Part 11 (1/2)

My house is farther, and Coach gets dropped off first, which is a mind-bending prospect.

Will pulls over a half block from her house. Watching them kiss, watching the way he opens her mouth with his, her sneaky looks back at me, the pleasure on her, I feel myself go loose and wondrous inside. I want to be a part of their kiss, and maybe even they want it too.

It's only a five-minute drive to my house, but it feels like it lasts forever, all the misted lightness of Lanvers Peak gone.

”Tonight was the first time I ever saw you without that other girl,” Will says. ”The one with the freckles.”

This seems the craziest way to describe Beth ever, but it makes everything go tight in my head and I remember, coming off the peak, flipping open my phone and seeing missed call, missed call, missed call, missed call, missed call. missed call. A text: A text: you'd best pay attn to me. you'd best pay attn to me.

He looks at me and smiles.

Suddenly, I want to hold the whole night close to my chest and I decide it is mine alone.

”Seeing her tonight, I understand now,” he says. ”She needs this.”

For a second I think he means himself. And, thinking of her that night, so carefree, all the antic restlessness blown out of her, I think he is surely right.

But then he gestures toward my Sutton Eagles duffel bag, and I see he means being coach.

”She needs you girls,” he adds.

I nod, meaningfully as I can.

”I know what that's like,” he says. ”The way you can be saved without ever knowing you were in trouble.”

These are the words he says, but they sound like something I'm overhearing, a conversation I'd never be a part of.

”I guess it's funny, me talking to you like this,” he says.

I guess it is. Sometimes Coach doesn't seem that much older than me, but Will, with his tragic dead wife and tours of duty, sure does.

”I know we don't really know each other,” he admits. ”But we know each other in a strange way.”

I nod again, though really we don't know each other at all. It makes me think Will is one of those people who just tell everybody everything right away, and usually I don't like those people, those girls at summer camp sharing tales of cutting and kissing their babysitters. But this feels different. Maybe because he's right. Because we share a secret. And because I saw them together that day in the teachers' lounge, which felt like seeing everything.

”She has it hard,” he says. ”Her husband, he's not the guy you might think he is. She has it very hard.”

Maybe it's the bourbon, or the bourbon wearing off, but this doesn't sound exactly right either, not really.

”He gave her that house,” I point out.

”It's a cold house,” he says, looking out the window. ”He gave her a cold house.”

”It's her house,” I say. ”I mean, even if it's cold, it's hers.”

He doesn't say anything, and I feel him slipping from me.

”And Caitlin,” I say, but this sounds even less convincing. ”There's Caitlin.”

”Right,” he says, shaking his head. ”Caitlin.”

We both sit for a moment, and I feel suddenly like we both might know something we can't name. About how, in some obscure way, Caitlin was another thing that wasn't a gift so much as the thing that stands in place of the gift. My wedding, my house, my daughter, my cold, cold heart. My wedding, my house, my daughter, my cold, cold heart.

12

”Freaking rock star,” RiRi marvels, finger spotting me. RiRi marvels, finger spotting me.

I am doing perfect back tucks, one after another.

I know suddenly I was born to do them. I am a propeller.

”This is what a coach can do.” RiRi grins. ”Beth would never have let you get this good.” is what a coach can do.” RiRi grins. ”Beth would never have let you get this good.”

As soon as she says it, she seems almost to take it back, laughing, like it's a joke. Maybe it is.

”Knees to nose, Hanlon,” Coach barks, a sneaky smile dancing there as she walks back into her office.

”Pffht-pffht,” comes the sound from the bleachers, where Beth has slunk. ”Watch that neck, Addy-Faddy, or it's the ventilator for you. comes the sound from the bleachers, where Beth has slunk. ”Watch that neck, Addy-Faddy, or it's the ventilator for you. Pffht-pffht Pffht-pffht.”

”Tres J,” whistles Emily. But I know Beth isn't jealous of my tuck. She can back handspring, back tuck me into the ground, her body like a twirling streamer.

In the locker room after, Emily kicks her leg up, grabbing her toes as she stands on the center bench. Pea-shoot thin now, fifteen pounds lighter since the month before, she's set to fly with Tacy at the Stallions game. All the hydroxy-hot and activ-8 and boom blasters and South African hoodia-with-green-coffee-extract and most of all her private exertions have made her airy and audacious.

Eyeing her, Tacy is sullen, uneager to share Flyer glory.

Lying on the far end of the bench, Beth stares abstractedly up at the drop ceiling.

”c.o.x-sucka,” she calls out to Brinnie c.o.x, who is curling her hair into long sausages and singing to the locker mirror. ”How's your head?”

”What do you mean?” Brinnie asks, her arm frozen. ”My head is fine.”

”That's a relief,” Beth says. ”I wondered if maybe you were still feeling the blood pus.h.i.+ng against your brain. From that header you took a few weeks back.”

”No,” she says, quietly.

”Beth,” I say, a faint try at warning.

”As long as you're not a purger, you should be okay out there tonight. It's the regurgitators who drop like dead weight.”