Alex walked forward to join him. “No kidding,” he said wryly. “What should we do?”
“We’d better sit tight for now,” Stevie said reluctantly. Even though every fiber in her being was screaming for action, she knew that Phil and Julianna would have a better chance of coaxing A.J. out of his room on their own than they would with a whole crowd trying to help. Maybe this whole intervention thing was a mistake, she thought. Maybe seeing all these people scared him, made things worse …
She shook her head briskly. That kind of thinking wasn’t going to do anyone any good, least of all her. To distract herself, she wandered over to the sofa, where Lisa and Callie had perched nervously.
“Maybe Phil can convince him to give us a chance to help him.” Lisa was obviously trying to sound optimistic but was failing miserably.
“Maybe,” Stevie said. She took a seat between the other two girls. Leaning back wearily against the sofa cushions, she glanced around the room. Alex and Scott were still standing near the stairs, looking worried, clearly still talking about A.J.’s dramatic exit. Carole was over near the windows, chattering intently at Ben, who listened without contributing much. Stevie couldn’t quite hear what they were talking about, but she was pretty sure she picked up the name Samson once or twice. It figures, she thought. Carole’s attention never leaves that stable for long.
She returned her own attention to Lisa and Callie. “Maybe we should have seen this coming,” she commented. “If A.J. wouldn’t talk to his family or Phil about whatever’s bugging him, why should we think he’d talk to all of us?”
Callie glanced over at her quickly, wondering if the irrepressible Stevie was actually giving up. “I still think this intervention was a good idea,” she said. “Talking to A.J. one-on-one wasn’t going anywhere, right? It was time to try something new.”
Of course, sometimes trying something new can backfire, Callie thought, flashing back to her own recent experience with Sheila. Look what it got me and my family. Dad’s in big trouble with his welfare committee, not to mention looking like a jerk in front of the whole country, especially the voters back home. Everyone at school is probably going to think Scott is some kind of alcoholic. And as for me … She shuddered as she thought about how her life would be changed by the article’s revelations. Now everyone would look at her and know just how cowardly and insecure she really was. She didn’t know how she would be able to stand it. At least Mom was mostly spared, she thought ruefully, although she knew that was only partly true. Mrs. Forester would feel every ounce of her husband’s and children’s humiliation. That was the kind of person she was. Still, it’s a good thing I didn’t remember to tell Sheila about Mom’s “friendship” with that lawyer back home …
She pushed that unwelcome thought out of her mind. “Anyway, it was worth a try,” she went on aloud, referring both to the intervention and, privately, to the experiment with Sheila. No matter how painful the whole thing had been—and would be for the foreseeable future—at least it had taught Callie a few things, good and bad. It had taught her how deceitful some people could be, and who her real friends were. And it had taught her that she might as well stop clinging to the idea of “back home.” That was an especially valuable lesson, because it had finally opened her eyes to the fact that she was still holding back, still refusing to admit that she was in Willow Creek for good, with no safety net waiting to catch her if it didn’t work out. The thought was a little scary, but exciting, too, since it meant she was finally free to throw herself wholeheartedly into her new life here.
I can do it, she told herself, and I have to do it. There’s no other way. She felt some of her natural grit and determination start to seep back. Those qualities had carried her successfully through thousands of miles of tough competition and even tougher terrain in countless endurance rides. Now she would have to trust them to give her the endurance to make it past this new challenge as well.
Still, she couldn’t help feeling a bit depressed as she thought of the road ahead. She knew that some things would never change. She could never really escape her role as a member of a high-profile family, no matter how determined she was or how many miles she rode. It wouldn’t be easy to forget that again anytime soon …
Lisa couldn’t help noticing that Callie looked rather meditative and wistful, but she tactfully avoided mentioning it. “I think we have to keep trying to reach A.J. no matter how much he resists,” she said instead. “He’s hurting, he’s our friend, and we have to try our best to help him. That’s what friends are for, right?”
