by Susan Juby
Alex wanted to face Chris and tell him about everything. That he’d lost his horse and his best friend. But he was afraid that if he started he’d break wide open. He couldn’t handle any more attachments. He didn’t want any kindness or pity. He didn’t want any risk. So he kept walking as he spoke.
“No. I’ve got to go home.” He kept his eyes on Detroit so he wouldn’t have to see Chris’s reaction.
There was silence for a moment and Alex knew Chris was waiting for him to say something, but he kept quiet. Eventually Chris said, “You know, Alex, I…” He stopped.
Alex looked up.
“I’m your friend,” he said. “If you want to talk.”
Friend, thought Alex. Great.
“I’m fine. See you later,” said Alex.
Chris bit his lip and then turned and walked back toward the road. Alex watched him go. He was too cold to feel the regret he knew was coming.
For once, Fergus and Ivan looked their ages. Alex knew it was because one of their students had gotten drunk and abandoned her horse at the show and the other was nearly catatonic after losing his horse to a vindictive owner.
“Damn,” muttered Fergus, who was behind the wheel. “Damn. Damn. Damn.”
Ivan just stared out the window.
“It’s okay,” said Alex from the backseat. “I mean, I don’t think Ms. Reed’s going to send Detroit for dog food or anything.”
No one laughed.
After several minutes Fergus spoke. “You had a lovely ride today,” he said.
Alex cleared his throat and blinked quickly.
“I know this…this business with Ms. Reed is disappointing,” continued Fergus. “The world’s full of disappointments.”
Ivan made a rude, snorting sound from the passenger seat.
“What?” asked Fergus.
“Bah,” said Ivan. “He doesn’t need the patitudes.”
“Platitudes. And yes, this is precisely the sort of situation that calls for a platitude.”
Alex smiled. Something about the exchange between the two men was making him feel better.
When they pulled into the Fords’ driveway Fergus and Ivan got out and helped Alex unload Detroit. Tandava whinnied loudly as her companion backed out of the trailer.
“Thanks,” Alex told his coaches, who stood shoulder to shoulder in the failing afternoon light.
“You’re okay, then?” said Fergus.
Alex nodded, too full of emotion to speak.
Fergus touched a hand to Alex’s shoulder and Ivan nodded abruptly, then walked quickly back to the truck and got in. Fergus lingered another few seconds.
“You’ve got the horse for a few more days?”
Alex nodded.
“We’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
Then he got back into the truck, turned around, and pulled away. Alex waved them past. He could hear Tandava kicking in the trailer. When they were gone he noticed his father standing near his RV.
Alex was suddenly uncomfortably aware that Detroit was still sheathed in the purple sheet blanket with the glittery Graceful Hair Designs logo.
“Those two, they’re your teachers?” said Mr. Ford.
Alex nodded.
“They got wives or anything?”
Alex didn’t answer.
“Jesus, they’re not like…that, are they?”
“I’ve got to put Detroit away,” said Alex.
“I’m trying to talk to you here.”
Alex started walking and his father followed. When Alex reached the gate he led Detroit through and closed it between him and his father, locking himself inside the pasture with the horses.
“Well?” said Mr. Ford.
“Well, what?”
“Those guys, those fancy riding guys. They ever try to touch you?”
“What?”
“I saw them. One of them touched you.”
“You don’t see anything,” said Alex. “Ms. Reed was right about that, anyway.”
His father took a step closer and Alex could see the muscles in his jaw working. His eyes were clear and Alex realized that his father was sober.
“If you think I’m just going to let you…”
“It’s not up to you.”
“I don’t want you going over there no more,” his father said.
Blood roared in Alex’s ears. He was glad for the fence, however flimsy, that separated them.
“Don’t worry,” he heard himself say. “I won’t be riding over there any more because your girlfriend is taking back her horse.”
“She said you, I mean, she made it sound like you were…like that.” In the fading light Alex could see the pain and confusion on his father’s face. All at once his own anger evaporated.
