Flying Changes, Page 8

  "Do you want me to twitch him?"

  "Yeah. I guess you'd better. There's one in the second compartment."

  I dig the twitch out and catch a portion of Squire's upper lip in its looped cord. Squire peers resentfully up at me as Walter finishes treating the wounds on his back legs.

  "We're just trying to help you, you know," I say, stroking his forelock with my free hand. I smooth it and lift it off to the side, revealing a long scar on his forehead. It's at least six inches long, healed over, but bald and a raw pink.

  "Walter, come look at this."

  Walter wipes his hands on his pants and comes around. "What is it?"

  "His face. Check this out."

  When he gets out of range of Squire's back legs, I release the twitch.

  "Oh my-my-my-my-my-my-my," says Walter again, and I think two things: first, that if I were his wife that phrase would drive me bonkers; and second, whether he says it because he doesn't want to swear (the kick would have elicited at least a "shit" from me). And then I try to remember if I've sworn in front of him.

  When Squire has been wormed, washed, twitched, injected, slathered in ointment, bandaged, had his ears flushed and teeth floated and been generally insulted in a million different ways, we leave him feeling slightly better about life through a simple bribe of bran mash. He has Bella to thank for that.

  Walter packs up to leave, and I return to the quarantine barn. I am halfway down the aisle, moving silently on soft-soled shoes, when I hear Eva segue from how wonderful-marvelous-beautiful the filly is to how wonderful-marvelous-beautiful her new baby half brother is. Of course, she doesn't say "half." She just calls him her brother.

  I do an about-face and go see Bella.

  On the evening of the next day, Eva and I are in the kitchen making tabbouleh, one of the dishes I have managed to master since she became a vegetarian.

  She's being sweet. Too sweet. She's planning something, that much is sure.

  "Mom," she says, looking studiously at the parsley under her knife. Chop, chop. Pause. Quick glance up, and then back down.

  "Yes?" I say, bracing myself.

  "I'm sorry about the other day." Chop. Chop.

  I stare at my own cutting board and the tomatoes upon it, waiting. Here it comes--

  "If you let me ride at Strafford, I'll let you get my tattoo removed."

  "What?" I laugh out loud. "You'll let me? For your information, getting a tattoo lasered off costs thousands of dollars."

  We're silent for a moment, chopping our respective vegetables.

  I glance up at her. "Really?"

  She smiles, sweetness personified. "Sure."

  "Huh," I say, pondering. Another pause. "Eva, what do you want to do with your life?"

  "I want to ride."

  "I know. I meant later, as a career."

  "So do I."

  "You don't want to be a vet anymore?"

  "No. I want to compete."

  "Are you sure? You know the money's not very good, right? I mean, when you consider how much it costs to campaign even just one horse, a fifty-thousand-dollar purse starts to sound a whole lot less--"

  "I know. I figured I'd take students in the off-season. I kind of thought I might do it here," she says, throwing me a shy look.

  Another pause, as I teeter on the precipice, both arms spread and wondering whether I have the courage to just let myself fall. I take a deep breath and lean into the void--

  "Eva?"

  "Yes, Mom?"

  "I know it's probably too late for me to do anything about getting you a horse in time for Strafford, but I'll see what I can do, okay?"

  "What?" She looks stricken.

  "You heard me."

  She stares at me for a long time, waiting for the punch line. When it doesn't come, she slams her knife down and bounds across the kitchen, nearly knocking me down with the force of her embrace. "Mom! Are you serious?" she shrieks, taking my shoulders in both hands and searching my face with her eyes.

  When I nod, she whoops, and dances an impromptu flamenco with one arm thrust in the air. "You're the best! What made you change your mind? No, never mind--I don't want to know!"

  The obvious subtext being that she doesn't want me to reconsider.

  She spins me around, plants a sloppy kiss on my cheek, and disappears into the hallway.

  "Don't forget, young lady--you owe me a tattoo!" I shout after her.

  She crashes up the stairs and slams her door with such force the glasses rattle in the cabinet behind me.

