True Blue

by Jane Smiley

I was getting pretty impressed with my story. We picked up more hay, armloads. I said, “I know what she saw.”

  “What?”

  “She saw the ghost riding Blue, because I saw that the other night, when I was almost over the virus. I slept so much during the day that I woke up around two in the morning, and I put on some clothes and came outside, and she was riding him bareback, kind of lying along his neck with her legs hanging down. She had the boots on and her hair was hiding her face. This time he saw me in the night, and he spooked, and she fell to the side and slid off. But I couldn’t find anything in the morning.”

  “You never can with ghosts.”

  We came to the geldings’ fence. I said, “I guess not.”

  “Weren’t you terrified?”

  I shrugged. “Well, yes. But it was like with Alexis’s story. I was terrified, but I didn’t want to miss it, either.”

  “Yes, I always wonder in monster movies why they don’t just run the other direction. You know, why do they open the door of the haunted house and go in, even though Mom is calling them home for dinner?”

  I laughed, but I said, “You don’t believe me.”

  “I do, in a way.”

  We tossed the flakes over and Jack and Blue came first, then Lincoln. I thought Lincoln looked a little lonely. I wanted to finish my story, but I couldn’t help saying, “Why are you so nice?”

  “Habit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you know when Mr. Ramirez says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction?”

  I nodded.

  “For twins, for every mean action, there is an equally mean reaction.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not kidding. When we were little, we specialized in hair-pulling. I could get her down and actually put my knee on her hair and sort of work it until she was screaming. She just ran over and grabbed handfuls and yanked. She could have me before I realized what was happening. Mom thought the fighting was going to drive her crazy. So we learned. It’s easier this way.”

  I said, “More fun, too?”

  She nodded, then said, “So tell me more.”

  We went into the barn to put away our riding things. I turned on the light because it was almost dark and said, “Those are her trunks.” Barbie glanced over at them. Then I said, “Okay, and something happened last night.”

  “Last night! You’re kidding! You seem so sane.”

  “Last night I woke up and looked out at the frost, and then when I was lying in my bed, she came in the window and floated around. She sat in my desk chair, and screamed, and then floated over above me, and the ceiling opened up and she rose through the hole. Her dress was trailing behind her. It seemed to leave frost sparkles on the blanket. I thought I was going to freeze to death.”

  “So now that I’ve ridden Blue, she’s going to follow me home?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did the scream sound like?”

  “I don’t know. Either I can’t remember, or there was no sound.”

  Barbie walked over to the larger of the two trunks and stood in front of it. She said, “Is there anything in here?”

  “Lots of stuff. Blankets. Things we don’t use.”

  “Let’s look through it.”

  My heart started pounding for the first time. I shook my head, but of course Barbie didn’t see me, and being Barbie, she just lifted the lid of the trunk. She stood there staring, but her eyes didn’t get wide or anything. She didn’t open her mouth to scream. She said, “It’s dusty.”

  I took one step toward her.

  I turned around—I couldn’t help myself—to see if any slender ladies were entering the barn. The answer was no, but it was almost completely dark out there.

  She leaned forward.

  A skeletal arm did not reach out and grab her. Instead, she reached in and pulled out an oval-shaped pad with two holes in it. She said, “What’s this?”

  “A head protector. Sometimes horses wear those in trailers. His ears go through the holes.”

  She set it on the ground beside the trunk and pulled out a blue square of wool trimmed in white. “What’s this?”

  “A quarter pad. In places where it’s cold, they put that over his haunches behind the saddle in the winter to keep him from getting stiff.”

  I took another step.

  She pulled out a girth, padded with sheepskin.

  I said, “English-style girth. I guess she rode English.”

  Now I could see into the trunk. Barbie pulled out the bridle, English style, nice brown leather, snaffle bit, braided reins. She shook it a little and then handed it to me. It was curled from lying in the trunk, and someone (namely me) had not cleaned or oiled it, so it was a little stiff. But it was just a bridle. I took it and hung it on the bridle rack.