She glanced across the room at Carole as she said it. As she did, she felt that now familiar flash of anger, though it was noticeably weaker now. She still wasn’t even close to forgiving Carole for what she had done, but now that her first flush of fury was fading, she was feeling more hurt than anything else. How could Carole have kept something so important from her? Were they really still as close as they’d always been, or had something changed without Lisa’s noticing it? Was she being naive to think that she and Carole and Stevie could remain the kind of friends they had been in their younger days, the kind of friends who would do anything for each other without a second thought, the kind who told each other absolutely everything?
At that thought, she glanced involuntarily at Alex, who was still deep in conversation with Scott. Thinking about secrets reminded her that there was still one very important secret standing between her and Alex. She knew she had to do something about it soon, before too much more time passed. But today just didn’t seem to be the day to think about that, not when so many other things were still up in the air …
Stevie caught Lisa’s anxious glance at Alex and wondered about it. Was Lisa thinking about her promise to tell him her secret? Probably not, Stevie told herself quickly. That’s probably the last thing on her mind, between worrying about A.J., Prancer, and her fight with Carole.
She supposed she couldn’t blame Lisa for that. Stevie had a lot more urgent worries on her own mind at the moment than her brother’s love life. Concern for A.J. was gnawing away steadily at her insides with every passing moment that Phil and Julianna remained upstairs. Was he ever going to tell them what was wrong? It seemed impossible that he wouldn’t. Then again, when she thought back, it seemed impossible that things had come this far, lasted this long. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand it.
She also wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand watching Carole and Lisa shoot bitter looks at each other. The three girls had weathered fights in the past, but for some reason this one felt different. Maybe that had something to do with the way Carole and Lisa had each acted when the truth came out. Or maybe it was because they were all still getting used to Lisa’s being back home after her long summer away …
Feeling Callie shift her weight on the sofa beside her, Stevie glanced over, noting the other girl’s pensive face. Despite Callie’s and Scott’s assurances, Stevie still felt at least partially responsible for the whole Sheila fiasco. She also felt more than a little foolish. She didn’t consider herself a gullible or unrealistic person—far from it—but she never would have guessed that anything like this could happen. And now Callie and her family are paying for that, she thought sadly.
Not wanting to think about that particular subject any longer, she glanced around the crowded room, her gaze finally settling on Carole. She was standing near the window with Ben, but the two of them weren’t talking at the moment. Ben was staring at the ground, looking as if he wished he were somewhere else—a familiar position and expression for him.
Carole’s expression was harder to interpret. Stevie narrowed her eyes, taking in her friend’s furrowed brow, the fingers nervously twisting the ends of her hair the way they so often did when Carole was feeling conflicted or guilty about something. She’s probably just worrying about her fight with Lisa, Stevie told herself. Or she could be feeling bad about what just happened with A.J.
Either or both of those possibilities made perfect se
nse, but for some reason Stevie wasn’t quite satisfied. Carole’s face tended to reflect her every thought and feeling, and Stevie had years of experience in reading it. Somehow, her expression right then seemed different, seemed off somehow. Could something else be bothering her?
Suddenly Carole turned to Ben and started talking, waving her hands around urgently, and that odd, anguished expression was gone. Stevie blinked, wondering if she had imagined the whole thing. This situation with A.J. was putting them all on edge.… Her gaze wandered back to Ben. He looked perfectly miserable, and she strongly suspected it had nothing to do with A.J.
Why can’t he just loosen up? she wondered. Remembering his pathetic attempt at conversing with her a little earlier, she shook her head with a mixture of contempt and pity. Maybe if he didn’t act like such a weirdo all the time, he’d be happier.
She sighed, glancing at the stairs. There was still no sign of A.J., or of Phil and Julianna, either.
