“Thigh-deep in the pit,” Molly said, with a small grin, “holding up those stinky grips, saying, Nothing I won’t do for my girls, our girls!”
Katie could feel Eric watching her so closely. So intently it almost hurt. It felt like a heat on her.
“And Gwen,” Katie said, taking a few steps toward her, the screen saver on her tablet spattering blood sweat & chalk, “Lacey’s last coach, the one at that fancy gym we lured you from—he told you Lacey would never make it to Level Eight with her confidence issues. Teddy saw her potential.”
Katie looked over at Lacey, who was staring fixedly at the bug zapper above.
“He did,” Gwen said. “But that’s not helping any of us now. And no offense, Katie, but you’re not even a booster officer.”
There was an anxious silence, and Katie looked over at Eric, filling her face with urgency.
“For God’s sake, Kirsten, your daughter isn’t even a Level Ten yet, she—” Katie began, but Eric stepped forward, grabbing for Katie’s wrist, pulling her toward him and then behind him.
“Can I say something?” he said, leaning against the edge of the tilting patio table. “Katie’s right. We need to slow down. Teddy’s concentrating on his family right now, which is what any of us would do. And a big disruption so close to qualifiers—the upheaval of changing gyms and coaches—is that good for our girls? Is that what they need?”
All their eyes had turned to him, their faces filling with expectation. It was such a power, one she could never match. Even more good-looking as the years skipped by, his features settling on himself, the hot gaze of booster moms and dads transforming him, he was always able to convey the feeling that he believed firmly in all the right things. And, in ways magical and obscure, the way he looked seemed to confirm it.
“So instead of talking exodus,” he continued, hooking his fingers around Katie’s wrist, “I think if we all pause here on this moment, we’ll remember we owe him more than poaching plans and knee-jerk second-guessing. We should be doing for him what’s he’s done for us: hold steady through the storm, steer with confidence, and be there for him. Because we’re lucky to have him.”
There was a brief pause and then Molly and Jim nodded firmly, rising, and Jim shook Eric’s hand, Hear, hear, my friend. Kirsten sighed and tucked her Bluetooth back in her ear, its light pulsing jauntily. Gwen slid her tablet back into her purse.
“Eric,” Molly said, voice shaking, moving closer to him, “really so much of that is you. We are so lucky to have you.”
Katie watched as Molly walked over and pressed her soft bones and, as ever, her quivering breasts against Eric’s chest. As she nestled against him, Eric turned slightly, and that was when Katie saw the look on his face. A look only she would understand. It was the same one he wore right before Devon attempted a terrifying stunt for the very first time. A look of acute trepidation, even a hauntedness. As if he held a private knowledge that this wasn’t going to end quickly, or cleanly. That all the foam pits and pizza parties and booster brawn and stalwart can-do spirit in the world weren’t going to count alongside the dark matter of Ash Road.
And maybe that’s what the tightness in his voice earlier had been about, when he spoke about Hailey. Maybe that’s what everything with him these last few days had been about. The desperation to try, to try against all the epic forces at work in the world, to hold everything together.
For Devon.
That night, Katie couldn’t remember him coming to bed at all.
At one point, she thought she saw him, felt him, but it was just a shadow, a passing car, a trick of the light.
Chapter Eleven
“How does it work?” Drew whispered as Katie shook the Chloraseptic and sprayed it down his meaty throat.
“I don’t know, honey. It just numbs you.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“He had to work.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“It is.”
Eric rarely missed Devon’s weekend practices, but he’d fallen behind, with everything. That’s what his text said:
Need to catch up at studio after dropping off D.
“I hope I’m okay soon,” Drew said, his voice thick and funny from the spray. “Can I go check the shrimp?”
“What?” Katie said.
Her eyes drifted to her laptop. The BelStars Facebook page. Someone had posted an old photo there. Ryan, his face breaking into a grin, alongside Hailey in cutoffs and a BelStars T-shirt in front of that purple car of hers, Maiden Pond shimmering in the background.
She wondered if it had been posted in memory of Ryan, or to remind everyone of Hailey’s purple car. The car in question.
In the photo, it didn’t look nearly as vibrant, as grape-crush delicious.
Instead, it looked muddy, mysterious.
And Hailey—her freckles blurry, her hair wind-stirred, her side smile—looked mysterious too. Obscurely primitive. The way she was holding on to Ryan so tightly, her neck cords visible, her painted fingers like purpled claws.