Of course, that was probably because he couldn’t get a word in edgewise with Greer screaming at the top of her lungs that she had been cheated once again.
Finally, this fall, she would be competing and not being judged. Either Counterpoint would drag her over the fences for clean rounds or not. And, if not, my bet was that Lockie would simply go out and find a horse that could get the job done.
After about a half hour walk through the woods until we couldn’t bear the deer flies a moment longer, we returned to the barn. Rogers pampered, petted and fed Karneval carrots until there was nothing left to do but go home. I walked her out to the car and waved goodbye.
At least the horse would have a good home, for a while. I always worried about their futures. If we sold Karneval to Rogers, she’d be a wonderful owner but what happened if Rogers had to go to college and didn’t have time for horses. The next owner might not be so nice.
CB, Butch, the ponies and, as far as I was concerned, Wingspread, were never leaving Bittersweet Farm. They would live in the lap of equine luxury forever.
Jules and I were finishing lunch in the kitchen when my cell phone rang. It was Lockie. I clicked it on. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Bottom line it. Are you okay?”
“Yes, Talia. He ran some more tests and decided everything is fine.”
Everything was not fine. If he took the prescription and could barely stand up afterwards, that was an indication all was not well. “What about the meds?”
“We’re trying a different combination. It’ll be okay. I’ll be home in two hours. You’ll see for yourself nothing is wrong.”
“You’ll have to be very convincing.”
“I will be. What do I have to wear tonight?”
“Wear what you wore to the Standish anniversary party.”
“See you.”
“Not if I see you first.”
“Silly Filly.” He clicked off.
Jules put a slice of peach tart with her flakey crust in front of me and sat down with one piece for herself. “I was only able to hear half the conversation but what’s going on between you two?”
I shrugged. “Nothing specific.”
Jules nodded as she used a large spoon to scoop up the tart and caramel gelato.
“I’m the boss’s daughter.”
“Yes, you are.”
“He likes it here.”
“I’m glad he does.”
“He finally found a place where he can get better or if this is it and there’s no better, Bittersweet is a good place to live. Like with CB, not much will ever be asked of Lockie.”
Jules put her hand on my arm. “You are...”
“Sshhh. Don’t say anything. My mother was but I’m not.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
A few hours later the car and driver brought Lockie home and we had dinner in the kitchen. I told him Rogers was begging to buy Karneval but I hadn’t known what to say.
“You bought her to sell, didn’t you,” Jules asked.
“Yes,” Lockie replied.
“So sell the horse. Rogers is a nice girl,” Jules said.
“The problem is I have two ponies, Butch and CB. Greer has two horses now. Wingspread is here. We only have twelve stalls. If Karneval stays, we only have four stalls left. It doesn’t leave us much room to do business.”
“I don’t know that it’s a problem until the middle of winter,” Lockie said. “The ponies could stay out in the shed.”
“Be serious.”
“Ponies? If you put blankets on them they’ll be fine. So would CB and Karneval.”
I knew he was right but that still meant for the winter months we had limited free space. “The question you need to answer is: are you going to buy and sell horses?”
“I don’t have much choice. I owe your father a lot of money.”
“For what?” I asked.
“Wingspread.”
I shook my head. “I asked my father to buy me the horse. I didn’t like him so I gave him to you. You don’t owe my father anything.”
“I can’t accept a gift like that and you know it.”
Standing, I went to the pad of paper by the wall phone, picked up the pen and began to write.
“Sold to Lockie Malone one Thoroughbred horse known as Wingspread for $1 and other valuable considerations. Talia Margolin.” I signed the paper and passed it over to him. “Done.”
Lockie took the paper from me. “I’ll still pay you back.”
“You’re not going to argue about it; you’re going out on your first real date! I’m so excited. Go change and come back here and I’ll take photos.”
“You will not,” I said.”
Lockie stopped at the door. “Why not? I’m very handsome.”
“Not without clover.”
“I knew you were fickle but I didn’t know to what extent,” he replied as he left.
Jules watched him walk off the terrace then turned to me. “I think I’m falling in love with him just a little bit.”
“Jules,” I groaned.
***
An hour later, he was back after showering and changing and Lockie was correct. He was very handsome.
We drove to the next town where the playhouse was located and I filled him in on what Josh had been doing in high school, the plays and auditioning for repertory companies in the summer. This was the first year Josh had experienced any success and I wasn’t sure how much the Standishes knew about his desire to act. Josh would go to college, that was a given. A Standish would have to graduate from a very fine school and Josh could minor in performing arts while majoring in finance. They had his life pretty well figured out for him and he’d known that well before high school.
“It’s okay to go your own way, Tali,” Lockie said when I paused. “You knew there was no future in the relationship. You’re still friends. Nothing has changed except you’re not pretending anymore.”
