A Horse of Her Own

by Annie Wedekind

  “No, Mum, really, it’s okay,” Jane repeated into the phone. This was a new experience, comforting her mother, but she didn’t know what else to do. She was close to tears, which she now accepted as a kind of permanent state, but she was afraid that if she told her mother how she really felt that Mrs. Ryan, in a fit of maternal solicitude, would come flying out to the farm to comfort her. If that happened, Jane couldn’t trust herself not to give in to her tumultuous feelings and leave with her. And she’d promised Susan. Steeling herself, she said, “And now you don’t have to pay for the rest of camp. Mrs. Jeffrys said.”

  “Oh, honey, that’s not what’s important. I just know how much you love Beau … and I wish your father and I … Oh, here’s Lily, I’ll put her on now.”

  “No, Mum, please! I have to go! Tell Lily that I can’t talk right now, that I have to go to a … on a hayride,” she lied. She knew that whatever composure she could muster for her mother would crumble the instant that she heard Lily’s voice. “I love you, Mum, and Dad and Lily. Bye.” She hung up before her mother could protest and slumped against the smoke-stained wall of the kitchen, exhausted. Maria bustled over to her, holding a fresh ice pack wrapped in a washcloth. In return, she took a watery, melted sack from Jane.

  “Keep it on the eye!” she scolded, and Jane gingerly raised her hand to her head again.

  “Is this the big reward she gets?” Maria muttered furiously to Jose, who was sitting at the kitchen table drinking lemonade and rolling a cigarette. “She saves that monster and then he tries to kill her? And Susan lets this happen? They give another girl Jane’s horse and make her ride the crazy one? Is everyone on this farm crazy? You tell me!” she hissed at her husband, whacking his arm with her rolled-up dish towel, as if he were to blame for the situation.

  “I don’t think he actually wanted to kill me, Maria,” Jane said, slowly moving to a chair next to Jose and easing herself down. “He really wanted to run into a tree and kill himself, and I just happened to be on board … .”

  Maria scowled, and her dish-towel hand twitched threateningly at Jose, then her face softened as she saw that Jane was smiling, though only from one side of her mouth, as any movement of her left facial muscles sent a dart of pain to her throbbing eye.

  A scant few hours earlier, as Jane and Robin had listened to Susan’s plan, Jane had found that she could easily understand why their trainer was in such a temper. Not only had she impulsively bought a troubled horse, she had to continue working with him or risk him growing more isolated, unresponsive, and rebellious. She also told Jane how proud she’d been of her the day before, both for her cross-country course and for her help with Lancelot—Jane blushed—and she was worried about losing a good horse, Beau, and having to settle in the new school horse that the Jeffrys had bought to replace him.

  “So,” Susan had finished, latching her eyes on Jane’s, “will you ride Lancelot for me?”

  Jane hadn’t answered immediately. She’d thought about Beau, about the camp competition that they had been training for, about the awesome, scared joy she’d felt as they sailed over the hedge. She’d thought about how the farm itself could never quite be the same again, no matter what horse she rode, now that Beau belonged to another girl. She realized that some kind of era had ended, but ended unexpectedly, in a way she never could have prepared for. You usually think of things changing at certain times, she’d thought. Like Lily going to college in the fall. Like graduating from trotting poles to cross-rails to the coop. Like changing schools. These things could be hard, but you knew they were coming. Now, she felt lost, unscripted, and fumbling her way toward what she was supposed to do, and to be. Could she help Susan, who had helped her so much? And this of course gave her the answer.

  “Sure,” Jane had said, and that was all she really needed to say. And as Susan had smiled with relief and thanked her, she’d felt some of her summer happiness, the kind of happiness that only came at Sunny Acres, and that smelled of sawdust and Murphy’s Oil and fly spray, fade. But in its place there seemed to come a feeling that she couldn’t define. The nearest word she found for it was stubbornness, and that, at least, was better than tears.

