by Susan Juby
“God!” I shouted. “You’re not listening to me.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Is Daddy there? Does he want to talk to me?”
“Honey, you know he’s on set and can’t be disturbed over minor things.”
“Nearly getting killed is not a minor thing! I can’t stay here. The school sucks. The people suck. And my riding’s just getting worse.”
I quickly looked over at Phillipa. She was staring at the floor.
“Tell you what,” said my mother. “We’ll get you a new instructor. We’ll even get you a new horse if that’s what it takes.”
“Whatever,” I said. “Do what you want. I’ll just be over here doing street drugs to deal with the pain of my broken ankle.”
“Oh, Cleo,” said my mother. “Please don’t take anything that isn’t prescribed by a doctor. Darling, I have to go. Daddy says hello.” Without missing a beat her voice switched back into bitch mode. “That is not going to happen. You tell that lazy bastard that he better get his ass back on set right now or I’ll get him blacklisted with every director in Hollywood and Africa. You hear me?” Then she hung up.
I slammed the phone down on the desk a couple of times, then put the receiver back in the stand.
“The phone still works,” I said, picking it up and turning it on so Phillipa could hear the dial tone.
“Good,” she said.
“And, uh, you don’t really suck. I just said that.”
Phillipa’s round pink face flushed slightly. She hesitated for a moment and then asked, “Are you doing drugs?”
“Just Tylenol.”
“And what was that about getting defrauded?”
“Oh, that. There was just this thing with this guy back home. It’s nothing.”
“Okay,” she said. “Well, I guess I should head back to my room.”
“Seriously. I’m not on drugs. I’m just high-strung,” I said.
“If you say so,” said Phillipa, but she smiled when she said it.
She really is a nice girl. Someday I may tell her about the little incident with Chad. Actually, since I’ve brought it up here, I might as well get the whole thing off my chest. I never should have gotten in the front seat. That’s where the trouble started.
Chad drove me to riding lessons for almost four years. I looked forward to those drives out to the barn for my dressage lessons. We had these terrific conversations, although I didn’t say much. I didn’t need to. Chad was extremely charming and open. He was twenty-two and he talked to me like I was an adult instead of a teenager. He said I was easy to talk to, that none of the other people he drove listened as well as I did. He said I listened like a much older girl.
For the first three years and seven months, I rode in the back of the car. Then one day I came running out to the car with my sneakers untied, carrying my boot bag. I was late and Dawn was going to be pissed. Chad had been waiting for at least fifteen minutes. I tried never to be late for my drives with Chad. They were half the reason I loved riding lessons so much.
“I’m so sorry,” I said as I ran to the driver’s window, which he had rolled down.
“No prob, C.” He hesitated and then looked deep into my eyes. “Why don’t you hop in up front here?”
I felt my heart flutter.
“Okay. Sure.”
“It’s easier for us to talk that way,” he said as he grinned at me. “I want to know what’s happening in the Kingdom of Cleopatra.”
I looked back at the house. No one was watching. My parents were in Germany, and they never looked out the window even when they were home.
“Hang on,” said Chad, getting out of the car.
He followed me around to the passenger side. His suntanned hand brushed my arm as he took my boot bag. “Let me get that,” he said, as he put it in the backseat. Then he opened the passenger door for me.
“My lady,” he said as he gestured for me to get in.
With him opening my door and everything, it suddenly felt like I was on a date. A real date, my first. And it was with the most beautiful guy in the world.
That was the last time I got into the front seat in our driveway. After that I got into the backseat, as usual, but once we were out of sight of the house he pulled over and I got into the front seat so I could hear him better.
One day, after I’d been sitting up beside him for a few weeks, he asked if I wanted to play a little game.
“Sure. Yeah!” I said. If he’d suggested we play a quick round of Russian Roulette, I’d have been right there.
“It’s like truth or dare. Only there’s no dare part.”
“Okay,” I said, already feeling us getting closer. More intimate.
“It’s kind of a sexy little game,” he said. “I think you’re going to like it.”
