The Perfect Distance

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  Dad was waiting for me. I patted Tobey, my hand still jittering.

  I must have looked exhausted, because Dad said, “You okay? You need a drink or something? You didn’t eat any of the stuff that Camillo did, I hope.”

  “He’s not sick,” I said. I wasn’t lying to Dad about this one.

  “What do you mean?”

  I explained about Camillo’s fake green card and how Colby had to drive him off the grounds.

  “Francie, do you know a person can get arrested just for driving an illegal alien?” Dad said. “You should have gotten me. Colby could be in real trouble.”

  “They would have stopped you driving out in a second. I had no choice. Colby had to do it or else Camillo would have been caught.”

  Before Dad could answer, Rob whooped like crazy, signaling that Tara was finished and had laid down a great trip. He immediately spun around at warp speed. “Susie, get Juan up here with Francie. Francie? Where’s Francie?”

  “Right here,” I answered.

  Tara and I stood next to Rob and waited to find out who would be testing. When the judges took a few minutes to make up their minds, Rob muttered, “What’s taking them so long?”

  Another few moments passed before the announcement. “We would like these four riders to return to the center of the ring without stirrups for additional testing . . . .”

  Me, Liv Matthews, Addison, and Tara. I’d slipped to fourth, but I was still in there.

  “You’re going to have to go first, Francie,” Rob said. “Nail it.”

  We took off our stirrups. I guess I was glad Rob had killed us all those times during boot camp. As the four of us headed into the ring, nodding at last-minute instructions, Rob called, “This is your win, Tara.”

  We lined up in the middle of the arena. The announcer explained the test two times. I tried to put Colby and the possibility that he might be in trouble out of my mind. I pieced together the jumps by looking at the course. It was canter fence four, halt, canter fence seven, which would come up quickly if you didn’t halt right away, turn back on fence twelve, trot fence two, and then canter directly to fence three. The distance between fences two and three was four strides. Now we were trotting into the line, so I had to decide, would I do the four strides, which would mean I’d have to move off from the trot jump quickly? Or should I ride the trot jump patiently and wait it out in the line for five strides?

  I looked at Tara for a hint, but she wouldn’t meet my gaze. I checked Rob at the in gate. He could have been signaling, holding up fingers, four or five. But he was too far away to see clearly. So I thought about what he always said: Be solid. The trick of the test was to be solid and let the other person make the mistake.

  The announcer called, “Number five-oh-five, when you’re ready.”

  I left the line and picked up my canter. I jumped the first fence fine and halted maybe a few strides later than I’d have liked. I only had about seven strides to the next fence, which would have been a problem if Tobey weren’t so good at halt-canter transitions. We departed into the canter and found a good distance to the next jump. We turned back on the next and I brought Tobey down to the trot in the turn before hopping the jump and patiently settling back for the five strides. Not bold, but solid. I landed to Rob’s whoops from the in gate.

  Tara and I didn’t talk or even look at each other as Liv Matthews and Addison Bay rode the test. Tara just kept her eyes straight ahead of her. Liv was good enough, nothing spectacular. Addison Bay’s horse fidgeted and tossed its head at the halt. Both of them chose to do the five strides. Then it was Tara’s turn. All she had to do was be decent and she would win.

  She walked forward from the line and moved into a canter. She met the first fence perfectly. At the halt some people got nervous and moved off too quickly. But not Tara. She soaked it in, relishing that every pair of eyes in the stadium was on her. She departed into a canter again and jumped the second fence, turned back on the third. She dropped Riley back for the trot jump effortlessly, and then there was only one jump, five strides, and she would have the win. I felt my old hatred and resentment rising up in my throat.

  But Tara didn’t melt back. She legged Riley forward. I couldn’t believe it, but it looked like she was going to do the four strides instead of the five. Even though I wanted Tara to mess up more than anything, a fleeting feeling of regret shot through me.

  Maybe the four strides would work out. If anybody could make it look good, it was Tara. But it was a long four trotting in, and Tara didn’t get up the line in time. Riley tried to leave the ground but thought better of it, hesitated, stabbed one foot back down, and then jumped. Rails clattered to the ground. The crowd groaned.

