Animals We Are

by Valerie Brandy

  Then, I met Mike, and the world rearranged itself.

  Falling for him happened entirely by accident. He makes furniture— hand-crafted, beautiful things, built from rare types of woods— the sort of stuff ritzy establishments like my hotel invest in.

  The day he walked in to try and sell us on a carved wooden table for the sitting area of the lobby, he brought the piece with him, loaded into the back of a busted old van.

  It was so beautiful it made me want to cry. Something about it moved; spiraling legs curved into a textured top, every notch built with care. It was so alive it practically breathed.

  On our first date, Mike showed me his workshop. His fingers were stained brown with varnish, and he smelled like oak and sawdust. First, we were casual— my choice, not his. Then, we were something else. My ogre let down the bridge and helped him cross the moat, but my defensive walls remained in place, ready to eject him should he prove to be anyone other than the man he presents. When we moved in together, I insisted that the lease be in my name. Dolly Parton once said the key to a happy relationship is always having a suitcase packed. I go one step further and keep my car keys in the ignition. I’m always searching for fangs in the the mouth of the man I’m with.

  That’s why when Mike, “needed to tell me something” a few months into our too-good-to-be-true relationship, I wasn’t surprised. I waited for him to admit to being a serial killer, or an ex-con, but instead he confessed to having a stalker. He’d met Cassandra in college, and they’d had a five-year relationship before she lost her mind and things went South. It wasn’t the worst baggage I’d unpacked. And I could relate to the feeling of discovering the person you thought you knew was a Russian stacking doll all along, hiding multiple versions of himself deep under skin and bone.

  Prior to Mike, I’d endured the hell of dating apps, taking a last, half-hearted stab at love by creating a generic bio, throwing up a few pictures of myself at the beach, at work, as a butterfly on Halloween.

  Even there— in that digital, surface-level environment consisting of impressions and guesses— I encountered the phenomenon of a human within a human— a social turducken. I chatted for weeks with a guy who seemed completely harmless. His name was “Josh Q.,” and his interests included video games, baseball, and hiking. We played a game where we wrote to each other in rhyming stanzas, always increasing the difficulty.

  “How was your day? What happened at work?”

  “It was great, how ‘bout yours? Just asking to lurk.”

  “I didn’t do much. Did you watch Game of Thrones?”

  “Why yes, yes I did, And my mind was so blown!”

  It was a stupid way to trade messages, but the novelty of it caught my attention. We even made plans to meet, but I cancelled when Mike walked into my life, bringing his toffee-colored skin and reassuring smile. No one could compare, and I deleted the app a few days later— but Josh Q. still found me. He added me on Facebook, and followed me on instagram. When I messaged him to tell him I was seeing someone, his reaction made me wish I hadn’t written him at all.

  “Would’ve been nice to know that before I wasted my time. You bitches are all the same.” I resisted the temptation to write back in rhyme: “Us bitches are all the same… we think you’re really lame.”

  The experience was a warning, a reminder that people can surprise you, no matter how benign they seem on the outside. It was a small drop in a bucket I’ve been filling since third grade, when my Dad found a family he liked better, and left me and Mom with nothing but one of his old sweatshirts, which we donated to Goodwill. It’s the sticky feeling you get when you meet someone new, and you wonder if they’re even worth the trouble. It’s the hand of an older mentor on your back, placed just low enough to introduce a question. It’s the humming undertone during dinner at a friend’s house, when you notice your friend’s husband gripping his wine glass a little too tightly. People hide the worst of themselves. It’s a truth I’ve accepted— one that Mike will never believe, even as Cassandra hovers in the background of his life, never near enough to see, but always close enough to feel.

  Mike pulls the phone from my hands and shoves it in the glove compartment, jolting me back to the present moment.

  “Let’s not talk about her this week,” he mutters as he closes the glove compartment too hard. He rarely gets angry, and the emotion hangs from his shoulders like a suit that’s too big. “I just want to be…”

  He doesn’t finish the thought, but he doesn’t have to.

