Chuck took me to our seventh grade dance,” she said, smiling, walking toward the front door. “It was a big deal. First junior high dance and all.” She paused, put her hand on the door. “And he was my first kiss.”
I was trying to picture Chuck as a gawky seventh grader, figuring out how to put the moves on the girl he liked. If the situation had been different, I would’ve burst out laughing.
Gina pushed opened the door and we stepped inside. It wasn’t Jon Jordan's house. It was a gym and the only thing it was missing was a membership desk. Lots of gleaming dumbbells and high-end machines, mirrors on the walls. Cool air-conditioning washed over me as I shut the door.
“I was in the middle of lifting when you showed up,” she said. “You mind if I finish?”
I shook my head.
She slid onto a bench and lowered herself beneath a bar that held a large plate and a small plate on each end. A hundred-and-ten pounds by my count. She wrapped her fingers carefully around the bar. “When he told me they were moving, it was like the end of the world. You know, everything is bigger and exaggerated at that point in your life and it was awful. He was my best friend, my first boyfriend and it broke my heart.”
She lifted the bar out of the rack and went up and down with it eight times, the muscles in her arms and shoulders expanding and contracting with each movement, quiet grunts of exertion echoing in the room. She wasn’t doing it for show, but I was impressed.
“So you stayed in touch over the years?” I asked.
She set the bar back in the rack, but kept her hands on it and exhaled several times, staring upward. “Not really. When he first moved, we called each other and stuff the first couple of weeks. But then it was just…different. High school and everything. There was no email or IMs back then. Neither of us could drive and it felt like he was a million miles away.” Her hands tightened around the bar. “Then about three months ago, he called me. Don’t know how he found me, how he got the number and I didn’t care. It was like we picked up right where we’d left off.” She lifted the bar out of the rack and held it high. “And that’s silly, because it was junior freaking high. But still, I heard his voice and he didn’t even have to say his name. I knew it was him.”
It was strange to hear about Chuck’s life from someone else. We’d been best friends for twenty years, but hearing her story made me feel like I’d only known a fraction of him.
She knocked out eight more reps, set the bar back in the rack and sat up, her face pink. “It was really good to see him.” She nodded again, reaffirming her words, and took a deep breath, staring at her hands. “Really good. We started hanging out, dinner, things like that.” She glanced in my direction. “He told me about you. About Lauren and Elizabeth.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”
The familiar awkwardness and hurt hit me square in the stomach. “Thanks.”
She stood and pulled the plates off the bar, re-stacking them on the pegs on the side of the rack. “He really missed you,” she said. “He understood, but he missed you. And he looked for Elizabeth, too.”
Something jabbed in my gut. Lauren had said the same thing.
She placed smaller plates on the bar. She adjusted the back of the bench upward, so instead of flat, it was on an incline. “Every morning. Checked websites, message boards, things like that. I think he really wanted to be the one to call you and say he’d found her.”
My mouth went dry. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Anyway, he was working construction, but he was bored,” Gina said, sliding onto the inclined bench. “He wanted to do something else, but he wasn’t sure what. I had just talked with Kelly and knew she needed a coach. I thought he’d be perfect.”
“And he liked it?” I asked, happy to steer the conversation away from me.
“No,” she said, grabbing the bar and lifting it out of the rack. “He loved it.”
TWENTY
Gina spent twenty more minutes working her way around the gym, her intensity constant as she moved from machine to machine. I watched her, sitting there quietly, still thinking about Chuck, wondering what had caused him to call Gina out of the blue and what had caused him to fall in love with coaching. The questions were forming in my head by the second, but I couldn’t clear my mind enough to ask the right ones.
When Gina was finished, she grabbed a towel from a table beneath one of the windows and buried her face in it.
“I haven’t spoken to Meredith,” she said, shooting me a look.
“Doesn’t she live at the house?”
“She does,” she said. “But Jordan’s been keeping her away from everyone and that includes me. And it’s a big house.”
“Jordan know about your relationship with Chuck?”
She shook her head. “No. He stays out of my personal life.”
“If you asked Jordan to get Chuck the coaching spot, why hasn’t Jordan fired you?” I asked.
She sat down on the floor, her legs out in front of her and reached for her feet. “I think it’s crossed his mind. But, Jon is…brutally rational most of the time.”
“What does that mean?”
She pressed herself downward, nearly touching her nose to her knees. She arched her back and came up slowly. “It means he knows that he’s better off with me than without me.”
“You’re that good?”
She smiled but it looked more like a cringe. “I’m better than good. I’m not saying I’m safe, though. Things don’t turn out the way he wants, I could very well find myself out on my ass. As rational as he is, he will lash out.”
“How long have you worked for him?” I asked.
“Long enough to know that talking with you is a risk,” she said, glancing at me. “He might be willing to overlook the fact that I brought Chuck to the high school, but he wouldn’t be pleased if he thought I was working for the other side.”
“What do you think happened with Meredith?” I asked
She didn’t respond for a few minutes as she went through a series of stretches, twisting and contorting her body in ways that looked uncomfortable to me. She started to speak several times, but bit off her words. Finally, she took a deep breath and leaned back on her hands.
“Ies N?m not sure,” Gina said. “But I’ve known Meredith a long time. She’s a good kid. And she’s never once lied to me.”
“So you think he did it?” I said, irritated. “You think he hurt Meredith?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Might as well have.”
“They were spending a lot of time together, Tyler,” she said, glancing at me. “A lot. You’ve probably already heard that. More than any normal coach spends with one of his players.”
I held up a hand and turned away from her gaze.
“I don’t wanna think he did it,” Gina said. “I don’t. But I think something weird was going on between them.”
“Like?”
“Like I don’t know. But something.”
“So you and Chuck were dating or whatever the hell you’re doing, after he looked you up. You give me this big story about how he meant so much to you as a kid,” I said, letting it all build up. “But then you’re hanging him out to dry here? Just so I’m clear?”
Her cheeks flushed and she didn’t say anything.
I stood and walked toward the door, my anger and confusion simmering in my gut. No one was on Chuck’s side. I remembered that feeling. Everyone looked at you with a raised eyebrow, a question in their expression.
Until I knew different, I would stay on Chuck’s side.
Gina followed me outside. “I’m not sure if Chuck hurt Meredith or not. My head tells me that it’s possible, but my heart tells me it’s not. But knowing it and being able to prove it are two different things. And if you’re going to
