by Karen Rivers
He shakes his head. No, he says out loud. Don’t be such an idiot.
What is wrong with him? Nothing, that’s what. He is not going to die. Well, eventually. But not tomorrow or anything like that. Not for a long time.
He’s not going to die. He’s young. He’s healthy. And he’s going to the Olympics. Not yet, but one day. He knows it. It’s just a matter of getting the money for more horses. Sponsorships. Better horses. And he needs to be able to win consistently. Needs the money to ride at every show on the circuit, needs to get out there, be seen, to rise in the rankings. Most importantly, he needs to ride perfectly at the nationals at the end of August. Perfectly. There is no room for error. Both he and Detritus have to be in top form.
After the Olympics, he’ll retire and do what his dad does: training. Not everything his dad does. He’ll skip the lying and the gambling problem and all the other shit that’s ruined his dad’s life forever, but the man is a decent trainer. He’s talented. Axel figures he can do that, too. Help other people out with “problem” horses. Show people how to manage them. Teach. He also dreams about having his own ranch, maybe a stud farm. But that’s forever away. That kind of thing is way too expensive to even really fantasize about.
The skin all over his arms turns to goose pimples. Suddenly, he can see his own death with an ever-clearer certainty, like a Polaroid coming into focus. He’s dying! Of what, he has no idea. Maybe it will be random. Hit-by-a- bus kind of thing.
He looks around the table at his friends, Des and Wick; Wick’s girlfriend, Chelsea; Zara and her best friend, Sin; Sin’s hideously creepy boyfriend, Hamster (real name Harry but his resemblance to the rodent is so unmistakable the nickname stuck); Maman; Maman’s best friend, Sue (who also happens to be Sin’s mother). Everyone looks so happy. Like they don’t suspect anything.
How can they not see it?
He clenches his jaw. He shakes his head and forces himself to grin across the table at Des. Then he burps. Loudly. Des makes a disgusted face, pushes his glasses back up his nose and elegantly burps back.
Excuse me, he says loudly. So rude.
They laugh.
Des has been his best friend for years. He keeps his horse in the Hextons’ barn, that’s how they got to be friends, but it’s more than that. Des is like a brother somehow. A British brother from a completely different, much wealthier, much more put-together family. Where Axel is fair and freckled, Des has brown hair, clear skin and overlapping teeth that he doesn’t want to fix because, as he says, they’re part of his charm. Des winks behind his black-rimmed glasses — his geek glasses, he calls them — and then turns and kisses Zara on the cheek, catching her off-guard. She blushes and then pushes him away, laughing. It’s no secret that Des has a crush. Zara calls him her favourite stalker. But he’s harmless. He’s never actually asked her out or anything, never done anything except clown around her and be a big flirt. He’s just ... Des. Round-cheeked and British-accented, brown-eyed and funny old Des. Zara says he’s gay, but what does she know? What a joke. He’s no more gay than Axel himself, which is to say, “Not at all.” The opposite of gay. Straighter than an arrow. Whoosh. He knows it. The horse-world is crawling with gay people. It’s not a big deal. But he knows how to spot it in a guy. He knows that’s not Des.
Zara’s probably just embarrassed. Maybe she’s hoping Des does ask her out. Maybe she feels bad that he hasn’t. She’s never had a boyfriend. Never seemed to want one.
Maybe she’s gay.
Nah.
The posters of George Clooney and Robert Redford that she taped onto the wall of the tack room give her away. She only likes old guys, that’s her problem. Guys old enough to be her father. Or her grandfather, come to think of it. Weirdo.
Axel goes back to chewing his steak and tells himself not to think about death. Or gayness. What dumb things to think about. He should be thinking about the fact that it’s the start of summer. He loves summer. Summer is the best. He should think about the lake, his favourite place outside of the riding ring. Some of his best memories are of hanging out at the lake with Zara as little kids, and with the gang as they got older: diving off the cliffs, that old rope swing, the so-called island (really just a big rock in the middle with a few shrubs and dead grass on it), where they have parties now but used to pretend to camp when they were little. And summer means riding — all the time. All day, every day if he wants to. Barbecuing supper in the evening every night. He loves steak. Well, normally.
