by Molly Harper, Stephanie Haefner, Liora Blake, Gabra Zackman, Andrea Laurence, Colette Auclair
Toward the end of the hour, the girls began to get the hang of the rising trot on the lunge line, and Solstice in particular had a good sense of rhythm and balance. When Amanda told the girls to ask their horses to halt, they did so, and Amanda explained how to dismount properly. The girls dropped off of their horses and walked away.
“Hey!” Amanda said. “Come back here!”
The girls stopped and turned.
“You have to put your horses away.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” Solstice said, as though Amanda had offered her a bowl of sawdust when a hot fudge sundae waited at the house. The girls continued up the hill. The loose horses started to mill around the ring.
“No, I mean you have to!”
Wave looked back at Amanda, but Solstice said, “Come on, Wave,” and took her hand.
Amanda muttered a curse, untacked and groomed the horses, then turned them out into the pasture. She strode up to the house and thought of how, in her normal life, kids dreamed of having Amanda Vogel coach them. Once in the house, like a modern-day, horsified Hansel and Gretel, she followed a trail of riding helmets, gloves, and boots to the entertainment room with the big TV. Solstice and Wave sprawled on the couch as the TV blared. The children ate some kind of blue frozen things on a stick. At ten forty a.m.
Amanda turned off the TV. “Ladies,” she said evenly. “You have to put your horses away.”
“I don’t think so,” Solstice said, her blue lips snarling.
“Well, I do. And you don’t get a vote.”
“Why do we have you, then?” Solstice idly thumped the arm of the couch with her bare foot.
“Yeah,” Wave said.
“To teach you to ride, and part of riding is taking care of your horse,” Amanda said pleasantly. She controlled the urge to shove the frozen treat up Solstice’s nose.
“Sounds like you want us to do your job for you,” Solstice said.
Wave jumped up as though the couch was electrified. “I’ll get Daddy!” She ran off.
“Everyone who rides puts away their horse. It also happens to be fun,” Amanda said. Solstice merely looked at her.
Wave led Grady into the room by an outstretched arm. His towhead had prattled on about something having to do with the horses, but for the life of him he wasn’t sure what it was. He glanced around the room and noted he was the only one not dressed to ride. Amanda stood facing him, fists on hips, in dark-brown breeches and a sky-blue shirt.
“Tell her, Daddy,” demanded Wave.
“Is there a problem?” Grady asked.
“It’s nothing.” Amanda looked absurdly cheerful. She had a nice smile, even when it was fake.
“Solsty, what’s going on?”
Solstice stared straight ahead as though the TV were still on and lingered over her dwindling frozen treat, foot still thumping. She heaved a huge sigh before answering. “She wants us to brush the stupid, ugly horses. She’s just supposed to teach us to ride, right, Dad?”
Grady looked at Amanda. “Amanda?”
“That’s exactly right. When you own a horse, you take care of her after you ride. It’s normal. Ask any riding instructor.”
“I took driver’s ed, and I never had to wash the car.” It was a dopey example, but he thought it might make her smile, and he was startled to find that he wanted to make her smile.
Amanda’s mouth hung open, cartoon style. It was nowhere close to a smile. She took a breath and turned to face him, then spoke casually, as though observing a cloud or offering him a piece of toast. Clearly, she was placating him. “Yes, but I’m sure you’ll agree that a horse isn’t a car—it’s a living, breathing animal. You groom to make sure you get the dirt off, so the horse won’t get sores. You pick out his hooves to remove stones, which can cause lameness and vet bills. You can see cuts or bumps you need to take care of. Grooming stimulates circulation. But most of all, it’s how you bond with him and thank him for his hard work. It’s the right thing to do—and every real rider does it.”
During her speech Amanda walked around the room, gesticulating. She was fun to watch, and, in fact, she made him want to groom a horse. She stopped in front of him.
She added, “It’s my responsibility to keep your horses healthy, and grooming is essential.”
“But, Dad, it’s our summer vacation!” Wave protested.
