I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“Are you really sorry?”
“Oh yeah.”
Lockie stopped laughing. “On my own or with someone else?”
“Both.”
“The answer to part a is the last time I tried, Lockie was saying to me ‘Not tonight, dear, I have a headache.’ The answer to part b is I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember in what way?”
“In the way that I don’t remember some things about my life before the accident. Blank. It’s just not there anymore. I obviously didn’t have a girlfriend because no one showed up at the hospital and no one has come around to yell at me for ignoring her since.”
“Well, there is Alise.”
“I don’t remember her.”
We continued to the barn.
“When’s the last time you had sex,” he asked. “Was it with Josh?”
“He’s gay.”
“He could have tried.”
“Not with me he wouldn’t.”
“Maybe he isn’t King Stud but Princeling Stud-in-Training.”
“Josh is a nice boy.”
“That’s very sweet. Would you tell Butch?” Lockie asked.
“No.”
“Would you tell me?”
“No.”
“I told you.”
“You’d tell everyone. You’re a guy,” I replied.
“I’m glad you noticed!”
“Yes, I noticed.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Guys brag about sex.”
“Yeah. I have a lot to brag about in that department. Failure to launch and I can’t remember.”
“Did you tell the doctor?”
“I told you.”
We were almost at the barn and I stopped walking. “Lockie?”
“What, Tali?” He stopped alongside me.
I didn’t know if I should tell him. There was so much I kept to myself since my mother died. I valued Rogers as a friend, but didn’t trust her to keep a secret. I loved Jules but there were things she didn’t need to know. I would never tell Josh; we weren’t that close. The isolation at the farm left me with Butch as my confident. He would never tell.
I took a deep breath. “I don’t trust men.”
“I know.”
I didn’t know how to reply.
“Was that so hard to say?”
“Yes.”
He began walking again. “You can’t unsay it. Tack up CB and put your helmet on and we’ll go for a ride.”
“Who’s CB?” I asked following him into the barn.
“The Chrysler Building horse.”
“Lockie,” I protested.
“Give the guy a break. Joy? You’re going to call him Joy in front of his friends and family?”
“He doesn’t have any family here.”
“We’re his family now,” Lockie slid Wing’s stall door open. “You want him to be embarrassed in front of Butch?”
It had never occurred to me. “Do you think he would be?”
“I would be. Butch. That’s a man’s name. Joy. That’s a girl’s name. Always name a horse something they will live up to.”
“His name is Joyful Spirit.” I looked down the aisle and could see his grey nose poking out between the bars.
“Then it’s his show name, not his stable name.”
“I like Joy.”
“I do, too, it works great on dishes and rinses off so fast.” Lockie walked Wing out of the stall and put him on the crossties. “Are you coming with me or am I going by myself?”
Ten minutes later, we were hacking through an empty field since all the horses were inside during a summer afternoon.
“So you think Rogers can do a dressage test, ride cross-country and complete the stadium jumping phase.”
“Yes.”
Lockie turned to me. “I only have two hands. If I have to hold your hand and Greer’s hand, I can’t hold Rogers’ hand, too.”
“I’m not going to be doing anything, why do you have to hold my hand?”
“Maybe I want to,” Lockie said and looked up and down the length of the stone wall facing us. “Where’s the gate?”
I pointed to the bottom of the pasture.
“I’m not going all the way down there. That’s a waste of time.”
A moment later, Wing was galloping toward the wall.
“Don’t!”
In one immense leap, Wing flew over the wall and Lockie pulled up on the far side.
“Why are you still over there?” He called to me.
“Are you insane?”
“No.”
I sat on CB, not moving.
“Come on, Tali. Jump him over the wall.”
I shook my head.
“I can’t hear your head rattle from here.”
“No. It’s crazy.”
“Point, kick and hold onto his mane if you have to. He’ll take care of the rest.”
“No.”
“Are you telling me you came out here year after year and you didn’t ever jump Butch over this wall?”
“Did you hear me tell you that?”
“So you did?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Talia. It’s hot out here, let’s get in the woods where it’s cool.” He dropped the reins and held up his hands. “Only got two of them. One’s yours.” He pointed at me.
I took a breath, closed my legs on CB’s sides and pointed him at the wall. A moment later, we were on the other side.
“Easy,” Lockie said.
“You scared me!”
He looked at me in surprise. “You’re serious?”
“Of course!”
“You jumped him before. You get along really well together. He’s so athletic, this was nothing for him.”
“For you!” I was furious.
“What about me?”
“You could have been hurt. You can’t afford to take chances like that. You don’t jump fences when you don’t know what’s on the other side. What if there were rocks from the wall fallen on the ground or old rusty farm equipment?”
Lockie was startled. “This is about me?”
“Of course it’s about you.”
“Tali. Calm down. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.”
