Horse

by Talley English

  Around the top of the circle, she relaxed and he continued forward at the trot. At the poles, again, she held her left leg farther back and prepared to fight him, but it wasn’t necessary. She’d won, or, at least, Ian didn’t find the game interesting anymore. He trotted dolefully in a circle. She brought him into the middle of ring and halted. She patted his neck, exhausted.

  * * *

  —

  He didn’t entirely give up the game he’d invented, which Teagan called troll. Whenever he was bored with their exercises, Ian would suddenly “see a troll” peeking out from behind a tree, from a shadow on the ground, or from behind a fence post. He would shy away or halt suddenly, his ears forward, his nose forward, and he would snort at the perceived thing that frightened him. Teagan learned to stick to the saddle, to pat his neck, as if to say she called his bluff, and get him moving forward again. He never saw the same troll twice. But when they were out, even on the oval of grass traced by a fence, Ian was a different horse. He moved with energy, his stride long and easy, his ears lightly forward, his neck soft and body relaxed. Like Teagan, the horse seemed happiest moving along a horizon.

  Tall Boots

  What I liked about Hunting Hill: the big windows in the classrooms that looked out on the lawn with old trees; the large grass riding area with its wood-rail fence; that my dorm was at the edge of campus, where the woods began; how simple it was for me to slip into the trees and run the network of pine-needle-covered trails; the worn flagstone path that dwindled into the ground as I walked from the dining hall to my room. My favorite things were not my classes, or even my friends. I liked carrying my tall, black riding boots to class with me in a canvas bag. It had a strap I would sling over my shoulder. Carrying them meant I would be riding, soon. I wore tennis shoes until I was at the barn, when I would pull on my boots. It was a little ritual I had that meant I would see Ian, who liked me.

  Sleeping Over

  The narrow, blue, standard slip of paper in her mailbox informed her that her father was signing her out of school for the weekend. She wondered if she was allowed to refuse. During lunch, she sat on the low stone wall of Miss Guinevere’s Garden, plucking withered phlox and destroying the blossoms in her palms. The petals crumpled easily. She wasn’t allowed to pick the flowers. She had missed her father, after he was gone. And now, so suddenly, he was back. And every time she saw him, every time he took her to lunch or wanted to walk to the barn with her to pat Ian and feed him an apple, she felt that she didn’t want to see her father anymore. He didn’t seem to notice her, even when they walked together. She wasn’t sure why he was visiting. It seemed, to her, that maybe he wasn’t sure why he was visiting. Maybe he felt obligated. She felt obligation, to give him a hug and receive his kiss on her cheek. She said she loved him, too, but it was as if she was pretending to be a daughter, and he was pretending to be a father. She wanted something to be real, something to be as tangible as a horse, even if it was the wrong horse. A horse that was her horse. So it couldn’t be the wrong horse, if it was hers.

  * * *

  —

  Julie practiced piano in the afternoons. Sometimes Teagan listened while Julie played from Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Julie explained the cycle and Teagan thought it sounded like it would take a long time to play. Today, Teagan didn’t see Julie, didn’t leave her a note. She packed her duffel bag and sat on the steps of her dorm and watched her father’s car come down the school road. The silver BMW was gone. This car was black. They ate a late lunch at the Red Filly, and then her father drove through the countryside, passing old farmhouses and fields, barns and hillsides dotted with fat, docile beef cattle. The view out her window was lovely and lonely, and Teagan was afraid. Her father had sipped his glass of white wine without smiling. He had purple sagging skin under his eyes. Teagan tried telling him about the play she’d seen, but after a few sentences she stopped, because Robert was looking over the waitress as she refilled Teagan’s 7 Up. He didn’t seem to notice she’d been talking or had stopped talking. He tried to interest her in ordering dessert, but she didn’t want any.

  The radio station played “Don’t You Even Try.”

  “This is the Everly Brothers,” Robert said, singing along.

  Teagan didn’t like the song. She thought the harmonies sounded eerie. Sarah had introduced Teagan to Tori Amos, and Teagan tried to hear the singer’s drifting voice in her head, the music that sometimes crashed and poured, but the even notes of her father’s song pushed out that other music, and she looked at her father’s large, rough knuckles gripping the steering wheel.

  * * *

  —

  The apartment was a narrow hallway above an outbuilding on a farm out in the countryside, somewhere. At one end of the hall was a bedroom and a bathroom, at the other was a small kitchen.

  “Do you want dinner?” Robert said.

  “No,” Teagan said.

  “We ate a late lunch.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I rented a movie. Do you want to watch a movie? There’s not much around here.”

  “Okay.”

  In the kitchen was a narrow cot with a patchwork quilt and a pillow on it.

  “That’s okay for you, right?”

  “It’s fine,” Teagan said.

  “Let’s watch the movie,” Robert said.

  She sat at the little table while he opened a bottle of wine and poured a glass. “Want anything? I have orange juice.”

  “No,” she said.

  “The TV is in the bedroom since there’s no living room,” he said.

