The Perfect Distance

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  As I exited the ring, it started sprinkling.

  “Was that okay?” I asked Rob.

  “Fine.”

  “I mean that I jumped it again. Was that a good decision?”

  I knew it was the right decision, but I still wanted to hear it from Rob.

  “We’ll see what the judges think,” he said. “I used to think I knew but after the regionals, I don’t even want to try to predict what they’re thinking.”

  Here we were, weeks later, and Rob was still fixated on Tara’s being second at the regionals. I felt like screaming at him: Get over it already!

  “You can head back.” Rob paused, then added, “And Francie?”

  I was still dying for something more. Just one word that said I was better than fine. Don’t do it—I told myself—don’t hope. “Yes?”

  “Bring up my rain gear, huh?”

  “Sure,” I mumbled, and turned from Rob, my whole body sinking from his words or lack thereof. Why couldn’t he for once just say something, anything, nice to me?

  I looked up to see Colby waiting for me. I hadn’t even known he was watching my round, and the thought gave me the good kind of shivers.

  “You were awesome,” he said. “It was a good decision. I saw Nolan nod when you went through the second time.”

  A man I assumed must be Colby’s father walked up to us and handed him a coffee. He looked like Colby, same blond hair and brown eyes.

  “Francie, this is my dad,” he said.

  “Nice to meet you,” I told him. I tried to keep a straight face, but all I was thinking about was what Colby had said once about how his dad spent all his time sucking fat out of one place and sticking it into another.

  “That was a beautiful round,” his father said. He reached out and clapped Colby on the back. “I hope Colby can put in half the trip you just did.”

  Colby wouldn’t meet his eye.

  “Well, I did have to do a line over,” I pointed out, trying to come to Colby’s defense in any small way.

  “Still, it was a good trip.”

  Colby and I exchanged a look and he asked, “Didn’t you want my help back at the barn?”

  “Sure,” I said, taking the hint. “That would be great.”

  But his father shook his head and said, “Don’t you think you better be studying these trips?” Only it didn’t sound like a question.

  “Right,” Colby said.

  “Well, I’ll see you later,” I offered, trying to say more with my eyes. “Good luck, okay?”

  Colby rolled his eyes. “Yeah, see you later.”

  It turned out that I didn’t see Colby for the whole rest of the day. I was busy tacking up Riley for Tara, so I didn’t get to see him ride, but I heard from Katie that he was good. Then his father must have whisked him away, because he was nowhere to be seen.

  So that night when Dad was in the shower, I texted him. He texted back right away and we agreed to meet by the third floor vending machines. When Dad came out of the bathroom, I told him that Katie had texted me and that she was freaking out about tomorrow and had asked if I could come to her room for a few minutes.

  He checked his watch.

  “I’ll only stay a little while,” I promised.

  “Fine.”

  I pulled on jeans and my hoodie over a T-shirt and walked down the puke-green-and-hot-pink-carpeted hallway to the elevator. I wondered why hotels always had such awful interiors—whether there was some logical reasoning behind it that I just didn’t know about. Colby, wearing a UCLA sweatshirt and Clippers hat, was already at the vending machines with two Cokes. “Did you know Coke is called Coke because when it first came out, it had traces of cocaine in it?” he asked.

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He handed me a can, and I popped it open.

  “I heard you were good today,” I said.

  “Pretty good.”

  “Was your dad happy with your round?”

  Colby shrugged. “He’s never happy. He spends his life making people who look fine look better.”

  I didn’t know if I should be asking, but I said, “Is your mom here, too?”

  Colby shook his head. “They’re divorced—the ugly kind where they can’t be in the same place without lots of screaming, yelling, and throwing of hard objects.”

  “Oh,” I said, and then I didn’t know what else to say.

  “My dad comes to the shows, but I live with my mom.”

  “What about your mom? What’s she like?”

  “She’s okay,” he said.

  “I don’t even know my mother,” I offered.

  “Like not at all?”

  “I mean, I know who she is, but I’ve never met her.”

  I filled Colby in on the saga of Dad and Elaine McBride, now Elaine Reeves. I couldn’t believe I was talking to someone about my mother. I’d never talked to anyone about her—not even Katie or Becca. But there was something about Colby that made me tell him things I usually didn’t talk to people about.

  “Do you think you’ll ever go meet her? I mean, are you curious?”

  “Sometimes I am, but she didn’t want me, you know? And she has a new family now.” I thought of the Christmas card—the smiling faces that made me sick to my stomach.

  “Maybe she thinks about you. I bet she does. She just might not know how to pick up the phone and call.”

  “If that’s true, it’s lame,” I said. But lately I’d been thinking more about how young my mother had been when she’d had me. Times had changed, but eighteen was still young. She’d been only a year older than I was now. How would I handle it if I got pregnant now?

  “Sometimes people are paralyzed by fear,” Colby said. “Fear: four little letters, huge impact.”

  “Your sister’s self-help podcasts?”

  Colby smiled. “How’d you guess?”

