Exit Stage Left

by Nall, Gail

  We follow her through the stable. Long heads with big brown eyes peek out over stall doors as we walk by. I want to pat each one on the nose, but Theresa walks as if she’s late to opening night for Wicked.

  “Harrison, I’m going to put you on Pants.”

  I’m about to ask why the horse is named Pants when Theresa leads him out of the stall. The back half of his body is white, while the front half is brown. So basically, he looks as if he’s wearing white pants.

  “And, Casey . . . you get Tamale.” Theresa presents me with the largest horse I’ve ever seen. Tamale stares at me with his huge eyes and snorts. I half expect him to rear back on his hind legs and whinny and maybe breathe fire. He’s more beast than horse.

  “He’s really . . . tall, isn’t he?”

  “He’s perfect for you. You’re a tall girl. You can handle him.”

  Of course, that makes Harrison frown, since he’s about four inches shorter than me.

  Theresa then shows us the bridle and saddle and all this other stuff she calls tack, and how to put it on the horses. I can’t help spacing out while she’s talking. I’ve never really been good at the whole listening-to-lectures thing.

  I wrinkle my nose at the manure smell and look at Tamale. He’s staring me down. How in the world am I going to stay on that monster of a horse? I decide I’m thankful for the heavy, ponytail-squashing helmet on my head.

  Theresa leads the horses to an indoor arena with a straw-covered floor.

  “Ready, Casey?” Theresa cups her hands and crouches down. I guess I’m supposed to use that as a boost to get onto the horse. I swallow and step into her hands. Then I reach for the saddle and pull myself up.

  Or, try to pull myself up. “Um . . .” I’m stuck halfway there. My stomach is smooshed against the saddle and my legs are sticking out. Not my smoothest moment. “Help?”

  I hear Harrison snicker as I wiggle my butt to try to get all the way up on the horse. Tamale shifts and I grasp the side of the saddle. All I can see is the ground moving under Tamale. And it’s a long way down.

  Did I mention that I have a thing about heights?

  “Push against my hands,” Theresa says.

  I push, and somehow, I make it.

  “It’s really high up here.” I grip the reins and refuse to look down. I need to relax. My future as an uber-successful equine veterinarian/millionaire rancher means I can’t be afraid of heights, falling off horses, or of horses themselves. I reach out and pat Tamale between his ears. He snorts and tosses his head, and I almost jump out of the saddle.

  “Okay, let’s talk about correct riding posture first,” Theresa says. “You want to sit up straight in the saddle, elbows down, heels down. Grip the horse’s body with your knees, but not too tight. Hold the reins like this.” She reaches up and laces the reins through my fingers. “Nice, Casey. Just push your heels down more.”

  I wait while she gets Harrison situated. Tamale snorts and shuffles. I stay completely still, willing myself not to fall off. And wishing that maybe—just maybe—I hadn’t messed up the whole pottery thing. At least wet clay can’t kill you.

  “Isn’t there supposed to be more to hold on to?” I ask Theresa as Tamale shifts his weight again and I slide a little to the right.

  “Just the reins,” she replies. “Now let’s get moving.”

  She shows us how to nudge the horses with our heels to get them to walk. Tamale turns the corner without me having to do anything. Which is good, because I can’t remember which way to pull the reins to make him turn left.

  His body shifts back and forth as he walks, which makes me slide from side to side. I look straight at Tamale’s ears and hold on like my life depends on it. Which it probably does. My eyes drift to the ground. Even though there’s straw on the floor, it looks really, really hard. Like breaking-bones and smashing-skulls hard. When the floor starts to spin, I force my head up until I can breathe normally again.

  As we ride around the ring in the barn, Theresa keeps saying things like “Squeeze with your knees” and “Back straight.” Actually, she says, “Squeeze with your knees” only to Harrison. I squeeze Tamale so hard I’m surprised he doesn’t burst.

  Then she introduces us to posting. Which should actually be called Torture on Horseback. Seriously, all it is is raising yourself up and down in the saddle, over and over and over. No one would ever need spin class if they did this every day.