  He set the bottle and his glass on the spindly bedside table. She crawled over the double bed to lie near the wall, her head propped up on musty-smelling yellow quilted decorative pillows. The bedspread had a pattern of blue and white squares. The mattress sank when he lay down, his bulk taking up most of the bed. He held the remote and started the movie, and refilled his wineglass. The movie played. She didn’t say anything and he didn’t say anything. At a funny part they laughed. She didn’t look at him. His big muscled arm lay near her. She could tell he was different from the wine. She kept her hands folded across her stomach. Susanna had always preapproved the movies Teagan watched, nothing too violent or too sexy, no R-rated films. The main characters were having sex. The man grunted and the woman moaned. Teagan kept her eyes glued to the naked bodies and did not look at her father. He lay very still. When the movie ended, she said, “Excuse me,” and Robert got up so she could get off the bed. Teagan brushed her teeth and said good night to her father. She didn’t change into her pajamas, and, wearing her jeans, she lay on the narrow cot and spread the damp-smelling quilt over her and curled up. She stayed awake most of the night. Her father came into the kitchen once and rinsed out his glass, and dropped the bottle in the plastic trash bin. She heard it clink against other glass. In the morning, she accepted the coffee he offered her and picked at her scrambled eggs. She said she didn’t want to miss her Saturday riding time slot and lied, saying it was at eleven. He drove her back to school, and she returned his kiss on her cheek, and she said she loved him, too.

  In her bed in her dorm room, she slept until three and went to take her riding time at four. Ian’s glossy coat felt familiar to her hands. He stood when she told him to stand, trotted when she told him to trot, cantered when she told him to canter, halted when she drew back the reins. She patted his neck, and he lowered his head and walked easy and comfortably back to the barn. She hosed him off, dried him with a towel, secured the straps on his wool blanket, and led him outside to the small paddock he shared with a little Morgan horse. The little horse came over to greet him and the two horses playfully nipped at each other, then grazed the sparse grass.

  Omit

  The Foxtail Inn had green plaid tablecloths and flowers on the tables, and the menu was long. Teagan said she didn’t want to go to the Red Filly, and the Foxtail was the only other c
hoice. Susanna said she didn’t mind treating Teagan, and even handed her a little ribbon-tied box. Inside was a large pin that looked like a stretched-out safety pin.

  “It holds your stock tie. It’s real silver, so don’t lose it.”

  “I don’t have a stock tie,” Teagan said.

  “I got you one, and I have my old hunting jacket for you, in the car. You’ll be all set to take Ian hunting in the fall.”

  “Fall’s over,” Teagan said.

  “Next fall,” Susanna said.

  Susanna ordered the salmon and Teagan copied her.

  “I didn’t know you liked salmon,” Susanna said.

  “I’ve never had it.” Teagan shrugged.

  “That’s an expensive dish if you don’t like it. You could try some of mine.”

  “I’ll eat it,” Teagan said.

  The green and white interior of the restaurant was soothing. She was hungry, and the fish melted in her mouth as she steadily ate. Susanna did most of the talking, telling Teagan what Charlie was up to, that he was playing football and had a nice girlfriend; she said she’d gone to dinner at the Penns’, and Grace said to say hello, and Leta had baked Teagan cookies (Susanna forgot to bring them), and that Barker was finally acting like an old dog and didn’t come on as many walks, and the roof of the house needed repair because it was leaking, and Susanna was volunteering at a homeless resource center, and what a great experience that was. Teagan told her mother what she was studying in her classes and made it sound more interesting than she really thought it was, and she told her that things were going well with Ian, but she left out falling off of him and the problems she sometimes had with him; she told her mother about her friends, Julie, Sarah, Sen, and Aleah, and how at Hunting Hill she’d met girls from all over, from Saudi Arabia and Japan and South Korea and New Jersey and Oklahoma; she didn’t talk about how she wasn’t hanging out with her friends as much, maybe because she felt tired so often lately, and was constantly having to catch up on homework; and she said she was taking French but didn’t mention that it didn’t make sense to her, and she was having trouble memorizing the verbs that everyone else got right away; and she didn’t mention that she felt more homesick instead of less, and she was too embarrassed to say she wanted to come home.

  “Did you know your dad is living not far from here?”

  “How do you know that?” Teagan said.

  “He finally called and gave me his address and phone number. Can you believe he waited this long—anyway. I bet he’ll come take you out to lunch if you call him. I’ll give you his number.” Her mother’s voice was even, positive, as if she was happy, as if she wanted this to be good news for Teagan.

  Teagan couldn’t believe that her mother wasn’t angry, wasn’t upset, wasn’t telling Teagan to stay away from her father because he was— She couldn’t think exactly what. She knew her mother was pretending that everything was okay, for Teagan’s benefit, as if Teagan didn’t know, as if everything wasn’t wrong, and Teagan ordered the biggest dessert on the menu and ate it all.

  She didn’t mention that she’d seen her father, that she knew where he was living.

  “You must be stuffed,” Susanna said, signing the bill.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Teagan said.

  “I was thinking we could do some shopping. Are there stores here that you like?”

  “I don’t need anything. Let’s go back to school and you can see Ian,” Teagan said.