  “What’s up with that?”

  “She’s all about introspection. It’s the divorce. It’s not like we’re young kids—but that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t suck and mess you up, just to a lesser degree, I guess.”

  I loved talking to Colby. He really thought about things like so many other people didn’t. Or if they did, they didn’t let on.

  “More than meeting my mother, I’d like to go to Mexico and meet my grandmother and my aunt,” I told him.

  “You’ve never been?”

  I shook my head. “It’s like my dad wants to keep all that from me. I guess he just wants my life to be here. He doesn’t understand how I can’t just be American—I’m Mexican too, whether he likes it or not.”

  “Has he ever thought of remarrying?” Colby asked.

  I shook my head. “No way.”

  As far as I knew, Dad had never even been out on a date. He was always so busy at the farm he barely had time for his gardening, let alone meeting women.

  “My mom’s getting remarried,” Colby said. “And I think I like him better than my dad.”

  “Jeez.” I wasn’t sure what else I could, or should, say, but Colby just shrugged.

  “We don’t pick ’em, right?” he said.

  He took a sip of his Coke and then asked, “Any good finds lately?”

  “It’s been a slow week,” I said.

  He drained the rest of his Coke and shot the can into the nearby recycling barrel, a perfect two-pointer.

  “Anything ever happen with the test?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  “That’s good.”

  I downed the rest of my Coke and tossed it too, but my shot fell a few inches short. I headed toward the barrel for the rebound, but Colby reached it first and tossed it in. “Perfect alley-oop.”

  We were only a foot apart. Before I could get up the nerve to ask what was going on between us, we started kissing. Down the hall the elevator dinged, but Colby kept kissing me. He’d moved his hand down to my waist. I thought I heard footsteps. “Someone’s coming,” I whispered.

  “So?”

  “
So, they’re going to see us.”

  “I don’t care,” Colby said.

  “But what if it’s my dad?”

  I was still half kissing him and half pushing him away when I heard Katie yell, “Oh my God, really?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  * * *

  I tossed and turned all night, both because I was nervous about how I’d do in the jumping phase and because I was wondering what I’d say to Katie in the morning. When we got up, it was downright pouring. The one outside final we had, and it decided to rain. But after what had happened the night before with Katie, the rain seemed only fitting.

  It was 5 a.m. as I pitched manure from Riley’s stall into the wheelbarrow and tried to figure out what I would say to her. Maybe she’d have thought about it overnight and realized she was crazy to be mad at me. After all, it wasn’t like she had some claim on Colby. Or maybe the more she’d thought about it, the more upset she’d gotten.

  I still hadn’t decided what I should say when I ran into her coming into the barn as I was going to the Porta Potti to change into one of my few beloved pairs of Pikeurs. She averted her eyes, and it was clear she was just going to keep walking right past me.

  “Katie,” I said, stopping her. “I’m sorry about what happened last night . . .”

  She squinted at me before saying, “I thought you were my friend.”

  “I am,” I tried. I thought about how she had put her arm around me after we’d left the tack shop, and I felt incredibly guilty for not having told her about Colby in the first place.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Do you want to borrow my spurs again?” I asked gently.

  “What do you think?” she snapped, and stalked off.

  The one Porta Potti next to the barn was occupied, and I had to wait in the rain for the longest time. I knocked to try to encourage the person to hurry up, but all I heard back was what sounded like a moan and then some shuffling around. I was about to go find another one when the door finally opened and Tara stumbled out looking green.

  Maybe it was because I’d just screwed up everything with my friendship with Katie or because I felt sorry for Tara, but I decided to be nice to her.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She leaned against the door of the Porta Potti, closed her eyes, and swallowed. “I can’t do this, Francie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She opened her eyes. They were glassy with tears. “I just can’t believe him,” she choked out. “And now it’s like I find out everyone on the whole circuit knew he and Maddie were hooking up.” She was close to breaking down in full-out tears, and for once she seemed almost human.

  “He’s a total dick,” I said. “You just have to forget about him and ride.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. You know you can.” I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. Was I giving Tara a pep talk?

  “No, I can’t!” Tara yelled. “You don’t understand anything! It doesn’t really matter how you do. You can go to college if you want. This is my life! This is all I have!”

  Our short-lived bonding experience came to an abrupt end as Tara burst into full-fledged tears and then ran off back toward the barn, leaving me with a putrid-smelling Porta Potti.

  “Weak, weak, weak!” Rob yelled at Tara.

  I was standing on the edge of the schooling area in my rain pants, raincoat, Wellies, and a now-soaked EquiFit baseball hat while Rob readied Tara to go onto the field. There had been some talk of moving the class off the field and into the ring but the weather radar showed the rain letting up so management had kept the class on the field.

  “Jump the vertical again!” Rob called to her. “And for God’s sake, pull it together!”

  Tara managed to ride the vertical decently, and Rob said, “That’ll have to do. Let’s head up.”

