Riding Lessons Page 17

  "That was certainly true for a long time. But recently things have been picking up," says Dan, smiling in my direction. Mutti beams, and Jean-Claude stiffens visibly.

  "And what about you? Do you have a family?" says Dan, fixing Jean-Claude in his stare.

  Jean-Claude stops swirling, although the red liquid continues.

  "A daughter and ex-wife in Canada. Near Ottawa," he says.

  "How old is your daughter?"

  "Sixteen."

  "That's a nice age."

  Jean-Claude and I swing our heads in unison to stare at Dan. I can't say anything because Eva is here, but Jean-Claude does. "It's a hellish age," he sputters. "A terrible age."

  "Hey--" says Eva, coming to this unseen daughter's defense.

  "Do you see her often?" continues Dan. He presses his knife into the golden filo, spraying flaky crumbs out to the side.

  Jean-Claude's eyes narrow further, and then he leans forward, folding his arms in front of him on the table. "Not nearly often enough. You will excuse me," he says, rising to his feet a little too quickly. He nods curtly toward Mutti.

  As soon as he leaves the room, Dan leans forward, peering at me through the gladiola stems. "I think he likes you," he says in a stage whisper.

  My jaw drops, and Eva's eyes widen. Mutti and Pappa pretend they didn't hear.

  "Dan!" I whisper furiously. I hear the back door close, and then the screen door crack shut against its frame.

  "What?" says Dan, as though he has no idea. And then again, looking puzzled, "What?"

  When Brian finally arrives, almost forty minutes late, Mutti, Eva, and I all see Dan to the back door. If I hadn't taken the Valium, I'd probably step outside with him, but at this point, the only thing I'm good for is crawling upstairs and collapsing in bed.

  "Dinner was lovely, Ursula," says Dan, squeezing Mutti's hand and kissing her cheek. And then, I assume because Eva is here, he does the same to me.

  Said daughter hangs back against the wall, hands shoved into pockets, gaze fixed on the floor.

  "Good night, Eva," Dan says. When Eva doesn't respond, he steps out into the night. I lean over and grab Harriet's collar to prevent her from following. Then, almost as an afterthought, Dan steps back inside.

  "Oh, Eva. You know, Mike said something to me this morning that got me thinking. He said that Flicka wasn't looking quite right."

  My daughter stiffens.

  "Not bad, not like there's anything wrong," Dan continues quickly. "Just a little...I don't know, dusty. Like maybe she could use a good grooming."

  He pauses. "So, Mike and I were thinking--you know, assuming it's all right with your mom, of course--well, we were thinking maybe you'd like to try again. Maybe start coming out to the center again."

  Eva looks momentarily stricken, and then screams and heaves herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck. Dan presses his cheek against her hair and lifts her in the air. He's smiling, and staring straight into my eyes.

  He sets her down and assumes a stern countenance. "But if I catch wind of a single cigarette being smoked on my property, there won't be any further chances. None. Finito. Do you understand?"

  Eva nods deeply and traces an X on her chest with her finger. "I swear. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die," she says, desperate in her attempt to convey sincerity. "Oh Dan," she says standing on tiptoe and hugging him again. "Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you."

  I look at the two of them, and am moved almost to tears.

  Chapter 12

  I wake up fretting in equal parts about Hurrah and whether there are any answers to my ads yet. I won't know anything until I get to the office, but I can't seem to make myself move. It's as though I have a hangover, although I know I don't, because I didn't drink any wine last night. I was too afraid to, what with taking the Valium. But whatever caused it, there are bricks behind my eyes, a potato sack around my brain, lead weights strapped to all my limbs.

  Harriet is curled up against me, tucked in like the smaller of two spoons with her wet nose pressed into my chin.

  The side of the bed sinks quite suddenly, squeaking hideously.

  "Ma, get up."

  I open one eye. Eva is dressed and ready. Her hair is pulled into a French braid, and an aura of peppermint and shampoo surrounds her.

  "Mmmm," I mumble, and reclose my eye. Harriet sighs and drops her head again. The wet nose lands against a different spot, and I wonder in a vague way whether the moisture is dog sweat, and if so, whether it will make me break out.

