You Will Know Me (21 page)

Watching her, Detective Renton jiggled a pen on his knee. One of their radios crackled.

It didn't matter that there'd been no head pounding, no hands to throat. Not like some of the fights she'd seen, long ago, waiting tables at the Magic Stick the summer after high school, or even late nights at the Kiwanis fair. That woman who'd bushwhacked her mom in the parking lot for giving her phone number to the woman's husband. Her keys had been between her fingers, ready to pounce.

With Hailey and Devon, it was more chaotic, a blur, all elbows and knees and squeaking sneaker soles. It was blood and nails and teeth. But Devon knew how to take hits, had been taking them most of her life, chin to beam, knee to mat. The red marks from Hailey's hoodie cord embedded in her palm were no worse than any day's gym rips, than anything that might happen to Devon, whose body was so constantly tested, battered, shocked.

“You should know that Hailey Belfour has always been jealous of my daughter,” she went on, her voice gaining still more energy. Hands gripping the back of that ridiculous chair, still smelling of Gwen's tuberose. Gwen was everywhere. “Of Devon's talents, the attention she receives from Hailey's uncle, from everyone. You see, Hailey was never a real gymnast herself. She was too big, too graceless. Maybe she watched my daughter and saw what might have been ten years ago. If she'd been a less troubled girl. If she'd had the discipline but also the innate talent. The thing Devon has that makes her exceptional.”

“Mrs. Knox, I—”

“A grown woman so jealous of a child that she physically attacks her. Can you imagine the rage inside? What do you think a woman like that is capable of?”

She looked at them, they looked at her.

“But this is something we've dealt with Devon's entire life. The envy of others.”

The detectives were still standing in her driveway, talking.

She watched from the window, watched how closely they stood, and how near the garage. Furey was nodding at everything Renton was saying, his mouth moving ceaselessly.

Then she saw them looking across her lawn.

To Mr. Watts's fading ranch house. The driveway. Mr. Watts was there, the hood of his green Impala open, doing one of his endless repairs.

They walked over to him. They said something to him and he looked up, his old aviators flashing.

She imagined what he might say:

On the garage floor, Detective. The boy thought they were silverfish
.

Yes, I showed them to Mrs. Knox.

Later I thought,
Oh, paint from her husband's car.
Yes, it's that color exactly.

She must've thought the same thing.

She watched as Mr. Watts shook his head, then shook it again.

Then they left.

“Mr. Watts,” she said, her feet still bare, soles sunk in dew, “were they bothering you?”

“Nope,” he said, wiping his hands with an oil-soft rag. “Were they bothering you?”

“But what did they ask you?”

He paused, looking at her, those aviators reflecting herself back in both mirrored teardrops.

“If I had a permit for my RV,” he said. “What'd they ask you?”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “Someone's been harassing Devon. It's very upsetting and I'm…very upset.”

He nodded, folding his arms. “That is upsetting,” he said. “I hope they're helping you. Your daughter's in the paper so much now. That brings out the crazy.”

“Yes,” Katie said, catching a glimpse of her drawn face in his sunglasses. “It does.”

“I always try to keep an eye out for all of you. I still think about Devon's accident. Things like that can do bad things to a family.”

Katie nodded. It had happened soon after they'd moved in, and they barely knew Mr. Watts. But he'd run over to help. Leaning down, he'd tried to talk to little Devon,
What's your favorite ice cream
, anything to distract her from the blood and chaos. The smell of gas, the shrieking lawn mower.

“I'll never forget seeing you at the screen door before it happened,” he said now, pointing up the driveway. “I was out there in my garage and saw you watching her run out to her daddy.”

“Standing at the door?” The way she remembered it, she went to the door only after hearing Devon's screech, like a cat caught in a hunting trap.

“What a thing,” he said. “It was like you were frozen. Like ice.”

The sexy, slashing violin thrusts.

Her phone again, those opening jabs of “Assassin's Tango.”

That song, the one from the spring invitational, Devon performing her floor routine to its slinks and jabs, the day Ryan died.

The slippery magenta of her leotard, her buttocks high, those hard-hewn legs, muscles grooved and bronzed. Undulating under her leotard with every move. The staccato march of her colt legs, the sharpness of the foot flick, the haughtiness of the head snap. The slow glides.

There was something different in it, in that performance. At the time, Katie hadn't been able to put her finger on it. Now it seemed so clear.

That hip swing, slow and mesmerizing. Then down on the mat, lolling and rolling, the straddle. Thump, thump, whip, snap, the purr of her feet. Earthy, carnal.

My God, how had she missed it? All the clues right there.

Before, Devon had always been so intent on her performance—the physics of it, the aerodynamic logic of it—it never even seemed like she heard the music at all.

