“I told you so.” The bell rang.
DJ read on. “April eleventh!” She looked up and bit her lip. “I can’t go on April eleventh. I have a jumping clinic that day.”
“Surely this is more important than a jumping clinic. Why, DJ, there were hundreds of entries, and your drawing was chosen as one of only ten.”
“Sorry, I can’t go.” DJ handed the paper back. “I’m really sorry.”
Mrs. Adams stared at her, her mouth slightly open. “But …” DJ walked down the aisle to her seat. She set her backpack on the floor and herself on the stool. Keeping her eyes on the desk, she set out her drawing things and concentrated on the still life on a stand in the front of the room. Her stomach felt like it might leap out her throat. She’d told Mrs. Adams no, but what would her mother have to say about this?
Chapter • 13
Guilt makes you feel like dirt.
“DJ, what’s up? You all right?” Amy stopped in front of Major’s stall Thursday afternoon.
DJ looked up from picking Major’s right front hoof. “Sort of.” Amy hadn’t ridden home from school with her today because of an orthodontist appointment. “What did the dentist say?”
“I have to have braces after all.” Amy groaned and leaned on the stall door. “After all this time with that gross retainer. Yuck!”
“Bummer. Kids at school will call you tin grin for sure.”
“You better not.”
“Fence face?”
“Get real. Besides, you look like—uh-oh, you had a fight with your mom again.”
“Not yet.”
“Huh?”
“I haven’t told her about winning the drawing contest.” DJ set Major’s foot down. She patted his shoulder and let him nuzzle her cheek. “That tickles.”
“DJ, it’s been two—no three—days. Are you going to?”
“I don’t want to, but this not telling feels like lying and it’s killing me.”
“What’s killing you?” Joe stopped beside Amy.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, I get it. Something’s wrong, and you don’t want to tell your old grandpa.”
“Sheesh.” DJ reached for the bridle she’d hung on the door.
“Well, let me tell you that I always get the truth when I interrogate someone.”
DJ rolled her eyes. “Double sheesh. How lucky I am to have a cop for a grandfather.”
“An ex-cop, and don’t try to get around me.” Joe parked his rather large body in the middle of the stall door. Grinning down at Amy, he said with a wink, “Honestly, I don’t think much can get around me.”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
Joe turned to Amy. “So what’s her problem?”
Amy shrugged. “Ask her. I’ve got work to do.”
“Chicken!” DJ called after her friend.
“Well?” Joe waited.
DJ leaned into Major’s neck and inhaled the fine aroma of horse. The scent reminded her of dinner last Friday when she hadn’t changed clothes, which reminded her in turn of the fight afterward for which she had yet to really apologize, let alone ask forgiveness. The anger still simmered for not getting to go to Brad’s or to the horse show. And all of this was because of that stupid algebra. If only she hadn’t gotten a C in that the quarter before, too.
You were warned to bring that grade up. Besides, this time there were two Cs.
If that small voice that bugged her so was her conscience talking, she wanted to nail its door shut. The guilt it was building weighed heavier than a ton of alfalfa.
“So?”
DJ turned from both her horse and her inner war. “I don’t have time to talk right now. I have to get out there for my lesson or I’ll be late getting home again.” She lifted the saddle and set it across Major’s withers, grateful for the action. She knew that if she started telling Joe about the whole mess, she’d start to cry, and it would take too long. Bridget would have to come looking for her, and she didn’t want that.
Joe stepped back but still blocked most of the doorway. “Okay. But only on the condition that if it’s all right with your mother, you come for dinner with Gran and me tonight.”
“So you can interrogate me?” She tried to make her comment a teasing joke, but it didn’t come out right.
“If that’s what it takes.” Joe reached out and wrapped his arms around her when she turned to lead Major out of the stall.
DJ kept herself from leaning into the warmth and safety of his hug. “Thanks, GJ.” The words barely made it past the rock in her throat.
