You Will Know Me(90)

She blinked once, then twice, because it had to be the coconut rum swirling. Except it wasn’t, because the woman with the ponytail was Mom and the man was Ryan Beck, Hailey’s boyfriend.

Ryan, the one all the girls always talked about. And she’d never really looked at him. Even the time he found her retainer, held it right in his hand. She’d never looked because it felt like she shouldn’t, like staring into the sun.

Her mom did, sometimes. At the booster events, at Weaver’s Wagon, where he worked. The night they’d all stayed at the Ramada, the way she’d watched him down at the pool.

“Oh my God,” her mom was saying, her eyes wide, her hand jumping to her mouth, “I thought you were my husband.”

Ryan Beck’s smile, easy and loose, and open.

“I bet that’s what they all say to you,” her mom said, and then both of them were laughing and it didn’t seem like her mom at all, one strap on her dress slipping down her shoulder, golden under the grease-slicked light fixture, a glass bowl glowing over their heads.

Her mom looked so young, which was strange, because she wasn’t.

Something—and not just the mai tais because she’d seen her mom like that before—was making her cheeks look brighter, making her body move differently, fluidly, fleshily. Everything different from the ordered, slunk-shouldered, hank-haired mother her mother was. That something was in her mom.

Was it the thing she saw in the girls at school? The ones who showed off mesh bras and metallic thongs, whispering to one another of feelings and mysteries, belt buckles under blankets and the tastes of things and that look on their faces, and when they saw the boy from the night before, or the one who just might be that night.

It felt like a secret kept from her her whole life. Like: You’re adopted. You have a brother you’ve never met. Your father isn’t dead, he’s in prison.

How come no one told me?

Your mom, secretly, at night, turns into this. And so do other women, other girls. Just not you. All of them except you.

How come everyone hid it from me? How come Mom did?

She watched them.

Their faces pressed close because of the swinging door behind them or because of this thing, this conspicuous energy, practically glowing, and she could have sworn that, when her mother was laughing and leaning close, her mouth pushed against Ryan Beck’s cheek, even his tanned neck, and the kitchen door swinging and pressing them close.

And then her mom asking for a cigarette, but she never smoked, not ever, and as he went to light it for her, her hand leaped out, grabbing for something, the paperback with the red cover shoved in his back pocket.

Ryan’s eyes went wide with surprise. A grin there.

Devon couldn’t believe she’d seen it. Her mom’s hand in his pocket!

And both of them laughing and the song ending and then she saw her mom leap back, as if touching a flame.

Oh! Covering her mouth again. Repeating, with a wink this time, I thought you were my husband.



In the ladies’ room, Dominique Plonski heaved coconut pudding, slippery tongues of guava, spattering Devon’s brand-new metallic open-toe pumps for which Dad had paid forty dollars.

I don’t know what happened, Dominique kept saying, her little body shaking from it.

You can’t eat food like that, Devon said, looking down at her silver shoes, ruined. Your body doesn’t know how.

After, leaning against the dumpster behind the restaurant, a wet paper towel in hand, she took off her shoes, her lei.

It was then she saw Ryan, ducked behind the dumpster, smiling at her and smoking a cigarette.

She decided she would talk to him, which she never had.

I didn’t know you smoked, she said, her voice embarrassingly high.

I gave it up a hundred years ago, he said, but we all have our secrets.

But what should she say next?

Don’t hide it, he said, catching her hiding her foot behind her other foot.

Her right foot, its lumpen side, the soft pad, its split thickness. (Her Frankenfoot, that’s what her mom used to call it until her dad made her stop. Thank God, he made her stop. But her dad, sometimes it felt like he never stopped looking at it. Her foot, that foot, it was more theirs than hers.) It’s ugly, she said. I hate it.

I doubt that. He smiled.

You shouldn’t smoke, she said. Then blurted: And you should stay away from the moms.

And he laughed, a loud bark, and nodded his head yes.

Okay, he said, and he looked down at her foot again, and it was like he could see it pulsing, like a second heart.

She knew he could. And he was right. It was beautiful.





Chapter Twenty-Three



Elite Qualifiers

One Month Later

The four of them walked into the conference center, the Qualifiers Day 1 of 2—Ballroom B sign rippling above them over the bank of doors.

The four of them—Eric’s hand squeezing Devon’s shoulder, Drew wheeling the mini-cooler, Katie hauling Devon’s gym bag—walked inside, and they were ready.

And Katie looked at her daughter, her hard, small little body, her muscled neck. The blankness in her eyes. Shades drawn. No one could peek through. No one.

“We’ll take her from here,” the blond official with the lanyard said, clasping Devon by the shoulders.



There was no grandstand, no booming sound system, no grease-lined concessions or foil balloon banks or sponsor banners. No bleachers, even, just a set of risers clotted with parents, fists knotted with nerves.