by C. S. Adler
For once everyone at the table was female. They were talking about boys and how stupid they could be.
"Do you have a boyfriend?" the girl sitting next to Jan asked her. The personal question surprised Jan because she didn't know this small, intense, freckle-faced girl who was new in their school.
"No boyfriend. Not me," Jan said.
"Did you ever have a boyfriend?" the girl persisted.
"She has a horse," smart-mouth Barbara said from across the table. "They're going steady."
"Oh," said the girl, leaning toward Jan. "I had a horse for a while, but I got tired of getting up early to take care of it before school. Does your father make you do that?"
"No," Jan said. She wasn't about to confide to a stranger that her father was dead. To distract her, Jan asked quickly, "Do you ride much?"
"Well, I used to ride in Connecticut. That's where I lived," the girl answered. "But that was English saddle. You know, posting and that stuff? I've never ridden western style."
"It's easy," Jan said. "You just sit the saddle and put pressure on your toes instead of with your knees."
"So what's your horse like?" the girl asked.
Jan stiffened and answered shortly, "He's lame right now."
"Is that why you're so grumpy?" The girl asked it with a smile that took the sting off her words.
Jan didn't know what to answer. She took a bite of her apple and munched, fixing her eyes on the table. The girl inched away from her then and turned to face the other end of the table where they were talking about a rock star who was coming to Tucson. Jan felt bad. The new girl had just been trying to be friendly. If only she had her father's knack with people! "Nothing to it," Dad would say. "Just smile, and most folks will smile right back." She hadn't smiled. If she had, would the girl have become her friend? Probably not. The ranch was too isolated. Besides, she didn't have time for a friend now with Dove sick.
Dove's head came up expectantly when he saw Jan coming toward his corral that afternoon. He nickered, tossing his head and showing his teeth in his funny smiling way.
"So did the medicine work?" Jan asked him. She patted his neck and knuckled him under the ear the way he liked. Taking her time about it, she went about cleaning up the dirty shavings and shoveling in fresh.
Dove butted her in the rear end with his head, nearly knocking her into the soiled shavings she was piling into the wheelbarrow. It had been a favorite trick of his when she first got him, and she'd worked hard to break him of it. But now she was glad to find him so frisky. "If you're feeling so good, how about a little exercise?" Jan asked.
The sun blazed in a pale sapphire sky, scouring the desert with its heat even though Halloween was only a few weeks off. Jan was happy because Dove finally seemed to be walking better. She decided to try mounting him and see how he did with her on his back. If she kept to the dirt road inside the ranch and stopped when he showed signs of tiring, it should be all right.
She was riding Dove bareback, leaning over his neck to tell him how glad she was that he was fit again, when she spotted the tiny curly-haired lady who had helped her rescue the wanderer yesterday. The lady—what had she said her name was? Mattie? Yes, that was it. Mattie was walking with another old woman as tall and thin as a crane. Jan had seen people from the home out walking before and had deliberately avoided them. Today she meant to pass them on the opposite side of the road. Should she say hi since Mattie wasn't quite a stranger anymore? But if she did, and Mattie didn't recall her from yesterday, it would be embarrassing.
While Jan was still trying to make up her mind whether to pass in silence or not, Mattie stopped short and grabbed her companion's arm to halt her.
"Look there! It's the girl who saved Sadie," Mattie said. Her high, quick voice carried easily in the still air. "Our hero—or is it heroine? Heroine, I guess, seeing she's a girl. Right, Amelia?"
"Correct," Amelia said. She stood statue-still in the middle of the road, eyes aimed straight ahead.
"Is that pretty horse yours, dear?" Mattie asked Jan. "I've forgotten your name. When you get old as me, you're lucky you can remember your own name. Right, Amelia?"
"I remember fine," Amelia said. "I just can't see anymore."
"Amelia's legally blind," Mattie said, "but she can see her way to the table for meals just as good as you and me."
"Hmm," Amelia said without much heat.
"My name is Jan. Jan Wright. And my horse's name is Dove," Jan said.
"Wright? That's the name of the family that owned this ranch," Amelia said.
