, commonly known as Madame de Stael (1766-1817), French-Swiss intellectual and controversial novelist.
Summary: Chloe Kmetko wished there was something she could give her daughter
Author's Notes: Beta by P (WINOLJ). Spoilers for all of Season 1.
In the playground across the street, a group of little girls were doing handstands. Although at that moment, she could only see their feet, thanks to the row of cars glistening in the sunlight outside the salon windows, Chloe Kmetko could tell which were Emily's toes. They were the ones that stayed up the longest; steady and pointed straight at the sky, while the other girls kicked and flailed.
As her daughter reappeared the right way up, Chloe wiggled her fingers in a quick wave and caught an answering smile before turning back to her customer. The woman was so busy ranting that she hadn't noticed her beautician's momentary distraction.
“So I told him... if you're so wonderful you sort out her present.”
“Good for you,” said Chloe turning her concentration to the woman's tragically chipped thumb nail.
“Well, it didn't work out so well. Men! D'you know what he went and bought? A punching bag!”
The customer paused in her rant and Chloe, well used to playing the therapist while applying colour gave a sympathetic, but non-committal “oh.”
“One of those inflatable ones you can't knock over, you know. Well, who buys a punching bag for a little girl? Mind you, it had a picture of that Wonder Woman on it, so it must have been meant for girls...”
Chloe had a feeling she knew one little girl who'd enjoy a punchbag. When Emily was frustrated - and life did seem to throw a lot of frustrations their way - she'd pound her fists into the furniture. Mattress, chairs, nothing was safe from the child's anger. And much as her mother wanted to let her vent her rage, new chairs and beds cost money they didn't have.
Perhaps she could find one of these Wonder Woman bags - or even persuade this customer to part with her apparently unwanted one... After all, Emily's birthday was coming up.
Loud cheering erupted from the playground and before she even glanced up, Chloe knew that Emily would be at the centre of it. As her daughter cartwheeled, handsprung and somersaulted her way across the ground-tyre safety surface, the other children oohed and aahed as if she was a living firework. But even as Chloe swelled with pride, she saw a tiny tot run into her daughter's tumbling path. She winced, expecting a sickening collision between high-speed nine-year-old and unobservant toddler, but Emily had somehow spotted the little boy too and twisted her body midair.
It was an impressive, spectacular moment, but not even Emily could land a move like that. She went down, vanishing below the row of cars and, as the other children fell silent, Chloe heard her cry of pain.
She ran out of the salon, barely checking for traffic as she raced across the road towards the park. A group of concerned adults had already gathered around and Chloe had to push her way through.
“It's okay sweetheart. Mommy's here.”
Emily was sitting up, holding onto her ankle, but behind the tears brimming in her eyes was pure anger.
“It was going to be a perfect front aerial, back handspring. Now my ankle really hurts,” she snapped. As the adrenaline ebbed, Chloe had to hold back a laugh. Trust Emily to be more annoyed than upset by the injury.
“Did you turn it honey? Is it swollen?”
By the time Emily had proven that she could flex her toes and was seated on a bench with a comforting ice cream, Chloe's customer was even more furious than before. “How dare you run out on me like that?” she stormed as Chloe scrabbled around the floor, trying to retrieve the brushes she had dropped in her hurry to reach the park. “I'm not paying for you to act as first aider to show-off brats. I won't be coming here again.”
“Now Mrs Barker,” soothed the salon manager. “Of course Chloe's very sorry about running out like that, but we value your custom. Let's say this time is free. Chloe - why don't you finish Mrs Barker's nails.”
Chloe didn't have to be told that the freebie would be coming out of her salary. She did the math in her head - yet again it would come down to a choice between bills and birthday presents. There would be no punching bag for Emily.
*
“How about you let me do your nails sweetie?”
“Mom! They'd just get in the way at the gym. And broken.”
“Well, what would you like? You should have something as a good-luck-at-Nationals present. Kaylie's mom tells me she's getting a diamond necklace...” Chloe paused and pulled a comical face of alarm. “Don't even think of asking for diamonds.”
Her daughter laughed at the very idea of diamonds. But of course there were things Emily would like. Chloe was well aware that that list was currently topped by a new iPod and better running shoes, neither of which she could afford right now. They couldn't afford the bills, come to that. People didn't get their nails done nearly so much during a recession.
“Really Mom, just the kit for going to Nationals is enough,” insisted Emily. “I don't need diamonds around my neck - they'd only bounce in my face on the vault and get in the way. I'm going to get a shower.”
As the water began to hiss in the bathroom, Chloe leant on the kitchen worktop and recalled too many occasions when her daughter had missed out on gifts and treats. Birthdays when she had wrapped up soaps and socks - basic essentials - in shiny paper and her little girl had managed to look thrilled by the presents. Was there really nothing she could give her?