The dressage lesson turned into a review, with Bridget working DJ over and over on keeping Major on the bit, no matter what gait or configuration she put them through. By the time they’d circled the ring both ways, turned, reversed, did figure eights, more circles, and the full arena with Bridget correcting every slip, DJ felt as if she’d climbed to a mountain top, dropped to the floor of the Grand Canyon, and been bounced by a bungee cord somewhere in between.
When Joe said Lindy had insisted DJ come home instead of eating dinner with Joe and Gran, she felt the bungee cord bounce her again. Now what?
Robert and Lindy were sitting in the family room when DJ walked in the front door. Something felt strange. DJ paused a moment. No noise. “Where are Bobby and Billy?”
“At Gran’s.” Lindy leaned back and crossed her arms.
“Sit down, DJ.” Robert indicated Gran’s old wing chair.
“I need to get washed up and—”
“Now.”
It wasn’t an invitation. DJ felt her heart thud clear down to her ankles. Something was wrong, big time. The urge to run up the stairs and lock herself in the bathroom nearly jerked her off her feet.
She crossed the football-field-sized room to the chair and sat down on the edge. Her feet wanted to run—anywhere but there. Why were Robert and her mother staring at her? Was that sorrow in their eyes? Had someone died? Or was someone about to? That someone being her, of course.
She tucked her hands under her thighs to keep from biting into her nails.
“Now, Darla Jean.” Robert leaned forward and folded his hands together, his arms resting on his thighs. “Isn’t there something you’d like to tell us?”
DJ darted a glance at her mother, but there was no help there. Lindy wore that if-it-were-up-to-me-I’d-give-her-away look. Robert looked about as friendly as a judge—dishing out a death verdict.
If only Gran were here. I wasn’t lying, just not telling the whole truth. Or wasn’t I telling any of it? The voice refused to be silenced. How could such a discussion be going on in her head when her vocal cords refused to cooperate?
“I … ah … I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting lately?” She hadn’t meant it to be a question.
“And?” Robert drilled her with a solemn gaze.
Thoughts scurried through DJ’s head like rats in a maze.
“Let me help you out.” Ice coated Lindy’s words. “Today I received a call from Mrs. Adams.”
DJ sank against the back of the chair. Maybe she could hide under the cushion.
“I … I was going to tell you.” She studied a worn patch on the knee of her jeans.
“Oh really? When? After the art weekend was over?”
DJ caught the motion of Robert placing a hand on Lindy’s leg.
“No”
“When?”
“I knew if I told you I’d said no to Mrs. Adams, you’d have a fit and yell at me, and I hate that.”
“Did you ever for a moment think that maybe, just maybe, this art training could be more important than a jumping clinic?”
DJ shook her head. Her mother made “jumping clinic” sound like a dirty word. “Not to me it isn’t.” She started to stand up.
“Sit down.” Again, Robert didn’t offer an invitation.
Like a wild creature trapped in a corner, DJ attacked. “You just don’t get it! I want to be an Olympic jumper. Nothing else is as important to me as training both me and my hors
e for that chance. Olympic contenders work all their lives to compete, and I’m doing the same. I’ll earn the money to do it somehow—and I’ll live wherever I have to.” Her voice dropped. “I’ll do whatever it takes. I don’t care if you want to help me or not! That jumping clinic is one step in my training and I paid for it.” She collapsed against the back of the chair. Now I’m in about as deep as I can go. She waited for her mother to scream back at her.
“And that justifies lying to me?”
“I didn’t lie.” DJ studied her bleeding cuticle. “I just didn’t tell you.”
“That’s called a lie of omission,” Robert said. “And it’s still a lie.”
DJ couldn’t look him in the eye to see where he stood. She could tell he was upset, in spite of his gentle tone.
“If you don’t get your grades up and—”
“Honey,” Robert continued in that same voice. “Remember, we—”
Lindy flung off his hand. “I thought you were on my side in this. If you can’t help me, then stay out of it!”
