Shenandoah Summer

by John Muncie

  They continued to talk about the fellows and the Follies until Carol interrupted. “So how about this Tug guy, anyway? Is he someone I might want to meet on the Fourth of July? What’s he look like?”

  “A rugby player. Maybe a little like Jeff Bridges—not as handsome, but hearty in that midwestern ‘Yes, ma’am’ kind of way. Like he stepped off the stage from Oklahoma! Nattie told me he and Abbi had a thing going years back. I’d be happy to vet him out for you, but if you ask me, he looks like trouble. He’s got one of those Sam Isaac smiles.”

  They laughed. Sam Isaac was the teen heartthrob at Emerson. According to the gossip, he’d already sampled the delights of half the girls in the eleventh and twelfth grades and was working through the tenth grade.

  “That’s the last thing I need after Nick,” Carol said.

  Alyssa knew all about Nick and all the other Nicks who’d preceded him. Carol had been through at least five boyfriends in the time Alyssa had known her. When Alyssa and Carol talked, their conversation usually bounced between two topics: Carol’s love life and the latest controversy involving Emerson’s new headmistress, Justine Shriker.

  The Shrike, as everyone called her behind her back, was an autocrat with a tight Texas accent and a closet full of angular black-and-red blazers. She prefaced all criticisms (and there were plenty) with a pinched face and the words, “Thank you for your comment,” and then went on to filibuster for forty minutes, disregarding the question.

  Alyssa didn’t like her any better than Carol did. She’d already been through five headmasters during her twelve years at Emerson and was hoping the Shrike would have an even briefer shelf life than the others. But she was afraid that even two years under the new regime would change Emerson into a place she didn’t know or like. The school had always been one of Washington’s more progressive, filled with creative kids and edgy parents. She’d taken the job as drama director for that reason. She could stretch as far as she wanted at Emerson, and the kids, parents, and administration would be right there with her, pushing her even further outside the box.

  But the Shrike liked to stay inside the box. Under her rigid new rules, Emerson was becoming more and more like a military school. In January, Alyssa had been told she couldn’t stage The Runner Stumbles because of its “risqué” content. “I’m sorry,” the Shrike had said, “but a play about a priest’s affair is not the kind of message we want to be sending to the Emerson community.” Alyssa almost quit on the spot, but Roz still had another six months to go there and they could never afford the tuition without the faculty price break.

  “So has she declared herself empress yet?” Alyssa asked. Both of them knew who she was referring to. “Or let me guess, she’s going to make the kids wear uniforms?”

  Carol screamed into the phone. “Oh my God, are you psychic or what?” And she launched into a tirade. For the next five minutes, she revisited all the horrible things the woman from Texas had done to their school—censored the valedictorian’s graduation speech, expelled four students for posting a letter protesting the graduation speech censorship, abolished the students’ right to call teachers by their first names, caused the resignation of four administrators and nine teachers, one of whom was the county’s teacher of the year. She’d created such turmoil that the kindergarten and elementary teachers had boycotted her Christmas party.

  “I mean, think what you have to do to piss off kindergarten teachers,” Carol said. “They’re, like, the nicest people in the world.”

  Hearing about the new regime made Alyssa feel sad. Justine Shriker had spent her first year dismantling the old, quirky Emerson and rebuilding it into a place she hardly recognized. And not just figuratively. The campus was a fourteen-acre oasis of green in the middle of dense subdivisions. Yet by May it was lined with new and formidable fencing. The lot where parents and students had parked was cordoned off and peppered with crisp black, white, and red signs announcing, “Tow-away zone. School Administration only.”

  In the middle of rehearsals for the spring musical, Cinderella, Alyssa had found half her prop room emptied, caged off, and locked—to be used to store 15,000 granola bars in case of emergency. The prince and one of the ugly stepsisters had climbed into the cage and laid out a dummy on the floor next to a sign that read, “This is where we put bad children.”

  The headmistress had summoned Alyssa to her office and demanded to know who’d broken into the new storage area. Alyssa had lied. “I have no idea,” she’d said. A lecture about the need for more discipline followed, and when Alyssa tried to tell the Shrike about Emerson’s traditionally liberal background, where such pranks would have been laughed at in the past, she’d been cut off in midsentence.

