Zara hid a smirk by fiddling with her stirrup. She’d vaguely noticed that particular adult ammy at the shows, a woman in her thirties with a cocky attitude and a foul mouth. She was some kind of big-shot lawyer or something—what was her name again? Mary, Marcy?
“Sorry, Margie,” Summer said.
Margie had cantered down toward the other end of the ring by now, catching up to the other ammy, an older woman on a placid-looking gray. Summer halted and watched Zara mount.
“Hold still, girl,” Zara ordered as Ellie danced in place beside the mounting block. She managed to get her left foot in the stirrup and swing aboard, but her horse immediately trotted off with her head in the air.
“You shouldn’t let her do that,” Summer said. “Jamie says they’re supposed to stand until you tell them to move off.”
Zara had already started shortening her reins, preparing to halt. But she wasn’t about to let Summer think she was taking riding advice from the likes of her. So instead, she gave Ellie a sharp kick.
The mare flung her head in the air and broke into a choppy canter. Zara had to squeeze with both legs to stay on, since she hadn’t really gotten her seat yet—or even picked up her right stirrup. Her tight leg—or maybe that flapping stirrup—made Ellie even more agitated, and soon she was bolting straight across the ring.
“Settle down, dammit!” Zara exclaimed, fishing for the stirrup as best she could. She finally caught it and stood in both stirrups, hauling on the reins.
“Look out!” a frightened voice called.
Zara looked up. Ellie was headed straight toward the older adult ammy. All Zara knew about her was that her name was Mrs. Walsh and she was some kind of rich New York socialite. Oh, and that she was one of those chickenshit adult riders who preferred her horses one step livelier than dead. Yeah, running over someone like her wasn’t exactly the best way for Zara to stay on Jamie’s good side.
“Whoa, you stupid thing!” Zara cried, struggling to pull Ellie into a circle.
The mare fought her hands and legs, skittering sideways with her head cranked to the side. She almost crashed into the other horse before giving in and circling away. Mrs. Walsh’s gray gelding actually woke up long enough to lift his head, swish his tail, and take a lazy step sideways.
“Whoa, whoa!” Mrs. Walsh exclaimed, sounding terrified. “Easy, boy.”
Meanwhile Summer and Margie were both watching from nearby. Summer just sat there staring. But Margie kicked her horse forward.
“Get a grip!” she yelled at Zara. “If you can’t control your horse, you shouldn’t be riding in a ring with other people!” She turned toward Mrs. Walsh. “You okay, Elaine?” she asked in a quieter tone.
Zara didn’t stick around to hear any more. Ellie had finally slowed to a walk, and Zara aimed her toward the gate.
“Where are you going?” Summer called, pushing her own horse to follow.
Zara leaned down to swing open the gate from the saddle, just the way she’d learned from an old cowboy on one of her mother’s movie sets. “Out,” she said. “I’m not in the mood for this. I’m going on a trail ride.”
Summer’s eyes widened. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she said. “Ellie seems kind of worked up, and she probably hasn’t ridden out much. If it were me, I’d be kind of nervous, you know?”
“Good thing it’s not you, then,” Zara snapped. She nudged Ellie through the gate, then swung it closed behind her, not wanting Summer to get any bright ideas about tagging along.
In her current mood, she might have almost enjoyed continuing the battle with her horse in the great wide open. But to her surprise, Ellie seemed to relax as soon as they were away from the ring. She stopped fighting Zara’s aids and settled into a loose, swinging walk, pricking her ears at everything they passed—a couple of barn dogs wrestling in the grass, a bird perched on a fence, a stall cleaner dumping his wheelbarrow in the manure pit.
“Well, what do you know,” Zara murmured, turning the mare down the grassy lane between two turnout fields. “So Miss Fancypants really wants to be a trail horse. Who knew?”
Just then Ellie snorted and spooked at a squirrel, and Zara laughed. Okay, so the mare still had some spunk. But that was okay. It was one of the things Zara liked about her.