  “Posting when the horse trots makes the ride smoother for you and your horse,” Theresa says. “We’ll try it at a standstill first.”

  Smoother? Who says? I don’t feel smooth. I feel freaked the hell out. And the horse isn’t even moving. I don’t think I look anything like Daydream Casey, who guides her horse into flying leaps over rivers and stuns the mob of waiting boys with her hots and excellent horsewomanship. I’m more like a scared little kid with a smashed ponytail on a fire-breathing dragon. I’m really glad Trevor isn’t here to witness this.

  “Don’t be afraid to lift higher, Casey,” Theresa says.

  Except I can’t lift higher. Every inch I rise up from the saddle gets me closer to toppling off Tamale.

  “Okay, good! Let’s try posting the trot,” Theresa says.

  “Trotting’s fast, right?” I ask as Tamale starts walking behind Pants. I twist my head to see Theresa. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to go any faster. Even though my brains aren’t too good at pre-calc, I’d still like to keep them intact.

  “Yes, it’s fun!” Theresa says. “Now, you want to nudge the horse twice with your heels to signal him to trot.”

  No, I don’t want to. I just want to go nice and slow. At a speed where I won’t break my neck if I fly off the horse. In front of me, Harrison takes off on Pants. Show-off.

  “Good, Harrison. Find the horse’s rhythm to begin posting. Nudge Tamale twice, Casey.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and touch Tamale twice with my heels. Instantly, I’m jerking around all over the place as he races around the arena in a bid to set a record for the Happy Valley Stables Derby.

  “Find his rhythm, Casey.”

  Easy for her to say. Her brain isn’t bouncing around inside her skull. If I wanted to kill brain cells, I’d befriend Steve-o Grimaldi and at least do it the fun way. I have Tamale’s reins in a death grip. I look down.

  Big mistake. The ground rises and falls as Tamale moves, and my vision starts swimming again.

  I slide to the right as Tamale rounds a corner. I try to pull myself up with the reins, but I’m too dizzy to remember which way is up. The spinning, bouncing ground comes closer and closer.

  My left foot pops out from the stirrup, and I’m hanging off Tamale with my leg across the saddle. The ground leaps up and down sideways—way too close to my head.

  “Pull yourself up with your legs!” Theresa shouts.

  Right. My legs have turned to jelly. My heart is pounding. And I’m pretty sure those are black spots in front of my eyes. The reins slip from my fingers, and I’m going down, down, down. Oh, holy hell. Not good.

  This is it. This is the end. Death by horse at age sixteen. This is not how I wanted to go from this world! I should’ve at least burned those poems I wrote about Trevor in case Mom sorts through my stuff. I should’ve been nicer to my brother, pain in the ass that he is. I should’ve forgiven my dad for moving too far away. I should’ve—

  I hit the ground with my shoulder first and roll over, facedown in the straw and dirt.

  “Casey!” Harrison yells from across the arena.

  “Casey?” Another voice echoes from the hallway that leads toward the stalls. A guy’s voice that sounds familiar but doesn’t belong here at all.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I’m not dead. That’s a relief. But I must have hit my head, because no way did I hear the person I just thought I heard.

  Theresa kneels down next to me as my vision clears. “How do you feel? Does anything hurt?”

  I turn my head and spit out some straw. “My shoulder.” />
  “Can you sit up?”

  I use my left arm and pull myself up. Theresa moves my right arm forward and backward as if I’m one of those freaky-jointed dolls. Behind her, Tamale’s prancing around the barn, acting like he didn’t just try to kill me.

  “You’ll be okay. Nothing broken,” she says.

  “I think I hit my head, though. I thought I heard—”

  “Casey? What are you doing here? Are you okay?” Oliver appears above me, holding a rake.

  Or maybe I didn’t imagine it. “Riding a horse. Or, falling off it. What are you doing here?”

  “Mucking out stalls.”

  “Oliver’s mom just bought the barn,” Theresa says.

  Never in a million years did I expect to see Oliver in his tie-dyed Grateful Dead T-shirt and torn jeans at a horse barn.

  Harrison finally runs up, panting. “Sorry, I couldn’t get off the horse. Are you all right, Case?”

