by Jane Smiley
“Oh, please tell us what he was listening to,” said Barbie.
“He was listening to ‘Paint It Black,’ by the Rolling Stones, okay? Freddie sits down on the bed, and he says, ‘Larry, I want you to do me a favor without asking why. Without asking anything about it.’ So Larry stares at him, and, you know, he really does love his little brother, and besides that, he knows that Freddie knows that he is sneaking out at night by climbing out his bedroom window and shinnying down the roof of the family room and not coming home until five in the morning some nights, so he says, ‘Okay,’ and he doesn’t ask.
“The next day, first thing, Larry is standing by his locker, and Freddie is watching him. And sure enough, the red-haired girl comes up in the crowd and stands behind Larry and stares at him. Larry happens to look over at Freddie, and Freddie holds his hand up like a stop signal, and the bell rings, and all the kids run off to class, but Larry and Freddie keep standing there, Larry looking at Freddie, and Freddie watching the red-haired girl. She is in the middle of the hallway, looking at Larry, and then she goes up to him and kisses him on the cheek. Then she walks over to the drinking fountain and takes a drink. Then she turns her back and starts walking down the hall and disappears.”
I knew this was coming, but I gasped anyway. I couldn’t help myself.
“Freddie says, ‘She kissed you on the cheek. Did you feel anything?’
“Larry shakes his head, and for a moment, they don’t know what to do. Freddie says, ‘She took a drink from the drinking fountain.’ They go over to look at the drinking fountain, and the drinking fountain is wet. Larry is now a believer, and he says, ‘The next time you see her, we’ll follow her.’ They go to their classes, and every time Freddie sees Larry all day, he looks for the girl, but she never appears.”
Barbie said, “Are you almost finished?” But she was still holding my hand. Of course, in my mind, the red-haired girl looked like the slender lady—she was a cross between Eileen Corcoran, who was in the ninth grade and was the only girl in our school with red hair, and the slender floating lady. I shook my head, trying to get the picture out of my mind. Barbie said, “Abby is bored.”
I said, “No, I’m not.”
Alexis smiled at me. The two candles flickered. She went on, “Two days later was Friday. By this time, both Larry and Freddie were nervous wrecks, because they hadn’t seen the ghost. You would have thought they would be relieved, but the longer the ghost stayed away, the more mysterious it was, and the more they thought about her. They couldn’t decide where to wait—in places where lots of people were or places where no one was. And they couldn’t decide whether to look for her or to not look for her, although at this point Freddie couldn’t not look for her. By that afternoon after practice, they hadn’t seen her in three whole school days, not since the morning when she kissed Larry on the cheek. After practice, they lingered a little bit and looked one last time around the school, but nothing—
“So they were already a little scared when they walked to the car, and there, sitting in the front seat, was Mary Lynne. She had turned on the radio, even though the key was not in the ignition. Freddie said, ‘She’s sitting in the passenger’s side,’ and he got in the backseat. Larry didn’t say anything; he just got into the driver’s seat, turned on the car, and drove away. Freddie saw her put her hand on the wheel, and he saw the wheel turn this way and that. They drove down some streets, and pretty soon they were going along Mulholland Drive.”
“You saw that in a movie,” said Barbie.
Alexis ignored her and turned to me. “Mulholland Drive goes along the top of a ridge. It’s really windy. Freddie just sat there, watching the backs of the two heads, and feeling this weird feeling of not in fact being scared. Larry didn’t say anything the whole time and the road was too dangerous for him to turn around and look at Freddie or anything. They crossed under a big highway, and then went into a secluded, parklike place where there was a lake and a dam. They drove along there for a while, and then they had to stop and turn around, but when they stopped, the door on the passenger side opened—Freddie said she opened it, and Larry just saw it get open—and Mary Lynne Murphy got out, ran across the grass, then got onto the dam and ran about halfway down it, and jumped into the lake. Freddie watched her. She did not make a splash.”
“And that’s right where they found the body,” said Barbie in a deep voice.
Alexis stuck her tongue out at her sister and said, “Yes, Miss Know-it-all, it is.”