  “Free,” I add. He nods, pressing on the accelerator so that the pine trees whip past my window, turning the world into a green blur that won’t slow down for me, no matter hard I try to blink it into focus.

  3

  A couple of hours later and we pull up to a worn cabin nestled behind a parking lot. It’s missing shutters in all the wrong places, leaving the windows naked and the rooms within exposed to the world. The pine trees that circle it curve inward instead of reaching for the sky, closing in on the cabin as if they know it was built from the bones of brutalized brothers and sacrificed sisters. The parking lot in front of the building is an even greater injustice, covering wildflowers that never got the chance to grow, shrubs that were smothered in their infancy. On the edges of the black asphalt, scattered picnic tables are arranged in a row, serving as bait for haggard parents and their kids. Right on cue, a mini-van pulls into the dirt driveway, and a weary Mom tumbles out, accompanied by three kids— two boys and one girl, all younger than eleven. She sits at a table and begins laying out a picnic, shouting over her shoulder, “Peanut butter and Jelly time, let’s go gang!” I mentally send a gold star her way. Moms do so much work that no one sees.

  My boots crunch over fallen pine needles as we approach the cabin. A battered sign outside reads, “CIRCLE BAR HORSE TOURS,” the words aggressively burned into the wood like a brand on a cow. The letters are in all caps, their width so bold it makes me want to look away.

  “I’ll check our reservation,” Mike says, shifting his backpack to his other shoulder. It’s a hideous lime-green thing, with useless, silver reflectors sewn in rectangles across the front pockets.

  “Why you insisted on bringing that thing—” I shake my head at the bag.

  “Only because you hate it,” he grins, opening the front door to the cabin. Bells hung to its frame jingle as it shuts behind him. The effect should be jolly, but the bells are contrasting tones ringing in a minor key. The sound makes my ears burn.

  I don’t follow, but busy myself with a dusty, plastic display case outside. Pamphlets crowd its face, all of them boasting of horse-tours through different parts of the valley. The pamphlets are a reminder that I’m sitting on a secret— one I haven’t shared with Mike, and one that I won’t. Their presence is the beating heart beneath the floor boards, the one that makes me want to confess, to admit to the thing I should have told Mike when we booked this tour:

  I’m afraid of horses.

  Gnawing teeth. An innocent, wide-eyed exterior that hides a thousand pounds of pure muscle just waiting for the chance to trample me into sawdust. Pristine, luscious manes distracting from the danger underneath. Beauty on the outside hiding a monster within. A horse is the external manifestation of my internal fears, and the last thing I want to do is spend my vacation on top of one.

  I should’ve just told him. Mike would have understood. Mike always understands. But it was me who wanted to go camping, and he never looked excited about it until he stumbled across the advertisement for a horse tour. It never occurred to him I’d harbor a secret fear of horses, because he sees me as an invincible lover of the outdoors, a regular Annie Oakley. I like when people see me as invincible, but for all the wrong reasons. If no one is aware of my weaknesses, they’ll never offer to help me, and I’ll never have to accept and find myself disappointed when they let me down. Maybe it’s the result of not having a Dad in my life, but I don’t run to other people to fix my problems. When I was a kid, my Mom called me “Zoe th
e Zipper,” because it would take me weeks to ask for help with something. No matter how much trouble I’d gotten myself into, my lips stayed zipped.

  In adulthood, people label me as “an introvert,” or “not a talker,” but that’s a misdiagnosis. The truth is that a seed was planted inside me long ago— one that I can’t dig up. Its roots are deep in my belly, and I’ve watered it with bad relationships. By now, it’s grown into a tree, its branches weaving through my veins, spelling out the words “I’m fine.” It’s one of the reasons selfish partners love me: I don’t ask for much. But there’s a dark side to my self-reliance. Mike has entered into a Faustian deal with me, without even knowing it. I’m the innocent girl seeking a lovely trip to the woods, and he’s the devil making me face my biggest fear. I’ve cast us in roles, and Mike didn’t even audition for the play.

