On the floor, there was a flurry of leotards assembling, Bobby V. shouting, Tut-tut.
Smiling to herself, Katie watched Devon stride elegantly to her spot. Coach T., he’s back!
The parents rose to their feet. Thirty or more of them in pockets throughout the stands.
Then Coach Teddy swept in, his familiar red polo and bright blue track pants swapped for a graying dress shirt and sagging tie.
He stood at the bottom of the bleachers, one foot on the stands like a ship captain with his foot on the prow, an even bigger presence than when Katie first met him all those years ago.
He wiped his face three times before lifting his head and trying for a kind of smile, the one he wore when they lost badly but forgivably.
“I want to thank you all so kindly,” he started, voice catching slightly. “We are all touched by the outpouring of support. Tina says we have more flowers at home than a French cathouse.”
Everyone tried to laugh a little, straining to hear Teddy in the cavernous gym, all the girls lined up like soldiers, shoulders back but heads down.
“We picked up Ryan’s mother from the airport yesterday. She asked me to tell you that you are all welcome to attend the services tomorrow. And I know I speak for her as well when I thank all of you for your notes, your thoughtful remembrances of Ryan. And of course Hailey thanks you.” He bit his lip, stared down at his white sneakers.
Having seen Teddy the night before, the beers and self-reflection, Katie found it hard to watch him now, attempting to play the part.
“As Pastor Matthews reminded me this morning,” Teddy said, chin up, jaw tight, “blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
Katie had never heard Teddy talk this way. It felt mysterious and moving, his head bowed and a few parents crossing themselves or Amen-ing.
Scanning the girls, their respectful attention, she found Devon, who stood stock-still, arms folded across her chest.
Her face, what Katie could see of it, looked formal, composed.
Like Devon always looked when Coach was speaking, or when she was waiting for her score.
The practice that followed was clumsy and tense, with yet another substitute tumbling coach and Teddy distracted, his phone ringing all the time and the mistaken delivery of a laurel serenity wreath to the gym rather than his home.
At first, Devon struggled too, standing on the beam, doing her counts over and over, postponing the one-armed back handspring, not engaging with the encouraging Amelise (“Come on, girl, I know you got it!”), not even looking at her.
As soon as Amelise turned her attention to other girls, though, everything changed. Taking a breath, Devon threw herself into a beauteous back handspring and double full dismount, her feet landing on the mat with a tight smack.
Then back up on the beam to do the full routine, her lovely switch leap and aerials and cat-leap half turn, that one-armed back handspring, as if she were weightless, a gossamer strand. The eight-and nine-year-olds kept sneaking glances, like they always did, craning heads, ponytails twitching. Trying to figure out what they needed to do to get to that, to Devon.
To be capable of shutting the world out, even death itself, and surrendering to the body, trusting in its powers, its secrets. No feeling but this. No feeling.
The striated bands of old flesh tight around that foot.
It just doesn’t feel as much.
After practice, they picked up Eric at the studio, his car in the shop again, a hundred and ten thousand miles on that barge, the side door unlocking only with a butter knife and both of them wondering what they would do when Devon moved past lurching practice turns with Eric in the church parking lot and got her license.
He was waiting outside, looking sweaty and adrift.
Katie wondered if he was getting sick. Though, like Devon, he never, ever got sick.
“Let’s go to the Wooden Nickel,” he said. “We could all use a break, right?”
Dinner out with just the four of them, which almost never happened. It was like old times, before BelStars, even. As if, walking under the thickly varnished rafters to the corner booth, its puckering vinyl and doily-edged place mats, they all decided to forget everything else.
Patty melts on big china plates, waffle chips with three kinds of relish, Drew’s favorite “Italian” spaghetti, thick as rope, its sauce sweet as candy.
And there was Devon, even eating a breadstick, or part of one. Chewing the soft dough languorously, stretching it between her fingers like taffy.
“I bet you’re glad Teddy’s back,” Katie said.
“Yeah,” Devon said. “But it’ll be better when he can lead practice again.”
“Is Hailey coming back?” Drew asked. “What’ll she do now, without a boyfriend?”
“She’ll be okay,” Eric said. “Ready for the science fair, kiddo?”