But that day, Katie realized now, it was as if Devon really heard it, moved with it and in it. And her body was no longer a machine, a tool, a weapon, but a body. Moving. Taking pleasure in itself, in its power. Seducing.

Had Eric seen it too? How could he not?

The exultation as she landed her last dizzying run, her feet bolting to the floor, face piped pink and exultant. Radiant under the fluorescent lights.

The look on her face as they all walked to the car after the meet had been a look Katie had never seen, almost prurient.
I finally got it. That's what it's supposed to feel like.
It was almost too much for Katie. But Eric couldn't even look at his daughter, averting his eyes, dropping his keys, walking faster.

“Teddy, you just called?”

“Katie, I know you don't want to talk to me,” he said, his voice scratchy like after a long coaching day.

But she did want to talk to him. She needed to. Before the detectives. She had to be first.

“I hope you heard about the paint chips.” He sounded like he'd aged twenty years in a few days. “We knew the truth had to come out. That eyewitness was a liar or a fool. Here's a fella, been arrested twice for Jack Daniel's while under the influence of driving. Nearly lost his commercial license. Get this—turns out he used to deliver for Gwen Weaver and she fired his sorry ass.”

“Teddy, why did you call me?”

“Katie, we've brought Hailey home to us.”

She bowed her head, trying to concentrate, to think it through.

“I see,” she said carefully. “Because she's all better. Just like that.”

He cleared his throat, a roar in her ear. “Katie, dear, we were hoping you and Eric might come over. That we all might talk.”

“Eric's not here.”

“I know Hailey has some things she'd like to say.”

“Teddy,” she said, “I don't want to hear anything she has to say.”

“We'd really like you here,” he said, his tone unreadable. “The silver paint changes everything. I think you'll both want to hear what we have to say. We'll be waiting.”

“Drew, I have to go out for a little while.”

In the den, her son's body was rooted deep into the springless furrows of the sofa, his pajama-clad arms swathed around a book.

“Okay,” he said. “I wonder who won.”

“Won what?” she said, tying her shoes briskly, thinking.

“The science fair,” Drew said, a clicking from his throat as if it still pained him. “Last night.”

The science fair. She felt a pang in her chest, like pliers squeezing.

“I'm sorry, Drew. It's rotten being sick, isn't it?”

“You can throw it all away,” he said. “The shrimp must be all dead. Like I said.”

“Honey,” she said, “we'll get you back to school in a few days. There'll be another fair soon, right?”

But he just returned to his book.

She looked at him, his head bent, the rosy crook of his neck, the slightly damp curls pressed there, reminding herself the scarlet fever wasn't her fault, but it felt like her fault, everything did.

Kneeling down behind the sofa back, her fingers reaching for his shoulder, she leaned over, glanced at the sentence next to his thumb, pink from the pressure, which meant he loved the book:
“I'll tattoo you if it's the last thing I do! I'll do it for nothing!”

“Is that the one Mr. Watts gave you?”

“Yeah.
The Melted Coins
,” he said. “It smells funny, but it's good. A pirate named Needles Ned tries to tattoo Joe.”

“Drew,” she tried, “I need a favor.”

Turning the page back, he began reading aloud: “‘Then he reached down and ripped open the boy's shirt. “Give me the needle, Lopez!”'”

Katie heard her phone again. Ringing again.

“‘Joe felt a stab of pain,'”
Drew continued,
“‘as the tattoo artist crouched over him and the needle pricked the skin on his chest.'”

“Drew—”

“‘“First, I prick the design. Then comes the dye.”'” Drew flipped a page, found another highlight. “‘“The mark will stay with you for life,” cried the pirate.'”

“Drew, honey, listen to me. I've got to go see Coach T. for a little while.”

“Mom, the tattoo ruins your life,” he said, looking up. “Once he puts it on you, you have bad luck forever.”

She could ask Mr. Watts to watch him, but she didn't want to. (What had he meant, anyway? That she'd been standing at the screen door before the accident. That she—)

“You have a tattoo, Mom.”

“I do,” she said. “Not a pretty one.”
Fight Like a Grrrl
on her left thigh. She'd done it stick-and-poke style, with a sewing needle and an ashes-vodka slurry when she was Devon's age.

Placing her hand on the top of his head softly, she said, “Pal, you think you'd be okay here for a few minutes by yourself?”

“I saw it when we went swimming that time.”

“It was a long time ago,” she said, “so the curse must be over.” A funny hitch in her voice.

“And a pirate didn't give it to you.”

“No,” she said. “I gave it to myself.”

