by Molly Harper, Stephanie Haefner, Liora Blake, Gabra Zackman, Andrea Laurence, Colette Auclair
“It tastes awful.”
“You’ve never tasted it!”
Fifteen years passed. Grady made pro-asparagus arguments. Wave used little-girl logic to shoot them down like a sniper. Harris wiped the counters.
Finally a desperate Grady resorted to the only thing he could think of. He begged. “Please, honey. Please eat it? For me?”
“Nope.”
“Come on. Just eat it. Will you just eat it!”
“No.”
“If you don’t eat that asparagus, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . ” He pictured her bedroom, but he couldn’t find anything she loved that he could take away. He had no idea what she prized. He had to say something, so he took a wild stab. “I’ll take away your favorite doll.”
Wave laughed. “I don’t have a favorite doll. Dolls are stupid.”
Crap. He was running out of ammo and she knew it. Amanda, what should I do? How do you handle them?
“Eat it, Wave. Eat it because I’m your father and I said so.”
Wave’s golden brows dived toward her pixie nose. “I don’t want to! I don’t want to and I won’t and you can’t make me!” She propelled herself off the chair and thudded onto the pine floor. She started to flounce out of the kitchen.
Grady grabbed her arm. “Oh, no you don’t.”
“Ouch, Daddy, you’re hurting me!”
Reflexively, Grady let go. “Sorry, honey.” He knew he wasn’t hurting her, but he was tired of fighting. Now he didn’t care if she ate asparagus or not. He’d give her vitamins and she’d never have to eat vegetables. Did he eat vegetables as a kid? He couldn’t remember, but he assumed he must have, because Estelle Brunswick wouldn’t have tolerated a child who didn’t. Did it matter, in the grand scheme of things, in the order of the universe, if Wave ate asparagus? He watched her pound out of the kitchen and heard her stomp up the stairs.
His eight-year-old daughter had bested him in a scene where he should have had the upper hand. His improv skills had abandoned him. He needed a script. And Amanda should have written it. Grady propped his elbow on the table and dropped his head into his palm. Harris slapped his shoulder.
“Cheer up there, bro. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you do anything even approaching discipline. Give yourself a break—you’ll be Mary Poppins in no time.”
“She has them doing push-ups when they curse!”
“Mary Poppins?”
“Amanda.” Grady sighed. “I make a great living pretending to be other people. I can buy anything I want. I’ve met the president—at the president’s request! But I can’t get an eight-year-old to eat four pieces of asparagus.”
“Correction: You can’t get an eight-year-old to eat one bite of asparagus.”
“Bite me.”
“Ha! You wish.”
Grady realized he had a lot to learn about leading a herd.
The following morning, after the girls’ lesson, while Solstice rode Rainy at a walk to cool her out, the mare left a pile of manure in the ring. Amanda saw it happen and made a mental note to make sure Solstice cleaned it up.
Solstice took care of Rainy, speed-cleaned her saddle, practically threw the bridle on its hook, then jogged down the aisle.
“Hold on there,” Amanda called from the tack-room doorway.
Solstice spun and said, “I gotta go.”
“Not until you put up the bridle properly and clean the poo in the ring.”
The girl walked backward toward the door as she explained. “Madison’s calling from LA. With video. I’m late.”
“You know the rules. You have to take care of your horse, your tack, and anything that comes out of your horse.” Amanda plucked a manure fork from a hook on the wall. “Here.”
Solstice smiled. “I know, but I really have to go. I’ll do it later.”
As tempted as Amanda was to be the super-great, super-nice, super-permissive trainer and let her do it later, she knew that at this point in their détente, “later” would never come. The super-entitled Solstice would view it as a victory and be worse next time. “You need to do it now. It won’t take long. Madison can wait a few more minutes. Next time don’t tell her you’ll call so soon after your lesson.”
“She has to go to the airport!”
“You’re wasting time arguing. This’ll take five minutes, tops.” Amanda kept her voice quiet and steady and held out the fork. “Manure wrecks footing and attracts flies. Your father paid a lot of money for that footing. And this barn. And your horse. And your bridle. You have to take care of your things. It shows respect.”
