Horse Games (8 page)

“Monday, after school?” Max suggested. “We’ll have one session for just the two of us and then, if I think you’re up for it, you can join the class on Tuesday—if your mother approves.” He looked to her for assent.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mrs. Dana said. “I just worry that—”

Carole’s father came to the rescue. “You don’t have to worry about her, Olivia. Max is the best instructor there is. And once she’s in the class, this threesome will see to it she’s safe.”

“Okay. You can try it,” she agreed finally.

“Monday at three-thirty,” Marie said.

Carole sighed with relief. Her friends had helped her achieve her goal. And if they could talk Marie Dana’s mother into letting Marie take riding lessons, they could do anything, couldn’t they?

“T
HE
S
ADDLE
C
LUB
shall come to order,” Stevie announced. Lisa and Carole both looked at her in surprise. Saddle Club meetings usually just took place wherever and whenever anybody thought they were having a Saddle Club meeting. Except for once a long time ago, when Lisa thought having rules was a good idea, nobody called them to order and nobody adjourned them. However, this time, things were a little different.

The three girls were at Stevie’s house. They were supposed to be having a sleepover at Lisa’s house, but since the events of the day had included Stevie’s sprained ankle, her parents thought she should be at home. She’d talked them into letting Carole and Lisa stay over with her.

What made it different from other sleepovers was all
the attention Stevie was getting from her family. Her father had stopped by her bedroom twice to see if she wanted anything. Her brother Chad had brought all the couch pillows from the den and made a sort of throne for her on her bed. Lisa suspected that was why she sounded like a queen when she announced the beginning of the meeting.

Alex, Stevie’s twin brother, had knocked on the door three times to ask if there was anything Stevie wanted. She had been able to think of things he could do for her and her friends. She got away with the round of sodas and one tray of cookies and milk. He hadn’t been quite so gracious with the second tray of cookies and Lisa suspected they wouldn’t be seeing him again for a while.

On the other hand, Michael, Stevie’s younger brother, had been talked into paying a quarter just to see how swollen the ankle was.

“Oh, gross!” he’d declared gleefully and then headed for the phone.

“I think he’s calling up all his friends now,” Stevie said. “My guess is he’s going to charge them fifty cents—and pay me half of it. It’s good business, you know.”

“Like brother, like sister,” Lisa had said in total amazement.

Carole had just laughed.

“Okay, so we’ve come to order,” Lisa said. “What’s our first order of business?”

“To talk about today’s polocrosse match,” Stevie said.

“If you weren’t sitting on all of the pillows, I’d throw one at you,” Carole told her. “There’s only one word for the game today and that’s ‘embarrassing.’ ”

“Agreed. Now let’s talk about the next match in two weeks.”

“We can’t play,” Lisa said. “As I told you, we’re short a player now. We can’t have just five on the team.”

“What about Marie?” Stevie asked. “Is she as good as you guys say she is?”

Carole thought about that. It wasn’t an easy question. Marie had shown them some pretty good riding, she pointed out, but it might just have been luck. Maybe she was only good in the clutch.

“Then she’ll be
great
at polocrosse!” Stevie said excitedly.

Lisa shook her head. “She could be, but I have the feeling that, in the long run, Marie might not be the biggest problem there. I think it’s her mother, don’t you, Carole?”

“Yes. I know the symptoms, too. Although it’s been two years since my mother died, my father sometimes suffers from the same thing. It’s overconcern. If I sneeze, he’s convinced I’ve got a cold, if I blow my nose, it’s the flu. And then, if he hears me cough, it’s pneumonia.”

“I never noticed that about him,” Stevie said.

“Most of the time he’s pretty relaxed and then sometimes, for no reason I can figure out, all of a sudden he can’t stop worrying about me. I can’t predict it. I can’t
prevent it. The other day, for instance, he made me take my temperature four times and I was perfectly healthy.

“In Marie’s case, it’s a little easier to understand. Her father just died a few months ago. It was in an accident and her mother may be worried she’ll lose Marie.” Carole paused and looked at her friends. “Does this make me sound like a cut-rate psychiatrist?” she joked.

“No,” Lisa said. “It makes you sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

“So, what do you do about your father?” Stevie asked.

“Most of the time, I don’t have to do anything,” Carole said. “After a few days, my father comes to his senses, or he gets tired of reading 98.6°, or he gets distracted by some Marine Corps crisis or something else. The fastest cure is definitely distraction.”

Stevie picked up an oatmeal cookie and munched on it thoughtfully. “Hmmmm,” she said.

“The wheels are turning,” Lisa said. “I can see it. She’s got that look.”

Carole always felt an odd mixture of curiosity and concern when Stevie got that look. She knew her friend was scheming and Stevie’s schemes were always interesting. Sometimes, though, they were trouble.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked. She couldn’t wait for the answer.

“Oh, distractions, of course,” Stevie said airily. “Now, what’s the most obvious distraction for a woman? A man,” she said, answering her own question. “I know her
husband just died and she’s probably not really interested in dating or anything, but everybody can use a friend, right?”

“Sure,” Lisa said. “But just who do you have in mind to match up with Marie’s mother? Max?”

“Max! Are you crazy? No, of course not. I was thinking more along the lines of everybody’s favorite Marine Corps colonel.”

“Dad?”

“You have another favorite colonel?”

“No, it’s just—”

“Has he got a new girlfriend?” Stevie asked.