She ended up spending more than an hour exploring the sprawling property with Ellie. They trotted through an empty pasture and jumped the coop set in the fence line for the local foxhunters; they galloped up the steep hill near the creek, then wandered along a couple of wooded trails to cool down. By the time Zara reluctantly headed back in, her mood had turned around completely.
“I’m glad I came to ride today, girlie,” she told Ellie, reaching forward to give her a pat. “Sorry about earlier. But this was fun.”
Yeah, there was still the thing with her dad to worry about. Not to mention the knowledge that if anyone told Jamie what had really happened that night at the showgrounds, she was toast. But it wasn’t like she could do much about either of those things. So why stress?
As she led Ellie into the barn a few minutes later, she saw Tommi coming out of the tack room. “Hi,” Tommi said. “Summer said you were here somewhere.”
Her tone was friendly, so Zara cautiously returned her smile. Tommi was hard to figure sometimes. Okay, make that most of the time. It seemed like the two of them had butted heads pretty much since Zara had arrived at Pelham Lane, though things had been better since the Hounds Hollow show.
“Yeah, figured I’d get some saddle time in before the horses leave for the show tomorrow,” Zara said. “You?”
“Same, pretty much.” Tommi shrugged. “When are you heading down?”
“Thursday, I guess.” Zara frowned, realizing that her father was leaving for Amsterdam on Wednesday. Along with his driver, Mickey, who usually drove her to the barn and to shows. Was this country cousin of hers supposed to be her chauffeur as well as her babysitter? Or what? “If I find a ride, that is,” she muttered, a little of her bad mood creeping back.
“You don’t have a ride?” Tommi said. “You can bum one with me if you want. I’m spending a couple of days in the Hamptons, so I won’t be leaving the city until Thursday morning myself.”
“Really? Cool,” Zara said. “Guess that could work out.”
“Okay, I’ll call you Wednesday and let you know what time to be ready.” Tommi started to turn away, then paused. “By the way, hope you don’t mind. Grant asked for your number, so I gave it to him.”
“Grant?” For a second Zara drew a blank. Then she remembered—that was Tommi’s preppy friend’s name. She had a vague memory of him feeling her up in the hotel pool. He wasn’t a bad kisser. “Oh, right. Yeah, it’s cool—thanks.”
She was smiling again as she and Tommi parted ways. Yeah, this day wasn’t turning out all bad after all.
“So how’s that horse of ours doing?”
Tommi glanced up as she slid into her seat at the dining room table. She’d arrived home from the barn half an hour earlier, which had just given her time to shower and start packing for the Hamptons trip before the housekeeper had called her to dinner.
“He’s fine,” she told her father. “I’ll be taking him in the jumpers again this weekend.”
“Oh, so you’re going to a horse show this week?” her stepmother said, reaching for the dish of roasted asparagus that Mrs. Grigoryan had just set on the table. “I thought you were taking a week off to go to the Hamptons.”
“Not the whole week. I’m meeting the barn at the show on Thursday, remember?”
“Good,” her father said. “Any nibbles yet?”
Tommi wanted to roll her eyes, but stopped herself. “Not yet,” she said. “But he’s only been to one show so far since we’ve owned him.”
“Hmmph.” Her father seemed to lose interest as he speared a crab cake with his fork and slapped it on his plate. He turned and started talking to his wife about some art gallery opening they were going to soon, and Tommi slumped in her chai
r, off the hot seat—at least for now.
She toyed with her food, feeling uneasy as she realized her father wasn’t going to let up on her until Legs was sold. He wasn’t exactly known for his patience, either on Wall Street or around home. Whatever. It was the price she had to pay. But it made her wonder yet again if it had been a mistake to cut her show week short because of that Hamptons trip. Tommi wasn’t used to second-guessing herself—usually once she made a decision, she just went with it. Full steam ahead, no regrets.
But this felt different somehow. Way more serious and grown-up. And suddenly it just seemed way too stressful to worry about, especially when she had more interesting things on her mind.
Like what she was going to wear for that long, cozy car ride with Alex tomorrow, for instance.
