"Maybe that's you hearing it," Patricia said.
Audrey glanced at her, then at Willa. "I told her I have a sister who trains on her own. She asked what you're working on. I said I didn't know, because I don't. That's the true part. The ugly part is I didn't know because I didn't want to. If you were good in secret, then the slot last spring was worse than a scheduling problem."
Willa held the bleacher edge. The metal was cold. "It was worse than a scheduling problem."
"I know." Audrey's voice dropped. "I took it. Mom handed it to me and I took it, and I told myself you were little and you'd have other Tuesdays. Then you stopped coming, and the house got easier to star in, and I let it stay easy. This morning I said the thing about being popular because if I said the real thing I would have sounded like a thief in a puffer jacket."
"You sounded mean," Willa said. "Not like a cartoon. Like you meant it and also knew it was cheap."
Audrey huffed, almost a laugh, almost a wince. "That's fair. I hate that it's fair." She nodded at the hidden shoes. "He bought those while I was mad about stripes. I remember the parking lot. You held the box like it was an animal you didn't want to scare. I called them boy shoes in the back seat. He told me to knock it off. I didn't knock it off forever. I just waited until he wasn't there to hear me."
The pavilion noise swelled and dipped, a music cue, a scatter of applause for someone else's daughter. Patricia watched the two of them and felt the year rearrange by inches, not into forgiveness, into a shape that could be walked through if nobody insisted on a speech.
"Saturday is a callback," she said. "If they offer training, we will look at the money in the actual light, not in a hallway while we are late. Audrey, your summer question is separate. We will not rob one to decorate the other. I have done enough of that bookkeeping."
Audrey traced the tape on her heel. "If I get the state summer, I still need the knee ice and the gas. I'm not going to pretend I don't. I'm also not going to tell a panel my sister messes around. That's done. I can't give you back the recital. I can stop standing on it."
Willa thought of the white shoes in the gray box, the tissue, the smile. She thought of the suspend on the pale floor, the hymn asking its question. "Okay," she said. "Don't be nice to me in front of people if you're going to be the other thing in the car. Pick one. I'd rather the true one, even if it's sharp, than the popular one."
"God," Audrey said, softly. "You sound like him when you say pick one."
"I sound like me," Willa said. "He just got there first."