"We still own the working part of it," Jan was quick to point out.
Mattie had approached Dove and was stroking his neck. He allowed her touch while he waited patiently for Jan's next signal.
"Why, was it you, then, who carved your name inside of our closet door?" Mattie asked Jan. "I saw that name there, and I remember thinking, I bet some girl wanted us to know this was her room."
Jan felt a blush coming on. Luckily her skin was tanned enough to hide it. She remembered defiantly carving her name on the door the day Mom told her that their house had been sold. "Yes, that was me," she admitted.
"So where do you live now, honey?"
"In the casita." Jan swiveled her slim hips and pointed back over her shoulder at the tiny building with its postage-stamp ramada.
"That itty bitty place?" Mattie said. "My, you must be mad at us for taking over your nice big house."
Jan felt her cheeks heating up again, but she mumbled, "I'm not mad at you."
Mattie shook her head doubtfully. "I guess I would be."
Amelia said nothing.
"Want to pet this horse, Amelia?" Mattie asked. "I used to have a pretty, mahogany-colored quarter horse like him when I was a girl in Mississippi, you know."
"You told me," Amelia said dryly. "More than once."
Unfazed, Mattie turned back to Jan to say, "My daddy got me a horse for my fourth birthday, and was I ever wild about him! Right from the start, when I was too small to ride him."
"Wild about your daddy or your horse?" Amelia asked sharply.
Mattie's answer bypassed the sarcasm. "Both. I was wild about both. You know that horse of mine lived until I got married? Then I had to leave him behind on my mother's place, and he up and died. Mama said he missed me. But I don't know. He was old by then."
"So are we old," Amelia said, "and we're not dying."
"Some of us are getting pretty close, Amelia." Mattie turned to look up at Jan and said confidentially, "You know Sadie, that woman you rescued yesterday?"
"Yes," Jan said.
"Well, we didn't get away with hiding that she'd wandered off again. This morning they took her off to the nursing home, that one in the middle of Tucson." Mattie shook her head sadly.
"Was she sick?" Jan asked.
"Just up here." Mattie pointed to her head.
Jan felt a cold ripple down her spine. How awful, she thought, to be carted off against your will just because you got lost easily. "Will she come back soon?" she asked.
"Next step after the nursing home's the grave," Amelia said. She still hadn't moved from her position in the middle of the road.
"Well," Mattie said, "at least they don't have us yet, Amelia. Come on. I best get you out of the sun before you get heatstroke." Mattie took the tall woman's hand and said to Jan, "She won't wear a hat. I always tell her when we go for a walk, she should wear a hat, but she won't." Mattie laughed. "Stubborn, that's what Amelia is."
"That's what all old people are. Keeps us alive," Amelia said. She took a step in the direction Mattie had turned her, back toward the main house.
They would have to walk down the dirt road a quarter of a mile and then cross a field to get into the desert garden at the back of the house, where one could sit on the patio out of the hot afternoon sun. Jan missed the patio almost as much as she missed having her own room. She missed the cave-like cool inside the thick walls of the baked-brick ranch house, which hugged the ground and
resisted the heat of the day. She missed the smells from the kitchen when Dad was cooking dinner, something he was better at than Mom. Life had been good when they lived in that house.
Before the two old ladies had taken more than a few steps, Mattie looked back over her shoulder at Jan and Dove. Her smile was bright as she said, "Come visit sometime, honey. I'll show you a picture of my Laddie-lee. That's what I named my horse when I was four. He was big, like your horse, but he had a white blaze between his eyes, and—Did I tell you he saved my life one time?"
"Let the girl be," Amelia chided her. "She's got more to do than listen to your old stories."
"Now, Amelia, you just feel that way because you've heard them all." Mattie turned toward Jan again. "Amelia and I share a room. We're the only two in our house that share. The others all have their own room.... But we don't mind it that much, do we, Amelia?"
"It must be getting close to suppertime," Amelia said.
She started forward again and Mattie followed, offering Amelia her arm. Over her shoulder, Mattie called out to Jan, "Come by anytime, honey. We love visitors, especially pretty young things like you. Bye, now." She waved and then concentrated on guiding Amelia.