  “You are never to use that word again,” Justine Shriker had said. “There is no more ‘traditionally’ at Emerson. We are all starting from scratch, including you.”

  Alyssa was ready to send out résumés, but Carol had talked her out of it. “She’ll be gone in a year. Besides, you can’t leave me there alone with her.”

  Teaching at Emerson had been the only good thing about living in Washington. Now that was in jeopardy, thanks to the Shrike. Alyssa was tired of thinking about it. There was nothing she could do to stop the woman. And she refused to let the new headmistress invade her summer anymore.

  It was a few minutes before nine. Abbi’s sculptor friend would be there soon to learn about horses. A knock on the door would be the perfect excuse to get off the phone.

  CHAPTER 7

  Though he’d been wandering around Limespring for almost a week, he’d never noticed the little yellow farmhouse tucked up against the hills at the end of the dirt drive. It was painted a sunny gold and had a red tin roof; the trim was the kind of green you sometimes see in mountain lakes. Tug liked it from a distance and even more up close.

  The night before, after the Mr. Ed comedy, Abbi had told him Alyssa’s farm had “serious charm” but refused to say more so as not to “ruin the surprise.” By the time Tug reached the front door he knew what she meant. The walkway to the house was an amalgam of stepping-stones, sunken pool balls with their numbers facing up, odd bits of hardware—spigot tops, rivets, barn-door hinges—and a frieze of plastic action figurines set into silly poses. G.I. Joe held hands with Barbie; Gumby rode Raphael the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle; Trigger took a bow. Near the front door, a centaur whirligig kicked out in the breeze.

  In her usual talkative mood, Abbi had told him much more about the owner than her farm. He’d heard all about Alyssa’s acting days in New York. She’d made it to the final cut for Les Misérables; she was the Jergens “take me away” woman in the television commercial; she’d been a prostitute on NYPD Blue; she’d been a singer on Sesame Street. Abbi had also told him about Alyssa’s passion for teaching. “She’s the only person in the world who actually likes teenagers.”

  Tug had already seen for himself that Alyssa was bright and funny and attractive. Plus he liked her convex lines. The women he knew in New York were as hard-edged and angular as Italian eyeglass frames; Alyssa curled and curved.

  Abbi also filled in the details about Alyssa’s split life between Washington, D.C., and Virginia, how she’d been trying for years to get her husband to move to their farm full-time, but he wouldn’t budge.

  “A smart guy,” said Abbi about Alyssa’s husband. “But a joyless twit. And boooooring. This guy could put an insurance salesman to sleep.”

  He was, according to Abbi, a scientist of some kind who disliked the country. “Every time I see Darryl at the farm,” she said, “he’s vacuuming up the ladybugs. As far as I can tell, that’s all he does there.”

  Tug was thinking about ladybugs, wondering whether there were such things as gentlemanbugs, when he reached for the door knocker absentmindedly. Then he realized it was a kid’s toolbox hammer tied to a hook. When Alyssa answered the door, Tug had a grin on his face and an orange plastic handle in his hand.

  She was wearing a purple shirt, blue shorts, and red
clogs. Between that and her yellow hair, Tug hadn’t seen so much color on a female since he’d left home and moved to the land of women in black.

  She took the hammer from him and hung it back on the door. “My daughter’s idea,” she said and smiled back at him. “So, you’re here to learn about horses. Want to start with Mr. Ed reruns?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I actually said that. Sure there’s no hard feelings?”

  “Well, maybe a few,” Tug said. “But show me around and I’ll forgive you. Abbi told me your farm had ‘serious charm.’ I see what she means.”

  He was flashing that bad-boy smile again. She found herself smiling right back—and enjoying it more than she’d expected. It was a lot more fun volleying smiles with someone who looked like Tug than a gawky teenager who thought he was hot.

  “I don’t know about charm, serious or otherwise,” Alyssa said. “But I do know that I love everything about this place. Even the bugs. Follow me.”