“There are no sides. We are trying to work out a problem with our family, and you are not playing by the rules we set up.”
Lindy leaped to her feet, pacing the room until she stopped in front of DJ. “Right now I am so angry and disappointed in you that I can’t even think straight. You are grounded until your grades come up, and I want to see all of your tests. That means no phone, no Academy, no—”
“Mom, you can’t do that!”
“I can, and I just did. You think about the consequences next time before you lie to me.” She turned and left the room.
DJ felt like a bomb had just exploded and there were body pieces flying everywhere. Hers. She looked over at Robert, who wore a totally blank expression. His fingers were white where they clamped together.
“I’m sorry,” DJ whispered the words, but they screamed in the silent room.
“So am I.”
Chapter • 14
Each boot felt like it was made of concrete.
Halfway up the stairs, DJ’s knees gave way, and she sat down on the step. Head in her hands, she let the last scene replay in her head. Preplay, replay, what difference did it make in times like this? How could she call Bridget to say she’d been grounded for the rest of her life? And all because DJ had a dream.
And her mother didn’t like it.
She hates me. I know it.
DJ pulled herself up by the railing and lifted her one-ton foot again.
“I … I really blew it, didn’t I?” The sound of her mother weeping caught at DJ’s heart.
The murmur of Robert’s voice was undecipherable.
Don’t listen in—you know what Gran says. That pain-in-the-neck voice again. DJ started up again, then stopped. So what if she heard something bad. Things couldn’t get much worse than they were now.
“R-Robert, I’m so scared.”
Her mother admitting to being scared?! DJ leaned against the wall.
“Sh-she m-might decide to go live with Brad and Jackie.” A hiccup broke the words.
DJ had to admit the thought had crossed her mind—especially now. Brad at least understood her love of horses and her dream to jump, and he’d already said he’d help. But he had also told her to get her grades up. And he hadn’t called since.
“I know she hates me.” A nose was blown, then silence.
“So go to her.” Now Robert’s voice came plainly.
DJ ignored her heavy feet and headed for her room. Being caught eavesdropping would not be cool, particularly tonight.
But her mother never came. DJ’s anger simmered. When she laid a hand on her chest, she could feel it, hot just below the surface. “I’m not going to tell Bridget I can’t come—let her do that.” She paced the length of the room and back to the window. “I have to be at the Academy. Bridget depends on me. If I can’t ride Major or take lessons, then I’ll have to deal with it.” She propped her elbows on the sill. “God, I always thought you were out there, ready to listen, but where are you now?”
Go talk to your mother. “No way, not a chance.” More trips to the door and back. She dashed away some moisture from her eyes. “Don’t you cry, either!”
Her algebra made about as much sense as the Egyptian letters she’d seen in a photo of a pyramid. She slammed the book shut, stuffed her homework in her backpack, and turned out the light. When she tried to pray, no words came. Only an overwhelming urge to cry again. God’s probably mad at me, too, she thought. He might as well be, since everyone else is.
She turned over and pulled the pillow over her head.
A note from her mother in the morning said she could do her work at the Academy but not ride Major. Breathing a sigh of relief, DJ dashed out the door to ride to school with the Yamamotos. No one said goodbye to her, and no funny little boy hugged her legs. No one wished her a good day. The boys were still at Gran’s, and Robert and Lindy had left before she did.
“Uh-oh,” Amy said after one look at DJ’s face. “You want to talk about it?”
DJ shook her head. “It’s too complicated. But I almost got grounded for the rest of my life.” She sank against the back of the seat. “I can’t ride Major.”
“They found out about the art weekend?”
“Mrs. Adams called and talked to my mother.”
“Yikes.” Amy shuddered.
“You can say ‘I told you so’ any time now.”
“I won’t.”
DJ shook her head. “I just wish she’d ground me from algebra.”
She was beginning to feel better until she walked into the art room. Mrs. Adams shook her head when she saw her.
“I can only keep that spot open a few more days,” she said. “I sure hope you change your mind.”