  Now Barbie leaned over and lifted out the saddle using two hands. It was a little stiff, too. I picked up one of the saddle racks and carried it over to her. She set the saddle on the rack. I said, “It’s an expensive saddle. I think it’s English. I mean, made in England.”

  Underneath the saddle were some folded-up saddle pads, the kind that English riders use, that are shaped like an English saddle. I reached in and picked these up. There were two of them, and underneath them a paper bag. Inside the paper bag were two dried, oily sponges and a tin of saddle soap. I opened it. It was almost empty—that was the creepiest thing, because I could imagine the slender dark-haired lady patiently cleaning and oiling her saddle, taking good care of it. You could, in fact, see faint indented streaks in the soap where the sponge had been rubbed across it. I said, “I wonder sometimes if he knows she’s dead.”

  “If she’s a ghost, I’m sure he knows the difference.”

  I nodded.

  The last thing in the trunk were three brushes, all with wooden backs: a dandy brush, a body brush, and a soft brush. They were still sort of new.

  Barbie said, “How come you never unpacked the trunks?”

  “We’ve got all the stuff we need. Maybe Daddy didn’t know where he was going to put it. Anyway, I just didn’t. I’m sure Daddy is waiting for me to take responsibility.”

  I didn’t say that I’d been avoiding the trunks ever since we saw those black boots the first time we looked in them.

  She opened the lid of the other trunk. This one was mostly blankets, but I knew the boots were in there. She took out the top blanket. It smelled musty.

  She took out the second blanket—the thicker one. She set it aside. Underneath it was the fly sheet. Underneath that I could see the shape of the boots. I said, “I guess it’s the boots that give me the creeps.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re hers, not his.”

  She picked up the fly sheet and set it on top of the heavy blanket. Something flopped over from the end of the trunk, an envelope that I hadn’t noticed before. Barbie picked it up and opened the end flap, which wasn’t sealed. She drew out a piece of paper and turned it right side up. She said, “Oh, a photograph.” I looked over her shoulder.

  There she was, Blue’s former owner, standing with him under a sign that said HIGHLAND HILLS RIDING STABLES. She was holding him by the reins with her right hand. Her left arm came under his neck and her fingers were touching his left cheek. She had her hard hat in her right hand, with the reins, and I could see the boots, too (though only the high tops). She had on a white shirt and a big smile. She was blond, with short, thick hair, plump cheeks, and bangs. She didn’t look a thing like the dark-haired slender lady. Even though it was a black-and-white picture, she looked like she had blue eyes. Judging by where she came up to next to Blue, she was about my size, but heavier—a woman, not a girl. In case I wondered if this was really her, she had written in ink along the bottom of the picture—Me and Blue, August 23, 1965. OUQT.

  I said, “What does that mean?”

  Barbie said, “Oh, you cutie.”

  I said, “That’s not the ghost.”
/>   She glanced at me, then reached into the trunk and took out the boots, one in each hand. They had plastic boot trees in them, and they were beautiful, just as I remembered. But they were just boots.

  Barbie said, “There must be some kind of resale shop where you can sell these sorts of things. They look expensive.” She set one beside her foot. It was too small. Then she set it beside my foot. Also too small.

  She said, “Well, you’re right, this stuff is sad.”

  I thought it was, too. But not scary.

  Sheepskin Saddle Pad

  Jumping Saddle

  Chapter 23

  WHEN WE SAW MRS. GOLDMAN, SHE WAS COMING OUT OF THE house with Mom. They were chatting away and Alexis was behind them. They all came down off the back porch, and I could see Mom gesture toward the ground, which I knew she was saying was muddy and maybe slippery. They all walked toward us, and Alexis seemed to be carrying something. We went to meet them.

  I said, “We fed the horses and put some stuff away.”

  Mom said, “Good. Did you have a nice lesson, Barbie?”

  Barbie said, “I was great.”

  I said, “She was pretty good, and she rode Blue.”

  “Did you really?” said Mom, and it all sounded so mundane.

