The Perfect Distance

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  From Dad, I knew that when he’d come to West Hills, he’d fallen in love with one of the girls who rode with Rob. He was twenty and she was eighteen, so it wasn’t creepy or anything like that. They’d had “a relationship”—that was how Dad put it—but in normal terms I knew it was more like a secret affair, the product of which was me. When her parents found out their daughter was pregnant and that the father was a Mexican groom, no less, they freaked out. Still, despite their protests, they got married and had me. But then after only a few months she went back to her parents, eventually divorced Dad, leaving me with him, and, as far as I knew, never looked back.

  I had two pictures of her, both of which Dad had given me. One was her holding me at the hospital. She wasn’t smiling, and she looked totally overwhelmed. The other was her on a bay horse. She looked happier in that photo. I’d always thought it was strange that Dad hadn’t given me a photo of him and her together, but a couple of years ago I’d realized maybe they didn’t have any. Both photos were completely outdated but good enough so that when the Christmas card showed up at West Hills, I knew it was her. I had stared at her face, her sharp nose, her wavy hair, trying to see myself in them long enough to know without a shadow of a doubt. The card showed a perfect little family—mother, father, son, and daughter—all beaming. The note below it read: Rob, All the best for a wonderful New Year! That exclamation mark killed me more than anything. Oh yeah, and the fact that all of their names began with the letter E. Elaine (my mother) had married Eliot, and maybe that was just coincidence, but then they’d named their kids Emily and Ethan. That had to be on purpose, and it was enough to make me want to puke.

  So I knew she had remarried, as I’m sure Dad knew, too, and she had two kids. I had a half brother and a half sister. But I didn’t know anything else about my mother—whether she’d gone to college, whether she worked, whether she ever thought about me. I wish I could say I didn’t care. Why should I? I couldn’t even remember her, and Dad had raised me fine all on his own. But part of me still wondered.

  I could understand why Dad wanted me to go to college—he wanted me to have the opportunities he didn’t have, maybe the happiness he didn’t have. He wanted me to have that exclamation mark. But all I wanted was to ride professionally. I wasn’t naïve either. I knew how few Hispanic riders and trainers there were in America. This wasn’t Major League Baseball, where practically every player’s last name ended in –ez. It would be extra hard for me.

  “But what about the money?” I said.

  “I’ve saved some,” he said. “And with your grades you can get a scholarship.”

  “Reed Kessler didn’t go to college,” I argued. Reed was one of the best grand prix riders in the country. At 19, she’d ridden in the Olympics.

  “But Beezie Madden did,” Dad replied.

  I stood up. “I’ve got tons of homework to do.”

  “There’s something else for you,” Dad said. “I left it on your bed, and don’t worry, it’s not a Sweet Briar sweatshirt.”

  I went through the TV room to my bedroom. A garment bag from Hadfield’s lay on my bed. Dad had followed me and was leaning against the doorframe.

  “Dad—” I said as I quickly unzipped it and pulled out a brand-new, beautiful navy coat, which had no doubt cost a minor fortune. Only the wealthiest riders shopped at Hadfield’s. Most of my riding clothes were from the local tack shop. I knew Cindy at Hadfield’s must have given Dad a discount because she liked him so much, but still, Dad must have saved up for this coat forever. “Now we’ll never be able to afford college.”

  “Keep dreaming,” he said.

  Chapter Four

  * * *

  At school I was known as “the horse girl” or the girl who was MIA most of the time. That’s not to say I didn’t have friends. I had a few, but none I was really close to. It was pretty hard when I was away at horse shows so much of the year, including two months in the winter, when we went to Florida for the winter circuit and I did my courses through correspondence. And even when we were training at home, I went to classes, studied during any free periods, and left the minute the final bell rang.

  I saw Becca, one of my friends, before first period since our lockers were only five lockers apart. Becca’s locker was filled with pictures she’d cut from magazines, the latest hot movie star, an ad for perfume with this gorgeous guy sprinting after a gorgeous girl on a beach with the ocean lapping at their feet. There was also a picture of Becca and the rest of the soccer team after they’d won the state championships last year. I’d never bothered to put up pictures in my locker. It would have just felt forced.

