You Will Know Me (22 page)

Then landing, legs fused, on the mat.

Again and again, the frame palsied on that landing, that slightest of ankle rolls, the half step at most. A decade of work, an inch, two, of blue foam.

“That's always been her Achilles' heel,” Teddy had said. “That foot. It makes her work the other one too hard. It's like she can't bear how wrong that foot is.”

“The foot's not wrong,” Eric had replied, eyes on the screen. “The foot's everything.”

Still sitting her car, from the corner of her eye, she saw a blond blur speeding past the Belfours' side deck, the one she'd stood on after Ryan's funeral.

Pound, pound, pound across the deck, the sharp twang of the small dive board.

A swelling plunge, a splash from the chemical depths of the Belfour pool.

Exiting the car, Katie walked quickly up the lawn and through the arbor.

Just then, Hailey emerged from the water and climbed, shirt and jeans drenched, up the ladder.

“Hey!” Katie said. “I need to ask you something.”

Sweeping her hair back with her hands, the pectoral fins of a slender dolphin, she looked over at Katie, chin trembling. Katie could see the stippled spot on the scalp where the hair was gone, the purple under her eye where Devon's teeth had been.

“They'll see you,” Hailey hissed, eyes darting toward the house. “They see everything.”

Her pink shirt stuck to her brown skin, Hailey sat, dripping, in Katie's passenger seat.

“Mrs. Knox, I can't talk to you,” she said, the wetness like a presence, a third thing in the car. “I made promises. I made my promises and I'm taking the pills and I'm moving back home with them. I'm getting my act together. I made promises.”

“Maybe you've convinced them,” Katie said, “but I'm not convinced. How do I know you're not going to wake up tomorrow and call those detectives or come after my daughter again?”

Hailey shook her head, water scattering across Katie's arm. “I'm not saying a word. I'm never saying anything. What would it get me, Mrs. Knox?”

Katie said nothing for a second, watching Hailey, her eyes pinned, her hands tucked under her soaked jeans. She looked like a teenage girl gone wrong, caught and cowed.

“Mrs. Knox, I don't know what happened to Ryan,” Hailey said, eyes flitting up the slope to her uncle's house.

“I didn't ask—”

“But I do know about Ryan and your daughter, and I'm not talking about it. Not ever. So can I leave now? Can I?”

“But why?” Katie knew she shouldn't ask. She couldn't stop herself. “Why would you do that?”

“They took care of me,” Hailey said. “Uncle Teddy and Aunt Tina. When I was Devon's age, younger, I…You know how babies, when they first come out, you swaddle them? To keep them from scratching themselves, from scaring themselves? That's what it was like.”

Katie felt her phone vibrating under her hand but didn't dare look.

“Uncle Teddy, he never missed one of my volleyball games, never missed a swim meet. Put me through State. He believed in me. They both did.”

Katie couldn't stop looking at the browning half-moon under Hailey's eyes. Had Devon really bitten her?

“And they're still here, looking after me, even after everything the last week.” Then a funny look passed over her face, a shadow, something. “I should've listened to Aunt Tina. She never trusted Ryan. A whistling girl and a crowing hen always come to some bad end, she said.”

She looked over at Katie, a smile lurking, rueful and sharp-toothed.

“The night it happened, I thought he was going to propose. I thought that's why he'd picked the nice restaurant. But he'd picked it so I wouldn't make a scene when he broke up with me.”

“Wait. Wait.”

“I spent the rest of the night sobbing my heart out, then I find out he's dead. And I want to die from how bad it hurts.” She shook her head, the scattering of droplets, her eyes chlorine red. “Then, the day of the funeral, I get this call. From Ahee Jewelers. They saw my name in the death notice and called me up. Ryan had ordered something but hadn't picked it up. So I got there and you can guess what I'm expecting.”

Katie took a breath. “A ring.”

“Sure. And what do I find instead?” She reached into the nearly sealed wet pocket of her jeans. Yanking something out, she then slapped it in her other palm. “I can't seem to stop carrying it around.”