“You’re right. I just...”
“Find it hard to let go.”
“Yes.”
“I know.”
He parked my truck under some pine trees at the farthest point from the playhouse and we got out.
“You look very pretty tonight.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you dress for me or Josh?”
“Lockie. You really can be impossible.”
“No, I still am very possible and all you have to do is answer.”
“My date is with you. I’m here with you. I dressed for you. Not that Josh didn’t help me pick out what clothes to wear on other occasions.”
“I’ll bet he has excellent style sense.”
“It sounds like a joke but he does.”
“I’m not joking about it.”
The playhouse was a red converted barn and had been a theater for over fifty years. The walls of the lobby were crowded with framed photographs of famous and near-famous actors who had performed there. A landmark in the area, it had a reputation for high-quality productions always written up in the local newspapers and sometimes even the New York Times.
I was certain this appearance would look very good on Josh’s resume.
We walked up the steps and entered through the double doors. Immediately in front of us in the foyer were the Standishes, and they were not happy.
Mrs. Standish crossed to me. “You’ve broken his heart.”
“Excuse me?”
“Josh goes away for two months and you don’t even have the common courtesy to break up with him before finding someone new.”
“That’s not how it was,” I replied. I had no idea what Josh had told her and couldn’t help but feeling a little hurt being the target of her vehemence. She was protecting her son, but I had been a good friend to him for years. Maybe she had no idea how many times I covered for him. That’s what a beard does.
“Since I’m the new man, you should take your problems up with me,” Lockie said evenly. “If Josh couldn’t hang onto his girlfriend,
that’s not Talia’s fault. Josh is great. But, come on, could he really compete with me? Enjoy the play.”
Lockie took my hand and pulled me away from them.
“Stop being stunned,” he said as we found our seats. “Did you actually think they’d take this news well?”
“I didn’t think. I had other things on my mind.” I gave him a look.
“Tali. I’m not a hundred percent; I will never be a hundred percent again, but life is good. Now what the hell are we seeing?”
I handed him the computer printed playbill.
“Oh God, The Boys In The Band? The only thing Josh hasn’t done is announce it on a billboard. Okay. Wake me when it’s over.”
“It’s about gay men?”
“Yes.”
What happened to The Mousetrap? “I thought he was going to be in something like Guys and Dolls.” That seemed to be the kind of play performed at the playhouse each summer.
“This is like that, but think of it as Guys and Guys.”
The house lights came down and Act One began. Since I wasn’t paying attention, I was lost almost immediately. Josh was on stage and speaking his lines, so that was a good thing but beyond that, I had no idea what was going on. It was no comedy.
It would have been nice to get out of the house and see something happy. Maybe with some singing. Oklahoma! or West Side Story. But this was art. All the actors were showing off their chops and I was bored beyond belief.
The act finished, the curtain closed on the apartment set and I stood.
“Let’s go.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Lockie stood, we made our way to the side exit and left.
“How’s Josh going to explain this to his parents?”
“He should try the truth,” Lockie replied as he extracted his sunglasses from his pocked and slipped them on.
“Are your eyes bothering you?”
“No, but it’s dark, and I don’t want to have a problem with oncoming headlights.”
“I’ll drive.”
“Thanks.”
We got in my truck and headed for home. My relationship with Josh would never be the same, never as close. That chapter in my life was over.
***
“Why is there a light on in the hayloft?” I asked as we drove down the driveway.
Lockie removed his glasses. “Yeah. It’s not even bright enough to be an overhead.”
I parked at the front entrance and got out. “It doesn’t make sense. Maybe Pavel was up there with a flashlight and forgot it?”
We started down the aisle.
“Why don’t you stay here and I’ll go look.” Lockie said.
I took his hand. “There are so many drawbacks to you not being Butch.”
“You can’t pick out my hooves, so what else?”
“You’re sweet.” I stepped closer to him and blew a soft breath over his lips.
Just the way Butch would do when I breathed into his nose, Lockie blew a breath back.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever seen anyone in the act before?”
“Not in real life.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“This will be very real.”
We walked quietly up the steps to the haymow.
There was a small miner’s lamp casting enough light to be able to see. I could hear some movement. It was clear what was going on.
Lockie stopped. “Still sure,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
We walked past several tons of hay and found them on Counterpoint’s monogrammed sheet, which had arrived earlier that day.
Her clothes were strewn over the hay bales.
“Greer meet Derry. Oops. I guess you already met,” I said.
Derry stopped what he was doing.
“Good time to dismount,” Lockie suggested to him.
Greer looked up and glared at me. “You have lousy timing.”
With no graceful way to end this, Derry pushed back, grabbed for Greer’s shirt and threw it over her.
There was a bottle of champagne from my father’s wine cellar next to them, on its side, empty.