Actually, tonight, he feels like he’s been smiling and chewing the same lump of meat forever. Maybe he’s just bothered by that stupid ridiculous parachute jump, the fall really, the crashing to the earth that happened only a few hours ago now.
Maybe that explains everything! His mood, his feeling of doom. It’s not cancer. Why is he being so ridiculous? He doesn’t have anything like that. He isn’t sick. He’s just having some kind of reaction to all that adrenalin.
Jumping out of an airplane is the kind of thing that really messes you up, he figures. It’s not the kind of thing you do and then just forget about. That totally explains it, explains why he’s feeling like he’s standing on the edge of something and he’s going to fall whether he wants to or not. Nothing more complicated than that. Nothing ominous. The sky isn’t falling, the world isn’t ending, he’s not dying. How stupid can he be?
Zara is frowning at him.
What? he asks sharply.
Nothing, she shakes her head. How’s your steak?
He shrugs. Want some?
She makes a face. No thanks. Think of the hormones. Gross.
He swallows. Mmm, he says.
I’m serious! she says.
He takes another bite and chews it really intensely. But he is kind of put off it. Maybe he can taste that it’s tainted or something. He stops chewing.
Zara laughs. See? she asks.
I’m not paying attention to you, he lies. Don’t ruin my steak!
Sorry, she says contritely.
But it’s already kind of wrecked. He sighs. Tries to pay attention to Des and Wick, who are talking about a little local event — cross-country — that they are all supposed to be doing on the weekend. Axel is dying to think of an excuse to not do it. The course is totally not at their level and they only agreed to do it because it has to do with some kind of charity. The organizers wanted some senior riders to make it seem like a more serious thing than it is. It’s just, also, while not a waste of time, a bit of a waste of... well, of his horse.
And even though it sounds wrong (it’s for charity, after all), he just has a bad feeling about it. Well, let’s face it, he has a bad feeling about everything right now. Still, of all the aspects of riding, he really likes cross-country the least. He prefers plain old dressage and show jumping: the tidy ring. The harrumph of the horse as he powers over the jumps. The taut ballet of dressage. The brute strength and control of the animal below him. The unadulterated thrill as from a near standstill Detritus lifts him over the double- rails of the oxers. The artfully arranged layout. The crowd all sitting nicely in bleachers, on lawns.
Cross-country is too unpredictable. Branches and mud, hills and water. Scary for both him and the horse. Both Des and Wick have enough money that they don’t have to worry as much about their animals as he does. They love the messy good times of cross-country. Zara does, too. It’s only him that’s so wimpy he balks at getting mud on his good riding clothes. Besides, if anything happened to Detritus, well. He’d be in big trouble. What’s a good rider without a good horse? He’s paranoid about it, he knows it. It’s just... well.
It’s neither here nor there because to do eventing, he has to do the cross-country and steeplechase portion whether he wants to do it or not. But not this weekend. Not this event, which isn’t even on the rotation of scored shows. He just won’t do it. The weather is supposed to be bleak and the idea of all that mud and wind turns his stomach. He doesn’t want to risk Detritus on a bad weather event that doesn’t count. It may be f
or charity, but he’ll make a donation instead. That will ease his conscience.
Des suddenly laughs loudly and Axel joins in, even though he wasn’t paying attention to what was being said. Across the room, the door to the restaurant opens and Gigi walks in, looking a bit lost, blonde hair that’s fallen out of her pigtails blown across her face. He’s only been dating Gigi for a couple of weeks and it still feels like he’s in some kind of weird version of his own life that doesn’t quite fit. Like it isn’t real. Sometimes when he looks at her, he feels like he’s just recognizing someone he saw once in a movie or on TV. His last girlfriend, Tasia, was different. They’d been together forever. So she was like a part of him, like his arm or his teeth. She was his girlfriend forever, since they were thirteen. The whole idea of Gigi is funny, like he’s wearing someone else’s clothes.
He gets up. Gigi! he calls. Over here.