Drew's always-sticky phone in her hand, checking the battery charge, she explained again how to reach her, as if he hadn't called her hundreds of times.

“It's only nine blocks,” she said. “And Mr. Watts is next door if you need anything. Or if you just get lonely. But I'll only be gone a half hour. I'm just at Coach T.'s.”

“Okay,” he said, the book still between his fingers, his other hand scratching his temple, the rash peeling now, like an overripe plum.

“I'll be back before you know it,” she said, opening the front door, car keys clutched in her hand. “It's just nine blocks.”

“I think this is going to be my favorite book,” he said.

“That's good. It's nice to have a favorite book.”

“Ryan had a favorite book,” he said. “He kept it in his back pocket all the time.”

“Did he?” She looked outside, at the quiet street. No sign of Mr. Watts or anyone at all.

“You know he did,” he said.

She turned and, for the first time ever, he looked at her like he knew she was lying. Which she was, though she wasn't sure why. But in that look, his eyes dark and sad, she knew something had ended, that great parental loss, the moment they realize you're not perfect, and maybe even a little worse.

“In his back pocket,” he added, watching her, squinting. “You know it.”

She sat in her car for a minute, staring up at the sprawling house, bright yellow with white trim, like a slab of coconut cake, layers piled high.

The new cedar deck stretched twice the length of the entire first floor of the Knox house.

No sign of the detectives' unmarked black Dodge.

Katie smelled her shampoo first. Like Love's Baby Soft.

Then, walking across the softly carpeted living room, she saw her.

Knees together, hands folded, Hailey posed. Swimmer's shoulders hidden in a blush-pink oxford shirt, her face was paler than her usual golden-girl glow, but she was meticulously groomed. Katie pictured Tina leaning over her niece, brushes and wands and implements, incanting some kind of brisk Southern sorority-girl magic. Jerking Hailey's curls into a long ponytail that looked as shiny as a girl's favorite doll, soft and staticky and overtended so Katie could see every brush mark.

But something was wrong. One sandy spiral hung down, a forelock that didn't belong.
A big hank of her hair got torn out
. Artfully positioned to cover a bare patch, pink puckered.
Her scalp opened up where she hit the floor
.

“Okay,” Katie said. “Why am I here?”

All three of them, sentried together on the sofa, heavily upholstered in bold plaid, her uncle and aunt didn't look at Hailey, and she didn't look at them.

They all looked only at Katie, their eyes clear and inscrutable.

“Eric wouldn't come?” Teddy asked.

“I told you he's at work. You're going to have to deal with me.”

Teddy nodded, then Tina too, watching Katie closely, with twinkling eyes.

“Katie, we are thanking the heavens that Hailey's name has been cleared.”

“Has it, Tina?” Katie said, straightening herself. Readying herself. “Because my daughter's battered body suggests otherwise.”

Teddy's head bobbed in dramatic assent. “I know that none of this takes away what Hailey did, laying her hand in anger on our Devon,” he said, pointing at his niece as though she were set in a pillory, face winsome and pleading. “But Katie, can I ask you, do you know, truly, how you might behave if you lost the person who mattered most to you?”

“And you were the one blamed?” Tina burst in. “That you not only lose your true love in a horrific accident, but on top of it you face this smear campaign—suspicion, rumors, dirty digs—”

Teddy raised his arm in front of Tina like spotting the girls on the bars, and her mouth closed briskly.

“Grief can drive you mad, Katie,” he said, taking a different tack. “That wasn't our Hailey in the locker room with Devon. That was grief.”

“Well,” Katie said, looking over at Hailey, unable to stop herself, “it sure looked like Hailey when I pulled her off my four-foot-ten, ninety-two-pound little girl.”

Turning her head slowly, Hailey met Katie's gaze. Composed, enigmatic. Katie had never seen her like this—a young woman whose face had always been like soft taffy, stretched into smiles, laughter,
C'mon, gymmies, let's show 'em what we got
. But maybe that had been a composition too, a mask. You never really knew anybody.

“Katie,” Teddy said, clearing his throat, leaning forward. “I understand there've been some issues between Devon and Hailey.”

He turned, for the first time, to Hailey.

“But Hailey was wrong about some things.”

Katie looked over at Hailey, her stillness.

“And”—Teddy was still talking, his dulcet tones and bent brow, that mesmer-coach thing he could do—“I need you to know she has not shared with the police any of the wrong things she once believed. About your daughter.”

“Ron wouldn't let her, thank God!” Tina jumped in. “He said it would only have made things worse for her. It would have made her look…a certain way. That's what Ron—”

Teddy's arm came up once more.

“And she will not be telling them now, or ever,” he said. “None of us will.”