She'd never step inside that house again, Jan thought. She'd hate being a guest in her own home and trying to make conversation with those women. What could she possibly have to say to them? They had nothing in common. But that Mattie did have a sweet face. She might have been pretty once, though it was hard to imagine she had ever been young. Of course—Jan smiled to herself as she thought it—she wouldn't have to worry much about having to talk if Mattie were there.
Jan continued riding Dove slowly along the dirt road, but a few minutes after her encounter with Mattie and Amelia, Dove stumbled. Not that there was anything in the road for him to stumble on—his knee just seemed to buckle under him. And then he stumbled again. He wasn't better, Jan realized. It had been wishful thinking on her part to think the anti-inflammatory pills had worked so fast. She slid off his back and turned him around to walk him home.
"I'm sorry, Dove. I shouldn't have tried to ride you. You hurt, don't you? I wish you could tell me what's wrong."
She would get out her bankbook as soon as they got home and slap it down on the kitchen table and tell Mom she had to get a vet to look at Dove now.
CHAPTER THREE
When Jan returned to the casita, Mom was on the phone trying to convince a man that he still had to pay his horse's boarding bill even if he didn't want the horse anymore. She wasn't sounding very persuasive. Dad had always been the one to charm people into paying. Better wait until suppertime to confront her mother, Jan decided.
She began as soon as Mom finished microwaving their frozen pizza. "Mom, Dove's worse, not better. You said—" "I said we need to give him time to heal himself. You only gave him the Bute this morning," Mom interrupted her.
"But I just know he's got more wrong with him than a stone bruise. I want to pay the vet to look at him."
Mom swallowed and surprised Jan by saying, "All right, if your money's burning a hole in your pocket—Dr. Foster's coming tomorrow to see a boarder's horse for a bad infection. I'll ask her to look at Dove while she's here."
"Thanks," Jan said with relief. She wasn't about to question why Mom had suddenly given in. She was just glad her mother had.
They finished their pizza slices in a silence that made Jan aware of every chewing and swallowing noise. Dad's cheery dinner-table conversation used to cover up such noises. Jan looked at her mother's tired face and tried, "So how was your day, Mom?"
"Same as always." Mom's eyes met Jan's. She swallowed and offered up in return the question that Dad had always put. "How was school?"
"Fine. I sat with some kids at lunch and met this new girl. She was friendly, but I didn't get her name."
Mom nodded and dropped her eyes to her pizza again. Subject ended. Jan tried a new one. "I keep bumping into this old lady who moved into our house." Briefly, Jan described how she'd met Mattie and how the wanderer they'd rescued had ended up in a nursing home.
"That's too bad," Mom said. "Poor lady."
Jan finished her iced tea. She left the crusts of her two pizza slices on her plate, while Mom chewed away patiently on her own crusts. Mom's family hadn't had any food to waste, she had told Jan more than once.
"Mattie's one of the ladies that get assisted, I guess." Jan was thinking of the term "assisted living facility," which she'd heard applied to their old house. "But I don't see why she needs help. She seems fine."
"You like her? I thought you were mad that old people took over our place."
"Well, I was, but I sort of like Mattie, even though she's ancient.... I've never known anyone really old."
"Me, neither," Mom said. "Nobody lives long in my family."
"There's Dad's mother," Jan said. "But she dyes her hair and she married that man after Grandpa died and moved to England with him. That doesn't seem old."
Her mother gave a wry smile. "Age is supposed to bring wisdom. In your grandmother's case—" Mom broke off, unwilling to speak outright ill of anyone.
"Grandma's too bossy," Jan said because she was glad to agree with her mother on something. "She's so sure she knows how everybody should live."
"She thought your father made some bad choices," Mom said. "And she may be right."
"What do you mean?" Jan asked.
"Well, this ranch. I'm working as hard as I can and we still can't seem to pull up even, much less get a penny ahead."
