A Horse of Her Own

by Annie Wedekind

  It was Jose who remembered that high-strung racehorses were often calmed and comforted by other animal friends. They tried introducing Rocky to Lancelot, which resulted in Rocky bolting from the stall inches away from a flying hoof. They had more success with one of the many barn cats, who happily took up semipermanent residency in a cozy bundle of worn-out saddle blankets that Ben arranged in the corner of Red’s stall. He suggested naming her “Cannon Fodder,” but Jane and Robin laughingly objected, so they settled on “Florence Tabbygale” instead, after the heroic nurse. Ben gazed solemnly at the mangy, cross-eyed tabby washing her ears unconcernedly as Lancelot stamped around the stall, occasionally sniffing her, and intoned, “You are a brave creature, Nurse Flo.”

  Meanwhile, Jane observed that the Advanced I lessons were heating up, and Alyssa, Jennifer, and Jessica were now as drained and exhausted as Jane by the time they reached the cabins at night, though most evenings Jessica disappeared again after taking a quick shower and changing into regular clothes. Jane willed herself to close her eyes and ears to these comings and goings, which was made easier by the fact that Jessica was now openly ignoring her. She wouldn’t dignify Jane’s presence by avoiding her, but the sporadic fellowship they had once shared had disappeared. Now there was an even stronger sense of privilege and separateness about her group, reduced to three close friends. Jane and Robin sometimes watched their lessons, and Jane burned inwardly as she saw the kinds of new challenges that Susan was giving them, which Jane ached to try herself, from the extended gaits in dressage to steadily upward-climbing fences in the ring. Soon they would be jumping four feet and higher.

  “I bet Beau could do that combination even better than Quixotic,” she growled to Robin.

  “I bet you and Beau could,” Robin said loyally. “How is he?” Robin knew that Jane had been sneaking visits to Beau when she could. She didn’t want Megan to find her lurking around his stall, and Megan was generally always with her new horse, so it was difficult—and painful—to see him. Mostly she managed surreptitious pats and covert carrots in the field when she was bringing in Lancelot.

  “He’s fine,” Jane said quietly. “He looks happy.” She almost wished she could see visible signs of him pining for her, but the truth was that he seemed exactly the same as ever and, she had to admit, Megan took extremely good care of him.

  “I’m sure he misses you, Jane,” Robin said reassuringly. “But it’s not like you never get to see him, and you’ve got Lancelot to take care of now. He needs you.”

  “Yeah, I bet Beau thinks I’ve left him for a good-looking lunatic and feels sorry for me.”

  “He hasn’t been such a lunatic lately … . Yesterday you guys did really great,” Robin objected mildly. Yesterday’s lesson had gone well, Jane knew. She’d had Lancelot on the bit for the entire lesson, and he’d only shied twice, both times when she’d been near Shannon, who carried a long crop. But it was tiring riding him; she felt each time she mounted that she had to be absolutely there for him, confident and reassuring and never nervous or impatient. It was as wearying mentally as it was physically.

  Over the course of the week, they had become wary friends. He was accustomed to her everyday presence and, except in the ring, he now behaved in a gentlemanly fashion when she was grooming, tacking, or walking him on a long lead around the farm. She spent hours each day doing these things, because she promised Susan, because it gave her a distraction from everything else, and because she was growing to enjoy his company, different though he was from Beau. She could never completely relax around him, but she admired him. Then one morning when he whinnied as he saw her approaching in the field, and she threw him a spontaneous wave and called, “Hey, Red!” she realized that they were glad to see each other, and she smiled.

  That day also brought letters from her parents and from Lily. They sometimes sent packages, though not as often as other parents, Jane noticed, slightly envying the large parcels wrapped in brown paper that disgorged candy, sparkling pastel bottles of bath gels and moisturizers, even new clothes. Robin passed her the bag of gourmet biscotti her parents had sent, and they pretended that they were having tea on an English lawn as they lounged under their favorite tree. But Jane soon was absorbed in her sister’s letter. Lily had just picked her classes for freshman year—all except the most important, the prestigious first-year acting seminar taught by a legendary coach who had trained Broadway and Hollywood stars. For that, she would have to audition. “What if I don’t make it?” Lily worried in her letter, caught between high anxiety and anticipation. “And what if I do??” Jane had no doubt whatsoever that Lily would be the first chosen and would quickly rise to stardom in all of the freshman productions. She had prodigious faith in her sister’s abilities and was baffled by her periodic bouts of self-doubt. She pulled out her stationery packet and began writing a letter of reassurance and encouragement. The sisters had long experience in cheering each other up.