“More riding, less brushing,” Solstice added, like a little teamster.
“Can’t you groom them?” Grady asked Amanda quietly. During the recent seconds he had drifted to the other side of the room, out of earshot of the girls, and she had followed.
She looked at him, a hint of challenge in her expression, but her delivery was as pleasant as a morning talk-show host’s during a cooking segment. “I’ve been grooming horses for twenty-five years. That’s not the point.”
“Why can’t you do it?” Was he missing something? What was the big deal about the girls brushing—or not brushing—some horse hair?
She looked at him, chewing her bottom lip. Assessing. He found himself staring at that bottom lip. It was a nice lip.
She spoke. “It would be like you teaching an acting class where your students won’t memorize lines and you say the lines for them. They get shortchanged. I don’t understand why this has become a thing.”
“It’s just that . . . it’s my first summer with them. I don’t want them to do chores. It takes away time they could spend with me.”
“I understand. But it doesn’t take long and it’s fun. Every day thousands of little girls love taking care of horses. There are lots more who would kill to groom their own horses.”
“But it’s . . . manual labor!” he whispered. It was a weak argument, but he suddenly felt cornered by the riding instructor with the kissable lips and pretty eyes.
Those pretty eyes were staring at him. “That’s what you honestly think?” she asked quietly.
Ooh. Perhaps he’d gone too far. She was serious and he felt like she was . . . disappointed in him. He had let her down somehow.
She shrugged her shoulders, shook her head, and turned away. After a long moment she turned back and raised her palms in a gesture of defeat. “All right. I disagree, but I’ll groom.”
Without waiting for a response, she turned and strode out of the room. Grady stood, looking after her retreating form. He’d gotten what he wanted. He had won. Terrific.
So why did he want to run after her and apologize?
4
When’s the last time I groomed a horse for a student?” Amanda asked Beth that night on the phone. She sat on her couch in her sweats. “Never, that’s when.” Amanda took a healthy gulp of the sauvignon blanc Harris had given her.
“They’ll come around. And if they don’t, hell, it’s only for a summer.”
“Ugh, he lets those kids do whatever they want! I’m the supposed expert, yet my opinion counts for exactly nothing.”
“He’s famous—he’s used to people sucking up. He probably doesn’t know what to do when someone disagrees.”
“I nearly bit my tongue off, I was so gosh-darned polite. You would have been impressed.”
“I would have worried you’d gotten into the Ace,” Beth said, and Amanda laughed at the thought. Maybe Beth had a point—she might need horse tranquilizers to deal with those girls.
“I try to think of him as a green horse at his first show, where I keep my cool no matter what he does.”
“Ooh, I wouldn’t mind riding him, not one little bit,” Beth said in her best tavern-wench tones.
“Whose side are you on?”
“I’ll take his side, his back, or his front.”
Later that night, in her bed, Amanda woke, out of breath, her skin wet. It was the nightmare again.
Courtney is in a grand prix, jumping a ridiculously high fence on the horse that killed her. It’s an outdoor grass course, and the grass is almost neon green. She and the huge black horse canter down to a giant triple in slow motion, his hoofbeats the only sound Amand
a can hear—da-da-dum, da-da-dum, da-da-dum. He approaches the first oxer too fast, and Amanda sees alarm on her friend’s face and the whites of the horse’s eyes, but the horse takes off and somehow clears the huge oxer. He lands, still in slow motion, but instead of taking a stride, he takes off immediately.
The physics are impossible. There is no way he can make it, but Amanda, as she does every time, prays that the horse will simply stop or run out and Courtney will stay on. But the stallion launches and tucks up his forelegs. His front legs tangle in the poles. He flips over as his black legs frantically churn empty air. Courtney’s slight body slides off and Amanda hears Courtney’s and the horse’s terrified screams, then a sickening thud as he lands on top of her.
The horse is motionless for a moment, then groans, scrambles to his feet and gallops away. Amanda is right there, standing above Courtney, but Amanda can’t talk. She tries to scream for help but can’t make a sound. Courtney’s blue eyes slam open like an old-fashioned doll’s and she whispers to Amanda, “Please help me. Please save me, Amanda. Don’t let me die. Please.”