  “I think so. I—”

  “Oliver? What are you doing here?” Harrison ignores my response and stares at Oliver.

  Well, that’s interesting. Harrison must have a thing for dark hair and bargain-basement clothes.

  “C’mon. I’ll tell you while we get an ice pack for her shoulder. Hey, Casey, you’ve got a . . .” Oliver points at my face and then reaches down and brushes off a piece of straw that was stuck to my cheek.

  “Um, thanks.” Not exactly the posh equestrian look I was going for. And my cheek tingles where he touched my skin. I rub at it as Oliver strolls off toward the stalls with Harrison at his side.

  Theresa helps me up and sits me at a picnic table near the side of the arena. Then she catches Tamale, grabs Pants’s reins, and makes her way back to the stalls. “Just wait here for that ice pack,” she calls over her shoulder. “And maybe I’ll see you next week?”

  I nod. But no way on God’s green earth am I coming back next week. Or ever. In fact, I’m never getting on a horse again. Alone in the arena, I test my shoulder, rotating my arm back and forth. It doesn’t hurt too badly.

  “Try this.” Oliver appears from behind and hands me an ice pack.

  I try to get it in place, except I’m not left-handed and the ice pack is kind of huge.

  Oliver hops up onto the picnic table. “Here, let me.”

  I pull my hand away and let him adjust the thing until it’s covering my entire shoulder, while I attempt to unbuckle my helmet one-handed.

  “You need help?” Oliver’s smiling at me.

  And I’m pretty sure I look less than competent right now. “No, I’ve got it.” I fumble around for another few seconds before the stupid buckle finally gives. I yank the helmet from my head and instantly regret it. There’s no mirror, but I’ve got to be sporting some amazing helmet hair right now, complete with droopy ponytail. I can’t even look at Oliver, not like this. Just because I’m trying to get back with Trevor doesn’t mean I want to go around all bedraggled and helmet-headed in front of other cute guys. I snag my ponytail holder and free my hair, finger-combing it with my free hand. Probably not my best look, but anything’s better than what I had.

  “You look fine,” Oliver says.

  Okay, didn’t mean to be that obvious. I do something useless with my hand that involves scratching an imaginary itch on my forehead, as if that’s what I was meaning to do all along. “Um, thanks.”

  “I—” He catches the ice pack as it slips off my shoulder and sets it back into place. “There.” He doesn’t finish whatever he was going to say before, but he breaks into a soft smile when he catches my eye.

  There’s a thump and a horse whinnies from somewhere down the aisle with the stalls. I must have PTSD now, because it about makes me jump off the table. I pull my eyes from Oliver to look for runaway horses hell-bent on murdering me. “I think one of them is trying to make an escape.”

  He laughs. “That’s just old Gertie. She gets cranky when she doesn’t get enough attention.” The ice pack slips again. He moves it back onto my shoulder. “You might have to hold this.”

  I reach up for it. His hand covers mine as he moves the ice pack to the right spot. And I’m pretty sure he lingers a little longer than he needs to.

  “Thanks,” I say, needing to break the silence. “No offense, but I don’t think horses are going to be my thing.” My legs feel shaky from hanging on to the horse, and my lower back aches from sitting up so stiffly. I don’t think my fingers will ever straighten out again. Not to mention the bruised shoulder and my brush with smashing my brains out on the floor.

  “What are you guys doing here anyway?” Oliver asks. “I never really pegged you and Harrison as horse people.”

  “Yeah, we’re . . . not. You’re not exactly horsey-looking yourself, you know.”

  Oliver shakes his head. “You got it. Riding makes me sick, actually. I like them just fine when I’m on the ground—just not in the saddle. They’re great animals. I think it broke my mom’s heart when she figured out I wasn’t ever going to be some kind of great rider.”

  “It made me sort of sick, too.”

  “Clearly,” he says with his sort-of smile. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  I chew on my lip as I try to figure out how much I want to tell him. He looks so interested to hear though, and what the hell? Maybe it’ll help to get someone else’s perspective—someone who doesn’t automatically associate me with theater. So I lay it all out—my Broadway dreams, losing the part and everything that came with that, and how Harrison and I are looking for something to do with our lives.