  Mutti sails into the kitchen. She stops, glances at the bubbling bulgur and abandoned cutting board and assumes the worst. This is understandable, because amazingly Eva sounds exactly the same in the throes of great happiness as she does when on the rampage--which is to say three times her body weight.

  "What now?" sighs Mutti.

  "I just told Eva that I'll see what I can do about entering her in Strafford."

  Mutti stares at me for a moment, and then takes her place behind Eva's parsley. She picks up the knife and begins chopping, lightning quick.

  "And what are you going to do about a horse?" she says finally.

  "I don't know yet."

  Mutti doesn't answer. I consider telling her about the phone call, but decide I'm not ready to leap off that particular precipice yet.

  When the table is laid with hummus, pita, and tabbouleh, I go to the bottom of the stairs and call Eva.

  I hover by the kitchen doorway, listening. After a few seconds, her door squeaks open, and shortly thereafter she thumps into the kitchen.

  "Hey, Ma," she says cheerfully.

  The phone rings. I look expectantly at Eva. She breezes right past and comes to a stop by her backpack, which hangs from a hook by the door.

  I look at Mutti, who raises an eyebrow. I shrug and answer the phone.

  "Hello?"

  "Hello, Mrs. Zimmer. It's Luis. Is Eva there?"

  "We're just sitting down to dinner, but you can talk for a couple of minutes." I turn toward Eva and hold out the telephone. "Eva, it's Luis."

  "I'm not home," says Eva, rummaging around in the backpack's outer compartment.

  My eyes spring open. I clap my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.

  "I can't tell him you're not here," I hiss. "He heard you! What's the matter with you?"

  "Nothing. I just don't want to talk to him," she says. She extracts a cherry-flavored ChapStick and applies it to her lips in a single round sweep. Afterward, she smacks her lips.

  "Eva! He knows you're here."

  "Yeah, well, now I'm not," she says, grabbing her jacket and exiting. The screen door slams behind her.

  I blink in horror first at Mutti, then at the phone in my hand. Mutti spins to look out the kitchen window as I bring the phone reluctantly back to my ear.

  I clear my throat. "Uh..." I say.

  "It's okay, Mrs. Zimmer. I heard."

  "I'm so sorry, Luis. I have no idea what's going on."

  "It's okay," he repeats gloomily.

  Wait a minute. He's not surprised. Why is he not surprised?

  "Luis? What's going on? Did you two have a fight?"

  "No."

  "Then what's going on?"

  "I have no idea."

  "Well, something must have happened!"

  "Not on my end, it didn't," he says, sounding exasperated. "She stopped calling about a week ago, and now she won't talk to me at all. I don't know what the heck is going on."

  "I'll talk to her."

  "No!" he says loudly.

  I frown, thinking I should probably be offended.

  "I'm sorry," he continues quickly, picking up on my feelings. "I didn't mean to be rude, but please don't. I'd really rather deal with this myself."

  Huh. All right then. We say our goodbyes.

  "Where did she go?" I ask Mutti after I hang up.

  "The stable."

  I cross the kitchen and grab my jacket from the hook.

  "Leave her alone," say
s Mutti. "Come. Eat."

  I pause.

  Mutti points a finger at my chair. "Come. Eat," she repeats. "There's nothing you can do."

  I hesitate, watching as she spoons food onto the plates. Then I hang my jacket back up and join her at the table.

  "You must let them work it out themselves," she says, leaning over and pouring me a glass of wine. "Anything you do will seem like interference. Do you remember what happened when you were a teenager and I tried to help smooth things over with Dan?"

  Boy, do I ever. If Mutti hadn't loved Dan and hated Roger, I probably would have married Dan in the first place. I lift my wineglass and take a deep slurp.

  "Besides, the semester ends soon," Mutti continues, spreading her napkin across her lap. She rips a pita apart and uses it to scoop up hummus. "Perhaps they'll sort things out when he returns for the summer."

  "Perhaps," I say miserably.

  Despite my initial misgivings about their relationship, Luis has been a wonderful influence. I should have known it was too good to last.

  At eleven o'clock, Mutti rises from the table, takes Eva's dish to the counter, and puts plastic wrap over it. Harriet follows hopefully, but after Mutti puts the plate in the fridge, she sighs and collapses to the floor. Fortunately, her legs are short and she doesn't have far to fall.

