You Will Know Me(73)

Teddy raised his arm in front of Tina like spotting the girls on the bars, and her mouth closed briskly.

“Grief can drive you mad, Katie,” he said, taking a different tack. “That wasn’t our Hailey in the locker room with Devon. That was grief.”

“Well,” Katie said, looking over at Hailey, unable to stop herself, “it sure looked like Hailey when I pulled her off my four-foot-ten, ninety-two-pound little girl.”

Turning her head slowly, Hailey met Katie’s gaze. Composed, enigmatic. Katie had never seen her like this—a young woman whose face had always been like soft taffy, stretched into smiles, laughter, C’mon, gymmies, let’s show ’em what we got. But maybe that had been a composition too, a mask. You never really knew anybody.

“Katie,” Teddy said, clearing his throat, leaning forward. “I understand there’ve been some issues between Devon and Hailey.”

He turned, for the first time, to Hailey.

“But Hailey was wrong about some things.”

Katie looked over at Hailey, her stillness.

“And”—Teddy was still talking, his dulcet tones and bent brow, that mesmer-coach thing he could do—“I need you to know she has not shared with the police any of the wrong things she once believed. About your daughter.”

“Ron wouldn’t let her, thank God!” Tina jumped in. “He said it would only have made things worse for her. It would have made her look…a certain way. That’s what Ron—”

Teddy’s arm came up once more.

“And she will not be telling them now, or ever,” he said. “None of us will.”

Teddy and Tina looked earnestly, meaningfully at Katie. Their matching ivory hair, their tanned skin and finely laundered sportswear.

Beside them, Hailey. All three of them, their honeyed tans blurring together, the crispness of their shirts. All three becoming as one. A united front. Confederates. That’s what families were, weren’t they? The strong ones, the ones that last. Not supporters or enablers so much as collaborators, accomplices, coconspirators.

Hailey looked at her uncle, face benumbed, and nodded. A stuttering nod, like a record skipping.

“Yes, Mrs. Knox,” Hailey said, nodding and nodding. “I was wrong. I was wrong about everything. I behaved wrongly and I believed false things.”



There was a mysterious interlude, the passing around of footed glasses, the pouring of Tina’s ambered sun tea, the entrance of Nadia and Nastia, Tina’s snapping terriers, nipping and licking at Katie’s feet.

Katie felt confused, light-headed in a way she couldn’t recall since she was a child when the dentist put that glorious sucking mask over her face, what he used to call “happy hour.”

Now, the talk was of the warming weather, the ragweed, the problems with their new deck, wood already splitting in the vertical posts, and did they need to sue the contractor. It was always something with these contractors, the workers they hired.

Somewhere, in all of it, Hailey disappeared into the kitchen, for napkins, for sugar, and never returned.

“Where did she go?” Katie asked, head jerking backward.

The temporary looseness in Teddy’s bisque-colored jowls tightened and he leaned toward her again, setting his glass on the table.

“Katie, don’t you worry about Hailey. She had her come-to-Jesus moment locked in that unholy facility. That is over. And I get why Eric wouldn’t come with you today. But maybe you can talk to him. About his plans for Devon, and BelStars.”

Tina sprang forward, past Teddy’s block this time.

“John Ehlers is a fraud!” she shouted. “He’s tried to poach from us before. He’s tried many times. The stories I could tell you about him. About how he’s boarding one of his gymnasts. A sixteen-year-old. He says it’s all proper, but she’s posting pictures of herself on his water bed—”

Teddy’s hand landed firmly on Tina’s linen-shod knee and her mouth shut again.

He looked at Katie, those misty eyes he used to such strong effect during his pre-meet speeches.

“Katie, gymnasts—all gymnasts but especially the exceptional ones—thrive on routine, on fair winds and following seas. And I can’t apologize enough for our role in disrupting those waters for Devon. But we want things to go back.” His eyes glowing wetly, Katie feeling her chest swelling out of habit. “We want to return to those bright days when all our hearts and minds were directed toward Elite Qualifiers. We want what you want: for Devon to realize her deepest promise, at last.”

On his feet now, lifting Katie to her feet too, holding her hands in his, between his.

“With your say-so, we start over, now. We refocus all our efforts. Forget all this confusion, leave it in the darkness. Remove any obstacles from our champion’s way. Return to our path, the one we mapped out together, all those years ago, all of us together, right here in this house, at that table in there.”

Katie looked through the arched entry into the dining room. She could see it. Eric and herself leaning forward nervously, watching Teddy with his Sharpie, his flow chart. Deciding Devon’s future.

She felt something turn inside her. A phantom kick to the ribs.

At that moment, a sharp thwack vibrated from the ceiling. And something else, almost like an animal scratching a carpet on the floor above them.