  But her first ride on Lancelot had not gone well, to put it mildly. Susan had told her to join Advanced II’s afternoon class, and as soon as Jane had swung her leg over the enormous red horse, marveling at his size and how very far up she felt, she looked around and saw a horsefly settle on his hindquarters. Without thinking, she raised her hand to brush it away, as she had countless times with other horses, and Lancelot had bolted. She hadn’t even gathered her reins yet and was caught in an awkward, backward lean. By the time she’d gotten herself straightened out and was making a grab for her right rein, which had shot through her fingers, he’d run under the low hanging branches of the big oak at the arena’s far side, one of which connected with Jane’s face, sending her flying backward off the still-charging horse, and landing hard on her butt on the twisted roots.

  By the time Susan reached her, she’d already determined that nothing was broken and had managed to get to her feet. They caught Lancelot, and Jane was checking his girth before she remounted when Susan touched her arm. “Jane, you really can’t ride right now,” she said with an odd, tight expression. Jane glanced up, saw the look on Robin’s face, and realized that something must be more wrong than she’d thought. Sure enough, when Susan had ushered her into the bathroom off the kitchen and she’d seen her face, rusty with blood from a gash over her left eyebrow, and her eye turning a vile shade of purple, she let out an involuntary gasp.

  Susan summoned Mrs. Jeffrys, and together with Jose and Maria they determined that the cut wasn’t deep enough to require stitches. Maria cleaned her up, and after the lesson ended Susan and Mrs. Jeffrys had a talk about Jane’s new situation with Lancelot. Jane thought that her black eye and taped-up forehead might have helped Mrs. Jeffrys make the decision to return half of Jane’s camp tuition to her parents.

  Not, of course, that she’d told them about her fall.

  Jose sighed, letting out a stream of smoke through his nostrils. “It does seem as if this summer is a test for our bonita,” he said. “You maybe aren’t having as much fun at camp as usual?” He winked at her, and she tried to raise her eyebrow, then winced.

  The screen door banged open, and Jane saw Robin, then, with a little jolt, Ben, illuminated by the kitchen’s soft yellow light. Robin placed a bundle on the table and gave Jane a fragile, one-armed hug. “I brought our p.j.’s and stuff,” she said, and Jose graciously pulled out a chair for her to join them. Mrs. Jeffrys had invited Jane to spend the night in the guest room of the main house, in case she needed anything, and had invited “her particular friend” to join her. Jane could no more imagine waking Mrs. Jeffrys in the middle of the night to ask for aspirin than she could imagine chewing her own foot off, and she was grateful that Robin would be with her, for the house, and its mistress, had a formal grandeur that she’d always found somewhat intimidating. Mrs. Jeffrys was kind, but she was “Old Louisville,” as her mother, a North Dakotan by birth, put it, and Jane had always semiconsciously felt that she was a Taylor person, and not a Ryan person.

  She heard a familiar low whistle and turned to find Ben inspecting her bandaged brow from across the table. So glad that half the times he’s seen me I’ve been crying or beat up. He must think I’m a total basket case, she thought, and fervently hoped that at least the bruises would hide the flush that she could feel staining her face.

  “You look like you ran into a tree,” he said.

  “Funny, because that’s exactly what I did,” Jane replied, and he and Robin laughed.

  “It’s only a flesh wound,” she said, in accent, to Robin, who looked over at Ben uncertainly before whispering back to Jane, “It’s nought but a scratch really, my deah.”

  He looked at them with bright, questioning eyes. “Is that supposed to be, like, Russian?”

  The girls giggled self-consciously, and Robin said, “
Oh, dear, I never knew we were that bad—it’s supposed to be British.”

  “Then, yeah, it’s terrible,” he scoffed smilingly.

  The screen door banged open again, and Jane was startled to see Jessica saunter in, wearing boxer shorts and a tank top and flip-flops, her hair twirled up in a perfect messy bun. She punched Ben’s shoulder lightly as she passed him, saying, “Hey, everybody,” and casually tossed a CD over to Jane. “It’s the new Love Suicides album,” she said. “I thought it would be good get-well music. You can borrow it till whenever. Damn, you look terrible.” She perched herself on a stool by the stove, cocking her head at Jane and studying her impersonally.

  “Oh, awesome,” Jane said, looking at the CD case, which seemed to depict Japanese warriors with Mohawks doing some sort of dance in outer space. “I love them,” she lied. She’d never heard of them. She ignored Robin’s kick under the table.