“I am,” he said simply. “And it’s not because of Fergus and Ivan. I just am.”
His father took a step back, shaking his head. “I thought she was just mad because I told her it was over. Between us.”
“Go back to your RV, Dad,” Alex said as gently as he could. Then he turned and walked to the barn, leaving his father standing, slump shouldered, outside the fence.
MARCH 10
25
Cleo
WHEN THE STONELEIGH jumping team went to watch the next class, a good decision maker might have decided it was time to jump ship. A clear-thinking, rational type probably would have thought, Hmmm, it seems that my companions are on heroin and since I don’t want to get involved in any movie-of-the-week-type situations, perhaps I’ll just head back to school to do homework. Or watch TV. Or take part in any number of safe, legal things. Unfortunately there were no clear-thinking people around to advise me.
So I pulled a chair in front of Rio’s stall and waited for Jenny and Frieda. The longer I sat there, the more hard-core I felt. I started thinking that I knew how homeless people feel. Homeless drug addicts! They are cold. They are friends with criminals and addicts. They sit around a lot, waiting for the shelter to open.
My cheeks even started to feel a bit sunken, drug-chic style. After about twenty minutes I was half-expecting someone to come by and interview me for a gritty documentary about the seedy underbelly of the young equestrienne community.
What I tried not to do was to think about my horse, or about Alex or Fergus or Ivan. When Phillipa walked by with her parents, I looked away, pretending I hadn’t seen her, so she wouldn’t come over. It worked. She took a step toward me, then veered back on course and kept going. I felt bad until I realized that that’s the kind of thing that happens to those of us in the hard drug scene. We lose friends.
I tried thinking about my life, but it was like diving into murky water. I attempted to draw some conclusions, but the only one that came was that I was so cold it was going to require heroin, PCP, magic mushrooms, and crack cocaine to get me warm again.
“Dude, you waited,” said Jenny as she came around the corner of the barn. Even she sounded surprised at how dumb that was. The crowds had thinned out. Most people were loading up their horses or watching the last few classes of the day while they waited to pick up the prizes they knew they’d won. The day felt spent, yet here I was, waiting around for something to start.
Jenny and Frieda had obviously been doing something. Their pupils were pinpricks and they were moving slowly. Their skin was kind of pasty and shiny. Whatever they’d been doing didn’t help their looks much, but I still wanted to be a part of it.
“So what should we do?” I asked, and felt all my street cred instantly disappear. Not that I had any street cred to begin with, but I should have known enough to at least pretend I was indifferent.
Frieda exhaled noisily, as though I’d just asked an extremely complicated question.
Jenny stepped in. “The three of us have been working hard all day. I mean, Cleo and I got up at five-thirty after we went to bed at three. What we need here is some R & R. I thought we could head into town. Maybe check out a couple of parties. You okay with that?”
I nodded, my mind full o
f thoughts of Cameron. And Alex, that liar.
“Oh, okay. What about Rio?” As I said it, I felt a wave of guilt for abandoning Tandy. Oh well, Alex and Fergus would take care of her.
Frieda exhaled again, even more loudly this time.
“It’s cool. I’ll leave a note for one of the other girls to load her and put her away at school. She’ll be fine,” said Jenny.
“Won’t Coach Pringle get mad if you don’t head back with the rest of the team?”
“Cleo, my friend, you worry too much. Pringle’ll just think I got a ride with you and your coaches.”
The three of us began walking toward my car. Jenny and Frieda walked like they were knee-deep in mud. I had to keep slowing to let them catch up.
Once we were in the car, Jenny turned to me. “Hey, Cleo?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you got any cash?”
“No, my allowance doesn’t come until next week.”
“What about your credit card?”
“There’s hardly any room left because I put a down payment for the car and some other stuff on it. Plus, I’m not allowed to get cash advances with it. My parents set it up like that.”
