“How do you stand the heat?” she said.
“Not much choice, I guess. I had this whole plan to get up early and ride with Mickey but that sort of failed.”
“That’s too bad,” she said. “Still, you could ride alone.”
“I know.” I shrugged. “I usually do anyway.”
Mickey had abandoned our pact to get out to the barn and ride early every day. She was more interested in chasing after Jake and eyeballing some new guy she met at the beach. She’d texted me his picture, the back of a fuzzy blond head. I didn’t think he looked that special but anything that kept her away from Jake was a good thing. I was just hoping that he had sort of lost interest in her, especially since he never got back to her about going to the movies.
Frank came down the aisle in his usual polo shirt, jeans and sunglasses. He didn’t look sunburned at all. He probably had some really expensive sunscreen that was SPF one thousand.
“Good morning Emily Dickenson,” he said.
“Good morning Frank Coppell,” I replied.
He grinned. “You’re sassy this morning.”
“I’m sorry,” I backtracked. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Stop apologizing and go and get your pony ready. I want you to ride with us this morning.”
“What?” I gulped.
“You heard, now go on. Scram.”
“But … but … I don’t have any money to pay for a lesson,” I stuttered.
“I know,” he replied. “Listen, you ride with me and see what you think. Then maybe we can work something out.”
“Okay,” I said doubtfully.
I didn’t exactly have a lot to offer. I could muck stalls and groom horses but Frank already had Melanie for that. What else did I have other than the growing problem of a smart mouth that I didn’t seem to be able to turn off.
I stuck my head in the office where Esther was still sitting. “Frank wants me to ride with him. Is that okay?”
“What do you think?” She crossed her arms and looked at me like I was stupid.
“I don’t know,” I cried. “Is it okay with you or not?”
“It’s fine. Go away.”
She waved me off like I was an annoying fly but as I turned to leave I thought I caught a glimpse of something on her face. Regret? Remorse? I didn’t know but I knew that even though I felt like I’d outgrown Esther, I still didn’t want to abandon her after everything she’d done for me. Which meant I felt guilty about riding with Frank, even though I knew it was an amazing opportunity.
“I heard you’re riding with us,” Chloe said as I dashed past to grab Bluebird out of his field.
“Should I be scared?” I asked her.
“Only if you mess up.” She laughed.
As I slipped Bluebird’s halter on and hurried him back to the barn, I told him that he’d better not mess up. This was our future on the line. A chance to impress Frank on my own pony and maybe figure out a way to get to the rated show.
“Don’t you want a chance to show everyone how good you are?” I asked him as I scrubbed at the mud stains from the day before.
In the end I gave up. He didn’t live in a stall like the others. There was no way I was ever going to get him as clean as they were. He was neat but in a scruffy sort of way, just like I was. We weren’t all poised and perfect. I rode by the seat of my pants. If that wasn’t good enough for Frank then that was just too bad.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
There were butterflies in my stomach. It was just like the first time I tried to impress Frank out in the field, when I hoped that he would see me jump spectacularly and then fell off instead. If I fell off again in front of him I could pretty much kiss my chances of being invited to the show goodbye.
Chloe was all smiles as she led Winter out to the ring beside me.
“I’m so glad you’re riding with us,” she said. “Peyton and Jake kind of hate me.”
“I think Jake hates everyone,” I replied.
“True, but he only hates you because you are better than he is. He hates me for no reason at all.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you,” I said.
“You’ll see,” she said with a sad smile.
I tried to remember everything I’d ever learned but the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t think of anything. Mostly I just got on and rode and it usually turned out okay. Every now and then Esther would correct something or yell at me that I was doing it wrong. Miguel had fixed my position over fences and told me to leave Bluebird alone and that is mostly what I did. I guess maybe Chloe was right. I must have been blessed with some kind of gift because I really did ride by the seat of my pants.
Jake glared at me as we got out to the ring. He was already on his other horse, Rocket. I was glad that he wasn’t on Viper. I didn’t need Frank getting any more ideas about me riding the mare in front of Jake and making him look bad.
“Look at her silly little pony,” Peyton whispered loudly to Jake. “Isn’t he adorable?” Then she stuck her fingers down her throat and made a fake vomiting sound.
“Just ignore them,” Chloe said.
“Ignore them, right.” I gritted my teeth as I tightened the girth.
But it was kind of hard to ignore people who were purposefully trying to make you mess up. Frank had us work on the rail and Jake trotted by and waved his crop in Bluebird’s face when Frank was looking the other way. Then Peyton came past and rammed us into the fence, our stirrups clinking together before she trotted off.
“Hey,” I muttered under my breath. “Cut it out.”
“Sorry,” she called back sweetly. “My bad.”
Only Chloe left me alone, working Winter at the other end of the ring but she had her own problems. Frank was telling her that she wasn’t being strong enough with the horse, even though I thought it looked like she was riding fine.
“Everyone canter now,” Frank yelled. “Figure eight with a flying change in the middle.”