The girl rolled her eyes, slumped her shoulders, and let her head fall back in the nearly boneless posture of protest that came naturally to preteen girls. “Amanda, pleeeeeze?”
“Hurry and do it so you can go.”
Solstice grunted out a breath. She pulled a face and huffed. “This isn’t fair. You’re such a—” But she strode to Amanda and snatched the fork as she passed.
“Thank you,” Amanda said. After the girl had left the barn, Amanda added, “I most certainly am. But you’re doing what I want now, aren’t you?”
Later that afternoon Grady sat in one of the decadently comfortable chaise longues by the pool. He hadn’t spent much time on his patio because Aspen wasn’t all that warm in late spring, and he felt if you were going to sit by a pool, the water should at least be tempting. He had no desire to swim to cool off when he was already wearing a sweatshirt. This chaise was changing his mind about patio dwelling—it was awesome. And he found he was getting into the script he was reading, which was also a plus. The only imperfections were his daughters’ damp towels balled up on chairs, along with a few pool toys strewn about the patio.
“Hi, Daddy.”
Grady flinched. Solstice giggled and stood next to him.
“Hi, honey.” He rested the script on his lap.
“I brought you a cookie. And a beer,” she said sweetly. She put a freshly baked oatmeal cookie and a bottle of beer on the little table next to the chaise.
“Thanks. What’s the occasion?”
“Oh, just thought you might like them.”
Grady didn’t buy this for a minute. “And what else?”
Solstice shifted from bare foot to bare foot and fingered the cuffs of her shorts. “How’s the script?”
“It’s fine, sweetie. Would you like me to read it to you?” He bit into the cookie.
“No, no, that’s okay,” she said, sounding as though she thought he was serious, when he knew she knew he wasn’t. She was vamping. “Um, Daddy?”
“Yeeeesss?” He dragged it out to three syllables.
“Um, you know my friend Madison?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, chewing. Damn, but Harris made good cookies.
“Well, I was, like, talking to her today? And I don’t know if you know this, but there are these people called stylists?”
“Yes, I know what a stylist is.”
Solstice soldiered on. “And all the big celebrities have them, and even the not-big celebrities have them because you have to have them if you want to be famous.” Grady sensed where this was going, but he played along.
“I’m famous enough. And if I need help, I have Harris.” He took another bite.
“But he’s a cook!” she whined. “And, well, I was thinking, even if you don’t want a stylist, it, um, would be good for me to have one.”
And there it was. Grady was about to take a sip of beer, but stopped to laugh. “A stylist? You’re eleven! Besides, I keep the media away from you and your sister. Even if you had a stylist, nobody would see how . . . styled you were.” He sipped.
Solstice took a tremendous breath. “Don’t you need one for your press tour?”
“I’m a guy. Stylists are for girls.”
“Daddy, I’m a girl. And I need to look good for your reputation. At school and stuff. A stylist tells you what to wear with what and what shoes to wear and how to fix your hair and stuff so you don’t look stupid. Madison has o
ne.”
Madison. Of course. Madison, Grady was certain, would eventually introduce Solstice to cigarettes, R-rated movies, tattoos, alcohol, pot, sex, plastic surgery, juvenile hall, and probably a cult or two before she was sixteen. She was a she-devil. A tiny fashionista she-devil. Grady would have to figure out how to keep them apart for the rest of their lives.
“Well, if Madison has one, you’re definitely not getting one,” he said. He took a long swallow of beer.
“Daddy! I need a stylist! You’re an A-lister. All the A-list kids have stylists!” Her voice had become as shrill as a seagull’s squawk.
“Sweetie. That’s enough.”
“Daddy! This is really important. All those other kids have stylists. All of them. They’ll make fun of me. If I don’t have a stylist, I can’t go to school anymore.” She paused, and her eyes glassed over. She said in a low voice, “Some of the girls are really mean.”
She might be playing him, at least partially, but he also knew some of her classmates were right out of Lord of the Flies. She was hurting. His heart, not used to these emotional parental workouts, felt like her eleven-year-old hand was squeezing it ever so slightly. What should he do?