*
Chloe's stomach was a tight knot of excitement as she spotted Emily, perfect posture elongating her slim figure, leading the Rock gymnasts into the arena. She whooped and cheered for all she was worth, desperate to grab the woman next to her and squeal, “That's my daughter!” But her earlier friendly overtures to her neighbours in the crowd had met with frosty stares and Chloe wished there had at least been some arrangement for the Rock parents to sit together. Gymnastics parents might be a tightly wound and jealous bunch in general, but she felt she had made a connection with Kim, Summer and Ronnie at last.
The intensity emanating from many of the groups of family and supporters around her alarmed Chloe. Poor kids, to have so much pressure on them to perform. Or was that just an excuse, she wondered, as the first gymnasts approached the apparatus on the arena floor. She had always let Emily make her own way towards her sporting dream - though neither the passionate little girl she had been or the driven young woman she had become had ever needed much of a push. Even that night on the swings, Emily hadn't wanted the encouraging pep talk, she just needed the alternative path, life without gymnastics, laid out for her to find the strength she needed.
No, it was Chloe herself that had relied on the 'mighty, mighty Kmetkos' speeches, talking herself through the tough times when the children were still too small to help or the latest crisis seemed overwhelming. If her confidence in the indefatigability of their little family had often faltered, she had tried her hardest not to let them see that.
As the children had grown up, each with their own strengths but both filled to the brim with determination, they had become a team. It hadn't been easy though, and Emily and Brian had shouldered far more responsibility than most kids their age. More than they should have had to, thought Emily. Certainly more than most of the girls here at the competition, whose only worry was landing their triple-back-half-twisty-something for as many points as possible.
Now Emily stood alone on the arena floor, caught in a lightning storm of camera flashes, and the knot in her mother's stomach tightened. If only she could have given her daughter that kind of life.
*
“Next up... gymnastics! Emily Kmetko was a talented newcomer at this year's Nationals and made a surprise addition to the American gymnastics team. Her floor exercise, in particular, wowed the judges. Let's take a look.”
The dozens of TV screens around the studio all showed Emily in her red and purple leotard, rolling her head, apparently lost in the music, before making a flying tumbling pass. Watching from the wings, Chloe felt the same thrill of pride she experienced every time she saw that video clip - and she'd seen it many times in the past few weeks. That was her brilliant, headstrong, independent, beautiful, talented daughter, who against all the odds had qualified for the national team.
Under the glare of the studio lights, Emily looked pale in spite of the ton of bright orange tan foundation that had been caked onto her face backstage. Chloe had watched in horror, but the TV woman had reassured her that the lights and camera did things to faces that no ordinary make up could cope with.
The smooth-looking anchorman was chatting with his guest while the VT played, clearly a professional at putting nervous sports stars at ease. Meanwhile, clipboard-wielding TV people were busy attaching microphones and tweaking Emily's American Gymnastics tracksuit top.
“And five, four...” A producer counted off the final few seconds of Emily's routine with silent fingers to cue the show's studio back in.
“So, how did you feel right at that moment Emily?”
“Worried sick,” said Emily, prompting a puzzled laugh from her questioner. “No really. We were still waiting to hear any news about Payson. I was glad that I'd done my routine well, but it didn't sink in right away that I'd made the team.”
“Only a year before Nationals, you were still training at a public gym. But you beat hundreds of girls from expensive training programmes - what is it that you have that they haven't?”
Emily didn't hestitate. “My mom.”
“That's sweet,” patronised the smooth presenter. “But as I understand it, your mother is a struggling hairdresser - some of your team-mates' parents are millionaires. How would your mother give you an advantage in gymnastics?”
Unfair, thought Chloe. She gave you the nice-girl-good-PR answer, don't make a 16-year-old kid defend her hopeless parent on live TV. But Emily wasn't thrown by the question.
“Money can't make you a good gymnast you know,” she said. “Yes, we're not rich and my mom's not had it easy bringing up me and my brother, but she's kind of an unstoppable force.
“And that's how you get better at gymnastics, you see. You fall and you get up, you fall and you get up, over and over, until you can do it without falling. And that's my mom. That's us Kmetkos. You can knock us down and we keep on popping right back up.”
Chloe gasped as she recognised the words, tears starting in her eyes as a great weight lifted from her heart. Maybe she had given her daughter something of value after all.
As the anchorman said his goodbyes and the show's music started up, Emily looked across the studio and met her mother's eyes with a confident smile. Yes, thought Chloe, they were the mighty, mighty Kmetkos and nothing would keep them down.