  She ushered him in and started the tour. The walkway, it turned out, was only a prelude to the eccentricities inside. To his immediate right was a small bathroom tucked under a flight of stairs. The walls were the color of sweet potatoes, the trim edged in deep ruby. On the floor was a tile mosaic of a horse’s head encircled by a horseshoe made from flattened copper tubing and marbles for the nails. Underneath it said, “Finally Farm, 1991.”

  Tug reached down and ran his fingers over the marbles.

  “I know,” Alyssa said. “Floors are supposed to be flat. But think of it as reflexology. Come in here barefoot and get a treatment. Nattie did the floor; the marbles were my idea.”

  “A three-dimensional floor,” Tug said. “I like the concept.”

  “Well, that makes you the first person, then. I had to force Nattie to put them in, and my husband complains every time he walks over them. He says they’re dangerous.”

  “Let’s see.” Tug slipped off his sandals and walked around the small bathroom while Alyssa watched him from the hall. “I’m still alive and my kidney points have been stimulated. Seems safe and therapeutic to me. I like it. Floor as shiatsu. You might be on to something.”

  Alyssa eyed him skeptically. This guy was good. In less than five minutes he’d zeroed in on her soft spot—anything to do with her farm.

  For the next ten minutes, she gave Tug a room-by-room tour of her farmhouse-as-funhouse. There was a Mardi Gras of colors and artifacts and props and stage sets from Alyssa’s various school and Limespring productions. On the living room wall hung a painted backdrop of ancient Rome from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Near that were several sawed-off Corinthian columns holding up long steel grates—West Side Story—for stereo equipment. On the other end of the room, a huge papier-mâché head of the Trojan horse—the Iliad—loomed over the fireplace mantel. Heavy stainless steel pots and a selection of sabers, hatchets, crossbows—Macbeth—dangled from a ladder—Oklahoma!—that was suspended over the kitchen counter.

  Tug pointed to a life-sized stuffed gorilla. It was sitting on a turquoise slatted swing hung from the ceiling near a large set of barn slider doors opening to the porch. The gorilla wore a Santa Claus cap and red-striped socks.

  “What play’s that from?” he asked.

  Alyssa walked to the swing and sat next to the gorilla. She put her arm around it and said, “No play. He’s just old Mr. Monkeysocks. I made him for my daughter’s eleventh birthday party.”

  Upstairs, Tug saw a purpley-blue bedroom papered with playbills from school productions and a poster of Shakespeare with these words underneath him: “Take my word that time will bring on summer when briars will have leaves as well as thorns and be as sweet as sharp.”

  What surprised Tug most about the house was the second bedroom—stark white walls, two twin beds covered with steel gray blankets, a plain black chest of drawers, and three black-and-white Ansel Adams photographs of ghostly aspen trees.

  “That’s Roz’s room,” Alyssa said. “My daughter. She’s in her Bauhaus-be-anything-your-mother-isn’t stage.”

  Alyssa led Tug back downstairs, stopping here and there to explain which walls had been knocked out, what the place had looked like when they bought it twelve years ago, and how they had fixed it up on their modest salaries.

  “We hired out for the tricky stuff like electrical and plumbing and did the rest ourselves. I’ve gotten pretty friendly with a power saw. The roof still leaks in the kitchen when it rains, but otherwise everything works.”

  They were standing in the main room, which was all of the first floor minus the little bathroom with the mosaic floor. It functioned as living room/kitchen/dining room/office.

  Tug did a 360 turn. “For once, Abbi understated something,” he said. “‘Serious charm’ doesn’t begin to describe this place. Now I know what the inside of Stephen Sondheim’s mind looks like.”

  “Ha!” she said. “Don’t insult the master.”

  “I think he’d consider it a compliment,” Tug said. “Hey, got a spare cup of that for me?” He motioned to the coffeemaker on the kitchen counter.

  “You bet,” she said and poured him a cup. “This is how I bribe all my Limespring artists. A few pots of coffee and before you know it I’ve got a mosaic floor, a mural on the barn wall, a crazy-quilt walkway, a whirligig, and an installation from Marius that I’m still not sure how it works.”

