by Leslee Green
A little kink formed in Linda’s chest upon hearing this but, before her heart broke, a little voice in her head rushed to her aid and reassured her not to worry because he would definitely change for her, which she thought was a little weird.
"Well, you never know.” She said with cautious optimism. “At some point, you're going to retire. You're old for a bull rider, after all."
“I’m not that old. Could have ten years left.”
Linda didn’t want to wait ten years, but again the strange persona in her mind gave her a wink and reminded her that she wouldn’t have to. Was she insane?
When they were done, Blake drove Linda home in the dark on a road that rolled up and down like the ocean, making her stomach react. Each time the headlights came down onto a new section of road, Linda feared that it would be the turnoff for her own destination, ultimately ending their night together.
She wished they could roll on, bobbing up and down on the creaky springs of the truck, safe inside its cabin, until they reached some far off place and lived a new life, happily ever after.
Instead, the brakes squeaked as they stopped in front of her house with the engine still running.
“Thank you, Blake,” she said and they gave each other a kiss goodbye that lasted for a moment.
“Should we make another scene?” he asked.
“No thanks. You’ve caused enough trouble.”
“I hope not.”
Linda got out of the vehicle and he made sure she got to the door before driving away, but she sat on the porch for a while, avoiding her stepfamily and feeling the night, wondering how this whole thing would end.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As the week progressed, Linda played it very coy with her stepmother, acting like she was working on the problem and pretending to remain bravely enthusiastic while making no progress.
In reality, she thought that several of the prospects from the grocery store would pay off, but as the days passed, no new students showed up.
She would walk up to her sisters after work and look at them, wanting to ask them if new customers had shown up but not wanting to clue them in to anything.
“What?” they would ask rudely. Linda wouldn’t respond.
Blake talked to Linda on the phone as he prepared for his trip, setting up the camper on his truck for the nights he would sleep in the back. She expressed her concerns about the lack of customers to him with each passing day, and he calmed her and reassured her, telling her, “Just wait ‘till Saturday.”
Some nights after work she would look around for her fairy godmother, but there was no sign of her. She wondered why she hadn’t shown up when Linda needed help finding customers for the stables, or if maybe she was waiting until the last minute to swoop in and save the day when things went awry.
It was strange that she had grown to trust the old woman. It was not only Blake who had come into her life and made it better, but this bag lady also who was a mystery and who seemed to care what happened to her for some reason.
With very little forward progress in her life for quite a long time, suddenly she had multiple moving pieces at play. Why had her fairy godmother shown up in her life at the same time that Blake had? Were the events somehow related?
She wished the old woman was there with her. She wanted to ask her what she was supposed to do when Blake left town. How did that factor into the grander scheme? Was this all for nothing?
Linda sat on a bale of hay in the parking lot, waiting to leave with her sisters, flipping her Stetson hat over in her hands. She examined every detail of the hat. Held it up to the sun. She wanted to know if it was the same as she remembered. If over time it had grown as she had, or if it remained the same as the day Blake had handed it to her years ago and she took it home with her father. She couldn’t tell.
No new customers arrived at the stable, and now it was Friday night. Linda went home and went to bed, nervous about what was to become of her.
In the morning, the house was awake as usual, her sisters preparing for work as she was. They often wouldn’t show up for work during weekdays, which Linda had to remind herself was actually perfectly normal, but these mysterious “days off,” as they were called, never happened on weekends because that was most often when some farmer would come in and hand over a few hundred dollars for manure, or someone would pay their board fees in cash.
Some of the money would go to the stables and some would sneak away. If any new customers did show up today, Linda hoped that they would pay by check.
As the car pulled past the barn which was still dark red and wet from the morning, the long line of eager Blake fans clawing at the office door was not to be found. In fact, not a car was in the parking lot until they pulled in. But it was very early, Linda reminded herself, and she said hello to the horses before she turned them out for the day.
Partway through the morning, Blake arrived. He set Linda on a stack of hay and she felt it poking her through her jeans as he kissed her. A week from today he would be gone.
“You ready to make some money?” he asked.
“We need some customers first.”
“They’re coming!”
Blake rolled the wheelbarrow to the manure pile for Linda and he was much faster at it than she was because he was much bigger. They were able to scrape the stables very quickly and finished bedding them and, at around eleven o’clock, a mini-van pulled into the parking lot. Blake and Linda shared a look.
A woman exited the vehicle, saw Blake, and waved her hands at him high in the air as if she were farther away from him than she actually was. He waved back and she hollered, “Hi, Blake!”
It was the first woman he had spoken to at the grocery store. She had actually come!
“You must be Sally and Sue!” Blake said to two girls who exited the van as he came close. Upon hearing this, they turned to their mother and, with a look, let her know that they were surprised that she wasn’t lying about meeting Blake and happy that she wasn’t.
“And I’m sorry, your mom told me your name too but I forgot.”