Teddy and Tina looked earnestly, meaningfully at Katie. Their matching ivory hair, their tanned skin and finely laundered sportswear.

Beside them, Hailey. All three of them, their honeyed tans blurring together, the crispness of their shirts. All three becoming as one. A united front. Confederates. That's what families were, weren't they? The strong ones, the ones that last. Not supporters or enablers so much as collaborators, accomplices, coconspirators.

Hailey looked at her uncle, face benumbed, and nodded. A stuttering nod, like a record skipping.

“Yes, Mrs. Knox,” Hailey said, nodding and nodding. “I was wrong. I was wrong about everything. I behaved wrongly and I believed false things.”

There was a mysterious interlude, the passing around of footed glasses, the pouring of Tina's ambered sun tea, the entrance of Nadia and Nastia, Tina's snapping terriers, nipping and licking at Katie's feet.

Katie felt confused, light-headed in a way she couldn't recall since she was a child when the dentist put that glorious sucking mask over her face, what he used to call “happy hour.”

Now, the talk was of the warming weather, the ragweed, the problems with their new deck, wood already splitting in the vertical posts, and did they need to sue the contractor. It was always something with these contractors, the workers they hired.

Somewhere, in all of it, Hailey disappeared into the kitchen, for napkins, for sugar, and never returned.

“Where did she go?” Katie asked, head jerking backward.

The temporary looseness in Teddy's bisque-colored jowls tightened and he leaned toward her again, setting his glass on the table.

“Katie, don't you worry about Hailey. She had her come-to-Jesus moment locked in that unholy facility. That is over. And I get why Eric wouldn't come with you today. But maybe you can talk to him. About his plans for Devon, and BelStars.”

Tina sprang forward, past Teddy's block this time.

“John Ehlers is a fraud!” she shouted. “He's tried to poach from us before. He's tried many times. The stories I could tell you about him. About how he's boarding one of his gymnasts. A sixteen-year-old. He says it's all proper, but she's posting pictures of herself on his water bed—”

Teddy's hand landed firmly on Tina's linen-shod knee and her mouth shut again.

He looked at Katie, those misty eyes he used to such strong effect during his pre-meet speeches.

“Katie, gymnasts—all gymnasts but especially the exceptional ones—thrive on routine, on fair winds and following seas. And I can't apologize enough for our role in disrupting those waters for Devon. But we want things to go back.” His eyes glowing wetly, Katie feeling her chest swelling out of habit. “We want to return to those bright days when all our hearts and minds were directed toward Elite Qualifiers. We want what you want: for Devon to realize her deepest promise, at last.”

On his feet now, lifting Katie to her feet too, holding her hands in his, between his.

“With your say-so, we start over, now. We refocus all our efforts. Forget all this confusion, leave it in the darkness. Remove any obstacles from our champion's way. Return to our path, the one we mapped out together, all those years ago, all of us together, right here in this house, at that table in there.”

Katie looked through the arched entry into the dining room. She could see it. Eric and herself leaning forward nervously, watching Teddy with his Sharpie, his flow chart. Deciding Devon's future.

She felt something turn inside her. A phantom kick to the ribs.

At that moment, a sharp thwack vibrated from the ceiling. And something else, almost like an animal scratching a carpet on the floor above them.

“You say the word, and the minute you leave,” Teddy said, as if he hadn't noticed.
Could he really not notice?
“Bang goes the starter pistol. We are back.”

Tina was on her feet now too, her hand on Katie's shoulder, the hard pebble of her engagement ring pressed there, talking loudly into Katie's ear, loudly over the thudding of a door over and over again upstairs.

“Practice at two forty-five sharp, as ever,” Tina said. “Devon back where she belongs.”

Upstairs, a brief lull came, before the ceiling itself seemed to shake from a fathoms-deep, from-the-bellows sobbing.

“And I promise you this,” Teddy intoned, moving closer to her, all their bodies nearly touching, as if in prayer. “I will devote every fiber of my being, every cell in this aging body, every drop of my heart's blood to making Devon a Senior Elite in one month's time. She will have it. I leave it in your hands.”

What could she say? What else could she possibly say?

This is how it is
, Katie thought, sitting in the parked car, not ready to turn the key.
Our shared effort, the things we all do to keep following that Sharpied arrow
.

It made her think of something from months and months back. She'd come upon Eric and Teddy in the living room, watching footage from Devon's failed bid for Junior Elite two years ago. Their faces lit by the screen, Eric's hand on the remote, pausing on every frame of the vault. Hurtling down the runway, round-off, feet slapping board, rocketing backward, hands hitting table, body rising, left arm down, right elbow lifted, and then twisting, arms close to chest, spinning madly like a lathe.