  "Ma." Eva reaches over and shakes my shoulder. "Come on, I'm going to be late."

  I groan and roll onto my back, shielding my eyes with my forearm. "What time is it?"

  "Eight. Come on," she says.

  "Ten minutes."

  "What?"

  "Give me ten minutes. Ten minutes. Then I promise I'll get up."

  "No! Come on! It's my first day back and I don't want him mad at me."

  "He won't be mad at you. Tell him it's my fault. Heck, I'll tell him myself. I need to talk with him anyway."

  My daughter sighs grievously, violently even, and I sneak a glance at her from under my arm.

  "Oh, all right. Okay. I'm getting up," I say.

  I do, but it's hard work. Everything is hard work this morning, from dragging my body out of bed to crossing the kitchen floor, to finding my keys in my purse. It's not until I'm sitting in the van that I wonder where Brian is. He's supposed to be here by now, but there's no sign of his car. He was late last night, too. He'd better tread carefully--Mutti is not one to tolerate tardiness.

  When we get to the center, Eva barely waits for the van to stop before she leaps out. She marches straight out to the pasture where Flicka grazes. I get out and stand beside the van, watching.

  Flicka is a beautiful little thing, glossy and fine limbed. She's bleaching out in the sun, almost to a grulla, with some dappling on her flanks. The effect is striking.

  Eva digs something out of her back pocket. Flicka noses her tee-shirt in anticipation, but Eva is still fumbling. Ah yes, I see now. It's a mint, and Flicka knows exactly what it is. She presses her muzzle insistently against Eva's hands, nibbling the wrapper as Eva struggles to remove it.

  My heart tightens when I look at them. They are so oblivious to the outside world that the outer limits of their exclusive universe are almost visible. I know how Eva feels. Oh God, do I know.

  I find Dan in the office, sitting behind a mint green metal desk.

  "Annemarie! Hi!" he says, getting up.

  I stand just inside his doorway. "Don't do it," I say.

  "Don't do what?"

  "Don't call the chip in."

  He blinks twice, looks confused. "It's too late. I already did."

  My throat constricts. "What? When?"

  "This morning."

  "What did they say?"

  "They didn't say anything. All I did was call the hot line."

  "Oh," I say, but the word is cracked, like a cry.

  "Annemarie, are you okay?"

  "Fine."

  "You look upset."

  "What if it's him? What if they take him away?"

  "Oh, baby." He gets up and walks toward me. "He's not Hurrah."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "Because Hurrah is dead," he says, putting his arms around me. "I'm sorry if this has upset you. That's the last thing I wanted to do. Believe me, nothing bad is going to happen. Half the time, the contact information registered to the chip isn't valid. Even if it is, you have to remember that this horse ended up at a slaughter house. Whoever is on that chip is not going to want him back."

  Dan pulls back and looks me in the eye, keeping his hands on my shoulders. "You do understand that the presence of a chip doesn't prove anything, don't you?"

  I nod, but I don't understand anything of the sort. All I understand is that I wasn't thinking far enough ahead, and that I think I may have set something terrible and unstoppable in motion.


  When I get back to our place, I find Mutti kneeling in front of her flower bed, next to a growing pile of amputated limbs. She wields the pruning sheers with dramatic flair, lopping off great lengths of what looks like perfectly good plant to me. Of course, that may be why her garden always looks so wonderful and I always had to rely on a landscaping service.

  I stop beside her. "Hey, Mutti. Where's Pappa?"

  She looks up at me, shielding her eyes from the sun.

  "He stayed in bed this morning." She turns back to the garden and resumes snipping.

  "Mutti?"

  "Yes, Liebchen."

  "What's his prognosis?"

  "You know his prognosis."

  "I know, but..." God, this is difficult. I can't even form the words. I swallow hard and try again. "How much longer until..."

  Mutti hesitates for a fraction of a second, and then continues her work. I stare at her thin lithe back and straw saucer of a hat, and wonder what the face beneath it is doing.

  "Mutti?"