  She handed him the coffee. This time it was Alyssa who flashed “the smile.” “Your contribution remains to be seen.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The horse was the color of wet copper paint. Alyssa ran her hand over his haunch, stopping halfway down his rear leg to a cord of muscles as carved and defined as a weightlifter’s triceps.

  “Here, feel this.” She took Tug’s hand and pressed it onto the copper hide. Her palms were rougher than he’d expected. Against his skin, he could feel a washboard of light calluses.

  “That’s the engine,” she said as together their hands retraced the path she’d just made. “Everything comes from the back end.”

  The big copper horse didn’t move.

  “You’ll see what I mean in a second,” she said. “Keep your hand there.”

  Alyssa pressed in close to the horse’s hind end; wisps of yellow hair clung briefly to the sorrel coat as she bent down. Using her thumb and index finger as a pincer, she lightly squeezed the back of the horse’s leg a few inches above the hoof. He raised his leg and Tug jumped back.

  Tug laughed nervously; Alyssa, crouched by the raised leg, looked as calm as if she were picking daisies. “He won’t kick,” she said. “He’s just lifting his leg because he’s trained to do that when you touch him there. He thinks I want to clean out his hoof. Do it again, put your hand back where it was. But this time close your eyes. It’s magic, I swear.”

  She stood up and pushed her weight into the horse’s rear leg, signaling him to put his foot down flat on the ground.

  “Eyes closed?” she asked. Tug, with his hand back on the horse, complied. He could feel the animal’s heat radiating against his face. The air smelled of sweat and earth and hay.

  Still leaning into the horse, Alyssa slid down his leg again and crouched by his hoof. Again she pressed her fingers into the tendons. The horse lifted his leg. This time Tug stayed where he was, feeling the muscles contract, coil, and lift.

  “Holy shit!” he blurted. “That’s amazing. I never really understood the meaning of horsepower till now. This thing could kick me into July if it wanted.”

  Alyssa walked to the horse’s head and rubbed her face against his muzzle. “It’s more likely he’d curl up into your lap if he could. They don’t come any sweeter than Roy.”

  Roy moved his face up and down against Alyssa’s cheek. “See what I mean?”

  Tug’s first horse lesson had come after the house tour and begun with a change of shoes. “Forget the sandals,” Alyssa had told him. She’d pulled a pair of worn work boots from a closet. “Ho
rses don’t know about personal space. Your space is their space. Put these on even if you have to curl up your toes. Believe me, you’ll thank me after we lead the boys into the barn.”

  The boys, it turned out, were Alyssa’s two favorite horses. Theo was the mahogany horse that Tug had been bribing with carrots the past few days. Roy was all copper except for the white on his legs—he looked like he was wearing knee socks—and a matching blaze that ran down his face. Both horses, she said, were refugees from the track.

  They’d caught Theo and Roy at the edge of a pasture along the dirt road to the farm. Actually, Alyssa had done the catching while Tug stood anxiously by, waiting for one of them to buck or rear or bolt. But nothing dramatic happened. Both docilely accepted halters and began plodding after Alyssa as she led them to the barn. It seemed to Tug like a kind of circus act—Pretty Blond Woman Wearing Clothes the Color of a Flower Market Makes Horses Behave Like Cocker Spaniels.

  Tug followed as Alyssa walked through the grass. He admired her grace of purpose; she seemed oblivious to the two behemoths behind her. Her stride was easy and loose. She ambled. Nobody ambled in New York City.

  “Here, take Theo,” she said, handing him a rope. “You lead him in. If he gets bossy, like trying to walk ahead of you, whack him right here above the shoulder. That’s where they bite each other to show who’s boss.” She made a fist and tapped the horse at the base of its neck, above the front leg.

  “You just have to show him you’re the alpha horse,” she said.

  Tug gave the huge mahogany neck what he hoped was a manly, alpha sort of pat. “Good boy, Theo,” he said, lowering his voice to a deep, manly alpha baritone. Theo leaned down and sniffed Tug’s arm. Theo was not fooled, of that Tug was certain. As they walked to the barn, with Tug doing a kind of gingerly two-step to keep clear of Theo’s huge hooves, it wasn’t at all clear who was leading who.