It was a necklace, gold plate. It was cheap, a girl's mall necklace. A pendant dangling at the end, a tiger figurine.

A tiger like the poster in Devon's room. A tiger like her lucky stuffed animal, plush and matted.

A tiger for Devon. Its haunches spreading, its legs poised, as if about to vault.

Small as a peanut
, Ryan had said to Katie that time, about Devon,
but strong as a tiger.

“Eye of the goddamned tiger, just like her stupid routine,” Hailey said, staring at the necklace. “I slammed my fist on Ahee's glass counter and cracked it. They said I had to leave.”

 “You're lying,” Katie said, shaking her head. “You knew about them before he died. You'd been sending her texts. You sent her texts the night he died.”

She looked at Katie, head tilted, still holding the necklace, the tiger spinning in the air between them.

“No. I found out when I went to the jeweler. The day of the funeral.”

“That's not true,” Katie said, thoughts churning. Remembering Ryan's funeral reception, Hailey thumping on the glass, demanding things.

“I never sent her any texts, Mrs. Knox. I had no idea about Devon. That's how dumb I was. I should've known. Everything's always about Devon, for all of us. Right? My uncle, my boyfriend, those booster parasites. It's all about Devon and that fierce little body of hers, and that freak foot. Everything depends on it.”

“You're a pathetic girl,” Katie blurted. “You're a pathetic little girl.”

“Isn't it something,” Hailey said, her gaze returning to the tiger necklace, her breathing harder now, “the things we do for our family?”

Reaching out, Katie grabbed for the necklace so forcefully Hailey flinched.

“Jesus,” Hailey said, holding her wrist. “Jesus.”

But Katie had the necklace, and held it. Just like the leotard, she would not let it go.

“Keep it,” Hailey said. “I don't want it. It disgusts me. Maybe it's made me lose my mind this last week. Maybe now it'll stop.”

“I think you should go back inside,” Katie said. “Now.”

Hailey nodded, slowly, opening the car door. A look of revelation appeared on her face. A knowing look that made Katie crazy.

“I was so mad when I was younger,” she said. “And then you grow up and you think you're not that girl anymore. The girl you were at fifteen, sixteen. Angry and nasty. Hungry for love—”

“—I guess some girls are like that,” Katie said, coolly.

“But the thing is, you're always that girl,” Hailey said, stepping out of the car. “She never goes away. She's inside you all the time. That girl is forever.”

Hailey touched the violet half-circle under her eye, the bite mark. It was like Devon's mouth was there, screaming.

“Get out of here,” Katie said, turning the key in the ignition. “Get out of my car.”

On her lap, she saw it:
Missed call. Eric.

A prickling feeling around her temples, spreading hotly through her skull.

“Mrs. Knox, one last thing,” Hailey was saying from the curb, hand still on the open door. “You know what I kept thinking when I saw you at the funeral?”

“I don't care, Hailey.”

“I was thinking, I had it all wrong. That night after regionals in January. The tiki party. Remember?”

“Yes,” Katie said, hand on the gear shift, a queasy feeling. Of course she remembered, all the women hoping to dance with Ryan, the air in the catering hall muzzy with mom perfume, rum, promise.

“I had it all wrong,” Hailey said, fingers wrapped around the window edge. “I thought it was you I had to worry about. The way you danced with Ryan, your skirt inching up so he could see your tattoo. Sharing cigarettes in the back hallway, whispering in his ear.”

“What? What?” Her face burning, her chest so hot, the heat in the car suddenly everywhere. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“But it turned out it was Devon, your little devil daughter. It wasn't you he chose. It was Devon.”

Katie looked at her, breathing, breathing.

“It was never you,” said Hailey.

And Katie lifted her foot from the brake.

Hailey jolting backward, stumbling on the pavement, Katie said, the words from some deep well, and unstoppable:

“You come near my daughter again, I'll break your neck.”

That tiki party, again.

Always telescoping back to that night, months ago.

