“And no practice?” she said, looking down at her chalked feet. “Qualifiers are in six weeks—”
“Devon,” Katie said quickly. Feeling eyes on them. Parents’, other gymnasts’. Seeing Gwen and Becca turn and look at them. Eyes were always on Devon. “Everyone needs to go home now.”
Devon looked up at both of them, her palms pressed together in front of her, and nodded.
The four of them made their way across the thronged gym floor, the families slow to disperse, the gymnasts seeming to find comfort in remaining there, with one another.
The lower-level girls, tender and pink-faced, hived together in their BelStars leotards, their feet so light, dipping their heads in the quietest of sobs.
Not so with the older ones, the Level 10s, who remained poker-faced, as they did after a big loss, an accident on the floor. With their matching solemn expressions, arms crossed, ponytails tight, and posture erect, the 10s ranged from ten to seventeen but all looked the same age. Under five feet, each was one of two types. The ballerinas, graceful, spritely, and pixie-ish; and the powerhouses, the corkers—barrel-thighed, thick-necked fireplugs who succeeded by strength and will and shoulders like a man’s fists.
All of them, Katie knew, had, long ago, learned to shake off, hide tears. Even, it seemed sometimes, to sort of reabsorb them, draw them back inside so no one else could see.
They had learned it from watching Devon, though she had never needed to learn it herself.
As Eric talked briefly with Gwen, with fretful Molly Chu, as Katie helped Drew pack up his things, Devon slowly drifted from them, walking farther and farther toward the empty center of the massive gym.
Chapter Five
“I just can’t believe it,” Katie said. “Who does something like that and just drives away?”
Next to her in the car, Eric was making calls, talking on the phone with one booster after the next.
“Well, I know…yes, but we can’t get into those questions yet, and you know it, Jim.”
In the rearview mirror, Katie could see Devon’s face, her eyes glassy.
“Do we send flowers?” Drew said. “When Mr. Watts’s wife died, you sent flowers.”
“Yes,” Katie said, relieved to have someone talking to her. “We’ll do it right away.”
“And I’ll call Teddy tomorrow,” Eric said, setting down his phone, rubbing his face wearily, “after they’ve had some time.”
Then the car went quiet, just the pfft-pfft of the tires on the highway, and Katie flitted back into her thoughts. No one that young, with eyes so bright and the loping walk of a boy who would live forever, be a boy forever, could die.
Abruptly, Devon spoke.
“Poor Hailey,” she said, her voice high and grasping. “She loved Ryan so much.”
“I know, honey,” Katie said.
In the mirror, Katie saw Drew looking at his big sister, puzzled and maybe unnerved. As if he’d never seen her so openly upset, but probably he hadn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he said to Devon in that lisping voice of his.
Devon looked at him, startled, like she’d forgotten he was sitting next to her.
“It’s so, so sad,” she said, more quietly now, to no one in particular. “Nothing like this has ever happened before.”
Staring helplessly into kitchen cabinets, wondering about dinner, Katie could hear through the laundry chute. The whir of the treadmill from the basement.
First canceled practice since February’s snowstorm, and qualifiers six weeks away, Devon wasn’t going to let her body go soft.
“I wish she’d just take it easy,” Katie said.
“She needs to work off some of these feelings,” Eric said, reaching out to knead her shoulder.
Neither of them was saying the thing they were both thinking: the rotten, rotten timing. Right before qualifiers.
“Becca said Ryan just bought Hailey a ring,” Katie said, remembering. “He was going to propose.”
Eric looked at her.
“Oh Jesus,” he said. Then, after a pause: “He was so young.”
Katie drew a bath for Devon, even lit her favorite Island Nectar candles.
“It’s okay to feel bad,” Katie said. “We all liked Ryan.”
“Thanks, Mom,” she said, but she wouldn’t meet Katie’s eyes, just like after a bad meet, when she’d hide in the concessions-area restroom, as if she’d been caught doing something shameful. As if everyone had seen her with her clothes off, or read her diary.
The bathroom door closed behind Katie.
They were never home this early, and for a few minutes, Katie didn’t know what to do with herself.
“Mom,” Drew said from across the kitchen. “You said you’d take me to Petorium for more shrimp eggs.”
“More? What happened to all the ones we did last night?”
“The container spilled in the garage.” He pointed to the recycling bin, a squashed two-liter bottle, its sides veined with crusting salt. “I have to do it all again.”
“Tonight?” she said.
But he looked so anxious, she couldn’t say no.