  “Well, you’re not missing anything in the outside world,” Jessica drawled, waving her hand as if shooing away Jane’s thanks. “Although I’ve got five missed calls from Emily, so it’s possible that the family vacation is off to a rocky start. And Megan’s freaking out over Beau. She had to be dragged out of his stall tonight to go to bed.”

  Jane’s stomach plummeted and the hand holding the ice bag gave an involuntary jerk. She looked down at the CD as if something on it had suddenly caught her attention.

  “So, um, who are the Love Suicides?” Robin blurted, and Jane loved her for it, especially since it made her sound so hopelessly out of it. She pretended to adjust the ice bag so she could dash away the tears that had inevitably begun to burn her eyes. It was as if Jessica had walked in and delivered a series of well-timed blows: from her strange, distant tone to this callous reference to Beau. Jane felt as winded as if Jessica had actually hit her, and not in the extremely friendly way she had just lightly punched Ben … .

  “A band,” Jessica said in a bored voice. Then—unexpectedly: “Ben, walk me back to the cabin. I can’t see in the dark.”

  “So how’d you get over here?” The sharp words, and their tone, were out of Jane’s mouth before she could edit herself, and she realized with a sinking sensation that this was exactly how Jessica had intended her to feel.

  Jessica smiled broadly. “By smell,” she said, arching an eyebrow at Jane.

  Ben laughed, but it seemed to Jane that he was uncomfortable, or embarrassed. He gave his grandmother a quick, abashed kiss and waved to his grandfather.

  Jessica eased herself to the floor and waggled her fingers at Jane. “Sweet dreams,” she said, and with a nonchalance that Jane could only marvel at, linked her arm through Ben’s.

  “That was really nice of you to bring her that CD,” Jane heard Ben say as the screen door closed behind them. “Track five is awesome … you know the one …” And the sound of Jessica’s voice singing the chorus, which sounded something like “Anodyne, end of time, you are mine,” then Ben’s tenor joining in, drifting back on the still July air to the quiet group gathered in the kitchen, where the only sound was the suddenly loud ticking of the old clock above the stove.

  “How are you feeling?” Robin whispered, her voice small and close next to Jane’s shoulder. “I’m okay,” Jane muttered. She wondered at how many times today, and yesterday, and all of her life, that she had said those two words when they were patently untrue. She wondered why those two words were so essential, were her own lie that she needed. My lie, she thought as she stared up and out to the dim, unfamiliar room. Light from the porch outside filtered through the long, narrow windows framed with heavy blue damask draperies that matched the wallpaper’s flowers and curlicues that seemed to Jane’s tired, throbbing eyes to be shifting and sliding along the walls. The house was cool and hushed. Jane was glad for the quiet, for the removal from the cabin and from the other girls, but the strange room also added to the isolation that threatened to cast her adrift.

  Her forehead pulsed with a dull, grinding pain. Beau was gone. Advanced I and the competition were gone. Half of camp was gone, and when it went, Lily would be going. She was seized with the sudden strong desire to leave Sunny Acres, to spend the rest of the summer with her sister, with her parents, who had, after all, wished that they could have bought Beau … her mother had almost said it. They did understand, at least a little. And she had lied to them. And Ben … Her eyes swimming, she looked over at the CD that she’d tossed on the plump chintz tuft that stood before the grand marble-and-mahogany dresser. Even if she owned a portable CD player, which she didn’t, she knew she’d never, ever listen to the Love Suicides.

  “She must really like him,” Robin whispered, making Jane jump.

  “What do you mean?” she whispered back.

  “The way Jessica was acting,” Robin said slowly. “You stayed up all night with him in the barn, and she really hasn’t talked to you at all today … . No, don’t interrupt! She saw Ben come with me to the house, and she followed us and treated you like …”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jane said, turning toward Robin and burying her face in her friend’s shoulder. Her face burned every time she pictured doing her stupid accent in front of Ben, her stupid accent along with her swollen, grotesque eye, and her babyish tears, just to have Jessica walk in looking so unconcernedly and perfectly cool. “And besides,” she finished, “it looks like he likes her back.” And when this last part of all of the things that were hurting was said aloud, Jane finally fell asleep.