Bluebird pricked his ears as we picked up the canter. I hoped we would get to jump soon so that Frank could see how amazing he was. In fact, I was still wondering which jumps Frank would have us tackle when we came through the center line and he started yelling at me.
“Your pony was late behind,” he shouted.
“He was?” I called back.
“Couldn’t you tell?”
I couldn’t. I had no idea how I was supposed to know but I didn’t want to admit it so I just shrugged.
“Again,” he yelled.
This time when we came across the diagonal, I tried really hard to ask Bluebird for his change properly and I felt him do it with a little swish and hop and felt relieved until Frank yelled again.
“No. No. No.” He threw his arms up in the air, looking exasperated.
“He was late again. You’re asking him wrong.”
My face flushed red. “I am?”
“Come here.”
I walked Bluebird over to him, my heart somewhere down in my boots. I tried to remember what Esther said when she taught me how to do flying changes but I couldn’t remember any of it. Peyton and Jake were snickering at the end of the ring. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. I looked down at Frank, promising myself that no matter what he said, I wouldn’t cry.
“You asked for the change wrong,” he said. “And you dived into it. How long have you been doing it like that?”
“Forever, I guess,” I said.
“Well now you know that it’s wrong, you can correct it. Yes?”
“Yes.” I nodded, feeling small and stupid.
“You don’t need to lean when you ask him. Sit straight and tall. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
Esther had never told me that I was doing it wrong. Had she not noticed? Or had she not known? Here I was thinking I was blessed with some gift and I couldn’t even ask for a flying change properly. I felt like a failure.
Frank said that I was trying too hard to get the change when I felt like I hadn’t
been trying at all. I’d just been doing it. My cheeks burned red and it was getting harder to keep the promise that I made to myself about not crying. I couldn’t even look down to the other end of the ring where Peyton and Jake were now openly laughing. I don’t know why they thought it was so funny. They did lots of things wrong. In fact they did a lot more things wrong than I did and they still didn’t have one ounce of the talent I had. Esther had said so. But then again, Esther was the one who had never corrected me.
This time I cantered Bluebird with a sick feeling in my stomach. If we couldn’t even get our flying changes right, how was Frank going to believe that we were good enough for the show?
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
“It was awful,” I groaned. “He made me do it ten times before he was happy and even then I don’t think it was that good.”
“What, this flying business?” Mom asked.
We were sitting in the kitchen. She was preparing food for her big barbeque. I’d been roped into helping and since I felt such a failure at the barn, I didn’t mind chopping and slicing but it seemed that I was a failure at that too. All my pieces of fruit were different sizes, lined up on the chopping board mocking me while Mom’s sat in nice neat rows.
“Flying changes,” I told her. “I didn’t know I wasn’t doing it right. Esther never told me.” I buried my head in my hands.
“Well, I don’t see why you care what that trainer says anyway,” she said.
“Because he’s a big deal that’s why and besides, I feel stupid. I’ve been doing it wrong all this time and I never even knew. People have probably been laughing at me behind my back.” I stifled a sob.
She put her hand on my back and patted me awkwardly, then shoved a cookie in my face. I ate it, even though I wasn’t hungry. The way she used food to comfort my emotions instead of having to deal with them, I was lucky that I didn’t weigh two hundred pounds.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” she said. “You’re still learning. You can’t know everything all the time. The most important thing is that now you know and you can fix it. Right?”
“I guess,” I mumbled.
The lesson had ended with Frank having us go over the course of jumps in the ring. Bluebird had done great but I’d been too mortified about the whole flying change business to be happy about the fact that we were the only ones who hadn’t had any rails down. As far as I was concerned, my riding career was over. Everyone would always know me as the girl that Frank had to fix. The one who didn’t know how to ask for a flying change properly. I’d come home and cried myself to sleep. Then I told Mom, who didn’t even seem to grasp the concept of how bad I felt.
“Look at this.” She pointed to all the dishes laid out in the kitchen. “I couldn’t cook before and now look at me. I’m learning to make potato salad and these little radish flowers.”
She picked up one of the radishes and smiled. I didn’t like to tell her that it looked more like a hairball than a flower.
“But I’m expected to know these things.” I sighed.
“How?” she said. “How are you expected to know? You can’t know everything all the time, can you?”
I ate one of the hairball radishes. “I guess not.”
“Trust me.” She pulled the plate away. “I bet this Frank guy has messed up before. Everyone has. It’s what you do after that counts. Do you still want to ride?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Well then you have to get back on the horse.” She smacked my hand away as I reached for another radish. “And stop eating those or there won’t be any left for tomorrow.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon helping Mom get ready for the barbeque and trying not to think about flying changes. Then Cat got home from summer school with a chip on her shoulder the size of Nebraska.
“Can you not put your bag down there?” Mom asked as Cat threw her backpack in the middle of the kitchen floor.
“Why not?” she said.
She’d started wearing black again like she was in some perpetual state of mourning and today was no different. It looked like she was going to some slutty funeral. Her top was ripped and held together with safety pins and her skirt was far too short to adhere to the school’s dress code. I wondered if she was really going to summer school at all or just skipping and hanging out with her friends but I kept my mouth shut.