“Okay,” I said, trying not to sound as breathless as I felt.
He went first. He told me that he liked my eyes.
I told him that I thought he was a really excellent driver.
“Thanks, hon,” he said, which made my thighs go all quivery.
“You look really good in those riding pants,” he said.
I made a noise between a squeak and a giggle.
“I love your hair.” I didn’t mention that for almost four years I’d been in love with the back of his head.
“Thanks, babe,” he said.
Oh, I loved the sexy little game, which is how I always thought of it. We played it every time he drove me to and from the barn. He told me that he dreamed of becoming a competitive surfer. He told me how hard it was to find surfing sponsors. How his employers at the car service company weren’t cool about giving him time off to compete.
Because of my sheltered existence and my school’s annoying emphasis on academics and athletics as opposed to sophisticated life experience, I only had so many secrets to share. When your whole life consists of going to school, watching TV, and taking riding lessons, you tend not to build up much of a store of secrets. I could have told him that I felt lonely most of the time, except when he was driving me to lessons, but then it would have been a depressing little game instead of a sexy one.
We even shared very small secrets. Household secrets. I used a Sonicare toothbrush. He used Crest Whitestrips. He told me where he kept the spare key to his apartment. I told him where we kept ours. It was all part of the sexy little game!
“I really feel like I can tell you anything,” he said, one day after we’d been playing the game for a few months.
I tried to control my face. I felt like he just told me he loved me.
“Look, I’ll prove it. Here’s the PIN number for my bank card,” he said.
I was so moved I told him the security code for our house alarm.
He turned the car into a strange neighborhood and pulled over.
“You’re amazing, C.,” he said. “I love that we have no secrets.”
Then he leaned over and kissed me. He slipped his hand between my knees. He tasted like salt and mint breath spray. After we kissed, he drove me the rest of the way home with his hand on my thigh, like I was his girlfriend. Or his wife. We stayed like that until he pulled over a couple of blocks from our place so I could get into the backseat.
I left the next morning for a four-day riding camp. My parents were in Budapest. When I got back I discovered our house crawling with cops. They’d been called by Consuela, our housekeeper, who arrived after her day off to discover the house had been robbed. Stripped bare. I instantly knew that Chad was responsible because whoever robbed us hadn’t broken any locks or set off the alarm system. I was sad that his dream of becoming a pro surfer and traveling to all the big competitions required that he take not only all our antique vases, but also our art, furniture, electronics, and carpets. Still, he’d left my plastic horse collection, which I took as evidence that he loved me, even if he had gone a little overboard with stealing the rest of our stuff.
The cops and my parents were extremely suspicious, but I tried
to throw them off the scent. I wasn’t about to rat out the man I loved and who probably loved me. My parents, especially my dad, were furious that they’d had to leave in the middle of the shoot. I didn’t bow to pressure.
“No,” I told them. “I don’t have any idea how anyone could have discovered the code.”
I waited a few days until things had calmed down before I went to see Chad. I wanted to wish him well in his surfing and let him know that even though our house was basically an empty shell, his love for me was keeping me warm and comfortable and I was willing to wait for him to achieve all his surfing goals before we got married.
I didn’t know where Chad lived but he’d told me where he liked to surf, so I caught a bus to Manhattan Beach. It turned out that Manhattan Beach went on for what felt like approximately a hundred miles. I was on the verge of giving up when I finally spotted Chad. He was sitting on the sand, his surfboard beside him. As soon as I saw him, I knew I’d done the right thing. Look at him, I thought. He’s financially secure for the first time in his life, thanks to me. I walked quickly toward him.
“Chad!” I cried. “Chad!”
He turned at the sound of my voice. When I was about twenty feet away I broke into a run.
“Chad!” I said.
He kind of jumped to his feet and held out his arms. I went to throw myself into them. Only it turns out he wasn’t holding his arms out in a romantic, catch-a-flying-girl kind of way. He was holding them out in a defensive way, so I kind of bounced off him.
He looked around. “Cleo,” he said without much enthusiasm.