“Shit,” she said. “Okay. Then we’re going to need to make one quick stop.”
I looked from her to me. We were both still in our show clothes.
“Shouldn’t we get changed?” I asked.
“Nooooo,” complained Frieda from the backseat. “I just want to get somewhere. So we can relax.”
“Don’t worry, Soccer Mom,” Jenny said to me. “Everyone is going to love your tight pants.”
I turned the heat up as high as it would go, and pulled my new station wagon out of the parking lot.
Jenny asked me to pull over in front of a rundown house in the south end of Nanaimo. I stayed in the car and watched as Frieda and Jenny walked up some decrepit steps to a door covered in peeling gray paint. There were blankets hanging in the windows. It took about five minutes for someone to open up. A skinny guy started shaking his head as soon as he saw Frieda and Jenny. He stepped out onto the landing and looked up and down the street suspiciously.
Frieda and Jenny gestured at him, like they were pleading. Then Frieda turned and pointed toward the car. I ducked down as far as I could.
The thought flashed through my head that my roommate and her friend were trying to sell me into the white slave trade. They were arranging with scary drug guy to have my car jacked! Me murdered! I was not half hard enough for this scene. But my faulty decision-making skills again kicked into action and I continued sitting there.
Seconds later Jenny and Frieda were getting into the car.
“Dude. We need to go back to school,” said Jenny.
“What? Why?”
“We need that stuff you bought for our room. You know, the leather stool thing and all that.”
“And your iPod Nano,” said Frieda. “That’s sweet.”
I couldn’t believe it. They wanted to sell my things for drugs. This was even worse than Chad, that turd, stealing our furniture. I mean, at least that was my parents’ stuff. This was mine. Bought with my parents’ money, but still. I bought it for us.
“Cleo. It’s for the cause,” said Jenny.
“Take one for the team, babe,” said Frieda.
“Look, I don’t know.”
“We’ll get it back,” said Jenny, outright lying to me now.
“Think of it like a bargaining chip,” added Frieda.
I sighed and started the car.
A half hour later we were back at the shitty old house and Jenny and Frieda had carried my DVD player, my iPod and speaker, and my leather stool inside. They wanted me to give up my laptop, too, but I told them my parents would freak. In truth, all I’d have to say is that I dropped it. My parents would never know the difference. I didn’t do it, though. I was worried about how many drugs a laptop would buy. I didn’t want Jenny and Frieda to OD or anything.
This time they left me sitting in the car for what seemed like hours. Darkness crept down the street and people began to appear on the cracked old sidewalks. A couple of young guys in baggy shorts and oversized down-filled coats sat on low-rider bicycles in front of a run-down convenience store on the corner.
“Hurry up,” I whispered. The car kept losing heat, so every few minutes I had to start it up and let the heater run, doing my part to contribute to global warming.
When Jenny and Frieda finally came out of the house they smelled like cat pee, and instead of being all slow and drowsy, they were hyper and twitchy. They started talking as soon as they got their car doors open. I had this strong sense of being the woman in charge. The person in control. The soccer mom.
“Okay, okay, Cleo. We didn’t forget you. We’re going to go to a party.”
“It’s going to be so fun,” said Frieda. “So fun. So, so fun.”
Sober and stiff from sitting in the cold car, I started the engine.
“I really think we should get something to eat,” I said in my best Cleo-in-Charge voice.
“Are you kidding?” Jenny squeaked.
“Eww! No,” said Frieda, from the backseat. “No, no, no.”
I followed Jenny’s directions and drove us out of the south end and up toward Westwood Lake. We parked in the driveway of a house in the middle of a subdivision so new that the front yards were just dirt. All the houses looked identical in the dark. It was only about seven o’clock, but felt much later. There was only one other car in the driveway of the house.