Buy time. It was same as the rare occasions when he forgot a line. He would buy some time and decide later. “I’ll think about it. Okay, sweetie?”
“For how long?” She choked on a sob. Which, he had to admit, if she was playing him, was an excellent acting choice. He was a little proud; maybe she’d follow in his footsteps.
“I’ll let you know.”
“I could get Madison’s stylist’s email or something. If you wanted to talk to her.”
“That’s okay. Why don’t you go have a cookie?”
“I had one. And I can’t have another or I’ll get fat.”
Grady sat up and looked at his daughter. “Did someone tell you you’re fat?”
“No. But I might get fat.”
“Sweetie. Don’t worry about that. Have fun this summer, okay? Just have fun. C’mere.” He opened his arms. She stepped into them and he hugged her.
She whispered, “Don’t forget about the stylist.”
“I won’t. Now go eat a cookie. That’s an order.”
She backed up and beamed at him. “Okay!” She ran to the house, bare feet pounding on the native Colorado red stone.
He flopped back against the cushion and blew out a breath. And wondered if Amanda knew anything about stylists and eleven-year-old girls. Because he sure didn’t.
The next day Amanda soared through her after-lesson chores. She hosed down the aisle, then ran up to her apartment to rinse the dirt, sweat, and shavings from her face and arms and refresh her ponytail. She looked in the mirror at her toast-colored shirt and black breeches—one smudge, which she cleaned with a damp cloth. Anyway, it was probably better to look like she was putting in an honest day’s work. She did, however, trade her dusty paddock boots and socks for her polished, tall black boots, which looked more professional. Smoothing on her tan Devon Horse Show cap and pulling her thick ponytail through the hole in the back, she nodded to her reflection in the mirror, then clomped down the wooden stairs.
Halfway down the wet aisle, she remembered she wanted to bring a notebook, and spun around to get one from the tack room.
And fell. Hard.
Her heel skidded on the slick, wet floor and her balance shifted wildly backward. She flailed through the air. It felt like she was falling for minutes, like the floor had dropped away from under her, like she was in a stylized Hitchcock film. She watched her boots rise up in front of her as she twisted in midair, then crashed onto one shoulder blade, then the back of her hip. As she landed, she felt a sudden give in her back, and then a terrible, white-hot flash of pain as though a major muscle had just been uprooted from its moorings. Her body bounced once, then slammed against the floor. Her head hit last, with a thud that reverberated in her skull.
She lay there motionless. She couldn’t breathe. She stared at the chandelier above her for several seconds and willed herself to relax. After what felt like an hour, she sucked in a breath and immediately gasped at the pain that lanced through her back.
She’d told Grady someone would get hurt on this floor. Looked like she was right.
5
Grady was tired of hearing about his “brand,” his popularity rating, the directors and actors he should target, cologne deals, a proposal for a women’s lingerie line, and a spectacularly goofy idea to create an adult drink mix named after his Galaxy Ops character, the roguish Matt Braxton. He was delighted to escape the heap of unread scripts growing on his desk. It was hard to believe he was looking forward to a meeting about a floor, but he was.
He shut down his computer as Solstice appeared in his office doorway. Her hair was in a ponytail and she wore a baseball cap—one of his, he noted.
“Um, Dad?”
“Yeah?”
She jammed her hands in the back pockets of her shorts. “Um, I was thinking about stuff, and, thanks for getting us the horses and the barn and the footing and stuff.”
On his list of Top Four Hundred Things Solstice Could Have Said, this was number four hundred and one. He half-smiled. The footing? What preteen thinks about footing? A preteen who has Amanda Vogel for a riding instructor, that’s who. The herd leader. Grady raised his eyebrows. “You’re welcome. Say, kiddo, are you feeling okay?”
“Well, see, I really, really appreciate it, and I promise I’ll take care of my stuff.”
Solstice crossed the office and Grady bent down for a rare Solstice-initiated hug. He closed his eyes and held his little girl, and almost believed he could feel her growing even during these few seconds. She smelled like bubble gum and baby powder.