“Nothing serious,” Carole said. “There’s a woman he plays cards with sometimes and somebody else he plays tennis with, but I’m not aware of any serious dating going on. Let me think a minute about this, okay?”

“Sure,” Stevie agreed readily. “After all, it’s your dad’s future we’re talking about here.”

That time, Carole did find a pillow to toss at Stevie. Then, while Stevie moaned and groaned and acted as if the gently tossed pillow had caused her agonizing pain, Carole thought.

She recalled that her father had asked about Mrs. Dana the first time he’d seen her. She recalled their first meeting at Pine Hollow—the sweet “Call me Olivia,” “And I’m Mitch,” exchange. She recalled how her father had hopped into the car with Mrs. Dana to take Stevie to the hospital.

“So?” Stevie asked expectantly.

“So, I suspect that you wouldn’t get a lot of resistance from my dad, though I don’t recommend that we go about this directly. I mean, if we tell him we want him to like Mrs. Dana—”

“Don’t be silly,” Stevie said. “I was planning to be much more subtle than that.”

“Such as?” Lisa asked.

“Such as,” Stevie said, turning to Carole, “why don’t you make sure your father comes to pick you up early on Tuesday. You could, for instance, forget there is polocrosse practice after class. We know Mrs. Dana will be there for class. As long as Marie sticks around to watch practice, the two of them will have at least an hour together. We can just let nature take its course.”

“Brilliant,” Lisa said.

“Elementary,” Stevie said.

“Scary,” concluded Carole.

“Yeah,” said Stevie. “What if it turns out that Marie doesn’t want to play polocrosse—or if she’s no good at it?”

Carole tossed another pillow at her.

Then the phone rang. Stevie answered it and Carole and Lisa could tell by her tone of voice that it was Phil calling. When the two of them were on opposite teams in the field, Stevie was all competition. When they were on opposite ends of the telephone, it was usually quite a different thing.

“Oh, hi!” Steve greeted him. “Wait until I tell you what happened after you guys left,” she began, relating the story of her ankle.

Carole and Lisa knew they had a lot to talk about. Lisa tugged on Carole’s sleeve and the two of them tiptoed out of Stevie’s room. They went down to the kitchen, where Mrs. Lake had left a bowl of red grapes for them. They were a welcome change from all the cookies Alex had delivered to Stevie’s room.

“We have another problem, you know,” Carole said, tossing one grape up and catching it in her mouth.

“What’s that?” Lisa asked. She tried the tossing trick. It didn’t work. She retrieved the grape, threw it out, and resumed eating grapes in the more usual manner.

“Is Stevie going to be any better as a nonriding coach than she was a riding one? I mean, none of us can take any more of her yelling and screaming. But when she gets that competitive bee in her bonnet—”

“She’s as much fun to be with as an entire hive of bees,” Lisa finished the thought. “Maybe we’d better see how things are going up there,” Lisa suggested. “She sounded all sweetness and light when she got on the phone, but I have the feeling that as this conversation goes, so go our practices for the next two weeks!”

“Let’s go,” Carole agreed. The girls clipped off some of the grapes, put them on a plate, and took them back up to Stevie’s room.

“Oh, no, it doesn’t hurt
too
much,” Stevie was saying
into the phone. “And besides, Carole and Lisa are here. They’re really taking care of me.… Of course I’m disappointed I won’t be able to play in the next game, but believe me, I’ll be there cheering for the best team.… No, that’s not exactly what I meant, Phil.… Well, you’ll see. Anyway, thanks for calling. I’ll talk to you in a couple of days. Bye!”

She cradled the phone and turned to her friends. “Can you believe it?” she asked. “He still thinks his team can beat ours!”

Lisa sat down on the bed and gave Stevie her most serious straight-A-student look. “Stevie, we’ve got to talk,” she began.

C
AROLE COULDN
’
T HELP
herself. She was supposed to be saddling Starlight to take him out for a ride, but something more interesting was going on in the ring next to his stall. Marie was having her first riding lesson at Pine Hollow.

Carole had been in the tack room when Marie arrived, accompanied by both her mother and her physical therapist. She’d kept out of sight, but she hadn’t missed a thing. Mrs. Dana was afraid that Marie would get hurt. The physical therapist kept talking about muscle groups. Max and Marie stuck to a more interesting subject: horses.

Marie told Max that she had taken lessons for two years before she and her parents had moved to Willow Creek a year ago.

“I’m an intermediate rider,” she said. “At least I was.”

“Well, then, you will be again,” he said. “Now let’s get you up here.”

He boosted her into the saddle. This time, she was riding Patch, a gentle, reliable horse. Max checked the way she held the reins, and she was doing it right. He told Marie to grip firmly with her legs. The therapist beamed. Patch began to walk.

At Max’s insistence, Mrs. Dana and the therapist retreated to a bench on the side of the ring. Mrs. Dana’s right hand went automatically to her mouth as she began chewing on her nails. The therapist picked up a pencil and began making notes on a clipboard.

Much more interesting to Carole, however, was what was happening in the ring. Max was being himself, a strict instructor. Patch was acting as he always did. The interesting part was what was happening to Marie.

When she’d first climbed into the saddle, fear had shown in her face. She followed instructions, gripping with her legs and moving the horse forward. Max had her ride him through a circle and then a figure eight at a walk. Each time the horse responded to an order Marie gave him, she grinned. Carole thought she knew exactly how Marie was feeling. It was the same way she felt every time she got on a horse, and it was a feeling she never tired of.