The End
Author: snowballjane
Fandom: Make It or Break It
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Prompt: 135 The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. -- Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne de Stael-Holstein, commonly known as Madame de Stael (1766-1817), French-Swiss intellectual and controversial novelist.
Summary: Chloe Kmetko wished there was something she could give her daughter
Author's Notes: Beta by P (WINOLJ). Spoilers for all of Season 1.
In the playground across the street, a group of little girls were doing handstands. Although at that moment, she could only see their feet, thanks to the row of cars glistening in the sunlight outside the salon windows, Chloe Kmetko could tell which were Emily's toes. They were the ones that stayed up the longest; steady and pointed straight at the sky, while the other girls kicked and flailed.
As her daughter reappeared the right way up, Chloe wiggled her fingers in a quick wave and caught an answering smile before turning back to her customer. The woman was so busy ranting that she hadn't noticed her beautician's momentary distraction.
“So I told him... if you're so wonderful you sort out her present.”
“Good for you,” said Chloe turning her concentration to the woman's tragically chipped thumb nail.
“Well, it didn't work out so well. Men! D'you know what he went and bought? A punching bag!”
The customer paused in her rant and Chloe, well used to playing the therapist while applying colour gave a sympathetic, but non-committal “oh.”
“One of those inflatable ones you can't knock over, you know. Well, who buys a punching bag for a little girl? Mind you, it had a picture of that Wonder Woman on it, so it must have been meant for girls...”
Chloe had a feeling she knew one little girl who'd enjoy a punchbag. When Emily was frustrated - and life did seem to throw a lot of frustrations their way - she'd pound her fists into the furniture. Mattress, chairs, nothing was safe from the child's anger. And much as her mother wanted to let her vent her rage, new chairs and beds cost money they didn't have.
Perhaps she could find one of these Wonder Woman bags - or even persuade this customer to part with her apparently unwanted one... After all, Emily's birthday was coming up.
Loud cheering erupted from the playground and before she even glanced up, Chloe knew that Emily would be at the centre of it. As her daughter cartwheeled, handsprung and somersaulted her way across the ground-tyre safety surface, the other children oohed and aahed as if she was a living firework. But even as Chloe swelled with pride, she saw a tiny tot run into her daughter's tumbling path. She winced, expecting a sickening collision between high-speed nine-year-old and unobservant toddler, but Emily had somehow spotted the little boy too and twisted her body midair.
It was an impressive, spectacular moment, but not even Emily could land a move like that. She went down, vanishing below the row of cars and, as the other children fell silent, Chloe heard her cry of pain.
She ran out of the salon, barely checking for traffic as she raced across the road towards the park. A group of concerned adults had already gathered around and Chloe had to push her way through.
“It's okay sweetheart. Mommy's here.”
Emily was sitting up, holding onto her ankle, but behind the tears brimming in her eyes was pure anger.
“It was going to be a perfect front aerial, back handspring. Now my ankle really hurts,” she snapped. As the adrenaline ebbed, Chloe had to hold back a laugh. Trust Emily to be more annoyed than upset by the injury.
“Did you turn it honey? Is it swollen?”
By the time Emily had proven that she could flex her toes and was seated on a bench with a comforting ice cream, Chloe's customer was even more furious than before. “How dare you run out on me like that?” she stormed as Chloe scrabbled around the floor, trying to retrieve the brushes she had dropped in her hurry to reach the park. “I'm not paying for you to act as first aider to show-off brats. I won't be coming here again.”
“Now Mrs Barker,” soothed the salon manager. “Of course Chloe's very sorry about running out like that, but we value your custom. Let's say this time is free. Chloe - why don't you finish Mrs Barker's nails.”
Chloe didn't have to be told that the freebie would be coming out of her salary. She did the math in her head - yet again it would come down to a choice between bills and birthday presents. There would be no punching bag for Emily.
*
“How about you let me do your nails sweetie?”
“Mom! They'd just get in the way at the gym. And broken.”
“Well, what would you like? You should have something as a good-luck-at-Nationals present. Kaylie's mom tells me she's getting a diamond necklace...” Chloe paused and pulled a comical face of alarm. “Don't even think of asking for diamonds.”
Her daughter laughed at the very idea of diamonds. But of course there were things Emily would like. Chloe was well aware that that list was currently topped by a new iPod and better running shoes, neither of which she could afford right now. They couldn't afford the bills, come to that. People didn't get their nails done nearly so much during a recession.
“Really Mom, just the kit for going to Nationals is enough,” insisted Emily. “I don't need diamonds around my neck - they'd only bounce in my face on the vault and get in the way. I'm going to get a shower.”