  I said, “He took good care of her.”

  “He did,” said Barbie. “He’s great.” And I thought how hard it is to say what you really mean—to get other people to understand how you feel and to really know what that feeling is.

  “Look!” said Alexis. She lifted her hand, and I saw that she had Spooky on the crook of her arm. Barbie said, “Oh, he is cute! Look at his white toes, two on each foot!” She stroked him. “Is he eating solid food?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Mom. “He’s a good eater. Does his job in the litter box, too.” Both girls smiled all of a sudden, right at Mrs. Goldman. She threw up her hands, and shook her head, then said, “If I didn’t have twins, I could be a cat lady. That was going to be my destiny.”

  We all laughed.

  Alexis said, “Mom even had a cat in her dorm room in college. She took him for walks on a leash.”

  “In college!” said Mom. “Weren’t there rules?”

  Mrs. Goldman said, “I pretended not to know. It was Antioch College, so breaking rules was a way of life there.” We all went around the house to their car, and as we did, I felt the ghost disappear, drop by drop, the way the frost had disappeared that morning, simply rising and evaporating, without even a good-bye. Yes, I felt stupid to have never looked in the trunks and found the picture, or even to have never asked Jane what the owner had looked like—Jane would have told me.

  Alexis said, “Is he old enough for a new home?”

  Mom nodded.

  Mrs. Goldman said, “What’s his name?”

  I said, “Spooky.”

  Barbie said, “Can we change it?”

  I said, “I wish you would.”

  Then, simultaneously, Alexis said, “Joe,” and Barbie said, “Bliss,” and Mrs. Goldman said, “Well, this will go on for days,” and they opened their car doors and got in. I ran to the gate.

  As they drove through, Barbie put down her window and said, “Staccato! That’s his name.”

  When I told it to Mom, she said it was a musical term meaning “short and sharp.” And then she walked into the house singing, “ ’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,” in bright, short notes, and we hummed it all through making dinner, because that is a song that gets into your mind and stays there.

  That night Jane called to tell me that I had forgotten to get paid, but that she would keep my lesson money in an envelope in her office, and I could pick it up on Tuesday. I told her how Blue had been with Barbie.

  She said, “Well, it stands to reason that he understands how to take care of beginners. His owner rode him around everywhere, and she seemed to think she was perfectly safe. I asked her very early on if she planned to take lessons, and she said that she had no ‘larger ambitions.’ I had a horse once, a mare I got off the racetrack, who was a real stinker, just as bossy as she could be. Once she pinned my groom against the wall when he was trying to blanket her. Then I lost track of this mare for a year or two, and when I ran into her again, she was owned by a girl about your age, and the parents came up to me and thanked me for starting this mare, because she was ‘wonderfully safe.’ I thought that was so strange, so I snooped around, and finally, one of the other girls in that barn said that this mare was still a stinker, except with this girl. She was a one-girl horse. So you never know what they know, do you?”

  “I guess not.”

  “The other thing is—” She lowered her voice.

  “What?”

  “Some horses just don’t like male riders. When do you get to ride him?”

  “A few weeks.”

  “Well, we’ll see. You’ve only had him what, three or four weeks? That’s such a short time.”

  Maybe it was. Hard to believe, though. I said, “Was she blond?”

  “Mary Carson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, she was a blonde. Let’s see. I think she was about fifty. If you saw her in the grocery store, you’d think she had five kids and some grandkids and a lawyer for a husband, but none of that. Sad, really. All she had was Blue.”

  I said good-bye and hung up. In the living room, Mom was cleaning up Spooky’s box and litter box. Everything seemed really normal. Daddy was reading his Bible. Mom went and got the broom, then came back and started to sweep the corners of the hall. When she had a pile of grit and dust and kitty hairs, I knelt down with the dustpan, and she swept the pile onto it. Then she took the pan away from me and carried it and the broom and the boxes into the kitchen. That was the end of Spooky. Especially since he was “Staccato” now. I thought I should miss him, but given all the creepy thoughts I’d had about him, I was glad to see him go.