  “Aren’t you going to read your other letter?” Robin asked, and Jane paused mid-sentence. The envelope was in her father’s handwriting, and if he was the main author of her parents’ joint letter, then he was sure to be writing about her school choice. Sighing, she tore it open to read the inevitable, entirely reasonable, perfectly logical exhortation for her to make up her mind now or she wouldn’t get a place in any school. In that case, Mr. Ryan went on, they’d have to sell the house and drive across the country searching for a school that would take Jane in—probably an unheated one-room schoolhouse in the wilds of Alaska, where Jane’s mother might very well be eaten by bears and Mr. Ryan would undoubtedly get lost on a Native American spirit quest, leaving Lily and Jane orphans, and did she really want to be responsible for that tragic chain of events? Or, he suggested, perhaps they would home-school Jane, building a curriculum around such subjects as macroeconomic theory, weightlifting, and calculus. Jane laughed despite herself, and read the letter aloud to Robin, who loved the Ryans but was mystified that parents could be as goofy as their children.

  “You haven’t made up your mind yet, have you?” Robin asked.

  “Not exactly,” Jane began. “Wait a sec, I’m just going to put in a PS here to tell Lily to tell Mum and Dad that I’ll have decided by the time they pick me up from camp.” She scribbled in a note and sealed her letter.

  “But you’ve been thinking about it?” Robin prodded.

  Jane had. During her rambles with Lancelot, and late at night in the cabin, she could feel her decision forming, like a place toward which she was slowly walking. In her mental journeys, less important considerations had been steadily falling by the wayside, and she felt ready now to try talking about it. She was not the sort of person who liked to discuss her problems before she knew what she herself thought of them. It made her uneasy to hash things out as girls often did together. She preferred knowing her own mind—at least most of it—first.

  “I think I’m going to MLK,” she said abruptly. She snuck a glance at her friend, but Robin’s eyes were cast down to the clover that she was denuding of its leaves. There was a brief silence.

  “I know I told you that I wouldn’t get mad if you decided not to go to Collegiate,” Robin finally said. “And I’m not—I’m totally not. But I guess I did get my hopes up a little … .”

  “Oh, Rob … can you really imagine me there? With Alyssa and Jennifer and Jessica?”

  “You’d have me,” Robin said in a small voice.

  “I know, but I have you now! We’ve never gone to the same school before, and we’re best friends! Nothing’s going to change, except … I’ll be at a public school with a bunch of weirdos who don’t care that I don’t have the right kind of jeans! I just want a new place, where people don’t know me. Plus it’ll help my parents … .” She trailed off. She knew that if she were going to make this argument to them, she’d have to leave out the part about money.

  “Anyway, do you think they’re going to flip out? I mean, because I want to leave St. Anne’s?”

  Rob
in considered. “Yeah,” she sighed, “I think they’re definitely going to flip out.”

  “Me, too,” Jane said. And they smiled ruefully, united again by the mutual dread of angry parents.

  “Well, I’m not one hundred percent decided,” Jane said.

  “Yes, you are.” Robin leaned over and squeezed her hand.

  Robin was right, Jane realized, as she felt a weight come off her shoulders that day. Saying it aloud had solidified her feelings, and she found herself wondering for the first time what her first day of school would be like, instead of where it would be. Her decision would take her parents by surprise, she knew. They’d seen her infatuation with Collegiate and all it had stood for to Jane, and had helped her get the scholarship. They liked and trusted the program at St. Anne’s. During her recent solitary walks, Jane realized she felt trapped in a choice between the private schools her parents were advocating. She felt trapped by her previous standards, all those old longings. But now … she was almost free from the person the clique had made her believe she was, from all she’d thought she wanted to be. This was, perhaps, her first truly free decision, made alone, and for herself.