  “Guess what?” Becca said. I noticed she was practically beaming.

  “What?”

  “Doug and I hooked up at the party at Fletcher’s this weekend,” she gushed.

  Becca had been obsessed with Doug Frantollo since, oh, let’s see, about the second week of freshman year. Doug was Mr. Football Stud. Football was big at our high school. Everyone went to all the games, and lots of people, even parents, painted their faces the school colors, blue and white. I guess it was the same with certain parents who got all into riding, though I couldn’t imagine any of the parents at West Hills painting their faces. Doug was the star running back. As far as I could tell, he didn’t seem to have much more going for him other than his ability to carry the ball for a gazillion yards, but I’d give Becca this: he was gorgeous. Tousled dark brown hair, blue eyes, and a killer smile. Becca was definitely pretty enough for Doug—she had long brown hair that she “Clairoled” Summer Berry, and her skin was so even and clear that when she got one zit, it was a traumatic moment. But she had always been the kind of girl who was too nice for someone like him to be interested in since he was known as much for being a player off the field as he was for being one on the field. Too nice, that is, until senior year, when he’d worked his way through all the other eligible bachelorettes.

  For the longest time, Doug had never known how Becca felt about him. But all that changed two parties ago, when Becca got tanked and said very loudly as Doug walked by, “I’d so get with him.”

  Of course, I wasn’t there—but that was what a mortified Becca had reported anyway.

  “I can’t believe it. After all this time. It’s like my dream is finally coming true, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said, but then I came up blank. I had a hard time relating when my dream was about winning the finals and hers was about a guy, and not even a very nice guy at that. I guess Becca’s other friends would probably have asked how far they went, but I didn’t feel right asking that. I guess because we just weren’t that close.

  “How was your weekend?” she said. “Good lessons?”

  I shrugged. “Pretty good.”

  Of everyone at school, Becca knew the most about my riding. Most of the kids thought I “raced” horses, if they even knew who I was. Becca always asked how I did at shows, but she’d never come to watch one. Most shows were at least a few hours’ drive away, and anyway Becca was always busy hanging out with her other friends, going to parties, or doing homework. She’d never brought up the idea of coming and I’d never invited her, since I was sure it would just feel weird to have her there. She did invite me to parties, though. Or rather she used to try to get me to go all the time. After I said no so many times, she’d stopped asking. I actually kind of missed her asking. There were some weekends when we were home and I could have gone out, but she never asked anymore.

  There was an awkward silence where Becca and I just looked at each other. I fiddled with the zipper on my backpack and she ran her fingers through her hair. There was tons of stuff I could have told her about my weekend—how we had to jump the hardest course ever and how Gwenn fell off twice. But Becca didn’t ask any more questions, and I wasn’t sure she really cared. And she could never understand what happened at the barn in the same way that I couldn’t relate to most of what happened at the parties. Still, I decided to put an end to the awkward silence by
asking, “So what else happened at Fletcher’s?”

  Part of me did want to know the scoop—who hooked up with whom, who booted, who got up on a table and sang some latest YouTube sensation. Becca kept me informed, so even though I wasn’t really in the loop, I sort of was. But there was also always a part of me that didn’t want to hear because then I’d just wish I’d been there.

  “Oh my God.” Becca laughed. “Wait till you hear this one. You have Mrs. Meyer for world civ, right?”

  I nodded. Mrs. Meyer had a thick braid down her back, wore hand-knitted sweaters, and had a tendency to say things like, “Pipe down now, kids!”

  “You’re gonna love this, then. Pete Young gets wasted—no big surprise there—but then he goes and gets the keys to his uncle’s pet shop—you know, the one in town?”

  “Cam’s Critter Corner.”

  “Right. So he gets the keys and he busts out all the mice, takes them to Mrs. Meyer’s house, and puts them through her mail slot.”