  The wooden porch around the cabin creaks under my feet as I step upward, heading for the front door, ready to find Mike and tell him the truth. I’m about to make those little bells ring again, but it’s too late. Mike’s already walking toward me, coming around the side of the building, beaming, accompanied by the thing I fear most in this world.

  Dust kicks up as the animal’s hooves hit the Earth. It’s a palomino, and as it tosses its giant head, I’m struck by the way its mane looks so much like hair. She’s blonde, I think, almost laughing at how much this horse reminds me of the ditzy receptionist at my dentist’s office, who once asked me what “defer” meant and if it was a country. If I’m going to put my life into a giant’s hands, she might as well be an idiot.

  “Her name is Molly,” Mike smiles, motioning for me to move closer. The porch creaks again as I descend, almost as if it’s issuing a warning. Mike holds out the reigns and I take them in my hands, buttery leather feeling soft and rough between my fingers. I almost drop them when a man steps out from behind Molly’s left flank, making me inhale.

  He isn’t especially tall— maybe 5’6”— but he’s shockingly broad, built like the side of a barn, as if God decided to steal a little height from his vertical body and reallocate it to his shoulders. Even through his flannel shirt, it’s clear he’s pure muscle. Frown lines between his eyes make me guess he’s in his forties, but his skin is so sun-damaged it’s hard to say how old he is. His mouth contorts into a smile, his front two teeth tilting at an unusual angle, framed by pock-marked skin that hints at teenage acne, the kind that leaves a mark even once it fades away. His hair is thinning, but he’s hanging on hard to the few wisps he has left. Good for him. They flip over the side of his head in wavy patches.

  “Glad to have you,” he shakes my hand. My throat tightens. Something about him makes me uncomfortable, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.

  “This is Brock. He owns the place,” Mike says. When I don’t respond, he explains too slowly, as if I’m a forgetful Grandad, “You know, the guy we talked to over the phone?”

  “Right,” I answer, not mentioning that I don’t remember any specifics of our reservation call because I was too busy having a secret panic attack. “Brock. Nice to put a face to the name.”

  “I’ll be leading the tour. Mike says you’ve never been on a horse before, but don’t worry. You’re in great hands.”

  He coughs as he walks away, his gait familiar and strange all at the same time, his breath quivering as it catches in his throat. Suddenly, I know why I’m afraid of Brock:

  He reminds me of a horse.

  ***

  After a brief run-down on the basics of horseback riding, Brock is grabbing my leg and hoisting me over Molly’s back while I try to remember what the front of the saddle is called. Povel? Pronel? The information seems essential. What if I’m in a life-threatening situation and Brock tells me to grab the front of the saddle in order to save myself, but I don’t follow his instructions properly because I can’t remember what it’s called?

  “Put one hand on the reigns and one on the pommel,” Brock whinnies, frustrated at my lack of expertise.

  “Pommel,” I whisper, repeating the word like my life depends on it.

  Behind me, Mike waves as he pulls himself onto a massive black stallion that might be the biggest animal I’ve ever seen. The horse is regal in posture, its mane a midnight black so dark it’s almost blue, hooves so large that the prints they leave behind look like dinosaur tracks. If Dwayne the Rock Johnson needed a horse, this would be the poor beast they’d give him. I’m not sure why Dwayne would need a horse— maybe his muscles are so big he can’t fit in Ubers.

  “Isn’t this awesome, babe?!” Mike shouts over his shoulder, having the time of his life.

  “So fun!” I call back, hands shaking.

  I lean down to Molly and whisper in her ear, “Okay, you beautiful idiot. Now’s your chance to prove to everyone you’re more than just a pretty face. Let’s do this. You with me?”

  Molly shakes her mane— an action I interpret as a hair flip. Molly is fabulous, and she knows it. Brock slaps Molly’s flank— a little presumptuous of him, but she doesn’t seem to mind— and suddenly I’m swaying side-to-side as she walks toward the trail like a self-driving car, completely oblivious to my attempts to pull on the reigns and redirect her.

  “Just let her do her thing,” Brock calls out, as if Molly were a house-cat scratching the couch and not a thousand pound animal with my life in her hands. “She likes to snack along the way.”