  He’s quiet for a moment, almost like he’s thinking over everything I told him. Or possibly questioning my sanity.

  “You think it’s crazy, right?” I finally ask.

  “No, not at all. You thought the world was one way, and now it’s not. So you have to do a little soul-searching to figure it all out.”

  “Huh. That’s exactly it.”

  “I’m glad you’re still in the show, though.” He reaches a hand to the one I have resting on the table and squeezes it. It’s such a comforting, familiar gesture, even though there’s nothing familiar about him at all.

  “How come?” I ask.

  “Because your heart might still be in theater.”

  “Ha. No way. Not when I’m Mother Abbess.”

  He shrugs. “And because it’s nice to see you.” He’s looking at his knees, or maybe the straw on the floor, when he says this, so all I can see is his neck tinging pink.

  “It’s nice to see you, too,” I say in some weird, non-Casey-ish whispery voice.

  The manure and straw smell of the barn hangs over us as neither one of us says anything else. He raises his head and studies me with those warm eyes.

  His eyes are gray. That’s about the only coherent thing in my brain right now. Well, that and his hand is hot on mine, and I almost feel like something should happen, but I don’t know what.

  “Hey, Case, you ready to go?” Harrison calls from across the barn.

  “I’ll, uh . . . see you tomorrow,” I say to Oliver as I practically leap off the table.

  “Sure,” he says, running a hand over his hair and smiling that funny half smile.

  I glance back just before Harrison and I round the corner toward the door, and Oliver’s still standing there, helmet in hand, looking tall and decidedly out of place. Holding my ice pack, I think about why it is that I keep spilling my deepest thoughts to Oliver. And why it is that whenever I’m with him, Trevor doesn’t even cross my mind.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Friday. The night of the group thing with Amanda and Trevor. Amanda’s coming straight from her piano lesson, so I’m stuck getting a ride from my mother. Which means I don’t arrive at the movie theater until after the previews start.

  “Where’ve you been?” Amanda asks. “I was afraid you weren’t coming.” She actually looks a little panicked.

  “Of course I was coming.” I’m not about to explain Mom’s need to run three errands before droppin
g me off.

  “Hey, Case.” Trevor leans forward and flashes me his perfect smile. He’s sitting between Amanda and Steve-o Grimaldi.

  “Hey.” The way he smiles at me gives me hope that he’s still into me, and this thing with Amanda has been just a passing flirtation. Or a way to make me jealous.

  The Grimaldis are on the other side of Trevor, followed by a girl who I guess is the Grimaldis’ cousin, and . . . Oliver. I didn’t even know he was invited to this thing. I really hope he hasn’t told anyone about my horse incident. I’ll have to catch him later and tell him to keep his mouth shut. Last thing I need is word getting around that I almost critically injured myself via horse. Or that I might have a little thing for him, but he doesn’t know that. I think.

  I look farther down the row, but there’s no Harrison.

  “Um, where’s Harrison?” I ask Amanda. “And where am I sitting?” I give her a look that clearly says she needs to relocate, pronto.

  “He was supposed to be here,” she says at the same time Trevor says, “Case, sit there” and points to the one free seat at the end, next to Amanda.

  As in, not next to him.

  I’m trying to come up with some reason why Amanda needs the end seat—she has to get up and pee a lot, she gets muscle spasms in her right arm and it tends to shoot out and smack whoever’s on her right side—when she stands up.

  “I’ll take the end. I get claustrophobic otherwise.” She settles herself carefully into the last seat.

  “No problem,” Trevor says. And he scoots down a seat too, leaving the free one between him and Steve-o.

  I cannot believe he just did that. I turn away for a second, the preview from some bad kung fu movie flickering into my face, and steady my breathing so I don’t go all batshit crazy on him. I’m supposed to be making him remember that he wants me, not scaring him.

  It’s no big deal, I tell myself. I still get to sit next to him. I have a solid two hours(ish) to remind him how much he misses me. And I’m far enough away from Oliver that I won’t have to think about whatever it was that happened between us yesterday.