An evening of heat and pleasures for all of them. For everyone.

Everyone with their stolen moments, playful ones.

Teddy, Kirsten, and Bobby V. flicking bottle caps for cash in the back alley. Molly and Jim Chu making out like teenagers.

She'd seen Eric with his hand on the small of Gwen Weaver's back.

So what had been wrong about dancing with Ryan?

And enjoying it, the feeling, the sureness with which she could feel his heart beating behind the laundry-worn cotton of his shirt.

It wasn't like Hailey said, none of it.

Pulling over, she picked up her phone. Clicked.

The BelStars Facebook page shimmered. Finger to screen, she scrolled through all the pictures, every meet, pool party, pancake breakfast. And, yes, the tiki party.

The flare of the torches, Teddy limboing with Molly Chu, Devon beaming under a blaze of paper lanterns, under Eric's proud gaze.

Now that everyone had a camera in the palm of their hand, there were photos of everything. There were photos even when you thought no one else was there. Like the blurred one of the dance floor, Becca Plonski and Jim Chu leading some kind of conga line.

Crouching over the phone, pushing her face close, she spotted Ryan and a woman in the background. In the hall by the restrooms. Such a grin on the woman's face. No, on her own face.

Oh, yes,
that.

She might not have remembered, ever, but for the photograph.

But still, such a small thing.

She had just been waiting for the restroom. And Ryan had been sneaking a smoke, the back door propped open. She hadn't even known he smoked, but everyone was smoking that night.

Can I have one?
she'd asked, which meant she was drunk. She hadn't smoked in twenty years.

He'd smiled, nodded.

It was so meaningless, she'd mostly forgotten all about it.

She didn't remember how they'd started talking about the book in his pocket, the one with the soft cover, pages curled. But suddenly it was in Katie's hand.

Then he told her the same thing he'd told her before, about never reading as a kid and reading now, and how he loved the book so much and he didn't know why.

It made her sad, a little, that he didn't remember telling her before.

Let me show you
, he said, moving close behind her, leaning over her, cracking the book's many-cracked spine, forcing its pages open. They smelled like smoke.

So much taller, his forearm thrust in front of her, nearly grazing her collarbone, or beneath it.

And she thought there could be nothing more private than the inside of the forearm, the tenderest of skin, the push and throb of one blue vein.

The way it arrowed to the soft center of his half-open palm.

Resting her fingers on that skin, helping him keep the book open, she watched as he turned to the most dog-eared page, its corner folded down.

She leaned close. It was dark, the hall was dark, the light covered with old kitchen grease like Vaseline gave everything a glow.

On the page was a line drawing of a tombstone (
But I don't just like it because there's pictures,
he'd said, winking) with words printed on it. They said:

Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

What does it mean?
she asked.

But he just kept grinning, his arms turned out, open, the book splayed.

Like your heart, inside out, splayed.

Like he was saying,
I'm giving you something. I'm giving you
this.

But instead he said,
Your hands are hot.

And she realized she was still touching both his arms, her fingertips resting on them, and she should have been embarrassed but wasn't and didn't know why.

But it was just a moment. It was just a moment. That was all.

And no one saw.

(Could Devon have seen?)

Later, as she was leaving, she spotted him one more time. He'd found Devon's lei in the parking lot. She wanted to take it, but her arms were full of party favors.

I know
, he said.

Nearly slipping on the glassy pavement, he draped it over Katie's head.

Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

That was it, she realized now. She hadn't put it together before, the contexts so distinct. The same words Katie had seen in Devon's diary a month later. Like you write a boy's favorite song lyric. The kind of thing you do in the first heat of infatuation. Or love. Or something.

“Drew,” she said into the phone. “I'm heading home now. I'll be there in less than a minute.”

There was a noise on his end, like a seashell.

She remembered Drew explaining it to her once, that you're not just hearing air. Part of what you're hearing is yourself.

“Your blood even,” he'd said. “You're hearing your own blood.”

I'm hearing my blood
, she thought now.