Of course, Ben’s not the only one who needs help. I can think of a few other people in desperate need of an attitude adjustment right about now. Stevie glanced at Lisa and then back at Carole. Next her gaze traveled to Callie, and she was reminded again of deceitful Sheila. Why don’t people ever seem to act the way I think they should? she wondered, turning her attention back to the still-empty stairs. It sure would make life a lot easier.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Pine Hollow series
ONE
“Lisa! Honey, I’m home!”
Lisa Atwood looked up from her history essay and blinked in surprise. “Mom?” she called back uncertainly. She’d been concentrating so hard on her paper that she hadn’t even heard her mother’s car pull up. She stood, stretched, and headed out of her room and down the hall.
Her eyes confirmed what her ears had told her—her mother was in a good mood for a change. Mrs. Atwood was bustling about near the door, setting down a pair of large shopping bags, shrugging off her light autumn jacket, and brushing her chin-length, graying brown hair out of her eyes.
When she saw Lisa coming downstairs, Mrs. Atwood’s smile grew wider. “There you are, sweetie!” she cried, clapping her hands gleefully. “I was hoping you’d be home. I have a surprise for you.”
“A surprise?” Lisa glanced warily at the bulging shopping bags, both of which bore the name of the clothing store at the Willow Creek Mall where her mother worked as an assistant manager. If anything could have ruined Mrs. Atwood’s lifelong love of shopping, it would have been working at that store. The manager was a smarmy slob who often expected Mrs. Atwood and the other assistant manager to make up for his laziness and stupid mistakes. The other employees were generally high-school or college students, and they didn’t usually last long enough for Mrs. Atwood to get to know them even if she’d wanted to. None of that had seemed so bad back when Mrs. Atwood had started working at the store part-time for a little extra spending money. But since she and Mr. Atwood had divorced, things had changed. Suddenly the stories didn’t seem so amusing anymore, and her tone when she described her boss’s latest outrages no longer held any trace of amusement or irony.
Mrs. Atwood didn’t notice Lisa’s thoughtful expression. She was too busy digging through the larger of the two shopping bags. Lisa did her best to hold back a sigh as she watched. Somehow, her mother’s happy expression made her feel sad and wistful. It reminded her of how her mother used to be before Lisa’s father left, shattering his wife’s entire world. Mrs. Atwood had never exactly been a bundle of fun, but she had been satisfied with her life and her family. Lisa hadn’t had to worry about her back then. She hadn’t had to do most of the cooking and cleaning, either, or fill in as her mother’s only reliable friend and confidante.
Mrs. Atwood stood up, clutching a bundle of shimmery midnight blue fabric. “Surprise!” she cried cheerily. She shook out the fabric with a flourish, and Lisa could see that it was a dress—a sleek, stylish dress with a high neckline and cap sleeves. “It’s a brand-new style we’re carrying this fall. The shipment came in yesterday, but I didn’t get around to opening the box until today, and as soon as I did I thought of you. It’s perfect for someone with your slim figure and your coloring. Do you love it?”
Lisa did her best to smile and look excited, playing along. “It’s gorgeous, Mom,” she said, reaching out to rub her fingers over the smooth fabric, wincing a little as she noticed the hefty figure on the price tag dangling from one sleeve. Even with her employee discount, the dress had still cost Mrs. Atwood more than she could afford, especially for something so unnecessary. “It’s great. Um, I think it’s a little too dressy for school, though.”
Mrs. Atwood laughed. “Don’t be silly, dear,” she said. “An outfit this special isn’t for school. I thought you could wear it the next time you go to a party or a dance or out on a special date with Alex. You don’t have many dressy outfits, and you’re at that age when you’re going to want to start dressing up more.”
Lisa didn’t bother to tell her mother that her feelings about clothes hadn’t changed, no matter what age she was. Now seventeen, she still felt every bit as comfortable in neat but casual clothes—like the khakis and cotton sweater she was wearing that day—as she had at seven, or fourteen, or sixteen and a half. Her classic outfits complemented her classic looks—her straight, shiny blond hair; her large, expressive eyes fringed by long lashes; her slender figure. She wasn’t sure the new outfit was really her. It was a little flashy, a little trendy for her taste. But she didn’t intend to tell her mother that—not when she was so excited about her surprise.