  “Sure. I’d like to see him and the barn,” Susanna said. “But you don’t want to explore the town a little bit?”

  “No. There’s nothing here,” Teagan said.

  Out to Lunch

  Ian was hers; she had taken him from her father, she felt, and made him her horse. He looked for her; he whinnied when she called his name; he listened. She was a different rider, more confident, stronger. She was a different girl lifting the saddle to Ian’s back, engaging in a silent conversation with him as they covered the available ground at a controlled canter. She was a different girl in her classes, opening to chapters in textbooks she had failed to read; she was distracted and tired, uninterested. She was staying up late to study, cramming for quizzes and writing sloppy essays. She skipped breakfast to do homework at the last minute, and in the afternoons she would ride or take long walks, her books stacked on her desk, untouched. She was no longer synchronized with Julie and saw her only briefly between classes. Teagan often ate a quick lunch and then walked back to the dorm, finishing an assignment before her next class. During study hall, Teagan pretended to read, but her eyes glazed over the words, and she practiced perfect circles in her mind, directing Ian with a light contact.

  During break, Teagan noticed that Julie didn’t wait for her in the hallway, and she didn’t see Sarah either. Aleah waved from down the sidewalk but kept walking. Teagan checked her mailbox, and the only thing in it was a blue slip of paper. She bought peanuts from the snack kiosk: breakfast.

  At eleven on Saturday morning, Teagan was walking to the barn. She didn’t want to wait on the steps of her dorm, watching the black car winding along the school road, toward her. She didn’t want to admit that she was running away, and knew it was childish. Maybe he would give up and go away. She would delay so much they would run out of time. She was being ridiculous. The barn doors were closed, and she went around the side to the doors that opened into Ian’s hall. One was open and a blue wheelbarrow full of straw sat halfway through. She edged around it. Ian was outside, in the paddock. She went to the barn office, a little corner room, concrete like the stalls, with a desk stacked with papers and clipboards, and a few stray lead ropes. Miss Jessie had her back to the door and was looking in a filing cabinet. Teagan knocked on the open door. Miss Jessie turned around and frowned.

  “Teagan? The barn is closed right now.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Um, I wanted to let you know that…I think I lost my riding crop.”

  “When’s the last time you had it?”

  “I think yesterday.” Teagan knew her bat was in a bucket in the tack room.

  Miss Jessie opened a metal locker and pulled out a bucket and shoved it toward Teagan, and told her to look through the ones in there. Maybe someone had turned it in. Teagan took as much time as she reasonably could, picking out the bats and putting them back in. Some had colored handles, blue or green, some were falling apart, the nylon weave along the length worn through, showing a plastic rod.

  “It’s not here. Could I go up to the grass and look? I might have dropped it.”

  “You didn’t have it with you after the lesson?”

  “I don’t remember,” Teagan said.

  “Are you riding this afternoon?”

  “Four,” Teagan said.

  “Can you look for it then?” Miss Jessie asked.

  Teagan stood for a moment. She hadn’t thought of that.

  “Make it quick,” Miss Jessie said.

  “Thank you. I will,” Teagan said, and outside she jogged up the hill to the riding area. She bent down and swiped the grass with her fingers, pretending to look. She walked a little and brushed the grass with the side of her shoe, and kept doing it every few feet, as if she were expecting to unearth something. She was involved in her search for nothing and didn’t recognize the purr of the car rolling along the gravel near the riding area, and looked up to see her father walking toward the fence. He rested his hands on the top rail. She looked at him and smiled, not for him but because she imagined turning and running as fast as she could into the woods. She saw him glance at his watch. She walked over.

  “Your roommate said you were here.”

  Teagan had a flash of anger toward Julie and then realized Julie had probably guessed at the places Teagan would usually be. The barn was likely.

  “I lost my riding crop.”

  “Did you find it?”

  Teaga
n’s game was over. He wasn’t interested in waiting while she looked for nothing.

  She ordered a BLT at the Red Filly, and her father ordered a rare hamburger and a glass of wine. She wondered why he wanted to see her. He didn’t talk much, and he finished his first glass quickly and seemed irritated when he didn’t manage to signal the waiter right away for another.

  “How are you?” Teagan asked. The words were foreign in her mouth, and she was embarrassed. She noticed he didn’t look well, but she didn’t mean to ask how he was. He was supposed to ask her.

  “Lisa wants kids. I don’t know if I want kids again. I’ve done that already.”

  Teagan felt chilled.

  “And she wants to buy a house, and I don’t have the income for that at the moment. Divorce is expensive. And we already have to pay for a wedding. It won’t be a big wedding, but she’s invited her family. I hope you and Charlie will come. It’s in three weeks. I’ll send you an invitation.”

  Teagan sat very straight with her hands on her knees. Her father wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at his plate, sipping his wine, picking at his french fries.

  “My job is good, but not really where I want to be. It’s a small county, but I have to give them at least a year, really two, before I could move on from there. And I have to find someplace to store all the things from Blue View. Nothing will fit in my apartment. You saw it. It’s way too small.”