My mother strikes again! DJ took her seat but her fingers failed to draw the lines the way they should. Another problem to deal with! “Fiddle. Double and triple fiddle!” She kept the mutter low.
After her work at the Academy, DJ flung herself into a chair at Gran’s. “It’s not fair!” She could hear her voice rising on telling Gran and Joe all about the problems.
“No one ever said life would be fair.” Gran stopped behind DJ and massaged her shoulders. “God said He’d rescue us from trouble, and Jesus said He would always be with us, but no one said anything about fair.”
“How come my mother can’t be happy about me wanting to become such a super thing as an international jumper? It’s not like I’m doing drugs or something.”
“I don’t know. Have you prayed about it?”
“I tried. I think God’s gone shopping or something. He sure isn’t answering.”
Gran dropped a kiss on DJ’s head and wrapped her arms around her granddaughter. “Oh, darlin’, God never checks out. He is the same, yesterday, today, and always. He hears you.”
“Then He’s probably mad at me, too.” DJ rested in her grandmother’s arms. “Even Major hates me ’cause I didn’t ride him today. This isn’t fair to him, either.” She turned to look at Joe. “That reminds me, I overheard Bunny saying something to Tony that made him boiling mad. I didn’t catch what.” She watched Joe sipping his coffee on the other side of the table. “Did you ever find out anything about her?” It was a relief to change the subject.
He shook his head. “Like I told you, she’s clean as a whistle. You kids are seeing shadows where there are none. I think you’ve been reading too many mysteries.”
DJ slunk back in her chair. “Not me. I’m two book reports behind. Who’s got time to read?”
“But you used to like to read.” Gran tipped DJ’s chin up with one loving finger and brushed the hair back, looking deep into DJ’s eyes. “Child, you need to go to your mother and, together, clear this all up.”
DJ could feel her neck tighten. “Yeah, right.” She knew that answer wasn’t what Gran wanted to hear. “I wish I’d never shown that drawing to Mrs. Adams. That’s what brought on all of this. I’m never doing such a lame-brained thing again.
”
“You think God made a mistake giving you a talent for drawing and a love of art?”
DJ couldn’t think of a thing to say to that.
“So what are you going to do?” Joe broke the extended silence.
“Nothing—oh, I don’t know. Get my grades back up.” She turned to Gran. “I know I should go talk to her but … Gran, she won’t listen. I think one thing, and she thinks another. That’s all there is to it!”
Joe glanced up at the clock above the sink. “I better go get the boys. Robert took them to the new house with him so they could play there since Lindy won’t be home till late. Have you talked with him?”
Again, DJ shook her head. “I really don’t want to talk to anybody.”
“So we’re nobodies?” Joe wiggled his eyebrows.
“You know what I mean.”
“I do, but you know what? Asking for help is not a sin.” Joe stood up. “Do you want to come with me? I’ll bring the boys back here, and you and Robert can do some talking. Trust me, my son listens well. I should know—I trained him.”
“Is he an interrogator, too?” DJ almost pulled off the joke. Almost, but not quite.
“So … you coming?” Joe waited at the door.
DJ shook her head. “I’ll just have to try harder, that’s all. Mom said I’m not doing my best, so guess I better.” She shook her head again. “Things used to be a lot simpler.”
Later that night, DJ tried praying again. “Please, God, help me get along better with my mother. And somehow I have to learn to understand algebra. How come I have so much trouble?” DJ yawned wide and waited, hoping for some kind of an answer. “You know that verse Gran gave me for biting my fingernails, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’? It doesn’t seem to be working.”
How come God could seem so close at times, and others, like right now—where was He? The thought bugged DJ even as she fell asleep.
The birds started their morning chorus about the time DJ woke up. She dressed quickly in the dimness and tiptoed down the stairs. Even though she couldn’t ride him, this way she would have extra time with Major, and she could work both Patches and Omega longer.
High Hurdles Collection Two Page 11