He leaned over and put his hand on my leg. I pushed it off with my hand.
“Learn to trust me. I don’t ride a course without walking it first.”
“You were out here?”
“Yes. I’ve walked all the trails and all the fields. I haven’t gone up the mountain yet.”
All my fears from the past were threatening to tsunami me. “You have to be more careful.”
“I can’t live like that.”
“You can’t have another accident. The doctor doesn’t even want you riding.”
“I can only promise you one thing. I will be as careful as I can be. Okay?”
“No.”
“Would you lock Butch in his stall?”
“To keep him safe? Yes.”
“And if every day he became more sad, seeing CB rolling in the grass and the ponies chasing after each other and all he could do was try to see down the aisle to watch someone get brushed and listen to the wrong station on the radio?”
“But that’s not his life. He does go outside.”
“And I’ve got bad news for you. Last night he was out there running around without permission.”
I didn’t realize he was carousing after I went to sleep. “Maybe he shouldn’t go in the field, maybe he should only go in the paddock.”
“Where he’ll pace the fenceline. And if you keep him in the stall, he’ll start to pace in there and it won’t be pretty. You can’t control everything, Tali. You don’t have to.”
My throat tightened and I couldn’t speak for a long moment. “She should still be alive.”
“Yes. I’m sorry you miss her so much. To have so many people love her, a
nd continue to think so fondly of her, tells me she must have been wonderful.”
“She was.”
“Your mother gave you life so you could enjoy it. Don’t disappoint her.”
“She would want me to take care of you.”
“You do. And she’d be very proud of the way you’ve become such a remarkable young woman but she’d know I have to live my life even if that means taking some risks. Tali, few people have an accident like mine and survive it. Now with so much to live for, I don’t want to let anything get by me.”
I did understand but to live recklessly after a second chance was to be ungrateful. “Can we negotiate it?”
“We’ll find a middle ground.”
“Can my father negotiate for me? He’s better at it.”
“No, this is between us. What’s a middle ground?” Lockie thought as we rode up the hill to the woods. “I won’t jump anything over four feet.”
“I do not agree to that at all.”
“Four feet, that’s my final offer.”
“Final? That’s your first offer. What’s negotiation about that? You tell me and I’m supposed to say yes?”
“I’m very persuasive.”
“Okay. Four feet.”
Lockie turned to me in amazement.
“When the doctor says yes to three,” I added.
The doctors didn’t want him riding at all and said yes to flat work just because he was so persuasive. They would never give the green light to jumping.
“You drive a hard bargain. All right.”
“But you’re not competing.”
“Jumper, not cross country.”
“No.”
“I’ll change your mind.”
“No, you won’t.”
“We’ll see.”
And with that, they were galloping up the hill with CB and me trying to keep up.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I can’t have a lesson in the afternoon.” CB and I jogged around the indoor.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m going to the theater.”
“John Barrymore is performing at the local playhouse?”
“Josh.”
“That’s right. Josh. No.”
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“Lockie, Josh is...”
“An old friend. Still no.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not his beard anymore.”
“He hasn’t come out to his parents yet.”
“That’s not your problem. Inside leg at the girth, Talia.”
Using Lockie’s dressage saddle, I felt like I was riding western, it was so different from what I accustomed to. The flap was much longer, the seat much deeper. Trying to get CB to curve his body around my leg was an exercise in futility.
“Get off, I’ll show you.”
“Lockie...no.”
Striding over, long legs covering the ground from the middle of the ring to the track with no effort, he stood at CB’s head and I slid off.
“Do you want a leg up?”
“I think I can do it.” He was in the saddle in one smooth movement.
“What about a helmet?”
“I’m going once around the outside. I can manage without bubble wrap.”
“I’m registering a protest.”
“Fine. Remember, it’s shoulder-in not head in. Both hands slightly to the inside. Slightly. Use your fingers on the reins. Don’t fight him, keep the jaw supple.”
Without bothering to adjust the leathers, he rode without stirrups. Lockie put CB into a collected trot and demonstrated. “Inside leg at the girth, not behind it. You don’t want to push the hindquarters. Don’t lean your body into the center of the ring. Stabilize with the outside rein.”
It was basic dressage. Of course, Lockie could do it. Of course, CB could do it. Of course, I couldn’t.
Lockie pulled CB back into a walk.
“Since you’re up there, would you do an extended trot?” I asked.
“I thought you wanted me on the ground and now you want me to show off.”
“Half way around.”
CB picked up a trot and a few strides later was extending his front legs fully out in front. It was breath-taking. He went from being a patient school horse, to an upper level dressage horse because I got off and Lockie got on.
Pulling up, they walked over to me and Lockie slid off. “Okay. You do it.”
“I’m never going to be able to do it,” I said.