  Chapter 10

  The Royal Ukrainian Cavalry

  The damp grass and clover flowers shushed past Jane’s boots as she walked slowly out to the big field, jingling the chain of the lead shank in her right hand. She heard Robin’s voice some ways ahead of her, calling to Bess, who Jane saw was in the valley to the left of the main group of horses quietly standing by the far copse of trees. Jane and Robin had been the first ones to the barn. They’d had a brief moment of hilarity earlier, trying to decide how to make up the enormous bed with its frills and flounces and multiple pillows of odd shapes (egg, log, triangle), before they escaped the silent, chilly house, running out into the warmth of the morning sunshine, gasping with laughter until Jane had clutched her throbbing head. The restored ease she felt with her friend made the morning seem that much brighter after the dark night.

  Now, as she reached the group of school horses, her hands went automatically to a familiar brown mane, and she slid her arm around the sturdy neck, leaning her cheek against the cheek that bent down to hers. She breathed in the hay and sun and clover smell from the saddle-colored coat and smiled. “Hey, Beau,” she said.

  She was only pretending, she knew, but Jane let herself pretend for a minute more.

  She ran her hands over the soft muzzle that nibbled at her palm, looking for the carrot that she pulled from her pocket. She finger-combed the forelock that grazed his short eyelashes and gently brushed away a fly that had settled in the corner of his eye. Mostly she just looked at him, ordinary Beau on an ordinary morning, in a parallel universe in which the past two days hadn’t happened yet, or perhaps would never happen. He bent his head and rubbed his forehead on her arm, and the familiar gesture made her eyes fill. She scratched his poll and he whickered contentedly.

  As she gazed at him, Jane remembered the first time she’d ridden Beau, the combination of discovery and familiarity that she’d felt as she’d gotten used to his big stride, then later his eagerness to jump that sometimes made him rush at fences, the canter that could be controlled to a beautiful, collected gait, once she’d figured out how to keep him on the bit (with much encouragement and close contact with his mouth). She remembered sneaking into the barn at night to bring him carrots, and to escape from the confusing pressures and insecurities she felt with the girls at camp. Once she’d fallen asleep in a pile of hay in the corner of his stall and woken at midnight to find him lying on his side with his neck pressed against her back. She wrapped her arms around that strong neck now as she braced herself to say good-bye.
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  Beau was her harbor, she thought, as Lily and Robin were also her harbors. With a surge of resentment and longing, she thought that if she could just have him still be her horse for the rest of the summer, she could face, or ignore, Alyssa and Jennifer and … Jessica. She could hide out with him as she’d always hidden out with him, safe on his back, safe taking care of him. Then another image flickered through her mind, making a path through the thicket of sadness and memories, an image of the horse that had also been her companion during a hard night. A horse that had needed her.

  Jane gave Beau one final stroke down his broad, plain face and turned away from him. As she walked slowly from the field, she could hear his hoofbeats following her, and she forced herself to walk faster. And as she approached the gate, she saw a small, slim figure walking swiftly and eagerly toward her, face aglow, new halter swinging from her shoulder. The girl didn’t appear to see her; her sparkling eyes were fixed on something behind Jane, and she seemed barely able to contain the spring-heeled joy that animated her stride and the grin that pulled at her mouth.

  Jane quickly veered to the right and managed to duck under the fence and around the big oak tree before she met Megan, now running to bring in her new horse.

  Jane didn’t look behind her as she made her way to the paddock, but kept her eyes fixed straight ahead on the red horse that was staring right back at her.

  Jane found that her previous day’s adventures had made her a figure of considerable interest around the farm. While she tried with increasing exasperation to get Lancelot’s bit between his teeth as he arched his head back as high and far away from her as he could, she was also barraged with questions from Shannon and Liz and some of the younger campers. Overnight, her eye had turned a rotted plum color, streaked with yellow, and after the bandage refused to stay affixed to her sweating forehead, she had finally removed it, revealing a large, angry red gash just above her eyebrow.