  Tara returned to the line. She was staring straight ahead, her lips pressed together and trembling. Even with the less-than-perfect halt, Addison would win. As much as I liked to see Tara lose, I still couldn’t help but feel a little bit sorry for her.

  The announcer called out the results. Addison led the victory gallop with Liv second, me third, and Tara slipping to fourth. I should have been thrilled to be third and to have beaten Tara. It was a great ribbon and I had ridden really well. But just knowing how upset Rob would be overtook some of my excitement.

  Dawn came into the ring to accept the gleaming trainer’s trophy, all smiles. I was sure Rob was dying. I wondered, why was I always almost more concerned with his mental health status than my own?

  We filed out of the ring, Tara first, looking like she couldn’t wait to get out. I was right behind her as she passed Rob.

  “You just put a dagger in my heart,” he spat.

  If there was any hope of Rob being happy about my ribbon, it disappeared right then. As I walked by him, I kept my eyes focused on Tobey’s neck. It didn’t matter anyway; Rob had already turned away.

  Chapter Sixteen

  * * *

  Even though I was completely exhausted, I couldn’t sleep on the drive home. I kept thinking of Colby and how he’d helped with Camillo without even worrying about himself. I had wanted to thank him in person, but he’d left with his father by the time I got back to the barn from the award presentation. We traded texts but that didn’t seem like enough. Camillo had said everything went fine—no checkpoint, no one stopping them.

  “What’s going to happen with Camillo?” I asked Dad as we chugged down the New Jersey Turnpike.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you going to tell Rob?”

  “Probably.”

  “About Colby driving him?”

  Dad shook his head. “If I tell him that, I might lose my job.”

  “I’m sorry.” The last thing I’d wanted was to risk Dad’s job.

  “Can he get his green card if you sponsor him?”

  “It costs a lot of money.”

  “You can use my college money,” I offered.

  “Nice try,” Dad said.

  I stared at the cars that sped by us in the left lanes. Even though it was almost eleven, the highway was still pretty busy. A blue Toyota that looked like it shouldn’t be going over sixty rattled by with a man tapping out a tune on the steering wheel. Next was a station wagon with one of those BABY-ON-BOARD stickers. It made me think of my mother in the same way that seeing women at the supermarket pushing a shopping cart with a baby in it always did.

  “Why did you name me Francie?” I asked Dad. “Why not something more Mexican?”

  “Your mother liked the name Francesca,” Dad said. “She thought it sounded like a really smart girl’s name.”

  “But it didn’t begin with E.”

  Dad wrinkled up his forehead and glanced at me.

  “Elaine, Eliot, Ethan, Emily . . .”

  “How do you know about all that?” he asked.

  “I saw a Christmas card she sent Rob a few years back.”

  It was a moment before Dad said, “You know you can contact her sometime if you want. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it—to see if you wanted to.”
>
  “Do you ever talk to her?”

  “No, but I have her number. And her email—you could email her if it’s easier.”

  “Why would I do either?” I said, although the idea of seeing her, talking to her, even emailing her telling her all about who I was and what she had missed out on had occurred to me more and more since I had Googled her. But I didn’t want Dad to think I wanted to. I wanted him to know that I didn’t need anybody but him. Plus, what if she didn’t care about me?

  As if he could read my thoughts, Dad said, “You might find you want to someday, and if that time comes, you should know you shouldn’t feel bad about it.”

  “Okay,” I said. I thought about bringing up going to Mexico again, but I didn’t want to fight and I didn’t want to talk more about Colby.

  I eventually fell asleep and woke a few hours later to the familiar turns of the roads leading from the highway to West Hills.

  I was super tired at school on Monday. I saw Becca in English. I usually took pages of notes, but when the bell rang, I had only jotted down a few things.

  After class Becca asked me, “Are you okay? You seem really spaced out or something.”

  “We just got home really late last night from the show.”

  “Did you do well?” she asked.

