“Don’t say it!” I snap. “And if you want me to keep getting ready, don’t even think it!”
She clamps her mouth shut and looks down. Her toe traces a small circle on the floor. “Sorry, Ma,” she says finally. The effort she’s taking to control her excitement is painfully obvious.
I sigh. “Just make some coffee, and I’ll try not to embarrass you.”
“You’ll hurry, right?”
“Honey, I’m sorry, but you either get fast and sea hag, or you wait while I get presentable. You can’t have both.”
Another pause.
“Take your time,” she says sweetly and trips off to the kitchen.
I close the bathroom door and approach the sink, which is covered with the various bottles of goop required to make me presentable these days. I have moisturizing cleansers, revitalizing toners, repair lotions, eye serums, lip balms that promise sunscreen protection, even acne medication—because horrifically, I’m still prone to outbreaks even though I have the beginnings of wrinkles. That seems like the cruelest injustice of all, the act of a vengeful God. And that doesn’t even begin to address my makeup, which offers its own collection of mind-boggling miracles.
I start the hot water running and glance into the mirror.
My God, she’s right. I do look like a sea hag. Or maybe a swamp monster, with my hair all mashed to
one side. My left eye is puffy and creased with pillow lines—and to add insult to injury, it doesn’t want to focus yet.
I lean forward, squinting at my reflection.
I poke at the line between my eyes, wondering whether Botox would help. I take after my mother in many ways, but I seem to have missed two key genes: the one responsible for good housewifery, and the one responsible for graceful aging. Which is fine. I’ll fight it. The Clan of the Sea Hags may be circling, singing their siren song, but I’ll go down kicking and screaming and clutching a vial of botulism.
I puff my cheeks full of air and check to see if the creases beside my mouth diminish. To my surprise, they disappear entirely, but my delight is short-lived since I can’t walk around all day looking like a blowfish.
Fugu Mama.
I can hear Eva now.
I test the running water—this time with my wrist—and, finding it sufficiently hot, plug the drain.
While the sink is filling, I pick up my brush, watching in the mirror. Just as I’m poised to drag it through my Medusa mop, I realize it’s full of long black hair. Since Eva’s hair is long and black and I’ve been known to jump to conclusions, I take hold of one, pull it out, and hold it up to the light. It’s horse hair.
I turn to the door and bellow.
“Eva-a-a-a-a-a!”
She appears. “What?”
“Would you please stop using my hairbrush to groom your horse?”
“Sure. Whatever,” she shrugs. “It’s kind of a given since I’m not going to be living here anymore.”
She turns and pads back to the kitchen, leaving me to gawp after her.
Mutti helps us load the car, dragging suitcases two at a time down the ramp we had put in for Pappa and never removed after his death. It’s the second such ramp our family’s had, and I’m too superstitious to remove it. I know logically that my recovery from my spinal cord injury did not cause Pappa’s illness, but I can’t help feeling as though removing the ramp would be poking the fates.
When the many bags and boxes are piled in the backseat, Mutti slams the door and turns to face Eva.
She frowns and wags a finger. “You be good, Eva. And call us.” She’s trying to look stern, but I can’t help noticing a certain moistness about her eyes. Then she suddenly pulls Eva into a bear hug.
“Oma! I’m coming back on Sunday,” laughs Eva. She kisses Mutti on both cheeks. Then she scoops Harriet off the ground and tries to plant a kiss on the side of her snout.
Harriet responds with a snarling yap.
“Harriet! Bad dog!” I shout.
“Bah, it’s okay, Ma,” says Eva, opening the door and tossing my wiener dog onto the passenger seat. “Just for that, she can come along for the ride.”
I shrug, and move around to the driver’s door.
Despite her earlier enthusiasm, Eva becomes distinctly subdued as we drive toward Columbia. I steal glances at her, wondering if maybe she’s feeling a little melancholy about leaving me after all.
She sits with her shoes off and feet propped up, staring out the passenger window so that whenever I glance at her all I see is the back of her head.
Her jet black hair has been carefully straightened in
anticipation of the big day, but she still hasn’t done anything about the roots. I daren’t say anything for fear of giving her ideas.
