Walk on Water (17 page)

She was only steps away when one of the girls laughed, tossing her face up into a shaft of light filtering down the path. Everly Brooks. And that was Emmi Wallace next to her, Lexa belatedly realized. Their entire evil clique was there, all with invitations dangling from well-manicured hands.

Turning on the ball of one foot, Lexa walked rapidly back the way she’d just come, face burning from her slamming pulse. Jenni hadn’t sent an invitation to Lexa, her oldest and best friend, but every single member of the slut squad had received one. What if she followed them up to the door and Jenni
didn’t
let her in, humiliating her in front of these girls she’d once scorned?

There was no way to pretend her pride would ever recover.

Yanking the Ford’s door open again, Lexa threw the Tiffany box inside and climbed up behind it. She’d give it to Jenni someday. Maybe.

But definitely not tonight.

Halfway through a ballet lesson, Lexa winced at the interruption caused by her chirping phone.

“Busted!” Eric teased. “You bring the coffee tomorrow.”

With apologies to Yvonne, their instructor, Lexa ran to her bag beneath the barre. As she switched off the phone, she peeked at the text on its screen. Ian
:

Blake burning thru nicorette. off cigs all week. no fun 2 b around at all! :-)

Her breath caught. Blake had quit smoking
now
? After all the times she’d asked, no begged—

“Please to rejoin us, Lexa,” Yvonne called, crankiness intensifying her French accent.

“Yes! Sorry!” Lexa ditched the phone and ran back to resume pliés.

“Secret admirer?” Eric teased.

“More of a friend, I guess.” After only a week of skating together, she already trusted Eric enough that she wouldn’t have minded explaining the nature of her ongoing text relationship with Ian, but she didn’t understand it herself. Instead, she concentrated on trying to execute Yvonne’s commands—deeper knees! softer arms!—and wondered what had finally changed Blake’s mind. He’d said a hundred times that he’d stop smoking when he was dead.

Maybe he’s sick.
Fear pierced her heart like a shard of ice. Cold spread into her limbs as she imagined him with emphysema. Or heart disease. Or worse.

Lung cancer would probably get him to quit.

For a few beats she found it hard to breathe. Then common sense kicked back in. Ian would have told her if Blake was sick. Bry would have told her.

If they knew.

He couldn’t be hacking up a lung, though. Someone would have noticed. Marginally reassured, she worked to give ballet her full attention.

She’d text Ian back after class, just to make sure.

Lexa drove the familiar dark streets feeling like a stranger. Everything looked the same, yet it all seemed oddly different. Parking a block away, she tried to avoid drawing the obvious conclusion: She was the thing that had changed.

This is a bad idea,
she thought.
And it’s still too early. He’s probably not even here yet.
But that wasn’t the scenario Lexa feared. The possibility that had her hands sweating as she shoved them into her hoodie pockets was that Blake
would
be home.

She walked the back route in, following a dirt path between the back edges of the neighbors’ yards and the strip of trees beyond. She’d brought a flashlight but didn’t need it, making her way instead by the light of an early moon. Lexa could see people going about their illuminated lives as she passed their homes, but to them she was part of the night, lost in the blackness beyond their windows.

She stopped at the edge of her unfenced yard. Blake was not only home but in the kitchen, his head bent over some paperwork spread out on the countertop. His hair was much shorter than when she’d left, cropped closer than she’d ever seen it. She crept a few yards nearer and registered another shock: her father was wearing glasses.

When did he get glasses? And what’s with the military haircut?
Fear gripped her again, squeezing her heart hard.
Chemo makes hair fall out.

With an effort, she reined in her paranoia. Bry and Ian had both assured her that Blake seemed healthier than ever now that he’d quit smoking. And as far as the glasses went—Lexa did some quick math—he had to be thirty-six or -seven now, so maybe reading glasses weren’t that alarming after all.

He’s just getting old
. Far from reassuring her, the thought caused another pang. She was almost an adult herself. Blake had obviously adjusted to living without her. If things kept on this way, by the end of the year they’d be strangers.