She smiled, mentally skimming through her closet. Her new flirty print sundress, maybe? Or the cute denim capris and a sexy tank? Now that was the kind of decision she had no trouble making.
Kate was surprised to see her father’s car parked in front of the house when she got home that night. Usually he worked the night shift on Sundays.
Then she remembered him grumbling at dinner last week—something about how the new lieutenant was messing with people’s schedules and otherwise shaking things up. Thinking about that made Kate’s stomach twist with anxiety. Ever since her mom had gotten laid off from her part-time receptionist job when Kate was nine, any change of that sort made her anxious. But she tried not to dwell. It wasn’t like she could do anything about it.
Besides, she was way too tired to worry about it right now. It had been a busy day at the barn as always, plus she’d stayed extra late helping pack up. They were leaving for the show the next day, and there never seemed to be enough time to get everything done.
The only light in the house was coming from the kitchen at the back. Kate headed that way, a little nervous about what she might find.
When she entered, her mother was standing at the sink scrubbing at a crusty saucepan. Kate felt her shoulders relax. Okay, so maybe most people didn’t do the dishes at 1:00 a.m. But for Kate’s mother, that almost passed as normal.
“Hi, Mom,” Kate said, dropping her bag and sinking down onto one of the stools in front the battered butcher-block kitchen island.
“Katie! You’re home.” Her mother turned and smiled, her thin face tired but alert. “I was just starting to worry.”
“You know you can call me whenever,” Kate reminded her. “I always keep my phone on.”
“I know. But I don’t like to bother you.” Her mother set down the pan and peeled off her rubber gloves. “Are you hungry? I can make you a plate. There’s leftovers from dinner—we had that roast chicken your father likes so much.”
“Thanks. That sounds great.” As her mother hurried over to the refrigerator, Kate’s mind drifted back to Pelham Lane and everything she had to do the next day. She loved shows, but sometimes she hated them, too. She especially hated hearing some of the other juniors complain about how it was so stressful having to show their hunters and then rush to warm up their eq horses, with barely enough time to have lunch and gossip with their friends in between. What did they know about stress?
She snapped out of it when her mother set a plate in front of her. “There you go, Katie,” she said, already bustling back over to the fridge. “Just let me grab you some juice.”
Kate’s heart sank as she looked at the plate. Anyone else might not have noticed anything off about it. It was just a plate of chicken, carrots, and new potatoes.
No, the food itself wasn’t the strange part. It was the way her mother had arranged it on the plate. Carefully, with none of the different foods touching each other. Exactly four pieces of chicken cut into the same size strips. Four chunks of carrot. Four potatoes.
In other words, business as usual. Kate had never even heard of OCD when her mother had started her rituals a few years earlier. All she’d known was that Mom had some funny habits, and it made Dad tense. Now, they were all so used to it that Kate sometimes wondered how much her father and younger brother even noticed anymore.
But she noticed. And it was getting harder and harder to take.
“There you are, sweetie.” Her mother set a glass of juice beside the plate. Then she grabbed a rag and wiped off the countertop nearby. One circle, two, three, four.
Kate’s fist clenched around her fork; she was too tired and stressed to deal with this right now. She wanted to rebel against her mother’s cheery facade, let her know she knew what was going on, even if the only way she could think of to do it was to shove the piles of food into each other to see how her mother would react. She actually lifted the fork to do it.
But her hand froze in midair, the fork poised half an inch above the carrots. She couldn’t follow through on the plan. It felt physically impossible.
“Just leave your dishes in the sink please, Katie,” her mother said, completely unaware of Kate’s struggle. “See you in the morning.”
“Uh-huh.” Kate didn’t take her eyes off the food. Her hand had started shaking.
What was wrong with her? Was she turning into her crazy mother? Was it genetic?
Kate heard her mother open the door to the bedroom across the narrow back hall, releasing the sounds of her father’s rhythmic snoring. As soon as the door closed again, Kate threw the fork aside and pushed back from the island, her heart pounding.
Dumping the food in the trash bin, she grabbed a soda and headed upstairs to her room in the bungalow’s gabled half-story. So much for thinking, however briefly, that her mother might actually be getting better. She should know better than to get her hopes up.
