"No."
"Good," Audrey said. Then, after a beat, "Text her. Not because I care. Because if something happened, the story becomes that we sent an eleven-year-old off with a stranger and went to watch me spin."
"She is not a stranger. She is a coach."
"To you, this morning, she was a stranger with a garment bag." Audrey capped her bottle. "Text. I'm not saying drive there. I'm saying don't be the last to know if the day breaks."
Patricia took out her phone. She disliked being instructed by her daughter and disliked more that the instruction was fair. She typed: This is Patricia Keene. Has she gone in. Is she all right.
The reply came faster than she expected. She has danced. She is all right. They are finishing the last numbers. Decisions for callbacks are posted at the desk, not announced like a pageant. You can come or not. She does not need an audience to survive the posting.
Patricia stared at the sentence. She does not need an audience. It felt like a criticism and also like mercy, and she could not tell which one she had earned.
On the floor, the Belland man had moved to speak with Audrey's teacher. Audrey stood with her shoulders down, listening, nodding, not smiling too much. A second picker, a woman from the state university in a navy blazer, waited her turn. This was the life Patricia had pointed the family at after the funeral, because grief without a target had nearly taken the kitchen apart. Audrey, aimed, was safer than Audrey, idle. Willa, unscheduled, had seemed like a child who could wait.
The navy blazer woman said something that made Audrey's teacher glance toward the door, toward Patricia. Audrey's face did a small, complicated thing. She walked over.
"They want to know if I have siblings in training," she said. "Belland likes a family pipeline. It sounds like a farm. I said I have a sister. They asked if she dances. I said she messes around." Audrey's mouth twisted. "Don't look at me like that. I didn't say she was bad. I said she messes around, which is what you've said when people at church ask why she isn't in my studio."
"I said she has other interests."
"You said it the way you say the dog is at the groomer when we don't have a dog." Audrey lowered her voice. "If she's at Calder right now, and someone there knows someone here, I don't want to be the liar in the blazer conversation. Tell me what to say. You're the one who edits us."