“I’m Morgan. Nice to meet you, Blake.”
“Nice to meet you too, young lady.” Blake shook the girls’ hands. “Okay, who gets the first private bull riding lesson?”
“I do!” the girls shouted.
“Alright, we’ve got a real arm jerker all riled up in the pen waiting for you gals, he’s real angry today because he hasn’t had his breakfast. Hope y’all are ready to cowgirl up!”
The girls laughed and didn’t know what to believe.
“Why don’t we just start with some horseback riding, Blake?” Their mother asked.
“Well, mamma knows best,” he said to the girls.
Linda, as much as she enjoyed watching Blake interact with people, felt obligated to introduce herself.
“Hello, girls, I’m Linda. I’m the regular instructor here at the Stagecoach.”
The girls said hello and were polite and enthusiastic.
“We didn’t bring their horse, is that alright?” their mother asked.
“Oh yeah, that’ll be fine, we’ll just borrow a few horses for the day. Let’s go get them signed up in the office and we’ll do a lesson with the three of them.”
Just then, a honking horn caught their attention and a white, four-door truck pulled into the parking lot towing a horse trailer. A girl about twelve hopped out of the passenger side and her mother, whom Blake also had spoken to at the supermarket, came out of the driver's side.
“Howdy, Blake!” the mom hollered.
Linda didn’t know what to do.
"Go on with them, Linda, I'll stay out here," Blake said and Linda trusted him to take care of things. It was better for him to greet their new customers because most of them were there to see him anyway.
Linda opened the office door for Sue and her sisters and their mother and, as she followed them into the office, she watched yet another horse trailer being towed into the parking lot with Blake waving at the driver, guiding her
in. Linda guessed that their attempt had been successful!
“Can I help you?” Caroline asked in the worst way humanly possible from behind a counter.
“These young ladies would like to sign up for some horseback riding lessons.”
The girls and their mother greeted Caroline and Emily, not understanding that they were rude and awful, but learning quickly. Linda stayed inside to distract them and made sure that, as they filled out the liability forms, they didn’t change their mind based on her step sister’s behavior.
Linda asked the girls about their experience and their ambitions and they were so enthusiastic and graceful, showing great excitement for their riding lessons, that it made Linda feel as if she was doing something good for the world and she too got excited to get started.
It took some time and they were close to finishing the paperwork, but some kind of commotion was growing outside and Linda could hear Blake in front of the office talking to people. Through the foggy glass of the door on the trailer that made up the office building, she could make out his tall figure moving around and being engaged by multiple people at once.
She opened the door to see who was out there and, to her surprise, a small crowd had gathered.
“Blake?” she asked.
There were twenty people around him! Mostly girls of riding age and their mothers, along with more cars, trucks, and trailers in the parking lot.
“We’ve got some customers,” he said.
“What kind of eventing does this stable host?” a woman asked Blake.
“Blake! My horse is named Blueberry!” a younger girl shouted.
“Will these instructions include show jumping?” another mother asked.
Blake was trying to come up with answers.
Caroline and Emily emerged from the office and moved, with Linda, to address the crowd of people who were mobbing Blake.
An adult woman with a revealing flannel shirt tied together under her chest instead of buttoned made her way towards Blake. All three sisters saw it.
With one hand, she gently twirled her shiny black hair and with the other, she took the manicured nail on her index finger, placed it on Blake's shoulder, and ran it all the way down his arm.
“Do you teach private lessons?” she asked.
“NO!” Linda, Caroline, and Emily shouted, all three of them in unison, agreeing completely for the first time on anything.
Caroline and Emily moved in front of Blake to prevent any more arm touching and Linda said to him, “Everybody needs to fill out the form and the waiver and then we can start.”
“Start what?” he asked.
“Riding horses!”
With a little effort and time, and the help of Emily and Caroline, twelve girls (and no adult women) got signed up for their lessons and Linda broke the girls up into two class groups of six girls each for the day, both of which were promised that Blake would be in attendance.
Borrowing a couple horses from the stable and hoping their owners didn’t appear, along with the horses and saddles that were brought by their owners, some being shared between sisters, they managed to come up with enough for both lessons, the first beginning immediately.
Linda began by taking the first group of girls to the barn and showing them basic saddling technique but, with their mothers in attendance and another full class waiting in the stands, she wanted to get them into the arena quickly and did so.
None of the girls were completely unfamiliar with riding, so after a brief breakdown of mounting technique, assisted by Blake who had a completely different and contradictory technique that was not helpful, and some humorous arguing, the girls were mounted up and, before long, were walking in a circle around the arena with phone cameras recording them from the stands.
Some very basic introductory riding lessons were given. They were easy to teach and easy to learn, creating an atmosphere that was smooth and fun. Blake made the girls laugh and was good at putting them at ease when they made a mistake, tossing a lighthearted joke into the air loud enough that their mothers could enjoy it as well, but never putting anyone down.