Her father was asleep, and her brother wasn’t much use lately. So Kate pulled out her phone and called the only other person who knew about her mom; the only other person who was probably still up at this hour.
“Kate?” Natalie’s familiar voice said into her ear a second later. Sure enough, she sounded wide awake. “What’s up?”
“I’m sorry,” Kate blurted out. “I’ve been meaning to call you all week—I hate it when we fight, you know that.”
“What?” Nat sounded confused for a second. “Oh, wait—is this about you flaking out on that party at the barn the other weekend? Don’t worry, I’m over it.” She laughed. “Actually that party was kind of a bust. The Tanners asked this crotchety old neighbor guy to stop by and check on things, and he chased us off before things could barely get started.”
“Oh,” Kate said softly. “That’s too bad.”
“Katie?” Nat’s voice went sharp and curious. “You okay, babe? You sound weird.”
“Yeah. I mean no. Not really.” Kate took a long, shaky breath. “It’s just, you know, Mom.”
“Back on the crazy train, huh?” Though Natalie’s words were snarky, her tone was sympathetic. “Sorry. That really sucks. You want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” Kate said, sinking down on the edge of her bed and kicking off her paddock boots. “I mean, there’s not much to say.”
“Okay. But listen, talking horses always cheers you up, right? Just wait until you hear about the newest horse at Happy Acres. Thoroughbred. Only off the track a few weeks. And guess who’s in charge of his training?”
“You?” Kate asked. She tried to sound cheerful, though secretly she was wincing. Nat was a decent rider, all things considered, athletic and pretty much fearless. But she had a temper and a touchy ego. A fresh ex-racehorse could be a disaster if things didn’t go perfectly.
But Kate wasn’t about to say so. Natalie didn’t take criticism too well at the best of times. Especially riding criticism, and especially from Kate.
“Yeah, Mrs. Tanner told me I can make him my special project for the summer.” Natalie sounded pleased with herself. “I’m even taking him in his first ever show in a couple of weeks.”
“Show?” Kate echoed, leaning back against her pillow.
“Uh-huh. Just the summer schooling show at the barn, but s
till. Should be an adventure.” Nat chuckled. “Hey, why don’t you come watch? You haven’t been back to one of our shows in ages.”
“Oh.” Kate bit her lip, hoping she wasn’t about to piss Nat off again just when they’d finally made up. “Um, when is it?”
“Saturday after next.”
Kate realized that was a nonshowing weekend for Pelham Lane. Still, she hesitated for a second, not sure what to say. Saturday was always a busy day at the barn, and Jamie counted on her being around to help out.
But maybe she could swing it somehow. It might be worth juggling her schedule just this once, if it meant getting her friendship with Natalie back on track.
“That might work,” she said. “I’ll try to be there.”
FOUR
Perfect. If Tommi had to use only one word to describe the evening, that would be it. Perfect. She couldn’t think of a single thing that could be better, a single place she’d rather be right now.
She took a sip of her beer and glanced around. It was Monday evening, and the house party had moved to the pristine private beach behind Alex’s house. Alex and the other guys had lit a bonfire, which crackled away and cast a warm orange glow over the pale sand. The last rays of the setting sun had disappeared a while ago, though Tommi wasn’t sure what time it was—she’d forgotten to put her watch back on after taking a dip in the pool earlier. She also hadn’t bothered to change out of her swimsuit—none of them had—though she’d shrugged on a loose linen shirt as a cover-up against the cool evening breeze coming off the ocean.
Stretching her bare legs out in the teak chair she’d dragged down from the pool deck, Tommi dug her toes into the sand and smiled as she watched Alex rummaging around in the cooler at the end of the weathered wooden walkway leading down over the dunes from his massive shingle-style house. The two of them had spent the long car ride across Long Island talking about everything and anything. School. Music. Friends. Family. Horses. Life in general.
“So.” Courtney leaned over from her chair nearby. “You and Alex, huh?”
My Favorite Mistake Page 4