The next day, back at the gym for a four-hour Sunday practice. But no one could find Coach T. And nothing began without the Mighty T.
Katie could not remember ever walking into the gym and not immediately seeing his retired colonel’s brush cut, the expanse of his pink neck, the swath of his red polo shirt stretched across his former footballer’s body, the lumbering gait of a longshoreman. And not hearing his bark: “Dev-on! Ice Eyes, girl. Come on!”
Except today there was no Teddy.
Six weeks before qualifiers and he wasn’t there.
Nor was Hailey, whose honeycomb locks, long past her shoulders, could always be seen, even from high in the stands.
It shouldn’t have felt significant, Teddy’s absence, but it did. Not just to Katie but to the whole buzzing parent brigade.
“Where is he?” Gwen said, her phone, as ever, in her hand, like a weapon, a discus she might hurl.
“I don’t get it,” Molly Chu said. “I don’t understand.”
The girls, in their scarlet leotards, dotted the floor, the older ones doing split stretches, handstands, but the youngest ones ambled anxiously, hopping on their tiny red feet.
Finally, the skills coaches began leading drills, but the feeling was haphazard without the organizing thunder of Coach T.’s voice, the polestar, the heart.
“You listen to Amelise, Lacey Weaver,” came the familiar, flinty shout of Gwen Weaver, who was calling to her daughter even as she ascended the stands. “You are wasting everyone’s time.”
From the beam, Amelise’s grip on Lacey’s tined legs, Lacey nodded, hair as white-blond as a Hitler youth’s.
Hands still cupped around her mouth, Gwen turned to Katie, two rows down.
“Six weeks,” she said, dropping her hands. “Lacey’s first shot at Junior Elite, and I just cannot get her to self-discipline.”
Katie nodded. “It’ll come.” But not soon enough, she knew.
“I need to motivate her. Like you did with Devon.”
“We didn’t do anything,” Katie said. “Devon always motivated herself.”
“Lacey’ll be twelve next month,” Gwen said, not seeming to hear. “You have to eat the apple when it’s ripe.”
Fifteen minutes passed before Bobby V., the gym’s administrator, walked in, an odd slump to his shoulders, his shoes squeaking on the waxed floor.
“I have very bad news,” he said, hands shaking slightly. “There’s been a car accident.”
There were gasps, and Katie raised her head from Drew’s science book. Scanning the gym quickly, she spotted Devon in perfect straight-is-great pose, rib cage lifted, tummy in, toes forward.
“Our Hailey, she…” Bobby started, voice rising high and stopping.
A whimper came from somewhere and a swooping gasp, breaths held.
Not Hailey! Oh God! came the scattered murmurs.
“No, no,” Bobby blurted, running a hand through his brush cut, just like Teddy’s—all the men in the gym with crew cuts, like 1950s astronauts. “I’m sorry. Hailey wasn’t in the accident. It’s Ryan, though. Well, he’s dead.”
Katie felt a jag in her chest.
Ryan. Hailey’s sweet Ryan. He’d been in the stands just the night before, cheering the squad on. He’d been in the background for so much of their gym life, which was their life, for the past two years. He was the one who once opened Katie’s car door with a coat hanger to retrieve her keys. Who’d rescued Devon’s retainer from the bottom of the tumbling pit. Who danced with all the moms at that booster tiki party a few months ago—remember that? He’d even danced with Katie; the chip in one of his front teeth when he smiled. When he dipped her, everyone whooped, Katie’s hair grazing the confettied floor.
Several parents began eyeing the bleacher steps anxiously but not moving, not yet. Forbidden from the floor during practice, they were helpless, like spectators behind glass.
Katie’s eyes fixed on Devon, on the tight braided knot at the back of her head. Her rigid neck.
Two rows behind, the booster parents drew closer.
“Terrible,” said Molly Chu, hands pressed to her cheeks. “Just terrible.”
“I wonder if someone was drinking. Or texting,” whispered Becca Plonski, the social chair. “Or drinking and texting.”
“God,” Katie said, “his parents. I don’t even know where his family is.” She vaguely remembered Hailey saying his mother lived on the other side of the state somewhere.
“Gwen, did you know already?” Molly asked. For the past year or more, Ryan had been working as a line cook at one of her Weaver’s Wagon restaurants. You could see him through the kitchen window, under the bank of heat lamps.
“No,” Gwen said, shaking her head, tapping her manicure on her phone case, watching Bobby as he tried to comfort Amelise, the other skills coaches. “No, I did not.”
“We don’t know what happened,” Bobby said, clearing his throat over and over. “He was by himself when it happened. And he died over at St. Joe’s. Teddy’s there with Hailey now.”