  Mutti turns to me and rubs her hands in front of her. "Well, I'm turning in. And so should that girl of yours. It's a school night."

  I'm still sitting at the table, working on my second glass of wine. "I'm headed out in a minute. I'll send her in. Good night, Mutti."

  "Good night, Schatzlein."

  When she disappears into the hallway, Harriet rises immediately and follows.

  "Good night, Harriet," I call out as she scrabbles around the corner. I stare after my fickle dog, listening as her toenails click up the staircase. I sigh, put my wineglass in the dishwasher, and head out to the stable.

  When I first started sleeping there, Harriet automatically came with me. After a month or so, she started spending the occasional night with Mutti. Now she spends virtually every night in my mother's room. I like to think she's only making a statement about being forced to take a cold, dark walk last thing at night. But still, she's my dog, and dogs are supposed to be faithful.

  I crunch my way toward the stable, which looms like a sleeping giant at the bottom of the long graveled drive. I stick my hands deep in my pockets and hurry, puffing like a steam engine.

  When I get there, I slip inside and follow the only light in the building.

  Eva has Flicka, her two-year-old Arabian filly, in the cross-ties. Flicka's long winter coat is spotless, a glossy jet black, the result of regular and thorough grooming. Eva is finishing up, pulling Flicka's long tail off to the side, catching up a section with the brush, running through it, and then letting it fall. I see a flash of metal handle, and lean forward, squinting.

  Eva is using my hairbrush--my forty-dollar, ionically charged hairbrush--to detangle her horse's tail.

  Chapter 5

  "Lean further back, Jenna. Further. Good. But don't stick your feet out in front of you," I say, walking a small circle in the center of the arena as my student thunders around the perimeter on Tazz, who is quite possibly the most patient school horse ever put on this earth.

  Jenna is a middle-aged mom who took up riding again after a twenty-year lull, like I did. Perhaps because of this coincidence, I feel an unusual affinity toward her. She is cantering for the first time since she was nineteen, and is scared out of her wits, holding on to the pommel and leaning so that her center of gravity is in her upper body instead of her seat. This causes her to bounce out of the saddle with each stride and then reunite with it so violently it's painful to watch.

  "Okay, good, now bring him back to a posting trot," I say, for the sake of both Tazz's spine and Jenna's rear. "Good. Only sit a beat, because you're on the wrong diagonal...One beat, Jenna. Not two. Try again...Good. Now you've got it. Cross at B and change directions...Sit one beat right in the center. Good. And again, at E."

  Her riding is more than rusty, by which I mean that I don't think the hiatus is responsible for the way she rides. I believe this is probably the level she was riding at before she quit, and that's fine with me. When we hired Joan, I made a conscious decision to take the students who were doing this for pleasure and to leave the competition-minded ones for her.

  My cell phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and flick it open, scanning the glowing blue display. It's Mutti, calling from the house.

  "Jenna, keep doing figure eights. Sit one beat right in the center when you change directions. I'll be right with you." I bring the phone to my ear. "Hi, Mutti. What's up?"

  "Annemarie, come back to the house. I need to speak to you right away."

  "I can't. I'm in the middle of a lesson."

  "Annemarie, please. This is important."

  "Why? What's going on?"

  "I will tell you when you get here."

  "Mutti, for God's sake--just tell me. Did something happen? Is Eva all right?"

  A heavy sigh, followed by a pause. "Yes and no. They caught her smoking marijuana at school. The police are there now. You need to go right away."

  I gasp and cover my mouth with my hand.

  Jenna does a double take as she passes at a trot.

  "I'll be right there," I say, my voice and hands shaking. I snap the phone shut and stand staring at the spiffy new Surefoot rubber granule footing that covers the floor of the arena. Black-and-white checks invade my peripheral vision. Eventually my eyes flutter shut.

  "Annemarie? Are you okay?"

  Jenna's voice snaps me out of my stupor. I open my eyes and find myself looking at Tazz's dapple gray chest. Jenna stares down at me, the edges of her eyes creased with concern.

  My response is to burst into tears.