“You’re welcome, sweetie.”
She relinquished him and said, “I gotta go. Harris is making ice cream!”
“You don’t want to miss that.” Grady was still smiling. “Save some for me.” He watched his daughter—who was so tall, he could hardly believe it—skip out of the room and down the hall. His beautiful firstborn, who had shown gratitude out of the blue. Neither of his daughters had ever thanked him for their horses. His heart warmed. His idyllic Brunswick Family Summer of Love seemed to be taking root.
Unless . . . this was all part of Solstice’s scheme to get a stylist. Even so, she had thanked him for footing. Something surely had happened with Amanda. Who he would see in a few minutes. He could ask her then.
Grady actually hummed as he made his way to Jacqueline’s office, his mood enhanced further when he noticed the floors and furniture were devoid of child-borne debris. Wave’s ever-lost iPod was nowhere in sight, there were no riding clothes thrown over chairs, no books, not one of their hundreds of pairs of flip-flops, not even a discarded food wrapper or empty soda can. It was . . . neat. And the cleaning people hadn’t even been there yet. He grinned as he thought that he needed to send his kids for a checkup.
“Good afternoon, Grady, I have some good news,” Jacqueline said as Grady entered her office.
“Yes?” He sat in his usual chair in front of her desk.
“You have won the paternity suit.”
This day was getting better and better.
His enthusiasm dimmed when, at fifteen minutes after one, he and Jacqueline were still waiting for Amanda. At precisely fifteen minutes and thirty seconds after one, Jacqueline called Amanda, to no avail.
“Try her cell,” he said, somewhat harshly.
“She does not get reception in the barn. But I will try; maybe she is outside.” No luck. Jacqueline frowned. “I will go get her.”
“No, I’ll go. It’s my little barn of horrors.”
Grady was distinctly unsettled as he strode down the incline to the barn, the rumble of thunder echoing his mood. She was fifteen minutes late for a meeting she had requested—she should have been early. By the time he got to the big open doorway, he was officially irked. Amanda had better have a good excuse.
Amanda
crawled toward the barn phone. The pain in her back was almost paralyzing. She kept her head down because it hurt slightly less that way. She was breathing hard and sweating harder.
“Amanda!” All of a sudden, Grady was kneeling beside her. She raised her head slowly.
“Fell,” she said in between gasps. “Hurt my back.”
“Can you stand? You’re supposed to stand.”
“Rather.” Sharp exhale. “Not.” She could smell rain.
“Don’t move. I’m calling my doctor.” He pulled out his cell and punched in the number. He sat on the cement, spoke to his doctor in Los Angeles, and ended the call.
Even through her pain, she wondered how he got reception in the barn. It wasn’t fair.
“You’re going to the ER.” A peal of thunder boomed.
“No!” She gasped from the pain the word had caused. “No broken bones. Need . . . muscle relaxers. Have some.”
He knelt in front of her. “As your employer, I insist you get checked out.”
Amanda sensed she wasn’t going to win this one and was in so much pain, she would do whatever he wanted, if someone would give her a Percocet. Baby aspirin. Snake oil. Anything. “Okay.”
“I’m going to help you stand up, okay? Or do you want me to carry you?”
Even while in agony, Amanda knew she did not, under any circumstances, want him to carry her. “I’ll . . . walk.”
“Easy now.” He put his arm around her. They rose slowly, and Amanda trembled as pain radiated from her back to the ends of her hair. She clung to his arm like a monkey climbing a flagpole, and he held her close. A new round of pain shot through her as she straightened and then stood stock-still.
She wondered how long she could hold her breath, since the pain seemed to abate the teeniest bit if she did. Which meant it was like having her back set on fire rather than having a maniacal killer hack at it with a serrated knife. Her heart pounded. Maybe she had done more damage than she’d thought. Maybe it was a good idea to go to the hospital.
Grady leaned her against the barn—what was she, a rake?—ran up the drive to get his BMW SUV, and eased Amanda into the passenger seat. Just as he settled into the driver’s seat, his cell phone rang. He answered and had a short, curt conversation. He jabbed it off. “Shit.”