  "That horse of yours," she says, pivoting on her heels and facing me. She braces herself with one hand on the ground. "Jean-Claude tells me that you've made great progress."

  "Yes, but--"

  "I think he's ready to go out with the herd. Don't you?" She stares at me, her pale eyes steady.

  "Yes, Mutti."

  "You could try putting him out in D West. Maybe with a small herd to begin with. You could put him in with Domino, Beowulf, and Blueprint."

  "Yes, Mutti."

  If I don't blink, maybe I can pretend I'm not crying.

  I was anxious about how Hurrah would handle himself, mostly because of the eye, but it's clear from the moment I unhook his lead that I needn't have worried.

  Rather than wait for the other horses to come and investigate him, he trots right over and starts sniffing them.

  There's the usual squealing and throwing of heads that comes with horses getting acquainted, but nobody goes after anyone else in a serious way.

  I stay close, just in case things get heated. I know better than to throw a new horse into the mix and expect him to slide smoothly in. Any addition means the whole hierarchy needs readjusting--they need to form new alliances, shake out the new pecking order, and the way they do it is with teeth and feet. So I'm surprised and delighted to find Hurrah completely unmarked when I lead him back into the stable in the late afternoon.

  Jean-Claude is standing in the aisle talking to the parents of a student I have never seen before. The student, a girl of about twelve, skulks in the background. Her full-seat breeches and Ariat boots speak volumes, as does her father's demeanor.

  "If she doesn't want to, then this is not the time," says Jean-Claude as I lead Hurrah into his stall.

  The mother mumbles something I cannot hear because at that moment Hurrah's hooves clip the top of the door track.

  "Perhaps next year," says Jean-Claude.

  "No, that's completely unacceptable," says the father. "That wastes an entire season."

  I unhook Hurrah's lead quietly and then stand by his shoulder, straining to hear.

  Jean-Claude speaks next. "But the girl just said she doesn't want to jump."

  "Of course she wants to jump."

  I move to the edge of the stall, lurking just inside.

  The father stares, belligerence humming from his body.

  Jean-Claude continues. "She does not want to jump. And until that changes, I will not send her over a fence."

  The father raises his voice. "I don't care if she wants to or not. Courtney is talented, but she needs guidance. She needs discipline. And if you can't provide it, I'll go elsewhere and find someone who can."

  Jean-Claude raises a hand to indicate that he's finished here.

  "What's going on?" I say, emerging from the darkness of Hurrah's stall.

  The parents, Courtney, and Jean-Claude all turn to stare.

  Jean-Claude speaks first. "This gentleman came by to enquire about one of our empty stalls."

  "Who are you?" the father demands.

  "Annemarie Zimmer," I say, eyes locked on his face. "I'm the manager."

  His eyes dart to the wall, to the pictures of Harry and me in our glory days, and then back again. A slight shift in his expression tells it all. He apparently is among those who remember me.

  "I'm delighted to meet you, Annemarie," he says, his voice assuming a lower, distinctly more deferential tone. "My name is Charles Mathis. We've known about your barn for a long time, and when we heard that you had a stall available, and that you were back...My daughter Courtney is very much like you. She's extraordinarily talented--extraordinarily. But she needs a trainer with a firm hand. She needs discipline, and this guy..." He gestures toward Jean-Claude, exhaling in disgust. "Perhaps you can help me."

  "I'll do my best. What seems to be the problem?"

  "This...this...trainer of yours says he will not work my daughter over fences, when it's imperative that she do so."

  "Why?"

  "Why what?"

  "Why is it imperative that she jump right away?"

  "Because without it, she cannot progress."

  "How old is she?"

  "Eleven."

  "Then she has plenty of time to progress. Plenty."

  His brows knit, but he doesn't answer. Apparently he expected a different reaction.

  "You're welcome to bring your horse here, but Jean-Claude is the trainer, and I stand behind his decisions."

  "But surely you understand--"

  "I understand all too well, believe me."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Tell me, do you really want Courtney to be like me?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "No you don't."

  Four pairs of eyes stare at me. Nobody moves.