“Chad,” I said.
“Dude, what are you doing here?”
Dude?
“But I just wanted—”
“Cleo, man. You shouldn’t be here.”
Man?
“But you…we. What about us?”
I looked and finally noticed the tall, thin woman he’d been sitting beside. If I had to describe her in a police lineup, I’d have used the word model-y.
He patted the air, indicating that I should pipe down.
“Chad?” said the undeniably hot girl, who still hadn’t gotten to her feet. It was a good thing, too, because she was nearly as tall as me when she was sitting.
“Dude, you have to split,” said Chad. “This isn’t cool.”
“Chad? What’s going on?” asked the girl. When the girl squinted she looked just like Kate Moss.
“It’s cool. This is Cleo. I work for her parents. She’s just a—”
That’s when the big guy in the surfer shorts walked up.
“Fancy meeting you two here,” he said. Then he dug around in his shorts and pulled out a private investigator’s I.D.
“Chad?” said Kate Moss.
“Chad?” I said, still trying to figure out what was happening.
“Look, man, I barely know this girl. She’s been coming on to me…. It’s like she’s obsessed or something.”
“Chad?” said Kate Moss again.
“You took our TVs,” I said.
Chad spoke to the investigator like I wasn’t even there.
“It was her idea,” he said. “She asked me to steal their stuff.”
“Chad,” said the investigator in a disappointed voice.
The point of this story is that I have occasionally displayed what my mother refers to as “faulty decision-making.” But I am completely confident that my worst decisions are behind me. I’m pretty certain, anyhow.
Three days after I told my mom I wanted to leave Stoneleigh, I was pulled out of class for a phone call. Right away I was convinced that my parents had been killed by one of those giant parasites they have everywhere in Africa. You know, those ten-foot worms that burrow their way into the skin of your foot and have to be pulled out of your elbow. Maybe they stepped outside and were run down by a herd of stampeding rhinos or mauled by a pack of wild jackals. I wish my parents could occasionally work on movies set somewhere normal, but it’s always the Arctic Circle or Timbuktu or some place.
I walked into the office, and the secretary pointed me toward the office of Ms. Green, the headmistress.
Ms. Green’s face was a mottled, reddish color and her forehead was furrowed as though she was busy trying to work out very complicated math. I recognized the look. It meant she’d been talking to my mother. At least my mother was still alive.
“Here’s Cleo now,” said Ms. Green, and quickly handed me the phone.
“Hello?”
“Honey! Good news!”
I flicked a glance at Ms. Green.
“Uh, hi, Mom. Why are you calling me here? This is the principal’s office.”
“I’m in Africa, darling,” she said, as though that explained everything. “I just wanted to let you know that we’ve found you a new instructor. Instructors, actually. I’ve arranged everything with Ms. Green. Your horse will be moved to the new barn and until we get you a car, a staff member from the school will drive you to and fro. A female staff member. A Mrs. Dirt, I believe.”
“You mean Mrs. Mudd. How did—?”
“We were incredibly lucky to get Fergus and Ivan. It took considerable coaxing from my contacts to get them to take you on.”
“Who—?”
“They were trainers in Europe,” she said, her voice going all breathy. “I got their names from Princess Fontania. She’s European royalty. Minor royalty, but still. She’s fabulously wealthy and marvelously eccentric. She lives here in the hotel with the man who used to be her footman. It would be absolutely scandalous if the two of them weren’t at least eighty-five years old. She used to ride dressage and she swears Fergus and Ivan are the best. Can you believe that they retired to Vancouver Island recently, not far at all from your school? Okay, darling, must fly. One of the caterers just made eye contact with our lead actress and she won’t come out of her trailer.”
The phone went dead and I handed the receiver to Ms. Green, who raised one eyebrow as she hung it up.
My new coaches didn’t seem very thrilled to meet me, or Phillipa, whom I brought along for moral support.
When we got out of the Stoneleigh truck, the tall, elegant one, who had a thick head of white hair, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, “One, we only agreed to take one. This is two.” He spoke to the shorter, bald man beside him as though Phil and I weren’t standing right in front of them.