  “I was third.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “Yeah, it is,” I said. “I better get to my next class.”

  I started to walk away, but Becca stopped me. “Wait.” She lowered her voice. “Are you going to give Doug the test?”

  With the Medal Finals and what happened with Camillo, I hadn’t really thought about it. But I didn’t have to anymore. “No,” I said. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  I expected Becca to get upset, but all she said was, “Oh.” I wanted to tell her that I thought she was way too good for Doug, but I knew she would have to figure it out on her own.

  “See you later,” I said instead.

  We gave the horses Monday and Tuesday off. Wednesday we were back at it. We didn’t have a show this coming weekend. Some people who lived closer to New England went to the New England Equitation Championships but Rob never took riders there. A few years ago he’d judged it. I always watched the live stream and it looked like a great final and lots of fun. I kind of wished we got to go.

  In our lesson on Wednesday, Rob was all over Tara from the minute we started. She got the slightest bit deep to an oxer and Rob screamed, “Goddamn it, Tara! You can’t make those mistakes! Don’t you understand that? You have to be perfect. Perfect!”

  It was like he was never going to forgive her for blowing the Medal Finals.

  When Rob’s phone rang midway through the lesson, I wasn’t the only one who was relieved. Colby dropped his feet out of his stirrups. Tara loosened her reins and shot us a look. “I’m so sick of his shit,” she huffed.

  Colby and I walked away from Tara, our horses side by side, to the far part of the ring. It felt really weird not to have Katie lessoning with us. But she was concentrating on her hunters since showing them in Kentucky was all she had left.

  “Thanks again for being so great about everything with Camillo . . . I could have gotten you in a lot of trouble,” I told Colby.

  “Nah,” Colby said.

  “Yes.”

  He shrugged. “It was fun. I felt like I was Will Ferrell spoofing some super spy in a movie or something. Harrisburg Days: The Legend of Colby Sharmor.”

  I laughed. Rob’s voice brought us back to reality. “Let’s go!” he barked, like he had been waiting for us. We finished the lesson with Rob being an equal-opportunity yeller and tearing into each of us at least once. Afterward I holed up in the tack room cleaning the bridles and saddles.

  Tara interrupted my momentary peace when she came in and started pulling things out of her trunk and stuffing them into a bag. I wasn’t going to say a word to her after she’d tattled on me to Dad about Colby, but when she’d emptied practically the entire contents of her trunk, she spat, “For your information, I’m leaving.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Tara straightened and snapped, “I’m out of here. Riley’s a dog and Rob knows it. I’m going to ride with Dawn. You know Erica Wong’s horse? Erica didn’t make the Maclay Finals. Dawn said the ride’s mine if I want it.”

  Riley wasn’t a dog. He wasn’t the one who’d downed a whole box of laxatives. He wasn’t the one who’d gone for the four instead of the five at the Medal Finals. But Tara didn’t want to look in the mirror. And she couldn’t handle not being Rob’s chosen one. She should have tried living in my shoes. I took so much from him not for days, but for years.

  “When did you decide?”

  “Made it official just now.”

  Before I could say anything else, maybe tell Tara what I really thought of her, her mother opened the door and said, “You ready?”

  “Yup,” Tara said. Then to me: “See ya in Kentucky.”

  Instead of being insanely mad, Rob acted all week like things were just great. Like losing Tara to Dawn and having me and Colby as his best shot for a ribbon at the Maclay was just how he wanted it. He still pushed us hard in our lessons but he walked around the barn whistling and smiling. I heard the lady who came to do acupuncture on the horses ask him how he was doing and he responded, “Never been better.” His good mood felt fake and was totally creepy. This was what I had always wanted—Tara gone from West Hills—but it didn’t feel right. I think we were all on eggshells, ready for him to explode.