Amanda threw off the sheet and plucked the front of her T-shirt away from her clammy skin. She got up and brewed a cup of chamomile tea, knowing that by the time she finished it, her body and mind would have quieted. At least the dream came less often now. Slowly, slowly, she was getting better.
The next morning the girls arrived for their lesson and found Amanda sitting on a tack trunk outside one of the stalls. She had a plan: if the girls wouldn’t groom their horses, they would have to watch her do it. She would bore them into grooming. It was horse psychology—make what you want the horse to do the more attractive choice. It worked on children, too.
Amanda smiled broadly and said, “Great! You’re here! I’ll get your horses ready.” As she had hoped, Wave and Solstice asked questions while she brushed the horses and tacked them up. Amanda made sure to talk to the horses and smile her way through the tasks. During the lesson, the girls took turns on the lunge line.
At the end of the hour, Solstice dismounted, turned to Amanda, and announced, “You groom my horse. That’s what my father pays you for.”
“I’d love to,” the chipper Amanda said as the diminutive Mussolini handed her the reins.
“And I hate the lunge line. Circles are boring. When’re we going to do something fun, like jumping? My friend Madison jumps all the time.”
Amanda answered calmly, even though she had the teensiest urge to use the reins to strangle the girl. “I don’t care what Madison or anyone else does. You’ll jump when I think you’re ready. And those boring circles are going to make you a better rider so you’ll be able to jump sooner.”
The girl narrowed her eyes. “My dad can make you teach me to jump.” Solstice spun on her heel, then marched across the ring toward the house. Amanda rolled her eyes and blew out a breath.
Wave launched herself off Bramble and whispered, “Madison’s a stuck-up stupid-head. Are you gonna brush Bramble?”
Amanda smiled at the contrast between the sisters. Sweet and sour. “Mm-hmm.”
“Does he like it?”
Amanda knew a chink in armor when she heard one. “He’d like it better if you did it.”
“Wave, c’mon,” Solstice called over her shoulder.
Wave looked at her sister, then at Bramble, whose eyelids were at half mast. The pixie bit her lip, then whispered in his ear, which rotated her way. “I’ll bring carrots later. Pinky swear.” She curled her little finger around the tip of his ear.
Amanda said, loud enough so Solstice would hear, “It’s okay if you stay.”
“No, it won’t be,” Wave whispered. Then she thrust the reins at Amanda and ran after her sister as if she were trying to outrun changing her mind.
Four days later, at around seven in the evening, Amanda and Harris sat near the pool chatting and sipping another Harris original—gin, champagne, and grapefruit juice—that he’d dubbed an Aspen Socialite because it was “bubbly, expensive, and a little bit tart.”
Harris sipped his Socialite, then asked, “And how are the little socialites-in-training doing with their horsies?”
“Okay. Coming along. The lessons are going pretty well, but they’re still on a grooming strike. Wave would, I know she would, but Solstice has her under a reign of terror.”
Amanda was sipping her Socialite when a scream from the pasture shattered the tranquil evening. A girl’s scream. Followed by some yelling. All Amanda could make out was “stupid horse.”
She bolted off the chair and raced toward the sound, to the edge of the patio, Harris right behind her. Although he had the foresight to bring his Socialite with him.
In the pasture below, Solstice was getting up and brushing dirt from her breeches. Rainy, wearing her saddle and bridle, trotted away from the girl. Amanda could see that the dangling reins were broken.
“Get back here!” Solstice yelled. The mare stopped and faced her.
Amanda looked at Harris. “Will you visit me in jail if I kill her?”
He grinned. “Darlin’, I’ll bake you a cake with a file in it.”
“I’ll be back. Maybe.”
Amanda sped down the stone steps and headed for the girl. Solstice strode to the mare and grabbed the reins.
“Stupid horse!” she yelled, and smacked the mare on the neck with her crop. Rainy jerked back, but Solstice held the reins and hit her again.