There was a danger of the lesson becoming somewhat informal but Linda, who was a very experienced rider as well as instructor, maintained control of the small group and was stern enough to motivate the girls into focusing and following her direction while being sweet enough to make them comfortable.
The day passed into afternoon and the high sun kept the covered arena in the shade. The transition from one group to the next was slow as the parents and kids chatted with Blake and asked Linda questions. She worked out regular riding schedules with the girls based on their upcoming school schedules and tried to group them together as best she could, based on their riding levels.
Everything went smoothly and continued to do so as the second lesson began, with almost everyone from the first sticking around to watch Blake or, in many cases, a sibling they were sharing a horse with.
Blake was having a great time, feeling carefree as usual and riding close to the fence, talking to the parents often, waving at their cameras. But he was also watching Linda.
He hadn't known how knowledgeable she was about the subject of riding and discovered how qualified she was to not only instruct, but potentially to ride professionally.
She was a mother duck followed close behind by six ducklings on horseback, zigging and zagging across the arena, learning how to stop and line up, and faithfully following their leader.
Linda was kind to them, but was quick to correct them when necessary in a way that seemed effective. Watching her do something she was good at and was clearly passionate about caused his feeling for her to grow, and a student from the first lesson who was leaning up against the nearby fence caught him staring.
“Is that your girlfriend, Blake?” she asked, blushing.
“Is that what it looks like?”
The girl nodded. “It looks like you like her,” she said, holding laugher in with her teeth.
Blake, finding out it was obvious, figured he might as well go back to staring. “I do,” he said, which made the little girl very happy.
Towards the end of the lesson, as the early afternoon sun leaned its face down over the edge of the open cover of the arena, Linda noticed that a sleek, black SUV was sitting in the parking lot above them.
A chill ran through her, but she remembered to smile as she gave the students some final instructions and came down from her horse to teach them how to safely dismount.
As she and her students led the horses towards the barn, she kept the corner of her eye on the black SUV and she felt like it was looking back at her.
She finished showing the girls some of the tack in the barn, but was having trouble focusing. The lesson had gone quite long anyway, so she led the girls back to their mothers and Blake followed as well.
As she chatted with the group, she noticed that her stepmother was now standing at the edge of the parking lot. She wore her usual clothing and kept her hands crossed in front of her, polite and frightening, her chin lifted so that she was looking down on Linda with an awful stare.
She was like a ghost that only Linda could see, and her eyes remained on her alone.
"Excuse me," Linda said to the girls and their mothers who stayed around to talk to Blake.
“You have new students?” Linda’s stepmother asked as Linda came near.
“Yes, lots of them, Blake helped and we signed up a bunch of new lessons.”
“Is that what we discussed?”
“Well, we discussed boarders, but I thought that, since you asked for more customers... this would be fine.”
“But it’s not what we discussed,” the woman said.
The cold feeling came back into Linda and she realized what this woman was about to try to do to her. Her stepmother noticed the pain she was causing Linda and her mouth was right on the cusp of cracking her thin-lipped, devious smile.
“No. But-“
“Linda?” a woman who had approa
ched from behind interrupted. “Hi,” she said to her stepmother with a smile, proving that the woman wasn’t a ghost. “We’re going to leave Blueberry here, if that’s alright,” she said to Linda.
“Blueberry?”
“Our horse. Her name is Blueberry. We’d like to board her while the girls are taking lessons; that would be much more convenient. They’ll take turns coming down and helping you after school when it starts, it’s about time they learned anyway. That is, if you have the room.”
Linda made a very slow, intentional turn towards her stepmother. “I don’t know,” she looked in her eyes and asked, “do we have the room?”
The woman only stared back at Linda coldly, gears inside her grinding against each other and snapping.
Nearby, another woman holding a horse by its reins called out, “Do they have the space?”
Linda’s stepmother looked to where the voice was coming from and noticed at least four horses she did not recognize, none of them being loaded into their trailers.
“We’ve got plenty of room for the horses!” Linda yelled to the other woman, and to the one close by said, “Yes, that’ll be fine. We’ll work it out in the office.” And when she turned back to her stepmother, the woman was already halfway to her car, pacing on her wooden heels.
Linda could not help but silently rejoice at a very solid victory.
“My step sisters will get you squared away, I’ll show the girls where we’ll keep Blueberry. I’ve got the perfect stall for her.”
A whole heaping pile of money was made that day and Linda hoped that maybe it was a good sign for her future. She ended up staying late at work, showing some of the girls how to line their stalls with bedding and give their horses some dinner before saying goodbye to her and Blake.
Linda worked out offers to charge less to the families of girls who would help with some of the boarding duties, leaving less work for Linda.
Her sisters were there too, in the office, collecting money and filing forms, making schedules and actually working for once.
“Can your sisters give you a ride home?” Blake asked Linda as the last of the customers were starting their cars.