A gust of wind made Lexa shiver. September temperatures dropped fast at night, but what brought the goose bumps up her neck was the sense of being an observer in her own life. She was like a ghost haunting a lost loved one, aching with the things she should have said when she had the chance.

Just go in there,
she told herself.
Go in and admit you miss him. Say you’re sorry if you have to.

She was sorry, if not for the decisions she’d made, then for the way she’d carried them out. Leaving home the way she had, allowing Beth to call and speak for her, seemed so immature now. She was ashamed to have been such a coward.

Leaving the counter, Blake walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a Snapple, draining it as Lexa watched in disbelief.
He’s drinking
tea
now? Seriously? What is going on?

But even after her father exited the kitchen for the darker rooms beyond, she couldn’t find the courage to go inside and ask.

“Looking good,” Weston called from the boards. “Keep it flowing. Legs aligned . . . Perfect!”

Lexa and Eric completed their spiral sequence then stroked over to join their coach, hockey stopping in a unified flurry of snow. They were already synching their movements even when they weren’t trying, a promising sign of things to come.

“Good progress, you two,” Weston said. “
Excellent
progress for only two weeks. I’m extremely pleased.”

“Lexa’s like a Ferrari to Katie’s Benz,” Eric said. “No sane person would ever complain about a Benz, but . . . wow!”

Weston gave her a knowing wink. “Speed is oxygen to a Walker. The world was obsessed with your parents’ unison, to the point that their speed got overlooked, and that was a big mistake. Their speed made their unison more exciting.”

Lexa laughed, high on unaccustomed praise. “Will you be able to keep up with me?” she teased Eric.

“I’ll do my best,” he promised, smiling back.

“Let’s break for lunch. You two can continue this love fest over chimichangas.”

Eric sucked in his six-pack. “You told!”

She laughed again. “Not me!” Anyone from the rink could have spotted them indulging their mutual love of chiles, cheese, and sour cream at the packed taco dive down the street.

“I told,” Beth informed them, walking up for the end of the conversation. She’d been at the rink nearly every day, not about to repeat the mistakes she had made with Candace. “And I packed us all a nice 
healthy
lunch today. Will you join us, Weston?”

“I—well—” He seemed more surprised than reluctant. “Thank you, Beth. I’d like that.”

Lexa traded her skates for flip-flops in the women’s locker room. Slamming the locker door shut, she hurried outside to join her new team.

Beth had spread a blanket on a knoll beneath a shade tree, its leaves just beginning to color with the first suggestion of fall. Midday temperatures still steamed like summer, though, and Lexa dropped onto the blanket wearing only her practice dress. When Weston and Eric joined them, she helped pass out the food.

“It’s gorgeous today,” Eric said. Sprawling on his side, he stretched out his long legs.

Lexa shook fruit salad from a plastic tub onto his paper plate. “Did you bring forks, G-mom?”

“Of course.” Beth pointed to a bag.

Weston sat cross-legged on the blanket. Dappled sunlight through the leaves highlighted the silver in his thick gray hair. “Delicious, Beth,” he said of her curried chicken wraps. “Reminds me of the sandwiches we used to get at that Indian deli. Remember?”

Beth smiled. “That’s exactly what I was going for.”

“I still wish they hadn’t closed that place. What’s it been? Fifteen years now?”

“Longer.”

Lexa looked from one to the other, struck by the realization that the two of them shared more history than she’d ever stopped to think about. It seemed obvious now, considering how long he’d coached Kaitlin.

“So, you rap, Beth?” Eric asked.

“Excuse me?” she said, at a loss.

“G-mom,” he said, straight-faced. “Is that your gangsta name?”

Beth’s expression remained blank.

Lexa burst out laughing. “It’s a nickname, genius. Be nice or I’ll give you one too.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “E-Dog suits me, don’t you think? Or possibly E-Money.”

“Craze-E works for me.” When she and Eric were skating, the fact that he was three and a half years her senior was clear, but he hadn’t outgrown a silly streak that made him easy to hang out with. They were constantly joking around, making long days of hard training fly by.