“And they’d never thought to look there before?”
“Not in that exact spot.”
I said, “Who killed her?”
Alexis turned to me. “Well, it turned out to be the boyfriend, but he was dead by that time, too.”
I said, “Why?”
“He had gotten drafted into the army and was hit by a truck one night when he was standing in the middle of a road and didn’t get out of the way. He didn’t want to get out of the way.”
“How did they know he was the one who killed her?” said Barbie.
Alexis looked first at me and then at Barbie. She said, “When they sent his duffle bag home, and they opened it, it was filled with little rolled-up notes and scraps of paper in her handwriting, and they all said, ‘Meet me by the dam. I have something to tell you, Love you always, Mary Lynne.’ There were hundreds of them, every one dated up in the right-hand corner, one for each day, starting with the date when she disappeared, and ending with the day the police found her by the dam.”
I said, “What did she have to tell him?”
“Well, that she was pregnant,” said Alexis. “Or that’s what Leah’s friend told her.”
“Okay, then,” said Barbie. “Why Larry and Freddie?”
This seemed like a hard question. I expected her to say that Larry looked like the old boyfriend, or had his locker or something, but she said, “I don’t know. My guess is that she had been roaming around the school, trying to get someone to pay attention to her for years, maybe the whole time, and it was only Freddie who bothered to wonder about her. Or maybe it was only Freddie who could see her.” She shrugged. Then she leaned toward Barbie and said, “That part wasn’t in the paper.” They laughed.
By this time, Barbie had let go of my hand, but she turned to me. “It’s only a story. One time over Christmas vacation, I woke up late and she told me that the whole downstairs was flooded from the rainstorm we’d had and Mom said we had to jump out the windows. I believed her for about ten seconds.”
“At least a minute,” said Alexis. “Maybe two. Anyway, Leah swore that this happened.”
I said, “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“But do they believe in you?” said Alexis.
I swallowed, thinking all the time how glad I was to be sleeping that night at Barbie and Alexis’s house, nowhere near Spooky the kitten or the floating lady, or True Blue.
In the end, we stayed up late, got up late, and had to scramble to get home in time for me to give Barbie her lesson and then go to the stable for Melinda. And Ellen. According to Mom, the phone call from Jane never came, so she expected to leave me there for two and a half hours while she shopped for food. It was our turn to cook for the brothers and sisters, which meant an afternoon of work, but included, she decided, two lemon meringue pies.
Even though I was glad for the break, I felt as though I hadn’t seen the horses, especially Jack, in weeks. And maybe I hadn’t, in a way. I’d been thinking about so many other things that even when I was with them, I wasn’t paying much attention to them—I would wrestle with the hay the way you have to with one arm, just glad that you’ve managed to get it to the gate and then annoyed when you can’t throw it the way you are used to doing. The horses themselves sort of disappear into the job you are doing, and then you walk away, already thinking about the next thing.
But with Barbie along to help me bring in Foxy, and groom her, and tack her up, there was time to take some carrots to the geldings, put Blue into the pen
with Jefferson, and have her help me brush Jack—not a full grooming, but just some brushing with the soft brush to get the dust off. First I held him, keeping the rope in my left hand and stroking his face and neck with my right, just the fingertips, while she brushed his neck and sides, then she held him while I brushed his haunches and took a few tangles out of his tail. He stood nicely as he was trained to do, but not dully—he looked at her and sniffed her and even put his nose up to her face. I said, “Blow gently into his nostril. He’s wondering about you.”
She did it, then petted his neck again. I said, “You’re a natural.” She smiled a real smile, then said, “Well, I always wanted to ride. When I first heard that you ride all the time and live with horses, I was so impressed that I was afraid to talk to you.”
I stood up from brushing his belly and stared at her. “You’re kidding.”
“No! That’s why we invited you to do Julius Caesar with us. We’d been trying to figure out a way to get to know you for a year.” Then she laughed out loud and said, “Don’t you know how shy we are?”
I said, “No. I don’t think anyone knows that.”