  Lily would be in a whole new world, and so would she! As she led Lancelot from the barn toward the ring, she felt a surge of happiness that she and her sister would be linked in this way, though miles apart. Somehow, she thought, it made it not quite so much like being left behind.

  Susan was adjusting a straight rail that was part of the course Jane had watched the Advanced I riders work through that morning. Her trainer lowered it, then stood back with her hands on her hips, staring at the jump. She glanced over at Jane and Lancelot, who had just reached the middle of the ring, and abruptly undid her work, raising the rail to its original height.

  “You want to try the course?” she called over. Jane stared at her. Susan had carved out this hour for an extra lesson, but she hadn’t told Jane what they were going to be working on.

  “He can do it. He has done it—courses like it—hundreds of times. I think it’s time to remind him what he’s capable of.”

  “Ah—okay,” Jane said. She nodded to Susan, nodded to Lancelot.

  “You had a solid ride yesterday. You can do this.”

  Jane continued nodding till she hit the back of her helmet on the top knob of her spine and winced. I can do this? He can do this? She caught herself looking toward the barn for Jose, remembering his firm, repressive voice as he’d told Susan to let Jane off her horse.

  He was nowhere in sight, and she felt a stab of shame for seeking her protector. Susan was treating this casually. So would she. Sure. Her heart slammed against her ribs. She nodded again, to no one in particular, and jammed her foot into the stirrup and swung herself onto Lancelot’s back.

  “He’s already worked today, right?” Susan asked, nudging a ground pole farther from the straight rail.

  “I took him down to the dressage ring before lunch.” Jane decided not to mention that he’d almost unseated her when he’d gotten spooked by Rocky, who’d bolted after a squirrel.

  “Great. You can do a couple of laps at a posting, then sitting trot. Bring him back to a walk, then canter him twice around.” Susan continued studying the jumps, and Jane squeezed her heels into Lancelot’s sides.

  The afternoon haze had settled into the trees and the fields, and the air felt almost too thick for breathing. Jane tried to quiet her heart as she quieted her horse. The farm was sleeping—everyone was down at the lake or inside the cabins’ air-conditioned common rooms. Jane could hear the waves of cicada song rising and falling in the trees, almost in time with the hoofbeats and breaths that to her ears were the only other sounds. Boom, boom, boom, boom went the hooves and her seat as she absorbed her weight, sinking it into her heels. She slowed Lancelot to a walk. He was doing what Ben called his “parade horse routine”—grandly arching his neck and placing his hooves meticulously on the ground before him. Jane liked to think he was being the true Lancelot.

  “He looks good. Let’s go ahead and try him. You’re going to canter the half-ring, then take this rail”—Susan pointed to the straight rail she’d been worrying. “Cut across to the double cross-rails”—these were at a left diagonal to the first jump—“then stay by the rail into the turn and take the oxer”—she pointed to far end of the ring—“then cut to your left to the coop”—there was the green hulk in its place of glory in the middle of the ring—“make a tight circle to your right, cut across the center to the triple”—the triple? Jane stared at the three cross-rails so steeply raised that they looked like Vs—“then right again back to the rail to do the first jump again, from the opposite direction. Got it?” Jane hoarsely repeated the course back to her, and Susan nodded. “Don’t worry about how high they are—I’m sure he’s used to it,” she finished.

  But I’m not, Jane thought a little desperately. Surely she should warm up more, do a few trotting poles, try a cross-rail or two, before attempting the highest jumps she’d had to tackle, on a horse she couldn’t trust? Or could she?

  As she signaled Lancelot to canter, Jane forced herself to focus. She thanked the heavens that there was no one watching except for Susan. Lancelot was going well, his beautiful stride even and controlled. But who knew what was about to happen? He hadn’t jumped since Emily’s disastrous last ride … .