  This was the punch line, and I knew I was supposed to be laughing hysterically. But it just sounded mean—to the mice and to Mrs. Meyer. I thought about the award for community service at graduation that was named after Mrs. Meyer’s late husband and I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for her.

  “It must have been at least thirty mice . . . Can you imagine her face the next morning when she came downstairs?”

  Becca giggled, and I tried to make myself laugh, too. She was still laughing when Tracy strutted in. She was wearing tights, a skimpy black tank that fell off her shoulder revealing her purple lace bra strap, and sunglasses. She looked like she was pretending to be a model on her day off.

  “I was just telling Francie about what Pete did,” Becca said, wiping her teary eyes. She always cried a little when she laughed really hard.

  Tracy slid the sunglasses onto the top of her head and faced Becca, so I was left staring at her back. “Have you talked to him?”

  Tracy came to our school in ninth grade when her family moved from New Jersey. She and Becca were co-captains of the soccer team, so they spent a lot of time together. She reminded me of Tara in more ways than one.

  Becca shook her head. “When I see him, should I act like nothing happened or act like it did happen?”

  As I stared at the frayed ends of Tracy’s hair—clearly from too much blow-drying and styling—I wished Becca had asked me. But what would I have said? I had absolutely zero experience when it came to guys. And I mean zero.

  “Wait and see what he acts like,” Tracy advised. “If he’s into you and it wasn’t just a one-night thing, you’ll know.”

  Brilliant. Even I could have come up with that.

  “And what if he’s not into me?”

  “Then act like you don’t care and he will be into you.”

  Before Becca responded, and without really thinking, I blurted out, “I’m sure he’s into you.” I didn’t even want him to be into her, but I wanted to say something and not just sit there staring at Tracy’s deep-fried hair while they talked like I was nonexistent. But the second I said it, I knew I sounded like a total optimistic loser, which was funny, because most of the time I was a complete pessimist. But it was easier to be an optimist when it came to someone besides myself.

  Tracy opened her mouth to speak but then stopped, like my comment was so stupid she wouldn’t even bother.

  Becca smiled. “I wish.”

  I saw Becca again after last period. “Did you see Doug?” I asked her.

  “Just once in the hall,” she said. “But I’m sure he’ll be around after practice.”

  As we slammed our lockers and headed out the main door together, I wanted to tell her to text me to let me know what happened, but it would have been weird since it wasn’t like we texted all the time. Instead I said, “Good luck,” which was completely stupid. What was I wishing her luck for? I quickly added, “See you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, have a good ride,” she said.

  Becca mixed in with the kids straggling across the quad to the gym and I headed the other way. But then I stopped and looked back at what was now a sea of blue-and-white varsity jackets. I could still make out Becca, Tracy, and a few other girls from the soccer team. Their voices carried over the field.

  “Double sessions.” Abby Morin.

  “I can’t take it.” Trish Baker.

  Tracy said something else, and this time they were too far away and I couldn’t make out anything but the laughter that followed. As I turned back the other way, for a second I wondered what it would be like to be heading to the gym, throwing on shorts and a T-shirt, and doing double sessions. What it’d be like to talk in the locker room about guys and about the party that had just happened or was about to happen and about going out for Coolattas after practice. But it was no use wondering, really. I’d decided a long time ago that riding was more important than best friends, parties, and boyfriends.

  I rode the school bus back home to West Hills. The driver’s name was Foxy, and he wore a tweed cap every day. His father used to work for a racing stable in Buffalo, and he always greeted me with, “Here comes the champion!” Today was no different.

  “Hey, Foxy,” I mumbled without much enthusiasm. It was cuter the first few hundred times.

  When he dropped me off at the bottom of the road West Hills was on, he called after me, “Go get ’em!”