  “Snack” is an understatement. Tall grass grows upward at the start of the trail, thriving in the shade and taking advantage of the space the clearing provides. Molly meanders through the knee-high streaks of green and brown, pulling out pieces like a prom queen who just found out her quarterback boyfriend has been screwing her best friend. It’s the horse equivalent of microwaving ice-cream and drinking it straight out of the carton. She has some major feelings she’s working out, and while I support her self-actualization, I hope she’s watching the road. If she wanders off the trail and no-one notices our disappearance, my survival plan is to cling to her back like a baby koala, occasionally leaning down to grab my own chunk of grass, which I’ll eat to stay alive until she sorts out her feelings and takes us back to the ranch.

  Brock expertly mounts his own horse, then leads the rest of our group toward the trail. We’re a small party, and there’s only three other riders besides Mike and me. With Brock included, that makes six of us venturing into the unknown.

  First in line is a retired couple celebrating their forty-year anniversary, who introduced themselves as “Ken-and-Sue-Hardinger,” saying both their names like one word.

  Sue has bright, curious eyes, silver hair, and a certain way of noticing things— like she’s taking a mental picture to retrieve later. Ken is a little thick around the middle, with a red-faced smile and hands that gesture when he talks. There’s a carefree aura around the two of them, as if they’re children just starting out in life, imagining futures as firefighters or movie stars. I like them immediately, and wonder if they look alike because they’ve been married so long that they’ve grown together, or if they’ve always had the same curved noses.

  In the middle of the line-up is Logan, a lone rider braving the trail without a traveling companion. His introduction was brief because he was late to the orientation, but he looks to be in his early twenties, around college-age. He fidgets with anything he can get his hands on— the edge of his glasses, the rim of his baseball cap— making me wonder if he was late on purpose, to avoid interacting too much with the group. His pants are too big, and his shirt features some kind of a computer joke written in that language that’s all zeros and ones. It’s a surprise, considering his build, which doesn’t scream “computer nerd.” Just like Brock, he isn’t tall, but his biceps bulge and he’s wearing a Raiders baseball cap, making me think he might play football. He rarely makes eye contact with any of us, but when he does there’s something defiant in his face, like he’s out here to make a point. I spin a background story for him. He bought these tickets for his girlfriend, but they bro
ke up right before the trip. Now, he’s traveling alone for the first time, far from the security of his college dorm and his video games, but prepared to post plenty of pictures of how much fun he had, just because he’ll-show-her.

  Mike pulls up next to me, swaying on top of Dwayne the Rock Johnson’s horse.

  “You ready?”

  I’m about to tell him I can’t do this, but then he smiles that stupid smile. Am I really prepared to risk my life for this person? What he would do, if Molly bucked me off and trampled me under her hooves? Try and save me? Shrug and find another girlfriend?

  “Ready,” I answer, and our fingertips touch before his horse pulls in front of Molly, who follows right behind him, bending down to eat her feelings as we go.

  The trail vanishes into the forest, and the sunshine fades as we leave the ranch behind. The woods surround us, the trees consume us, and I’m committed now. I’m climbing this mountain on horseback whether I like it or not, following Mike to increasingly treacherous trails, all while perched on top of Molly, who’s basically equestrian Barbie.

  Somewhere in there hides a metaphor for our relationship, but I’m too busy trying to stay upright to coax it out.

  4

  I’m meeting a stranger.

  Her round eyes look up at me from a puddle as Molly trudges along the trail. She’s my reflection, and she’s not afraid of anything. She’s a woman completely at ease up on her horse, and even though it’s only been a few hours, some natural instinct tells me I might leave the forest a different person than I was when I entered.

  Molly’s hoof lands in the puddle, and the stranger disappears.

  It really is true, what they say about love being the most powerful force in the world. My love of nature has outweighed my terror, bludgeoning it into submission through distractions, like the snow-capped mountain-tops that prowl the horizon, or the tiny purple flowers that dot the trail, or the intermittent cry of a red-tailed hawk as it streaks across the sky, its tail-feathers disappearing into the watery sun.