She grinned. “Well, don’t tell.”
“How can you be shy when you’ll do almost anything?”
She shrugged, then looked at me. “Okay, here’s something. Alexis is six minutes younger than I am. She just can’t get over that six minutes, so she’s always wanting to do things that she knows I’m a little afraid of doing, but she knows if she wants to do it, it’s like a dare, and I will do it. And most of the time I do, then it is fun, and we laugh about it. But she is exhausting. Did you notice that?”
“She’s fun.”
“Did you like her story last night?”
“It was a good story.”
Barbie nodded. “Well, maybe it’s true. About half the time what she tells is true, but the other half, it’s made up. She doesn’t care. But I try to make sure I know the difference.”
I said, “Do you know the difference this time?”
She shook her head.
It didn’t take us long to catch Foxy—she was standing at the gate, wondering why all the others were getting carrots and not her, so she got a carrot and got caught, too. Barbie was the kind of person who only needed one lesson to learn something—she groomed Foxy and put on the saddle and led her toward the arena while I carried the bridle and a lunge line—I thought I would have her trot around on the lunge until she felt the rhythm and learned to post. That was the way I learned when I was a kid—up down up down, holding on to the horn of the saddle and trying to feel the steps of the horse. But first I slipped the clasp through the right ring of the bit, passed it under Foxy’s chin, and attached it to the left one.
Then I had Barbie stand in the middle with me while Foxy trotted around us. Foxy had a good trot—maybe her ancestors had been Morgans, which were famous carriage horses. She picked up her front feet and bent her knees, which a lot of horses do, but she also bent her hocks, which meant that you could notice how her hind legs were moving in sync with the front ones. She went around like a horse who was born to cover ground at the trot. I let Barbie watch her for a minute, then I said, “Do you see how the outside hind moves with the inside fore, and vice versa?”
“Yes.”
“Boom boom boom. It’s easy for her. That’s why lots of driving horses, who used to pull wagons and stuff, were bred to be really good trotters.”
“Like that kind of racing with carts?”
“Yes, but they’re called sulkies. Some of those trotters go almost as fast as galloping racehorses.”
Foxy lifted her head a bit and blew out her nose. Then she slowed down just a hair, but I shook the line to speed her up.
“Why’d you do that?” said Barbie.
“Because she can’t do what she wants to do, or she’ll start doing what she wants to do more and more.”
“One time, oh, I guess we were eight, maybe, we went on a horse ride, and all my horse wanted to do was eat the grass.”
“Yes,” I said. “Because there was no one to remind him every day that he had a job.”
Now I called out, “Whoa,” and pulled a little on the lunge line. Foxy turned toward me and halted. I went over and switched the clip to the other side, which took a while, but she was patient. I sent her off to the left. I said, “You have to learn to ride the trot, because you get bounced around. There are other horses who race with sulkies called pacers. The two legs on each side move together. No one can ride those, but sometimes they’re faster than trotters. They’re also more likely to start galloping, so they wear these things that hang down that loop around the two legs on each side to keep them pacing.”
“Is she going to pace?”
“No. Never. I never saw a horse pace myself. They are born to do that, and most horses don’t do it.”
I pulled on the line, and Foxy slowed, then halted, and turned and stared at me. I said, “Okay. Riders up.”
Barbie walked over to Foxy and put her hands on the horn and the cantle of her saddle, then lifted her foot. I said, “Wait a minute.”
She froze in place, which made me laugh, but I said, “Did you check your cinch?”
Still frozen in place, she shook her head.
“Well, you better, because the saddle could just slide right down.”
“That would be funny.”
“Not to Foxy.”
She tightened the girth two holes, then started over. I still had Foxy on the lunge line, and she stood quietly.
The lesson went well. Barbie settled herself in the saddle and sat up, the way she was used to doing when she was playing music. As she walked along, I saw that her back was strong but loose, and she had no trouble following the movements of the horse’s body. I let her go around me for about a minute, one time flicking the lunge line to get Foxy to speed up a little. Then I said, “Close your eyes.”