  I hung out with Katie and Colby, but Colby and I were just friends, for now. It was like we were all in a weird place, waiting for the last show of our junior careers. When Katie wasn’t riding her hunters or studying, she spent a lot of time with Stretch. She took him out to graze and just spent time hanging out with him in his stall. Camillo kept him in show-shape, bathing him and trimming his whiskers, even though he’d likely never show again. It was like Camillo couldn’t give up on him. Dad had told me Doc Tanner said Stretch needed surgery, but that even then Stretch might not make it back to the show ring. He said Rob was figuring out when to schedule the surgery.

  Katie said Stretch was depressed because he loved to lesson and show and now he was stuck watching everything go on around him. He hung his head over his stall door, looking longingly at horses getting tacked up, and I had to agree that Katie was probably right. There were some horses destined to be show horses and that was what they loved the most.

  Time passed slowly, and I half-wished the days would magically go by and we’d be heading to Kentucky, even though at the same time finishing my junior career terrified me. I worried that if I went to college like Dad wanted, I’d become just like Stretch—left watching from the sidelines.

  Rob left to judge at Washington. A year ago he had told everyone in the barn that he was accepting the offer to judge Washington and they wouldn’t be able to show there. Tara had already won the Washington Finals so she couldn’t ride in that class anyway, which was probably the main reason he had agreed to judge it. Of course now that didn’t matter anyway since Tara didn’t even ride with him anymore.

  Colby left to go back to L.A. and Katie went home to New York City. It was quiet at the barn, too quiet for finals time. Susie still taught me and Gwenn every day and I got to ride extra horses, which I loved. I hacked Katie’s hunters and rode Riley a few times. Susie let me jump Riley and I imagined I was called back for the test and asked to switch horses and had drawn Riley. I watched the live stream of the Washington Equitation Finals. Addison Bay won the hunter phase, which must have killed Rob. In the jumper phase, though, a fifteen-year-old, Lily Watson, rode amazing and ended up winning the Final. Addison finished third overall.

  On Saturday I slept in just a little bit, letting Dad go early to feed. On Sunday, though, I came out to the barn first thing with him. He went to get the grain buckets while I filled a wheelbarrow with a bale of hay and wheeled it down the aisle. Most of the hor
ses greeted me with a nicker or a toss of the head, but I noticed Stretch didn’t have his head over his stall door, which was weird because he was always the most impatient of all the horses.

  “Stretch,” I called as I moved to his door with the flake in my hand. “Don’t tell me you’re not hungry?”

  I saw a scrap of paper lying in the aisle outside Stretch’s stall. Out of instinct I picked it up and stashed it in my pocket. When I looked over the stall door, I saw Stretch—not lying down resting, but flat out.

  I yanked the door open and rushed in. “Stretch?” I stopped when I saw his eyes. They were shockingly open, rolled back so only the whites, no pupils, showed. My breath caught in my throat.

  “Dad!” I screamed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  * * *

  Dad got to the stall with Camillo right behind him. I hadn’t moved. I was still just standing there. Growing up on the farm, I’d seen almost everything. Swollen legs, bad colics, severe gashes. When one of the horses had gotten loose and tangled up in barbed wire down the street, I was the one who held him while the vet stitched him up. But I’d never seen a dead horse. There was something so wrong about such a big, powerful animal lying there lifeless. It was like seeing a car with no wheels—it just didn’t seem right.

  “Santa Maria,” Dad whispered as he kneeled by Stretch’s head and felt under his throat for a pulse.

  When he saw Stretch, Camillo wailed, “No!” and pushed by me to fall at Stretch’s side.

  I stepped out of the stall, my throat dry and my heart pounding. Leaving Camillo beside Stretch, Dad came out and put his arms around me.

  “Is he . . .” I asked, even though it was obvious he was. I felt dizzy, like the air was too thick to breathe.

  “He must have colicked,” Dad said.

  “Oh my God.” It was all I could say. I felt like I had the few times I’d fallen off. One minute you’re cantering along and the next you’re on the ground and you don’t know what hit you. I wasn’t even crying—I was too shocked to cry. It didn’t seem real. It couldn’t be happening. Was that really Stretch lying there? Stretch, whom I’d watched for years and had even ridden a few times myself? Stretch, who had never colicked a day in his life? Finch, I could see. But Stretch?