  At the in gate Rob stood at Riley’s neck facing Tara while I wiped off her Parlantis, which I had no idea how she could afford. He spoke in a firm but quiet voice and stared at her without blinking.

  “Ride aggressively, Tara. Don’t be weak at any jump. It’s slick, and who knows what he’ll do out there. You have to be the one to know. It’s up to you now. Get it done.”

  Tara straightened in the saddle like she was coming back to life and moved forward into the ring. I went to stand on the sidelines. The buzzer sounded. As Tara began her course, I scanned the stands for Katie but didn’t see her.

  Tara cleared the first few fences perfectly, and I began to think she’d managed to get herself together. She headed toward the bank, and I almost found myself rooting for her to pull it out. Riley jumped up the bank and then off neatly—the crowd becoming quieter with each jump. She nailed the water jump, handled the grob with ease, and cantered to the last line, clearly in position to win the class. She met the last two jumps well, and Rob clapped like crazy. I turned from the ring, suddenly not wanting to see Tara’s smug smile.

  But just then the crowd gasped. I looked back to see Tara flat out on the ground and Riley standing over her like he didn’t know what to do next.

  “What happened?” someone next to me said.

  “She just slid off,” came another voice.

  “What do you mean, she just slid off? She fell off?”

  “No, she slid off. Like she collapsed or something.”

  Someone else said, “She didn’t go through the timers.”

  I looked at the clock—it was still running, long past the generous time allowed.

  Susie ran into the ring first. Rob followed. I hesitated, still in shock. Rob yelled to me to come get Riley and I jogged in. When I reached Riley, the EMT was kneeling by Tara. “Get the ambulance in here,” he called over his walkie-talkie.

  Tara’s parents joined us, her mother frantically calling her name. “What’s wrong with her?” she asked the EMT. “Why won’t she wake up?”

  “Did she ingest anything unusual?” the EMT asked Tara’s parents. “Drugs of any kind? Cold medicine, diet pills? We need to know what we’re working with here.”

  Tara’s mother’s hand flew to her mouth. “She begged me to give her extra so she could lose a few more pounds.”

  “Extra what? Diet pills?”

  “No, just laxatives. Oh my God, my baby.”

  “She’s fine. She just passed out,” her father said. “She’ll be good enough to ride in the test.” He looked to Rob for confirmation.

  Rob must have seen the clock, too, or known that she had fallen before breaking the timers. “She’s eliminated,” he said.

  “But she finished the course,” Tara’s father said.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Was this actually happening? Had Tara really just laid down the perfect trip only to fall off before going through the timers? And was I happy she’d fallen off, or did I almost feel sorry for her? Everything I felt about her was all jumbled up.

  As I led Riley out of the ring, Tara’s father asked Rob, “So that’s it? She’s out?”

  “Yes!” he snapped. “She fell off! She’s out!”

  On my way back to the barn with Riley, I passed Katie coming up to the ring on Stretch. She was bundled up in a Helly Hansen raincoat and had the hood over her helmet so I could barely see her face. I was pretty sure it was futile, but I figured I would try again anyway.

  “Tara just fell off,” I said, hoping we might be able to bond over that at least.

  “Do you think I care?” she said, and continued on past me.

  After putting Riley in his stall, I went back up to the ring to help Camillo with Katie. Tara’s mother called from the hospital and talked to Susie. “She’s getting IV fluids and should be released in a few hours,” Susie reported after fielding the call.

  “I’m so relieved,” Rob said, his voice full of sarcasm. I knew all he cared about was that Tara had ruined his chance at the win.

  “Rob,” Susie said. “Connor broke up with her yesterday. He was cheating on her.”


  “So? Her boyfriend dumps her and she can throw it all away?”

  “It wouldn’t kill you to have a little compassion,” Susie muttered.

  I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, but lately things seemed tense between Rob and Susie.

  “You ready to jump?” Rob called out to Katie.

  The schooling area was really torn up. And so much for the rain letting up—dark clouds were overhead and it was only coming down harder.

  The good thing with all the rain, though, was that Stretch jumped the naturals fine, so Katie should have no problem. The fact that the field was a mess with divots and muddy patches could even benefit her. There’d been so many problems out there that anyone who got around—even Katie—had a shot at a ribbon. I could just imagine how happy that would make her father. It would also mean Rob would get his bonus. High six figures, someone had said. All that just for a ribbon at the finals.

  Katie picked up a trot, and at first I thought I noticed something funny in Stretch’s gait. But then she pressed him into a canter and he looked fine again. I figured it must have been the footing.

  Katie schooled all right, and we went up to the in gate. As she rode her opening circle, I still couldn’t help but wonder about Stretch. He didn’t look quite right. Not completely off or lame but a little uneven behind. Rob noticed it, too.

  “Susie, he look a little off to you?” he asked. “Right hind?”

  “He schooled fine,” she said.

  Katie picked up a canter.

  “Camillo!” Rob called. “You notice anything this morning?”

  Katie had cleared the first three jumps fine and was heading to a line near the in gate.