Surprises, Lisa thought ruefully as she took the dress and smoothed it carefully over her arm. She noticed that her mother was bending over the second shopping bag. She couldn’t help grimacing a little, fully expecting a pair of midnight blue pumps to come out of the bag to match her new dress. Surprises are supposed to be fun and exciting, but they never turn out quite the way they should, do they? Especially these days.
As surprises went, the gift of an inappropriate outfit was hardly the most unsettling one Lisa had had to deal with lately. Lisa had never liked surprises much—she was a logical, cautious person, a planner, and she liked to know what was coming so that she could prepare herself. That was one reason she had been so thrown by the news she’d learned the week before about Prancer, a horse at the stable where she rode. Lisa had ridden Prancer almost exclusively for years—almost since the elegant Thoroughbred mare had first retired from the racetrack and come to Pine Hollow Stables.
That had changed a little over a month ago, soon after Lisa had returned from spending the summer in California with her father. Max Regnery, the owner of Pine Hollow, had suddenly declared Prancer off-limits without explaining why. Lisa had wondered and worried about the mare for weeks before finally, accidentally, finding out the truth: Prancer was pregnant with twins, an unusual and sometimes risky situation for a horse. As if that surprise hadn’t been bad enough, Max’s revelation had been accompanied by the even more surprising fact that one of Lisa’s best friends had known about it all along.
Lisa had met Carole Hanson and Stevie Lake on her first day at Pine Hollow some four years earlier. The three girls had bonded almost immediately over their love of horses and riding, even forming a club they had named The Saddle Club to give themselves an excuse to talk about their favorite activity even more.
But the one thing that had always been even more important than horses to the girls was their friendship. That friendship had sometimes seemed surprising to outsiders, since the three of them were so very different in so many ways. In contrast to Lisa’s mature, steady, responsible personality, Stevie was always fun-loving, freewheeling, and a bit of a daredevil. Sometimes Lisa thought that the only thing steady about Stevie was her relationship with her longtime boyfriend, Phil Marsten. The two had been completely committed to each other since meeting at riding camp years earlier, despite the fact that they lived in neighboring towns and attended different schools.
And then there was Carole. From the beginning, the girls had all agreed that Carole was the horse-craziest of the three of them. She boarded her horse, an eager, friendly, big bay named Starlight, at Pine Hollow, and her friends liked to joke that she spent more time at the stable than he did. That wasn’t far from the truth. Carole planned to spend her life working around horses, and she had started by taking on an after-school job at Pine Hollow, where she had quickly become an invaluable part of Max’s small staff. She never seemed to miss a step at the stable, even when she was busy with four or five different tasks at once, but she could be quite scatterbrained in the outside world, often forgetting the most basic things in a way that made super-organized Lisa squirm with frustration.
Still, despite all their differences, the three girls had always been a tight-knit trio. Even now that they were all in high school and had a lot of new distractions and responsibilities, they spent a lot of their free time together. Until a few days earlier, Lisa could never have imagined that Carole could ever do anything to jeopardize their three-way friendship.
Even now that she’d had a few days to get used to the idea, Lisa could hardly believe that Carole hadn’t told her the truth about Prancer. Carole must have realized Lisa was driving herself crazy with worry, and that she could be trusted to keep a confidence. But Carole hadn’t said a word about Prancer’s condition, the real reason for Max’s ban on riding the mare. She’d let her friend wait and worry and wonder until finally someone else had told her.
For the first couple of days, Lisa had been absolutely livid. But the more time passed, the more her anger shifted to regret and sadness. She wished there was a way they could all go back in time and try again. That way, Carole might decide to tell her the truth about Prancer and this whole stupid fight would never have happened.…
Conformation Faults Page 18