  "You do know what my life was like, don't you? I'm not talking about my accomplishments. I'm not even talking about the broken neck, or losing my horse. I'm talking about being forced to spend all my waking hours doing something I didn't want to do. I'm talking about not being allowed to go to school because it would take too much time away from my training. I'm talking about not having any peers because I had virtually no opportunities to meet anybody. I'm talking about being socially stunted and paying for it for the last twenty years."

  When I finish speaking, all eyes are glued on me. Even Jean-Claude stares as though I were an oddity. I don't blame him. I am an oddity.

  I turn to the girl. "Courtney, do you want to jump or not?"

  "No," she says, her small voice as clear as a bell.

  "And there you have it," I say to her father.

  "She'll jump whether she likes it or not," he says. "She's my daughter, and as long as she's living under my roof--"

  "At the moment you're under my roof, and I'm the one who calls the shots. I'm sorry, Mr. Mathis. I wish I could let you come to our barn--you have no idea how much I wish that--but I simply can't. Maybe your daughter will want to jump someday, and maybe she won't. But nobody here is going to force her."

  "Obviously I misjudged you."

  I wait, because it's clear he wants to continue.

  "Maybe you used to be something," he says, one corner of his mouth lifting into a sneer, "but not anymore. Now you're nothing but a sentimental, self-pitying fool."

  "And you're an asshole, so I guess that makes us about even."

  Ten minutes later, I'm slumped in the depths of Jean-Claude's couch. My knees are pulled up and I have a hand over my face. My brain is killing me, pounding against my temples.

  There's no excuse for what just happened. Yes, he was bullying his daughter and yes, he was unspeakably rude to me, all of which gave me ample reason to refuse to accept him as a boarder, but not to react in the way I did. So why did I?

  It's because as I listened to him bitch and carp and insist on his own way, I saw Pappa. The old Pappa, the Pappa of my youth. I haven't seen him in twenty years, but there he was, right in front of me, and all the bitterness, all the resentment--the pen
t-up frustration of a lifetime--came boiling forth like a volcanic explosion.

  Why am I still so angry? Why do I still want to make him understand how much pressure he put on me? Why do I still care? There wouldn't be any point in confronting him now anyway, because the Pappa of today bears no resemblance at all to the man who used to make me get up at five every morning to jog two miles and then ride horse after horse all day. The Pappa of today feeds carrots to ancient ugly horses. The Pappa of today has mellowed beyond recognition, although I have no idea when or how that happened. Maybe it was the illness that changed him. Maybe he's trying to make peace with himself and everybody else before he dies. I can't say for sure, because I've barely spoken with him in twenty years. Our entire relationship revolved around my career, and after my accident, we no longer shared a vocabulary.

  "Here," says Jean-Claude. I pull my hand away. My field of vision is filled by a pair of tan breeches and a snifter of cognac. A snifter? The man brought snifters?

  "Thanks."

  I take it, and swallow more than I should. I know this the second it hits my mouth, but other than spitting it back into the glass, I have no choice but to swallow. It burns its way down and then rises again in a cloud of fiery fumes. My adenoids protest. I breathe in through my nose, which only re-ignites the flames.

  "Are you okay?" Jean-Claude asks as I sputter wildly. He sits next to me.

  I nod, waving a hand in front of my face.

  "You sure?"

  I bob my head even faster, and turn so he won't see the color of my face, which feels blue. I sigh and wait for the tears to reabsorb.

  After I get a hold of myself, I drop my head onto the back of the couch.

  "Oh God. I am such an idiot."

  "I wouldn't say an idiot. Perhaps a little...tense. But you were right. He is an asshole."

  "I had to do it. I had to turn him down. It would have been worse if I'd let him come, because I probably would have ended up driving him out or killing him. Does that make sense?" I lift my head and look at Jean-Claude.

  He nods solemnly. "Parfaitement."

  I look down at my cognac, and in the depths of the rusty liquid, Mutti's face appears. I stare at her for a moment and then swirl her into oblivion. I look up, afraid she might reappear.

  "He's going to find someone who will make her jump, isn't he?"