“Do you want me to fire him?” Lockie asked me.
“Is he any good?” I asked.
Derry was on his feet scrambling to pull on his jeans and boots.
“Let’s ask Greer,” Lockie replied. “You mean on a horse? Yeah, he can get the job done.”
Greer tried pushing the hair out of her face, but it was warm in the loft and they had been exerting each other so she was a more than a little damp.
“Then I’m okay with it,” I said, picked up the miner’s lamp and turned back for the stairs.
Lockie followed me. “Do you think Jules has any of that gelato left?”
“Wouldn’t that be good?”
***
We sat on the glider on the terrace with our ice cream and not many minutes later Derry drove up the drive in his truck, stopped at the front of the house to let Greer off and then continued into the night.
“I can find someone else,” Lockie said.
“She’ll get in trouble with that one, too.”
“Should your father be told?”
“I think he realized with Rui there was nothing he could do with her anymore.”
We went back and forth on the glider, looking at the stars and the lightning bugs.
“I’m going to turn in,” Lockie said.
“It’s been a long day for you.”
“Kiss my muzzle, skip the extra flake of hay and I’ll turn myself out.”
“You could be a private detective with snooping like that.” I often went down to check on Butch and throw him a little bit of hay.
“I like watching you with him. I...”
“What?”
“Don’t leave CB out. You’re not betraying Butch. Love stretches.”
He leaned over and I kissed his cheek.
“See you tomorrow, Silly Filly,” Lockie said and headed down to the barn.
I went into the house, locked the door turned off the lights and went upstairs to my room.
Greer was sitting on my bed.
“What now?”
Less drunk than earlier but now she was angrier. “Butt out of my life!”
“Sorry.”
“You’re not!”
“I am. I want to go to sleep and you’re screaming.”
“My father and I are not like you.”
“He’s my father, too.”
“That was just the luck of the sperm race.”
“Shut up, Greer, you’re still drunk.”
“We want to enjoy life.”
“There are lots of way to enjoy life and not all of them involve the prevention of sexually transmitted disease.”
She shrieked at me.
“I hope you were using protection, I didn’t get that good of a look with the mood lighting.”
“I’ve put up with just about enough from you. You were forced on me six years ago and it’s been hell ever since.”
“For me, too, sis.”
“You can’t tell me how to live!”
“I’m not telling you. No one is telling you anything anymore. You can do as you please. Wear Derry out. No one cares.”
“Then why did you come into the loft?”
“Duh. Because we were worried about the possibility of a fire starting. There was a light on that shouldn’t be there. Use your brains, Greer, instead of relying on another part of your anatomy all the time.”
“You are a bitch!”
“Yeah, I know, of the first order.”
“You’ll pay for this.”
“I’d be careful with the threats.”
“Are you going to do something to me?” Greer taunted.
“No. Hubris meet Nemesis.”
“What does that mean?”
“Look it up. If you mean harm to someone, eventually it’ll backfire. That’s the way the
world works.”
“You and your mother with your goody-goody platitudes. My father and I aren’t like that. We’re practical. We take what we want.”
“You extracted the wrong lesson from his life in that case.”
Greer stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. I went over and locked it to make sure she didn’t pay me a surprise visit in the middle of the night.
As much as my father might have wanted my mother, and I believe he did those last years, she held herself back. Even after they married, he never got what he wanted—for her to give herself to him fully.
Sad, really.
***
A week later, I was eating breakfast when Greer entered the kitchen, leaned over and whispered into my ear “I can get any man I want and you know who I want?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Picking up what was left of the half cantaloupe I was eating, I pushed it into her face.
She started shrieking like something bad had happened to her. A moment later, my father appeared from his office, just in time to grab her arm before she began flailing away at me.
“You go to your room,” he commanded.
“What are you going to do to her? She attacked me!”
“Be quiet for once. Talia, come into my office.”
Jules cleaned up the melon as I started to leave the room.
“Greer should be doing that,” I told her.
“Please stop fighting with her.”
“Yeah.”
Jules hadn’t been told we caught Greer and Derry in mid-ecstasy a week ago. I was hoping it would go away but Greer wouldn’t give up. She had been taunting me whenever possible. At the barn, she had been walking her walk and wearing tight tank tops with no bras for Lockie.
For a brief few days, I had thought when school started she would have more on her mind than me.
But it wasn’t about me anymore, it was about Lockie. She had to have him. He was like the Medal and the Maclay all rolled into one. He was like winning the Grand Championship of the Sex over Fences division.
I followed my father into his office and he closed the door.
“What’s this about?” He sat and pointed at the leather chair on the opposite side of his desk where I sat when brought in for a lecture.
I sat.
His desktop computer was on, there was a laptop on; it was probably something with the stock market. I had no idea what he did in the office.
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