“Hey!” Amanda yelled, furious. Solstice turned, and even from a distance, even while running at top speed, Amanda could see Solstice’s mouth drop open. “Don’t move!” Amanda yelled. She slowed to a jog when she got within twenty yards.
Solstice stood with her hands fisted on her hips, chin up. If arrogance needed a poster child, she was it. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
Amanda stayed silent until she stood directly in front of the girl, an inch too close for comfortable conversation. Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath in the sparse mountain air.
“I wasn’t doing anything,” Solstice repeated, defiant.
Amanda stared daggers, neutron bombs, and light sabers at the girl. She said, very quietly, “Don’t you lie to me. And how dare you hit that horse, you spoiled little brat.”
“I didn’t—”
“I saw you. That is inexcusable, do you hear me? You never hit a horse like that. I don’t care how mad you are. You never. Hit. A horse. In anger.” Amanda grabbed the crop and turned away. She walked in a circle and hit her pants leg with the crop a few times with a satisfying thwack! She stood in front of Solstice again and exhaled sharply. “What were you doing? You know you’re not allowed to ride alone. What the hell were you doing?”
Solstice’s eyes were huge and her previously squared shoulders drooped. “I was trying to jump the log,” she said in a halting voice.
“That was stupid. Very stupid, not to mention dangerous. You fell off, you could have been hurt.”
“Please don’t tell my dad.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I just scraped my arm is all.” She raised her arm to show Amanda a nasty-looking patch of raw skin.
“Pet Rainy and apologize.”
Solstice stood still.
“Now!”
The girl rubbed the mare’s forehead and muttered an apology. Then said, “Are you gonna tell my dad?”
Amanda ignored her and said, “Back to the barn,” then whirled and marched across the pasture.
“Four days without riding!” Solstice said.
Amanda sat next to her in the tack room, holding the girl’s arm while she cleaned the wound. During the previous twenty-five minutes, Solstice had untacked Rainy and groomed her without a word while Amanda had watched. She then cleaned the saddle and bridle after Amanda’s three-word utterance: “Clean your tack.”
“Not only will you not ride, you’ll get Bramble ready for your sister and watch her ride. You will then put Bramble away.”
“That sucks!”
Amanda
raised her eyebrows. “You really want to go there with me?” Solstice was mute. “Why don’t you want me to tell your father?”
Panic paled the girl’s face. “He’ll make us stop. He’ll get rid of the horses. He has this weird thing about us getting hurt. One time Wave fell off the swing and knocked out her front baby tooth, and he took the whole swing set down the next day. And when we’re in the car, he drives super slow because my mom died in a car accident. Please don’t tell him. I’ll never do it again. Please?”
Amanda sighed and nibbled the inside of her lip. She wanted to ask more about Solstice’s mother, but this wasn’t the time. “All right. But from here on in, you do exactly as I say.” She made a mental note to swear Harris to secrecy.
Solstice’s entire face relaxed and Amanda thought she was about to get hugged.
Instead, the girl said, “Yes. I’ll be good. Thank you. Yes. And I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“Riding by myself.”
“And?”
“Trying to jump.”
“And?”
She hesitated and her voice wavered. “Being mean to Rainy.” Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Good, Amanda thought. She understands. “Okay.”
Amanda got her a tissue from the bathroom. The girl blew her nose. Amanda touched her shoulder—the first time she’d touched her without it being instructive, such as showing her how to hold the reins or positioning a leg. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” As she exited through the big doorway at the end of the aisle, she heard Solstice say to the mare, “I’ll never do that again, Rainy. I know you were confused. I’m sorry.”
Four days later, in the late morning, Grady fulfilled his cardio requirement with a run. He was finally adjusting to the altitude so he didn’t need an oxygen tent after a mere half mile. He’d followed trails on his property and was about to head back to the house, but instead found himself bounding to the barn. He slowed to a walk before entering the aisle, not wanting to spook any horses—or riding instructors. “Helloo?” he called.