As the water began to hiss in the bathroom, Chloe leant on the kitchen worktop and recalled too many occasions when her daughter had missed out on gifts and treats. Birthdays when she had wrapped up soaps and socks - basic essentials - in shiny paper and her little girl had managed to look thrilled by the presents. Was there really nothing she could give her?
*
Chloe's stomach was a tight knot of excitement as she spotted Emily, perfect posture elongating her slim figure, leading the Rock gymnasts into the arena. She whooped and cheered for all she was worth, desperate to grab the woman next to her and squeal, “That's my daughter!” But her earlier friendly overtures to her neighbours in the crowd had met with frosty stares and Chloe wished there had at least been some arrangement for the Rock parents to sit together. Gymnastics parents might be a tightly wound and jealous bunch in general, but she felt she had made a connection with Kim, Summer and Ronnie at last.
The intensity emanating from many of the groups of family and supporters around her alarmed Chloe. Poor kids, to have so much pressure on them to perform. Or was that just an excuse, she wondered, as the first gymnasts approached the apparatus on the arena floor. She had always let Emily make her own way towards her sporting dream - though neither the passionate little girl she had been or the driven young woman she had become had ever needed much of a push. Even that night on the swings, Emily hadn't wanted the encouraging pep talk, she just needed the alternative path, life without gymnastics, laid out for her to find the strength she needed.
No, it was Chloe herself that had relied on the 'mighty, mighty Kmetkos' speeches, talking herself through the tough times when the children were still too small to help or the latest crisis seemed overwhelming. If her confidence in the indefatigability of their little family had often faltered, she had tried her hardest not to let them see that.
As the children had grown up, each with their own strengths but both filled to the brim with determination, they had become a team. It hadn't been easy though, and Emily and Brian had shouldered far more responsibility than most kids their age. More than they should have had to, thought Emily. Certainly more than most of the girls here at the competition, whose only worry was landing their triple-back-half-twisty-something for as many points as possible.
Now Emily stood alone on the arena floor, caught in a lightning storm of camera flashes, and the knot in her mother's stomach tightened. If only she could have given her daughter that kind of life.
*
“Next up... gymnastics! Emily Kmetko was a talented newcomer at this year's Nationals and made a surprise addition to the American gymnastics team. Her floor exercise, in particular, wowed the judges. Let's take a look.”
The dozens of TV screens around the studio all showed Emily in her red and purple leotard, rolling her head, apparently lost in the music, before making a flying tumbling pass. Watching from the wings, Chloe felt the same thrill of pride she experienced every time she saw that video clip - and she'd seen it many times in the past few weeks. That was her brilliant, headstrong, independent, beautiful, talented daughter, who against all the odds had qualified for the national team.
Under the glare of the studio lights, Emily looked pale in spite of the ton of bright orange tan foundation that had been caked onto her face backstage. Chloe had watched in horror, but the TV woman had reassured her that the lights and camera did things to faces that no ordinary make up could cope with.
The smooth-looking anchorman was chatting with his guest while the VT played, clearly a professional at putting nervous sports stars at ease. Meanwhile, clipboard-wielding TV people were busy attaching microphones and tweaking Emily's American Gymnastics tracksuit top.
“And five, four...” A producer counted off the final few seconds of Emily's routine with silent fingers to cue the show's studio back in.
“So, how did you feel right at that moment Emily?”
“Worried sick,” said Emily, prompting a puzzled laugh from her questioner. “No really. We were still waiting to hear any news about Payson. I was glad that I'd done my routine well, but it didn't sink in right away that I'd made the team.”
“Only a year before Nationals, you were still training at a public gym. But you beat hundreds of girls from expensive training programmes - what is it that you have that they haven't?”
Emily didn't hestitate. “My mom.”
“That's sweet,” patronised the smooth presenter. “But as I understand it, your mother is a struggling hairdresser - some of your team-mates' parents are millionaires. How would your mother give you an advantage in gymnastics?”
Unfair, thought Chloe. She gave you the nice-girl-good-PR answer, don't make a 16-year-old kid defend her hopeless parent on live TV. But Emily wasn't thrown by the question.
“Money can't make you a good gymnast you know,” she said. “Yes, we're not rich and my mom's not had it easy bringing up me and my brother, but she's kind of an unstoppable force.
“And that's how you get better at gymnastics, you see. You fall and you get up, you fall and you get up, over and over, until you can do it without falling. And that's my mom. That's us Kmetkos. You can knock us down and we keep on popping right back up.”
Chloe gasped as she recognised the words, tears starting in her eyes as a great weight lifted from her heart. Maybe she had given her daughter something of value after all.
As the anchorman said his goodbyes and the show's music started up, Emily looked across the studio and met her mother's eyes with a confident smile. Yes, thought Chloe, they were the mighty, mighty Kmetkos and nothing would keep them down.
The End