  I walked up the hill toward the farm. The temperature had dropped to the low sixties, and I wished I’d worn a sweatshirt. I walked faster, all the while keeping my eyes peeled for any interesting finds on the road. Looking for abandoned stuff was something I did all the time. If you kept an eye out, it was amazing the kinds of things you’d come across. And not just loose change or a few bucks, which I did sometimes find, but pieces of people’s lives that they’d lost somewhere along the way. I kept all my best finds in a shoe box at home—grocery lists, wallet-size photos, love or hate notes. I had my favorites, like the ticket stub to a concert with some girl’s name and number on the back and the words you rocked my world in slanted script, or the torn page of a lined notebook with four sentences in angry block print: I can’t believe you. You said you’d be here. I needed you. You suck. My favorites were lost love notes that seemed like they might have come straight from one of those romantic books we read in English: Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice. I knew most people would think I was pretty strange for collecting stuff that was essentially trash, but I loved finding a slice of someone’s life and imagining the rest. Maybe it was my way of, for a few minutes, if only in my head, living the lives I could have had if I wasn’t riding all the time. But today I came up empty. Not even a drugstore receipt.

  After dropping my backpack full of books, including my mammoth chemistry book, in my room, I changed into my breeches and boots. During finals we weren’t allowed to wear half-chaps.

  I made a quick PB&J and trudged up to the barn. By the time I reached the top of the hill, I felt like I could collapse on the pavement and fall into a deep sleep. I’d stayed up way too late cramming for my economics test. I had wanted to do especially well since econ was my favorite class. It was an elective that only the best students got to take, and the teacher, Mr. Roth, was really cool. He always used examples from real life that we cared about to explain the principles and theories we were learning.

  The minute I stepped inside the barn, the smell of the fresh shavings, sweet hay, and horses’ sweat jolted me awake. Everything—Becca, seeing her walk to the gym, school, homework, even Rob and the finals—faded away.

  “Hola,” Camillo called from where he was brushing Stretch on the crossties in the middle of the main aisle. “¿Como era la escuela?”

  “Asi asi.”

  Camillo grabbed one of Katie’s Antares saddles to put on Stretch and I checked my watch. I only had twenty minutes before our lesson. I went to Tobey’s stall and he shuffled toward me. He snuffled my breeches’ pockets for a treat and I pulled out a peppermint, his favorite, which he lipped
from my hand.

  I slid his halter on and picked the shavings out of his feet, then led him out of his stall to the crossties. I curried him first—putting all my weight into it—and then brushed the unearthed dirt away with a medium-bristle brush. Tobey was dark brown and looked almost black, but not shiny black, and he didn’t have any markings, not even a small white sock on a back leg. Because he didn’t have Riley’s thick blaze or Stretch’s striking white coat, most people probably thought he was plain-looking, but I still thought he was beautiful.

  I finished grooming him and then went to the tack room to grab my saddle and Tobey’s bridle. I passed a group of pony riders, their braids bouncing on their shoulders. Even though they were only eleven or twelve, they had ponies that cost as much as houses. Katie was looking at the qualification chart posted by the tack room door. The chart had the names of all the equitation riders who were training at West Hills that year and boxes for all the finals—the Talent Search, the Medal, and the Maclay. When we placed in the top four at classes throughout the year, we earned points toward each final. Once we had the required number of points to qualify, we got a big Q next to our name. Now all the names had Qs. Pretty soon the chart would be coming down and next year’s chart would be going up. Without Katie’s, Tara’s, and my name, that is, since we were all either eighteen or about to turn eighteen and age out of the juniors. I would turn eighteen two weeks after the Maclay Finals. If I had been born only two more weeks later I would have had another whole year as a junior.

  “Remember that show when I got my last points for the Maclay?” Katie said.

  How could I have forgotten? Susie, Katie, Pablo, and I had driven forever to some nowhere part of Pennsylvania because the deadline was looming for Katie to qualify and she had still needed ten points—the equivalent of first place in a small class. Then this girl who wasn’t even trying to qualify got called back first in the test and we had to beg her to make an intentional mistake so Katie could win. This wasn’t unheard of at the end of the qualifying period, but usually it was someone in your own barn who was willing to make a mistake so you could qualify.