I followed Jenny and Frieda up to the front door, wishing, as we went, that I was somewhere else. Anywhere else, actually. I comforted myself with the thought that maybe Cameron would be here. He was cute and he made me laugh. He didn’t say much, but I knew he was into me and that was enough. I had already planned how I would tell him what Alex had said and how he’d reassure me that Alex must be on the pipe even more than my companions. Then we’d make out.
A woman wearing tight jeans and a lot of eyeliner answered the door. Her face was tense and hard and her bleached hair was tangled up in a banana comb.
From what I could see, the house was basically empty. One little love seat sat by itself in the middle of a beige, carpeted living room. There were no pictures on the sand-colored walls. Most of the lights were off. I saw no sign of a party.
Jenny stayed upstairs to talk to the woman and I followed Frieda downstairs. The cat pee smell I’d detected on Jenny and Frieda was even stronger in the basement. It was making my eyes water. A couple of candles gave off the only light. As my eyes adjusted I could see kids sitting on couches, sitting on the floor, leaning against the walls.
I’ve watched enough TV to know a drug den when I see one, and this was definitely a drug den.
I stood like an idiot, staring at the people on the couch, who were passing something back and forth. It looked like a glass pipe. I wondered what they were serving for dinner at school. I wondered how I was going to get out of here.
“Here,” Frieda whispered like we were in church. She put a beer into my hand and pushed me in the direction of an empty chair.
“Is this the party?” I whispered back.
“Shhh,” said Frieda, and then she moved away from me and knelt down in front of a group of people on the couch who were all staring at something on the coffee table. Drugs. They were staring at drugs.
I wondered if the drug lord guy would keep my iPod and listen to it. If he did, would he like the songs I had on there? Was he a Jack Johnson fan? He didn’t look like one, but you never know.
To stop myself from (a) dying of hunger and (b) wondering anything else, I drank my beer as fast as I could. I just wanted to relax, get into the party atmosphere. Well, maybe not completely into it. I wasn’t going anywhere near that pipe. At least not right now.
Frieda got up and gave me another drink and pointed to a wall against which several cases of beer were stacked. No one else seemed to be drinking.
I got the third bee
r for myself because Frieda was busy at the coffee table.
A light opened up at the top of the stairwell and blinked out again when the door closed. A few seconds later Jenny crouched down beside me.
“You find him?” she whispered.
“Who?”
“Your guy. He’s supposed to be here.”
I shook my head, feeling dizzy.
When I got up to get another beer, I tried not to stare at Jenny and Frieda as they huddled around the coffee table with the other couch people. Jenny’s breeches shone white in the candlelight. There was some electronic music playing, but it was very faint.
I had to go to the bathroom, so I got up and went looking in the direction I’d seen a couple of other people head. One door opened to small room containing a washing machine and dryer.
The second door opened up to a bedroom. There was a twist of movement in the darkness as I opened the door. Two people. I couldn’t see their faces, but I knew instantly that one of them was Cameron. The other was some man. I stood, frozen in the doorway. Then Cameron picked something off the floor to shield the whiteness of his body. The man stared back at me, his eyes the only true black in the room.
“Oh,” I said. Then I turned and ran.
I went up the stairs two at a time. Jenny called after me, but I didn’t slow down.
I crossed to the front door of the house in about two strides. Then I was puking on somebody’s lawn. When I finished, I got in the car, but couldn’t get the keys to work because my hands were shaking and my eyes were watering. From the fumes. From the dark.
Finally the stupid Soccer Mom Mobile started and I took off. From the corner of my eye I saw a family come and stand in the brightly lit picture window of a house as I raced the car across their patch of dirt. Then I was gone.
I made it almost all the way down the hill, part of the time on two wheels. I might even have managed to make the turn-off to Jingle Pot Road if the telephone pole hadn’t gotten in the way. One minute I was flying through the dark in the Soccer Mom Mobile and the next there was a pole buried in the hood of the car. The shriek of crumpling metal seemed to come a second after the impact and the soft boom of multiple air bags hit me with satisfying violence, leaving me suspended between them, my nose dripping red all over the white plastic.