Mrs. Mudd, the school driver, smirked.
“I just drive ’em,” she said.
The short bald one, who had clear blue eyes that crinkled at the corners, held out his hand to Phillipa. “Hello, love,” he said.
Phillipa blushed madly. “Oh, no. She’s Cleo,” she giggled. “I’m just her friend.”
“There is nothing more important than a friend, my dear. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Phil’s face was so red it looked like her head was going to explode. She stared, awestruck, at her hand as though it had turned to gold.
Then the short man turned to me. “And hello to you, my dear. We’ve heard so much about you.”
That made it my turn to blush. He was very courtly. I could totally picture him knowing a princess.
“I’m Fergus and this is Ivan,” the short man continued, nodding toward the tall one, who stood behind him. “We understand you’re interested in joining us for dressage lessons.”
The tall one sniffed rudely. He wore a white blouse with poufy sleeves and tall, shiny brown boots over breeches. He looked like an old, bitchy pirate. Minus the earring.
“You want me to unload the horse now?” asked Mrs. Mudd.
Fergus, who was working the English country-gentleman look of brown cords and soft green quilted vest over a cabled Irish knit sweater, blinked quickly. “You mean you’ve brought the horse here? We haven’t even discussed Cleo’s needs.”
“I’m not pulling that horse trailer around for my health,” said Mrs. Mudd. “Anyway, I don’t care about the details. I just drive these little girls and their ponies where
I’m told. And I was told that this particular girl was moving her horse here. And good riddance, too, because that mare is a pain in the ass to load, if you catch my drift.”
The tall, white-haired, blouse-wearing man leveled an offended glare at Mrs. Mudd, who didn’t seem disturbed by it.
“Well,” said Fergus, looking from Phil to me. “Isn’t this fun?”
Mrs. Mudd didn’t waste any more time with idle chitchat. She stalked around to the back of the six-horse trailer and unloaded Tandava, who came out at her usual backward gallop. Mrs. Mudd handed me the lead rope. As soon as I took it, she climbed into the truck to read her novel.
Tandy turned around and around in anxious circles as I tried to hang on to her. “This is Tandava,” I said.
“She’s Cleo’s horse,” added Phil.
“You don’t say,” said Fergus.
Ivan just stared. Finally, he pointed. At me or at Tandy. I couldn’t tell which, so I just stood there while she stepped all over herself as she snorted and looked wildly around.
“Phillipa, be a love and help Cleo take off the mare’s rug and shipping boots,” said Fergus.
Cautiously, Phil and I got Tandy’s gear off.
Ivan stared at her some more, his face working with disapproval. Then he tossed his head and waved his hand. If we’d been on board a pirate ship I’d have thought he was giving the signal to push somebody overboard. Luckily Fergus was there to interpret.
“Sweetheart, Ivan would like you to walk her out so he can see her move.”
I walked Tandava past them.
“Trot,” instructed Fergus. I quickened my pace until Tandy broke into a trot.
I went as far down the driveway as I could and then slowed her to a walk and led her back.
“My goodness, you have a very nice horse there,” said Fergus.
“What a terrible, terrible waste,” said Ivan, before he turned on his heel and stalked off toward the house.
We enjoyed another awkward silence until Fergus clapped his hands and rubbed them briskly together. “Not to worry, dear girls. He’ll come around. Let’s get this beautiful lady settled, shall we?”
Limestone, Ivan and Fergus’s farm, is on the edge of a lake. I don’t think it’s a swimming lake or anything. It’s more like the kind of lake that swans and ducks hang out in. A dark forest borders one side of the property and on the other side green fields roll all the way down to the lake. Fergus and Ivan’s house is nestled at the base of the hill. The house suits the setting perfectly, with windows on all sides. The stables and indoor arena and outdoor ring are just as attractive as the house. I was actually a little surprised at how nice the whole place was. You have to hand it to my mom. Even from Africa she can locate a money situation.