“Because I’m trying to work on the stuff for the barbeque, that’s why, and I’ll trip over it.” Mom wiped her hands on her apron. She looked like one of those moms in a fifties sitcom, all perfect but with just the right amount of flour on her hands to know she had been cooking.
“No one cares about your stupid barbeque.” Cat grabbed the bag and tossed it into the corner.
“Oh, it’s so much better over there,” I said.
Cat glared at me. “Shut up.”
“Shut up yourself,” I snapped back.
“Girls,” Mom warned. “That’s enough.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“I didn’t do anything.” Cat mocked me before grabbing the bag and stomping off upstairs.
“I don’t know why you two can’t just get along.” Mom sighed.
“Really?” I said. “Have you seen her?”
“Yes, I’ve seen her,” Mom said. “She’s confused and hurting.”
“Oh, well maybe you should just go and give her a hug then. Or some of your radishes. I bet that will fix everything.”
“Emily,” Mom warned. “Don’t start with me.”
“Fine, whatever,” I said, walking away.
“And don’t whatever me,” she called after me.
“Whatever,” I whispered under my breath.
Just because Cat was the one who acted out, that meant she was the one everyone thought was all damaged and messed up. It was so unfair. I was the one whose sister had died and I was the one whose father had left. And to top it all off, I was the one who was trying really hard to make it in a sport where unless you had a mountain of money, you might as well just forget it. But Mom would never understand that. She’d never understand anything about my riding.
Still, she had given me some good advice. Either I wanted to learn how to fix my changes or I didn’t and I did. Being embarrassed over doing something wrong didn’t mean you just gave up. It meant that you tried harder next time.
“Oh and Emily,” Mom called up from the bottom of the stairs. “I invited Esther to the barbeque and I told her to ask the new trainer and his students if they wanted to come as well.”
“You did what?” I screeched, looking down the stairs at the woman who’d given good advice but was now about to mess it all up by ruining my life.
“You heard me,” she said. “I thought it would be nice for you.”
“But they hate me,” I cried. “You have to uninvite them.”
“It’s disinvite and I can’t. It’s too late now. I can’t just tell them they can’t come.”
“I don’t know how you could do this to me,” I groaned. “And don’t correct my vocabulary. I speak just fine, thank you very much.”
And as I walked miserably back to my room, I could hear Cat laughing behind her closed door.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Everyone liked a barbeque, at least that’s what Mom said. All the foods that you didn’t normally get to eat, spread out on a table with no one to see if you ate too much or skipped the vegetables altogether but it wasn’t the food I was worried about. It was the people. Everyone at my house, seeing my stepfather and stepsister for the first time. I preferred to keep them hidden and out of sight, just where they belonged. My barn life and home life were perfectly fine the way they were, separate and segregated. There was no need for either side to intermingle and yet here they were, colliding by the potato salad.
“It’s a nice spread you’ve got here,” Frank said as Derek stood next to him.
“My wife is a good cook,” Derek replied.
I wanted to vomit as they stood there in t
heir summer shorts making small talk. It was so wrong. Like watching for a train wreck that you knew was going to happen, you just weren’t sure when.
“Is Jake here yet?” Mickey asked.
“Stop bugging me about him,” I told her. “I’ll be happy if he doesn’t bother and show up at all.”
“Why wouldn’t he show up at all?” She looked worried.
“Because he hates me, remember?”
“Oh yeah,” she said.
“Is that why you’re wearing a dress?” I asked her. “To impress Jake?”
“No.” She ran her hand over the soft pink fabric, looking all wistful and sappy. “I like dresses.”
“If you say so,” I said.
“I do and at least I don’t look like a boy.”
She motioned to the Bermuda shorts I was wearing and the tank top I’d found in the bottom of my closet. It was kind of creased but I figured no one would notice. I guess I was wrong.
“Thanks a lot.” I punched her playfully in the arm.
We all stood around in my yard, which was about the size of a postage stamp. The men clutched cold beers, the women drunk some fancy cocktail that my mom had found the recipe for in a magazine. It was all oranges and limes and some kind of gross smelling liquor which I think she used too much of. Most of them looked sloshed already. Faith and Mackenzie were chasing each other around our only tree and Chloe was standing in the shade with a big floppy hat. So far there was no sign of Peyton or Jake and I hoped that it stayed that way.
“Come on,” I told Mickey. “Let’s be sociable.”
I dragged her over to Chloe who looked startled that we would actually purposefully come over and stand next to her.
“You okay?” I asked her. “Need anything.”
“No, I’m good.” She looked down at her empty plate. “I ate too much as it is.”
Derek had cooked stacks of burgers and hot dogs but all everyone could rave about was the ribs. Even Chloe had the remnants of some left on her plate. I wanted to tell everyone that the ribs actually came from the restaurant down the street but Mom would have killed me. I watched as someone else came up to Derek, pointed to the almost empty rib plate and slapped him on the back for a job well done. It was pathetic. I turned away so that I wouldn’t have to look at him.
Turf Wars (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 8) Page 7