  After Jenna assures me that she is perfectly capable of removing Tazz's tack and putting him back in his stall, I rush to the house to change. I have no idea whether my appearance is likely to influence the police and their ultimate decisions, but I would rather not show up at the school in muck boots and breeches smeared with green saliva.

  I stumble down the stairs in my unfamiliar high heels, dragging a brush through my hair. It's full of Flicka's long black tail hair--damn it, Eva! There are how many grooming kits in the stable and you had to use my hairbrush? I make a mental note to check myself in the rearview mirror once I get in the car, to make sure I haven't given myself black extensions.

  As I flee through the kitchen, struggling to tuck my pressed white blouse into my tweed skirt, Mutti and I exchange rushed words, the gist of which is that while I'm at the school trying to beg, wheedle, or otherwise persuade the police not to press charges against Eva, Mutti will try to scare up Joan to take over the rest of the day's lessons; or, failing that, she'll stay at the stable herself and come up with any excuse other than the truth to explain my absence as students arrive.

  The school is one of those uninspired designs from the sixties; functional and plain, with little else to distinguish itself. But at least it doesn't have a slew of trailers out back, as so many do. It does, however, have three police cruisers parked in front. When I see them lined up against the curb, I feel physically ill.

  The hollow tap-tap-tap of my heels on the linoleum floor sounds almost otherworldly, and it's not just the misplaced sound of authority--I'm trying to remember the last time I wore heels. I have an uneasy feeling it was at Pappa's funeral, and for some reason I can't quite fathom, this makes me miss Dan so fiercely that tears spring to my eyes.

  Classes are in session. Each of the wooden doors has a single eye-level window, and as I pass, I see teachers gesticulating, expounding, pontificating. They are fresh and enthusiastic, and surprisingly young. It reminds me of just how much depends on perspective.

  My heart quickens as I approach the office. The secretary's area is exposed to the hallway by windows, and each of the wooden chairs is filled by e
ither a dour, blank-faced teenager or pale, grim-faced parent. Three uniformed officers lean against the walls.

  Eva is sitting at the end of a row of chairs. When I enter, she looks up and then immediately away, her face drained of blood.

  "Eric! Get up and give the lady a seat!" snaps a man with a crimson face. His eyes are bloodshot. A vein pulses so violently at his temple it looks like he's about to keel over from an aneurysm.

  His son, a bone-thin teenager with short dark hair and a ring through his eyebrow, is sitting beside Eva. He shoots me a hateful look and then slides slowly off his chair. As he passes me to take a place against the wall, I have to twist sideways to keep our shoulders from banging. His heavy gray jacket smells earthy and sweet--I take a deep breath, memorizing the smell in case I ever need to recognize it again.

  I sit beside Eva, who shrinks away. I turn and stare at her, willing her to meet my gaze. But she doesn't. She stares studiously at the feet of the people sitting opposite. Only her crooked brow betrays her fear.

  The principal's solid wooden door opens, and a pimply boy in a camouflage jacket spews forth, propelled by the flat of his father's hand. The man's jaw grinds back and forth, and his eyes burn with anger. The mother follows a moment later, honking into a tissue.

  A weary-looking woman appears in the doorway. "Mr. Hamilton, Eric," she says, reading off a piece of paper.

  The bone-thin boy and his father disappear into the office. There's an uncomfortable settling in the ensuing silence. Kids steal fearful glances at their parents, who shift uncomfortably in their seats.

  Fifteen minutes tick interminably by before the office door opens again. This time the father exits first, striding out and through the door without so much as a backward glance at his son, who follows with an amused, self-satisfied look. He throws Eva a glance as he passes, lifting the corner of his mouth into a smirk.

  I turn so quickly something snaps in my neck. Eva is smiling coyly up at him, watching through the windows as he recedes down the hall.

  Everything is entirely clear to me now.

  "Mrs. Zimmer, Eva," says the woman in the doorway. She pokes at a wisp of loose hair, sighs, and slips back into the room to let us pass.

  We don't exchange a single word in the car on the way home. I mean, really--what is there to say? I'm so disappointed and overwrought I'd probably just end up crying.