“I’ll call you Lexalicious,” he said, prompting her to throw a grape at him. It barely missed his forehead, buzzing through his messy curls instead. Eric threw back his head and laughed, delighted by the whole exchange.

Lexa picked up her sandwich again, marveling at how much her life had changed in two short weeks. Weston’s coaching skills were as great as his reputation. Instructing her and Eric from behind the boards in no way reduced his ability to mold them as a team. He was so sharply observant, so almost telepathically perceptive, that she couldn’t even remember now why she’d once thought having her coach on skates was important. And Eric . . .

She glanced across the blanket and smiled. Eric was goofy and humble and lovable and an all-around incredible partner. The two of them were already skating every element she had learned with Boyd, perfecting and expanding on them in preparation for developing programs of their own. She ought to be ecstatic, and she was.

But finally getting this part of her life right only made her more aware of the parts she’d gotten wrong. She thought about Blake and Jenni several times a day now. Wondering. Worrying.

Regretting.

With a sigh, she pushed her dark thoughts away. If she didn’t learn to focus on the good parts, she’d end up just like Blake.

“That was delicious,” Eric declared, rolling onto his back beside his picked-clean plate. “Thanks, G-mom.”

Beth laughed. “Don’t mention it.”

“And don’t fall asleep, either,” Weston told him. “We’ve got a big afternoon ahead.”

“Power nap,” Eric said, closing his eyes. “All the executives are doing it. Some sort of study. CNN. Wow, it’s nice out here. . . .”

There’s your new role model,
Lexa thought as he pretended to drift off.
You could learn more from Eric than his Tano.

She smiled.
But learn the Tano, too.

“Lexa?” Clara prompted. “Are you listening?”

“Huh? Yes! College—I heard you.”

“Any thoughts on that?”

“Um . . . Can you be more specific?”

“Do you want to go to college?” Clara asked, enunciating as if Lexa had wax in her ears. “Will you be applying? If so, we ought to start thinking ahead. That’s a whole different set of requirements than just taking the GED.”

“It’s September and I’m only a junior. I don’t know what I’m doing for college. I barely know what I’m doing next week.” Although she was pretty sure a lot of it would involve choreographing her first short program with Eric.

“Should we have Beth come in and give us her thoughts?”

“No, let me think about it. I’ll talk to her later.”

“Talk soon,” her tutor said. “If you’re taking the SAT, the sooner we start drilling, the better. Plus there’ll be campuses to visit, letters of recommendation to collect, essays to—”

“I get it. Thanks.” She knew Clara was trying to help, but college was pretty far down the list of things she cared about at the moment. Blake had wanted her to continue with school—he’d always made that clear—but things were different now.

If I were still skating singles, I could probably make it all work,
Lexa thought. Balancing training with college classes might even be easier than attending high school, because at least she’d be able to set her own schedule. But she was part of a team now, and Weston and Eric weren’t likely to pack up and move to college with her. It would be crazy even to mention school now, with everybody focused on making the next Olympics.

I’ll have to defer a year. At
least
a year,
she realized. Beth would agree—she’d have to. There was really no other option.

Lexa turned her gaze out the window, blind to Maplehurst’s changing leaves and lengthening shadows. Erie Shores High had been dismissed hours before. Jenni and Bry would be at Ashtabula Ice now, along with Ian and Blake. She wished that she could be there too, if only for a visit.

“Would that be a no, then?” Clara asked.

“Huh? Sorry. I was still thinking about college.”

“I asked if you finished yesterday’s math.”

“Yeah. That’s in here somewhere.” Lexa began a search through the folder she kept homework in.

“Any difficulties?”

“No. This stuff is still easier than what I did at Erie Shores.” Lexa stopped shuffling as a new idea struck her. “Hey, Clara? If I’m
not
going to college, can I take the GED now?”

“You’re not eating, kitten,” Beth fussed. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Fine, Grandmom. I’m just not hungry.”

“I might accept that excuse if I were serving something green, but since when do you need an appetite to put away mashed potatoes?”

Lexa forced a smile and another bite.

“Is this about missing your friends?” Beth persisted. “You’re not still upset about the GED? Because we can talk—”