Mom's eyes were so sad that Jan felt an urge to comfort her. Dad would have slung an arm around his wife's shoulders now. He would have said something about things getting better. But Jan and her mother avoided touching each other. And what could Jan promise that wouldn't be false? The best she could offer was, "I'll get up early tomorrow and help you with the horses, Mom."
"That's okay," her mother said. "I can manage the twenty boarders we've got."
"But I want to help you," Jan said.
"Well, if you wake up in time, and you feel like it, that would be nice." Mom gave Jan a shy smile. Jan smiled back. It struck her that Mom had lost even more than she had when Dad died. He'd been the only one Mom could talk to, as well as her business partner and beloved husband. And Mom didn't even have Dove to fill in for him.
"Do you hate it that we don't live in the big house anymore?" Jan asked.
Her mother considered for so long that Jan thought she wasn't going to answer. Finally, she said, "I hate it that your father died before me. My parents died in their forties, so I was sure I'd go first."
"Well, you'd better not die in your forties. I'd be a total orphan then," Jan said.
Her mother's smile didn't reach her eyes. "I'm not going anywhere soon that I know of," she said.
As usual, Mom got busy with her paperwork after dinner. Jan washed and dried their two dishes and glasses, careful not to waste precious water. She was wiping the table when she realized that her mother hadn't exactly answered her question. Or had she? Probably what she had meant by her comment on dying was that Dad had been the most important person in her life. Next would probably come Jan and the horses. The house would be down at the bottom of Mom's list. She'd never cared about domestic things. A beautiful saddle had always excited her more than any couch or dish or chair.
And what was on her list, Jan wondered. Mom and Dove ... and then? Then nothing. She wished she hadn't been so awkward when that new girl tried to be friendly.
At lunchtime in school the next day, Brittany grabbed Jan's shirttail as she passed with her tray. "Sit with us. There's still room," Brittany said.
Jan squeezed in at the table and found herself next to the new girl again. "Hi," Jan greeted her with a grin.
"Hi. How's your horse?"
"I don't know. The vet's going to examine him today."
"Uh-huh," the new girl nodded and looked away.
Now what? Jan threw out the first question that came to mind. "Do you have a gr
andmother?"
"Well, sure," the girl answered, as if she expected everyone to have a grandmother. "Mine lives with us. She takes care of the house and my brother and me so my mom can do her volunteer jobs."
"Boy!" Barbara said, joining in the conversation uninvited. "That's pretty good. I mean, a grandmother who does something useful. All my grandma does is take ballroom dancing lessons and shop for sequined gowns and fancy shoes."
"Are you talking about grandmothers?" Brittany asked from where she presided at midtable.
"Yes," Barbara said. "I was just telling them mine's a dancing maniac." That got a laugh, which seemed to satisfy Barbara.
"My grandma travels all the time and sends me neat things from all over the world," Brittany said.
"So what about your grandmother?" the new girl asked Jan.
"I don't know her very well," Jan said. "She lives in England. On my birthday she sends a check. But I never get to see her."
"Better than my grandma," Barbara said. "On my birthday she gives me something awful that I can't wear, like a vest with cats painted all over it."
"What's wrong with that?" the new girl asked. "I like cats."
"Pink and purple cats with evil grins?"
Everybody laughed.
The conversation moved on to Halloween costumes and whether they were too old to go trick-or-treating. Jan had never dressed up and gone trick-or-treating. The two houses within walking distance of hers were forlorn places whose owners wouldn't have known what to do about a trick or treater at their door.
She wondered if the vet had come yet. What if Dr. Foster said she didn't have time to look at Dove? Worse yet, what if she found something awful wrong with him?
Closing her eyes, Jan set herself to wondering something neutral. Like how old Mattie was. Mattie and the other old lady with her, Amelia—they didn't sound like the grandmothers these girls had been talking about: lively grandmothers who were active and traveled and had boyfriends. Mattie and Amelia were past grandmother age. "Come see us," Mattie had said. No, Jan wouldn't go into the house that used to be hers. It would be too awkward and depressing. There might be other people in it, like the wanderer whose mind didn't work right anymore. Being that old would be awful. It would be better to die before needing assistance with living.