You Will Know Me(25)

“Well, that’s just sad,” Becca said. “Gosh.”

There was a pause, then Molly said, “But why did he walk home? Who would walk on Ash Road at night? Jim nearly got sideswiped running there years ago, I won’t let him near it.”

“Maybe they had a fight,” Gwen said. “She was a moody girl.”

“Hailey?” Kirsten said. “Come on. My girls are in love with her. Tansy wants to marry her.”

Gwen’s mouth twisted. “She wasn’t just sunshine and vanilla cupcakes.”

“What does that mean?” Katie interrupted, jerking her earbuds out. “And why are you talking about her in the past tense?”

Everyone looked at Katie, then back at Gwen, who shook her head ruefully.

“I’ve seen things you haven’t. That girl has eyes on the back of her head. She’d surprise Ryan at the restaurant. Wanted all the waitresses to know he had a girlfriend. Young women can be that way. Especially when they lack self-worth. It’s not a criticism. It’s just the kind of person she was. Sorry, is.”

“Well, she loved him,” Becca said, punctuating with a head nod. “Loves him. Loved him.”

“Hailey was a runaway, you know,” Gwen continued. There was no stopping her now, that mouth of hers, its lilac lines whirring, like a clatter toy.

“Her mom kicked her out of her house when she was just thirteen,” Katie said. “That’s not a runaway.”

Gwen shook her head. “Teddy likes to tell it that way. Auntie Tina told me the truth once. Auntie Tina likes her gin and tonics.”

And Gwen proceeded to share how Hailey had snuck out of her bedroom window with her mom’s credit card to chase after some boy.

“Poor little rich girl. Once her mom canceled the card, she ended up sleeping in strangers’ cars, in lounge chairs at apartment pools,” Gwen said. “Finally, the police found her in Tampa, sitting on a bench, smoking a cigarette. Torn shirt, scratch marks up her whole face. She claimed a girl she’d been hitching with had jumped her and beaten her with a sandal.”

“A sandal?” Becca said, as if that were the worst part of the story.

“And she said to the cop, ‘What took you so long?’”

Katie rolled her eyes, nearly laughed. “That is definitely made up,” she said. “Besides, she was a kid. We all did crazy things when we were that age.”

The other parents always tried to do this. To drag her into their little circle, their gym drama, their coven, rubbing their hands over their water bottles, fire burn and cauldron bubble.

She had stories she could share too, but she never would. Once she found Hailey in the parents’ lounge, hand stuffed wrist-deep in a bag of ice. She said Ryan had fallen asleep after his shift, missing their date.

I got so mad I punched my own wall, she said, and then started laughing, a jangling, sad laugh, her face pink and crimped like a carnation. I love him so much. I just want to be with him all the time.

And Katie had taken her hand and held the ice there and said some things, about young men, men at that age, and how he’d come around. And that Hailey just needed to be patient, she just needed to hang on a little less tight. It was hard, Katie knew, loving that much.

Sliding her earbuds back in, she turned her eyes to her laptop. But before long, her gaze wandered to the gym floor, to Devon swinging hypnotically on the bars, hands gloved with chalk, the arrow of her body, her feet melded into one sharp point.

This is why I’m here, she thought to herself. Not for the boosters, not for BelStars. Devon needed her at practice, always had.

The rumbling din, the hum, the freighted silences, the smell of damp leotards and pit foam, the tarry Bag Balm—they were all linked intricately to Devon. Sometimes it felt like the gym was Devon, was her body, its rhythms and pulses and tremors.

At night, the gym left its trace. Its thumps and thwacks still echoing in Katie’s head, swirling chalk dust and raw puberty still in her nostrils, under her skin. In her sleep, she could hear the panting of the girls, their fire and desperation.



“Is it him? Really?”

“I saw him, I did!”

“Quiet!”

A slam and the sharp twang of a springboard and groan of bars ceased.

On the floor, there was a flurry of leotards assembling, Bobby V. shouting, Tut-tut.

Smiling to herself, Katie watched Devon stride elegantly to her spot. Coach T., he’s back!

The parents rose to their feet. Thirty or more of them in pockets throughout the stands.

Then Coach Teddy swept in, his familiar red polo and bright blue track pants swapped for a graying dress shirt and sagging tie.

He stood at the bottom of the bleachers, one foot on the stands like a ship captain with his foot on the prow, an even bigger presence than when Katie first met him all those years ago.

He wiped his face three times before lifting his head and trying for a kind of smile, the one he wore when they lost badly but forgivably.

“I want to thank you all so kindly,” he started, voice catching slightly. “We are all touched by the outpouring of support. Tina says we have more flowers at home than a French cathouse.”

Everyone tried to laugh a little, straining to hear Teddy in the cavernous gym, all the girls lined up like soldiers, shoulders back but heads down.

“We picked up Ryan’s mother from the airport yesterday. She asked me to tell you that you are all welcome to attend the services tomorrow. And I know I speak for her as well when I thank all of you for your notes, your thoughtful remembrances of Ryan. And of course Hailey thanks you.” He bit his lip, stared down at his white sneakers.