  And suddenly Lily popped into her mind again. When she had starred as Helen Keller in her high school’s production of The Miracle Worker, Jane had asked her how she had the nerve to get up on stage and assume the role of this utterly foreign character, in front of so many staring eyes. And Lily had said, “Well, I suppose I just fake it … till I feel it.”

  “Okay, Red,” Jane muttered as they finished the circle and headed toward the first jump, “we’re going to pretend that you’re a normal championship horse, and not a crazy championship horse. We’re going to pretend we can do this. We’re going to fake it because I sure as heck don’t think I’m going to feel it.” And then there were only three strides more before the jump and suddenly Lancelot’s knees were neatly tucked beneath his chest and he was sailing over, landing lightly, and returning to his rocking-horse, collected canter. Focus, focus, focus, Jane breathed, confidence, confidence, confidence … and that was the double cross-rail. The next jump, the oxer, was huge, but Jane refused to look at it. She steadied her hands and allowed Lancelot to pick up a bit more steam. The height took her breath away—Jane felt as if she were floating above the saddle, unanchored, as if she as well as Lancelot were hurtling over it. They landed hard and for a numbing second Jane desperately fought for her stirrup, shoving her heel down and scrambling to shorten her reins, dimly aware of Susan shouting, then actually closing her eyes as they pounded to the coop in six strides that tore the grass beneath Lancelot’s scissoring hooves. A softer landing, and Jane sank deep in her seat and guided her horse with her legs and the rhythm of her body as they made the sharp turn right, briefly back at the rail, then pointed arrow-straight at the triple. Lancelot threw his head back and sped up. Jane held firm and he steadied. She knew from the feeling of weightlessness, followed by the lurching, and, finally, the jarring of her stomach when they landed on the other side of the last of the combination that she’d never jumped a triple anywhere near that size before. Her breath and her heart seemed caught in her throat—is this almost over? And then she reached up into two-point again as they soared over the first jump for the last time. She felt like she might be sick.

  Sound came rushing in. Jane realized that she hadn’t heard a thing Susan had said during the entire course.

  Her trainer was whooping. She was jumping up and down and whooping, her gray braid waving behind her head like a flag.

  And there were other voices whooping—Jane looked up to see Jose and Ben at the fence, hollering and pounding their hands together. She was barely aware of the horse beneath her. Because she didn’t have to be. Because she knew that he was fine. Suddenly, she stopped him and leaned down and threw her ar
ms around his neck. She stayed like that for some time, her arms rising and falling with his deep breathing.

  “Here, let me do that.” Ben reached over to take the girth from Jane’s badly shaking hands. He quickly loosened the buckle and lifted the saddle from Lancelot’s back, revealing a saddle-shaped pattern of sweat. Jane sank back against the stall, letting Ben take over, struggling against the light-headedness that made her limbs feel leaden and weak.

  “Are you okay?” he asked for the third or fourth time.

  Jane nodded. “I’m just a little sick to my stomach,” she whispered.

  “I bet it’s like some kind of delayed reaction … . I mean, you were perfect when you were doing the course, then it kind of hit you once it was over?”

  That was exactly what it felt like, and Jane felt a surge of warmth toward Ben, so strong that she actually made an abbreviated movement toward him, catching herself before she took a step forward … and then the question came bursting out:

  “Was it really okay?”

  Ben eyed her incredulously. “Jane, you’re totally the best rider here. I mean …” He shook his head and sighed. “I don’t know what to—” But he was cut off.

  “Irresponsible? You think I’m irresponsible?” Susan’s voice, coming from somewhere down the barn’s corridor, was a cold, outraged hiss. Jane raised her finger to her lips, and Ben froze, his mouth half-open.

  “What do you want to call it? Fine, you put Jane on a crazy horse. Fine, you let her get almost killed when he runs her into the tree—” Jose’s barking, angry reply was interrupted by Susan’s protests.

  “Let me finish!” he shouted. “But then—not warning her, not telling her, oh, no—to out of the blue say, ‘Okay, here are all of these high jumps. I know you’ve never jumped this crazy horse before, but why don’t you please make him go over all of these?’ Eh? Does that sound responsible to you, Susan?”