“That’s the spirit! Quit right at the beginning. Leg up in three.”
“So we’ll have the lesson in the morning tomorrow.”
“I’m going to the city for a doctor’s appointment. Go do a shoulder-in.”
“So it’s a day off for both of us.”
“No, it’s not a day off for you. Come out here and work. Have Rogers come over and help her. I’ll come home and we’ll go to the play together.”
“Lockie.”
“Talia,” he said mimicking me. “Too much outside rein. Please pay attention to what you’re doing.”
“Then quit talking to me.”
“Quit arguing with me and say yes.”
“Yes.”
“Terrific. Inside leg. There you go. You’ve got it.”
“Shoulder-in or giving in?”
“Both.”
***
I was a nervous wreck every time he went to the doctor. The lesson learned from the last years with my mother was that with each doctor’s appointment we were told her condition had deteriorated. This was a completely different situation, I was aware of that, but, emotionally, it felt the same.
At nine a.m., getting on CB, I rode in the outdoor arena while Tracy managed the barn chores. CB had this little swish thing he would do with his rear end. I could feel the movement under me but had never seen him do it. It felt like he was pleased with himself and that’s how he expressed it.
After twenty minutes, I gave his neck a pat as we left the ring and went for a walk. I needed to build a relationship with CB but felt untrue to Butch at the same time. We had been through so much together and Butch really had been my best friend; I wasn’t sure how many best friends I could have without my attention being diluted.
When we returned to the barn, Rogers was tacked and ready to go. It was an easy decision to make to stay on CB, if it had been Butch, I would have stayed on him.
Rogers got on the mare and walked up to us. “He’s huge.”
“He’s a big boy,” I patted him without thinking about it. That was a good thing.
We went into the outside ring and I had Rogers do what Lockie would have asked her to practice. She was becoming more relaxed with each session and jumped the fences left over from Greer’s last lesson on Spare. They weren’t as substantial as the ones Counterpoint would have schooled over but Spare wasn’t as far along.
Rogers was smiling broadly when we finished.
“Want to take a little trail ride?”
“Could we?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Does she know about trails? Will she be okay?”
“She’ll be fine. Drop your reins and go for a hack.”
“Drop the reins!” Rogers was on the brink of a major panic.
“I guess you never did that with Sinjon.”
“He’d run away with me.”
Poor Rogers.
“Karneval won’t.”
I dropped the reins on CB’s neck to the buckle. “No problem. These are not Thoroughbreds; they’re not as tightly wound as some of them.”
If I were to be perfectly honest, Wingspread was a Thoroughbred and didn’t exhibit any of the temperament I would have expected from a horse that looked as magnificent as he. Lockie had done a fantastic job training him.
I glanced at my watch. He probably wouldn’t be out of the doctor’s office for at least an hour. My phone was in my back pocket since I had insisted he call the moment he
was heading home.
“Where’s Greer?” Rogers asked as we headed toward the woods.
“She went to Misquamicut with Sabine and her family. It’s one of the last weekends she’ll be able to go to the beach before school starts.”
“What about Counterpoint?”
“Derry Friel comes twice a week to school him and Greer almost always manages to find time to ride two more times.”
“I thought she was excited about having a new horse.”
“She is and she’s excited about Lockie but it’s summer.”
“I forgot.”
The less Greer was around, the happier I was. In a few weeks, she’d be back in her room down at the end of the hall, annoying me every night.
“I’ve been wondering,” Rogers started. “Lockie found a buyer for Sans Egal, do you think he could find one for Sinjon?”
“He probably could but then you wouldn’t have a horse.”
“Is Karneval for sale?”
“I don’t know,” I replied truthfully.
Lockie and I had discussed Rogers riding the mare with the intention of getting some mileage and publicity and then selling her. Did it matter if she was sold now for less than she would bring later? It was Lockie’s barn to run.
“Have you thought this through,” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Where would you keep her? I don’t think Robert would tolerate you leaving him, buying a horse from us and keeping it there.”
“Can’t I keep Karneval here?”
“We don’t board horses,” I said.
“I’m your friend,” Rogers protested.
“You are. This isn’t my decision to make. It’s primarily up to my father because it’s his farm, his barn and his insurance.”
“You’ll ask?”
Rogers was practically begging.
“I love this horse. If I can’t keep her here, how can I ride with Lockie?”
She loved her?
“Enough. I’ll ask. I thought your parents liked Sinjon. They paid a lot of money for him.”
The horses splashed into the stream and stopped for a drink of water.
“But I didn’t make it to the finals so what’s the point anymore? They can’t brag about me to the members of the country club.”
“I’m sorry.”
There had to be so much pressure on her and every lesson on Sinjon with Robert screaming at her had to be torture. For the very first time, my father seemed the better parent. He did want us to excel but I never remember being berated when we didn’t.
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