She closed her eyes. They walked along for another minute. I said, “Do you feel things more with your eyes closed?”
“You mean, my legs hanging down and my hips kind of going side to side?”
“Yeah.”
“I do. It’s a little scary.”
“I’ve got her. All she can do is go in a circle. And anyway, when we were watching her trot, she was tiring herself out a little. She wants to walk. Take your feet out of the stirrups.”
She did. She looked a little nervous, but she was so used to sitting up straight that she kept sitting up straight and didn’t hunch forward. I called, “Keep your eyes closed until you are really enjoying walking along. Until you’re not nervous about it at all anymore. Whistle something.”
She started whistling, and it was not “Mary Had a Little Lamb” or even “In My Life,” which was a Beatles song she liked. I don’t know what she was whistling, but it lasted a long time, and even Foxy seemed to enjoy it. When she was finished, I said, “Okay, you can open your eyes.” I went over to her and switched the lunge line so that they could go the other direction. I thought she should practice doing everything both ways, because it is a good habit to get into for the sake of the horse.
I went back to the middle, and sent them walking to the right. I said, “This time, keep your eyes open, but put your hands on top of your head for ten steps, then behind your back for ten steps, then stretch your arms out in front of you for ten steps.” She did this. When Foxy showed signs of getting bored—switching her tail, looking off toward the mares—I rattled the lunge line to keep her going. Then I said, “Close your eyes and whistle something short this time.” She closed her eyes. I said, “And look up, even with your eyes closed.” She tilted her head back. I think she was whistling “The Sound of Silence.” When she was done, I halted Foxy and went out to her. I said, “I bet you are really bored.”
“I’m not, though. I’m relaxed.”
“Okay, well, that part is over. Now you’re going to trot. I want you to hold the horn of the saddle with one hand and I’m going to get Foxy to trot.
As you feel the steps, you count aloud, like you’re playing music or something, and then try going up on one, down on two, up on one, down on two, like that. Push off the balls of your feet, and then sink down again.” I demonstrated as best I could by bending my knees and straightening them, but keeping my shoulders even.
“Okaaaay.”
Foxy didn’t have a terribly bouncy trot, but even I preferred posting to it to sitting it. I went back to the middle of the circle and shook the end of the lunge line with my broken wrist, which wasn’t hurting much. Foxy picked up a nice trot and Barbie bounced for about twenty seconds, counting out loud, and then she figured it out, and got the rhythm. I called out, “You have to go around and around. You have to post a thousand times before you really know what it feels like.” I made this up. But I had her circle me four times, twice in each direction, with a rest between the times. If she got out of rhythm, I let her figure out how to get back in rhythm. Rhythm was no problem for her. When she was finished with her lesson and we had untacked Foxy and put her away, I said, “What did you whistle? What was that long piece?”
She said, “It was the singing part to Beethoven’s ‘Choral Fantasy.’ I love that.” She whistled for a few seconds, and then Mrs. Goldman showed up outside the gate to pick her up. I have to say I wished I were through for the day. Barbie and Alexis were about as much fun as anyone I had ever known, but Barbie was right, they were exhausting.
Chamois
Currycombs
Chapter 14
IT WAS ONLY WHEN WE WERE DRIVING TOWARD THE STABLE that Mom asked me how my night had been. We were both a little bundled up, because the morning, which had started out fairly bright, was now foggy, and getting foggier with every mile. But there had been enough rain (sixteen inches since December, according to Daddy, who checked the rain gauge on one of the fence posts of the arena every time it rained, and wrote it down), so that the hills were a bright, appley green and the oaks looked dark and wet. I was just beginning to tell Mom about the ghost story and ask her what she thought when we started to see more and more wildflowers. The shooting stars were out, and as we got toward the coast, there were lupines. Mom kept saying, “Oh, look at that. So beautiful coming straight up out of the green of the grass. I love the fields of lupines so much! Remember last year when we rode around the mountainside, when was that, maybe the second week in April, and there were so many lupines and they smelled so good it seemed like we were going to pass out from the fragrance?”