You Will Know Me(19)

“I don’t understand,” Molly Chu said, “why he can’t at least be in communication with us.” She looked at Katie. “Have you heard anything? There’s a rumor that the police are very involved.”

“I don’t know,” Katie said carefully. “Aren’t the police always involved with a hit-and-run?”

The other parents in the stands nodded, all eyes returning to the floor. Bobby V. and the skills coaches were straining to simulate a normal day, but without Teddy, that great oak in the center, it felt awkward, stilted.

There was a peculiar tension among the girls, all of whom wore the blank expressions and big eyes of figures in Keane paintings. No one would listen to the substitute tumbling coach pitching in for Hailey or to the halfhearted drilling by Amelise.

Girls kept falling. Dominique Plonski rolled her ankle in the landing pit and limped off to her mother’s arms.

At the vault, Devon struggled with her Yurchenko, the first twist so painfully slow she couldn’t make the second. Foot hopping on the dismount, her face dazed and puzzled.

Then, from the corner of her eye, Katie spotted Gwen Weaver’s approach, that shimmering bob and sleek purple jacket, the one Molly Chu called a Glamorak.

“I went to Coach T.’s house, to pay my respects,” she said. “Hailey was there, but he wouldn’t let me see her. The doctor sedated her because they couldn’t calm her down.”

“How horrible,” Katie said, shaking her head.

“It is,” Gwen said, almost impatiently. “And, you know, Hailey’s nerves run high under the best of circumstances. But I thought you might know more.”

“Me?” Katie said. “Why would I know?”

Gwen shook her head, her eyes veering to her daughter, Lacey, charging down the runway. The number-one vaulter in her age group, Lacey still couldn’t approach Devon’s talents at her age, much less Devon’s now, legs fused, all air and drive. When Devon’s palms hit the table, everyone gasped. Up she went, a torpedo. What was gravity, then?

“Jump big, like you dream!” Gwen shouted, one of her favorite motivational phrases. They both watched Lacey spring onto the vault table, lock into a handstand—mouth open, that slightly panicked look in her eyes always, like a wee bird that couldn’t believe it was flying—then somersault off.

“Well, I’m sure Eric’ll hear more. Teddy confides in him,” Gwen said, leaning on the riser, rocking on her knees. “Did you know Hailey had to identify the body?”

“No,” Katie said, wincing. She wondered how Gwen knew so much. But she always did—which gym let girls skip levels, which one sandbagged, the parent-lobby drama at the one on Route 7, and the gym over in Hartswood where a coach had a cozy live-in-guardian situation with a sixteen-year-old gymnast.

“His skull was crushed,” Gwen said, and Katie felt her body tighten. “When I was little, my mom ran over our border collie, Hanro. I saw the whole thing from my bedroom window.” She paused. “Obviously, this is much worse.”

Neck snapped, skull crushed. Katie couldn’t say anything, and she wanted Gwen to stop talking.

“That’s why I never let Lacey have a pet,” Gwen concluded, unzipping her jacket with a jerk and leaning back.

She thought of Ryan, that graceful boyish body, how he moved so easily, his arm like a slip of silk sliding across Hailey’s shoulders, head dipping. At Weaver’s Wagon she’d always see him coming from the kitchen in his line-cook apron, that bright ribbon of teeth, waving to the booster club, to Eric, to her.

“I have to go,” Katie found herself saying, rising abruptly, gathering her bag, book, headphones. “I’m taking Drew to the museum after swim class. I’ll be back.”

“Right,” Gwen said. “Well, I’ll talk to Eric later. About everything. A plan.”

“A plan?” Katie felt her ponytail unfurling slowly from its band but didn’t want to stop to fix it. She hadn’t intended to leave or take Drew to a museum, but now it seemed like the perfect thing.

“I wouldn’t say it to everyone,” Gwen said, lowering her voice and moving closer, “but we do have to think ahead. I don’t need to tell you Elite Qualifiers are forty days away. I know Devon’s had that clock ticking inside her for two years.”

“You’re right,” Katie said. “You don’t need to tell me.”

“Teddy says he’ll be back by tomorrow,” Gwen continued, “but who knows if he’ll be in any condition to address gym issues. I’m going to send out some feelers.”

“Gwen, this isn’t the time. It was just two days ago.”

Conversations with Gwen often felt like assaults and Katie never knew when to duck. Best to duck the whole time, Eric always said. He suffered the most, from the constant e-mails, the way she tried to dominate at meetings, the courting of other club members for key votes (“Gwen took me to Haven for a spa day and we talked a long time about the new floors. And I think the extra money is worth it. It’s a safety issue, really”).

She’s passionate, Eric once said, with a shrug.

She’s passionate when you agree with her, Katie replied.

She was nearly to the final set of steps, nearly free, when Gwen called out after her.

“Oh, and Katie,” she said, swooping down the steps like a falcon. “I meant to tell you, it was so nice of Devon to come to Lacey’s party Saturday night. The girls look up to her so much. I always tell Lacey: do as Devon does.”