You Will Know Me(40)

“Why are you talking about EmPower?” Katie asked, moving closer. “That’s where they do daily weigh-ins. Girls work out with broken toes. At regionals, we saw an EmPower girl compete with a leg brace.”

And the thing Katie didn’t say: that EmPower parents paid eighteen thousand dollars a year, which might be manageable for the banker, the married attorneys, the dominating business owner seated around her. But not for the Knoxes, with their debt and their sagging roof and their creosote-lined chimney and the spidery foundation cracks their neighbor Mr. Watts kept pointing out, poking with a screwdriver and shaking his head.

Gwen paused the video. Behind her, Lacey rocked nervously, her bare legs goose-prickled in the night air.

“Katie, we need to be prepared,” Jim said. “All we have now are Teddy’s skill coaches—minus the one possibly under suspicion by the police—and none of them are competition material.”

“Teddy’s always hired from the heart, not the head.” Molly sighed.

“Teddy hires from the wallet,” Gwen said. “Why pay for a good tumbling coach when you can get your unstable, possibly criminal niece to do it for pin money?”

“Jesus,” Katie said, “you guys don’t waste much time, do you?” Looking over at Eric, waiting for him to join her.

“Teddy is focused on his family,” Gwen said, “and it’s up to us to focus on ours.”

“Without a high-level coach in place now, we don’t achieve,” Jim said, punching the words with military rigor. “Each day we lose before next month’s qualifiers we risk full collapse.”

“Thirty-five days,” Molly said, nodding vigorously. “We have six girls going for Junior Elite, and I’m not just saying that because Cheyenne is one of them. But she is. And Devon, of course, for Senior Elite.”

Everyone looked at Katie and Eric, both of whom crossed their arms.

“Forget Cheyenne, forget our daughters,” Gwen added more quietly, reaching down and smoothing Lacey’s braids. She looked at Katie, eyes fixed. “We know who this matters most for. Devon. She is our star. And we all know this may be her last chance.”

Katie counted to ten in her head.

Several seconds of awkward quiet, Lacey digging energetically at the callus on her palm.

“Devon’s ready,” Eric said coolly. “She will be ready, she will be flawless and she will dominate.”

Katie looked at him, surprised. They didn’t talk that way outside of the family. Or even inside it. There’d never been any need to assert anything before the foot bobble two years ago, but all this reminded her of some of the chatter that had followed: That Coach had skimped on equipment, failing to invest in good skill coaches. That he counted on the boosters to pick up the slack while he expanded his swimming pool, added the cedar deck. And the part that was only whispered: that Teddy might be squandering Devon’s remarkable talent, and on her talent the gym’s prospects rode. The rising tide lifts all boats, Gwen once told Eric, and I just hope Teddy’s not a sinker.

No one ever said anything directly to Katie, only to Eric. Occasionally, she’d wonder if Eric had doubts too. But she always reminded herself that he loved Teddy and, most of all, Devon did. Mom, she’d once said to her. Thank you for finding him for me.

She’d thought, but didn’t say, Honey, he’d have found you anywhere.

“I have no doubt about Devon,” Gwen was saying. “My doubts are with Teddy’s attentions right now. They need to be on BelStars, not on his hysterical niece and her doomed romances.”

“Hey,” Katie said, looking around at them, “we all owe Teddy a lot. You want someone like John Ehlers? Who says gymnasts are like scorpions in a jar, the one who crawls out is the winner? You think he’s going to care about your girls like Teddy does?”

There were a few halfhearted nods, though Gwen’s eyes wandered back to the tablet screen. Lacey squeezed her sneaker toes anxiously.

“Katie, I know you love Teddy,” Kirsten said, removing her Bluetooth and leaning forward in the squeaking chair, “because he has done nothing but shower your daughter with attention since the moment she landed on his doorstep. But your darling Coach T. was at the police station with Hailey for four hours today. And we need to get real.”

Katie looked at Eric as he watched it all. Say something, she thought.

“You want a gym exodus? That may be fine for you,” Katie said, “but I don’t feel ready to make any big decisions for Devon.”

“That’s because you don’t have to,” Kirsten said icily. “Because your daughter’s a star.”

There was a long beat, Kirsten glaring, her Bluetooth crackling in her palm.

“Hey, everyone,” Katie said, rising. Someone needed to say something, and Eric stood there silently, almost as if he were one of them.

Katie cleared her throat. “Let’s step back a second and remember a few things. Molly, how about the time he missed his own fiftieth-birthday party to visit Cheyenne at St. Joe’s after she dislocated her knee playing soccer? Or when he drove seventy miles on black ice to get Nikki Hargrove home from regionals before her PSATs?”

She turned to each of them, softening her eyes as Eric always did.

“And Kirsten, before State last year, when Jordan couldn’t find her good-luck grips, Teddy spent two hours looking before he found them at the bottom of the pit, under that mouse nest.”