Eva heaves a dramatic sigh and wriggles her toes on the dash. She sneaks a glance at me, and then sighs again—this time so loudly it’s arguable she employed vocal chords.
“Honey?”
She turns to look at me, playing innocent. “Yeah?”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” she says, turning her head back to the window. There’s a long silence—several minutes worth—followed by another long shuddering sigh.
“Honey?” I say carefully. “Is something on your mind?”
“You know, I didn’t mean what I said this morning. You look okay for an old lady.”
“Gee, thanks,” I say, tightening my grasp on the steering wheel.
“Mom, I’m joking,” she says. “You look great.”
“Oh.”
Another silence.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“I didn’t do it, you know.”
“What?”
“You know.
It.
” she says, her cheeks bright red. She plucks Harriet from the seat between us and plants her on her lap. Then she concentrates on Harriet’s long ears, turning them inside out repeatedly.
“No, I don’t know ‘it,’” I say, glancing back at the road. “What are you talking about?”
“With Eric.”
I look at her, wide-eyed.
“Mom! Watch out!” she shrieks.
I jerk the steering wheel around just in time to keep from going off into the trees. Harriet lurches sideways and Eva clutches her to her chest.
We drive in silence for a couple of minutes while I try to figure out what she’s hoping to gain by telling me this.
“So then why did you have condoms in your purse?”
“Condom. Not con
doms
,” she says.
“All right,” I say, alternating between looking at the road and at Eva. “Why did you have
condom
in your purse?”
“Mom, can you please just watch the road?”
I press my lips together and stare out the windshield.
“It was a dare,” Eva finally says. “Remember that field trip to Concord? We played truth or dare on the school bus. Meghan chose dare, and she had to walk into a Walgreens and buy condoms. So she did. And then…well, then we had them. So we each took one.”
“Why didn’t you just throw it out?”
“I was going to. But I wanted to open it up and look at it first.”
“So you haven’t—as you put it—‘
done it?
’”
“No.”
We continue driving, silent once again.
“Do you believe me?” she says finally.
“Yes. I do. But I want you to listen to me very carefully. If you ever do decide to ‘do it,’I want you to use a condom. Maybe more than one. Actually I think maybe I’d like you to wear a garbage bag.”
Eva smirks and starts tapping her toes against the dashboard.
“I’m serious. Because if you don’t, you can die.”
“I know, Mom.”
“How about the pot?” I say. “Did you do that?”
“Yeah,” she says, after a slight pause. “That one I did do.”
“Was it your first time?”
“No.”
“How often?”
“I dunno. Four, maybe five times.” Her head swings around to me. “Mom, did you ever try it?”
“Never,” I say firmly. She turns her head slowly back to her window. And then, because I can feel her shame and vulnerability expand to fill the car, I add, “But to be completely honest, that’s probably only because I never had the chance.”
“Never?”
“Nope. My childhood was somewhat sheltered.”
As yours is about to be, my dear, I realize with an overwhelming rush of relief.
I steal another quick look at her. The red spots on her cheeks are dissipating, her body less tense. She suddenly springs forward and turns on the radio. She scans through the stations, pausing long enough at each to hear approximately six notes. And yet somehow she recognizes everything.
She finds something she likes and turns it up loud. Before long, she’s staring out the window and singing along, her head bobbing happily.
Forty minutes later, the gatepost at Wyldewood squawks something at me. I squawk something back, and the doors swing open.
Eva drops her feet from the dash and turns the radio off. She spins in her seat to face me, her eyes full of horror.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“You’ll look after Flicka for me?”
“Of course!”
“No, but you’ll groom her? And lunge her?”
I glance over at her huge brown eyes, so full of concern.
“Yes, of course,” I laugh. “And besides, you’ll see her every Sunday.”
“She likes her carrots cut up. And she doesn’t like Granny Smith apples, only Golden Delicious. And you have to quarter them. But at least she now eats the skins. Hey! Wait a minute!” she says, her expression brightening. “I have an idea! I can board her here!”
“No you can’t, honey.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s not the right kind of horse!”
“Arabs can be sport horses,” she says indignantly.
“Yes, I know that. But Flicka won’t be. She’s not going to top fourteen hands. Besides, Nathalie would never agree to it.”