  Homework was waiting. I went over and kissed Daddy on the cheek. He said, “Are you going upstairs?”

  I said, “Mais oui, Papa. Je dois lire mes devoirs, Le Petit Prince.” I added, “Maintenant.”

  Daddy looked up at me, then said, “Tell me why you aren’t taking Spanish again.”

  “La classe d’espagnol est complete. Moi, j’aime la belle France.”

  Daddy nodded. I said, “Do you know what that means?”

  Daddy shook his head.

  “It means, ‘I have to do my homework now.’ ”

  Mom smiled and picked up her knitting.

  I decided that whatever was going on with Danny wasn’t my business. I went up the stairs, saying, “Au revoir!”

  My room was normal, too. Most importantly, the stain in the ceiling was just a stain, and not a very big one, at that—a faint outline in the paint. In fact, the place was a bit of a mess, and it was nice to walk around, straightening the rug and the covers on my bed, and sitting the books upright, and plumping up my old stuffed animals. I even went into the closet and picked up some clothes I had dropped on the floor and hung them up. I straightened my desk. My broken wrist wasn’t that bad anymore. Nothing was that bad anymore. It was a strange feeling.

  The first thing we saw when we got to church the next morning was that the Greeleys were back. Bart was sitting on Carlie’s lap and Brad was playing with a toy in the toy corner, and Mrs. Greeley was bouncing the baby on her hip and chatting with Mrs. Larkin, who was holding out her finger for the baby to grab. We were the late ones, so as soon as we sat down, Mr. Hazen started a hymn, and it was not “Simple Gifts,” which was fine with me. It was “I’ll Fly Away,” which was one we didn’t sing often. Then we went on to “Farther Along” and “How Can I Keep from Singing?” Then Mr. Hazen stood up with his Bible open, and was about to start his lesson, when Mr. Greeley said, “Excuse me, Brother Hazen. Before you begin, I would like to say something.”

  Next to me, Mom took Daddy’s hand.

  Mrs. Greeley was looking up at Mr. Greeley. The baby had fallen asleep and was
in a kind of carrying bed at the end of the row. Bart was rolling a truck along his knee, and Brad was sitting in Mrs. Greeley’s lap. Mrs. Greeley nodded, and Mr. Greeley smiled, and then he said, “Well. This isn’t easy. We felt, though, I mean Rhoda and I …” He looked around and smiled a small smile. “We didn’t want to just disappear without a word, because you have all been very kind to us, especially you, Carlie, and you, Abby, but everyone else, too.”

  The sisters started clucking.

  “Um, well. We have decided to depart the church, here, in spite of your kindness because, I think we made a little mistake, and as we have kept coming, the mistake has loomed larger for us, rather than smaller.”

  Daddy cleared his throat. I looked at him, but his face was blank. Nevertheless, he always liked it when people admitted to their mistakes.

  “Our mistake was in thinking that because this is a simple church with no pastor and no connection to a larger hierarchy, it would be like the church we left behind in Philadelphia when we came out here.”

  The clucking got louder.

  “No one back home knew anything about meetings out here, and so that was our first mistake, and then you all were so nice and welcoming, but really, you aren’t Quakers, and it would seem that your thinking is not along that line, and so as the time has gone by, we have had to accept that we, um, find it difficult to conform to your beliefs, even though we do see all of you as friends, and that’s friends with a small f.” He glanced down at Mrs. Greeley, who nodded.

  He went on. “It now seems like such a silly mistake to have made, and in talking about it I am really quite embarrassed, but I guess I would say that looks are deceiving, and then you get yourself into things and don’t see a way out because you have made friends and have failed to speak up and just let things go along, and all of a sudden it’s a year and a half or more, and we just thought we should admit our mistake and give all of you brothers and sisters a fond farewell. So we brought along a couple of pies that Rhoda made as a parting gift, pecan, one is, and banana cream, too.”

  Bart looked up at his dad and said, “Are we having pie?”