Eva opens her mouth to respond—even sucks in the breath required to do so—but I hold up a hand to stop her.
“This isn’t a barn like ours, honey. Not every rider gets to train here, and not every horse gets to live here. This is a huge opportunity you’re being given. I hope you realize that.”
Eva looks momentarily crestfallen. I’m considering whether to continue on into a last-minute lecture when she catches sight of Joe in a paddock. She turns so violently Harriet falls to the floor.
“Oh,” she says breathlessly. “Oh. There he is.” She
presses her face and hands against the passenger-side window, and continues twisting her body until she’s looking at Joe through the back window. “Oh, Ma,” she croons. “There he is.”
When I pull the car into place in the gravel parking lot by the main barn, we are immediately swarmed by girls. They pull Eva out of the car, chattering, giggling nonstop. The back doors open, the bags are removed, their retractable handles pulled out.
“Holy crap! Look at all the stuff she brought!”
“Eva, did you bring a hair dryer? Because we’re down to five since Maggie busted mine—”
“Oh, I
so
did not! It totally overheated! And look! It burned out a whole clump of my—”
“Hey, Kris, look at all the shoes she brought!”
“Oh! How adorable! A wiener dog!”
“Oooooh! It’s so cute! Come here,
poochie-woochie
—Crap! The little shit bit me!”
I rush around to the other side of the car, snatch Harriet up by collar and rump, and chuck her into the front seat. Then I slam all the car doors and try to identify which girl she bit.
But the girls are receding en masse to the barn. Eva is somewhere in the middle, surrounded so I can’t even see her. I move my head from side to side, trying to catch sight of her too-black hair.
I raise my chin, place my hands on both sides of my mouth, and shout, “Don’t worry, honey! I’ll look after Flicka for you! And I’ll…er…Eva?”
The girls are gone, swallowed by the barn.
As I stare mournfully after them, someone taps me on the shoulder.
“Annemarie!”
“Oh. Nathalie.”
“I see Eva’s been absorbed.”
“Yes, you could say that,” I say, still staring at the spot where the girls disappeared.
“I’m glad I caught you,” says Nathalie. “There are some papers I need you to sign. Plus I want to make sure Eva has the appropriate gear. I have a reputation to uphold.”
“Oh, I think she’ll do you proud,” I say.
“Black gloves? Shadbelly? Body protector? Decent boots?”
“Yes, everything but a top hat. She sat on her last one.”
“You’ll need to get her a new one right away. For Strafford.”
“You’re entering her?”
“Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“It’s just that…well, it’s only two weeks away. I wouldn’t have thought she’d have time to prepare.”
“It’s a little longer than that. And besides who cares? Nobody expects her to place—although after watching the audition, who knows? Consider it practice. A way of getting her feet wet. Besides, it’s not set in stone. I’ll watch for the next two weeks and if I don’t think she’s ready, we’ll scratch. But in the meantime, we have to get the paperwork in.”
I clear my throat. “At what level are you entering her?” I ask, trying to sound casual.
“Intermediate.”
The two-star level. Jumps that are a minimum of four feet in height and—with the exception of the very first round—have no maximum.
My head begins to swim. Nathalie’s face moves in and out, circling mine like a gigantic rubber clown.
Shimmering fireworks explode in my peripheral vision and then,
whoosh!
“Annemarie? Are you all right?”
I find myself on the gravel with my head between my knees.
“There, there. You haven’t eaten yet, have you?” says Nathalie, crouching beside me. “You’re as bad as the girls. Come back to the apartment and have a piece of toast.”
“No, thank you,” I say weakly. “I think I’ll just go home now.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t let you drive,” says Nathalie, taking my elbow and dragging me to my feet. She leans me up against the car and hovers, her arm on the crook of my elbow. “There now. Are you steady?”
“Yes,” I say, staring down at the dented hood of my car as Nathalie opens the door and retrieves Harriet.
When she marches off through the barn with my dog, I have no choice but to follow. We go through the barn and arena, past Smoky Joe’s empty stall, and straight through the other side.
The girls’ “apartment” turns out to be a house that is larger than Mutti’s. It’s in the same style as Nathalie’s colonial mansion at the top of the hill, but smaller and tucked behind the indoor arena.