She turns and smiles. She’s pretty when she smiles, like an Abercrombie model or something. All cheekbones, and pale eyelashes that make her eyes look like they are surrounded by haloes of light. When she’s not smiling, she practically disappears, she’s so pale, her hair and skin blending together, her eyelashes and eyebrows invisible unless you are close enough to touch them.
It makes him think of what Zara said when he told her he was going to ask Gigi out. She said, Her? But she’s so vanilla.
But then she took it back (or tried to), stumbling over herself to not sound so shallow. She’s kind of pretty, she added lamely. She’s nice.
But Zara doesn’t like her. He knows it. She was totally close to Tasia but Tasia moved to southern California and Axel decided that was that. They likely won’t see each other again for ages and they’re only seventeen. It’s not like they were engaged or anything. They never talked about the future. The whole thing had always felt fleeting, even though it wasn’t.
Still. It just isn’t the same. Gigi is like a whole new species of person. Complicated in her own way. Not horsey, for one thing. More involved with stuff that means nothing to him, like cheerleading and some kind of dumb obsession with her hair that she talks about a lot more than he can deal with, if he’s being honest. Their conversations are completely awkward. She doesn’t get any of the references that he makes to things that happened a long time ago and he feels funny. Like he’s cheating on her somehow with the past.
And he and Des and Wick are always talking about stuff they’ve done. Like that time they found a grizzly cub in the woods when they were hiking and kept thinking the mama bear was coming for them. (Every once in a while, one of them will shout Bear! and they’ll all laugh hysterically. It’s funny but it’s too hard to explain why it’s funny and that makes him feel uncomfortable about it in front of her.) And that time they got drunk and got all dressed up in Zara’s clothes as a joke — the pictures from that night still surface once in a while, stuck on a stable dooi; or glued to the windshield of his car. And the concert that Wick’s older brother took them to last year: they drove for two days to get to it even though it was snowing like crazy and then they couldn’t get tickets, ended up going to some bowling alley instead and playing a few lanes, even though none of them knew how to bowl. They gave each other bowling shirts for Christmas. His says EGBERT embroidered over the pocket. Des’s says DEXTER. Wick never wears his, and Axel can’t remember what it said anyway.
That stuff is funny. That stuff is what makes up his life. And explaining it just feels like work. It doesn’t help either that Zara acts stiff and uncomfortable around Gigi. Like she can’t relax. He’s asked Zara to lighten up and he can see from her face that she’s going to try tonight and he’s kind of cringing inside. For some reason, he can just tell it’s not going to work. Not that it matters, they’re twins, they aren’t joined at the hip.
Gigi is completely closed off when she is around Zara. It’s all so stilted, like they’re all pretending. He doesn’t even know if he likes her, not really. It just seemed like he needed a girlfriend, though he can’t pinpoint exactly why. It’s just how it is. Even Wick has a girlfriend, for heaven’s sake. Funny- looking Wick with his bony face and bulging eyes and slightly too-long hair that always looks shaggy even when it’s freshly cut. He has Chelsea, a quirky little blonde girl who hangs on his every word like he’s spitting gold. Axel hates to admit it, even to himself, but it’s almost like the girls are accessories. Awful, but true. And everyone has one.
Well, except for Des. Never Des.
When Axel hooked up with Gigi it was almost like checking something off a list, like he’d found a good pair of jeans or just the right T-shirt, and now he could relax and stop looking. It’s like it’s a done deal now and he can’t be bothered to think about getting out of it. Gigi is just some girl, but she’s some girl who he makes out with and holds hands with. Some girl who lets him ...
-Well. A fun girl to be with, anyway.
Mostly, it’s awkward. And it’s not like there is a handbook with instructions to help a guy out. She gets closer and he reaches out and half-hugs her (which feels horribly weird with Maman watching and everyone else), smelling her hair, which smells sour; like grapefruit. He makes a place for her at the table, feeling Zara’s eyes on him, feeling just so awkward he wants to scream. He feels like a little kid pretending to be helping his girlfriend to the table.
What is wrong with him lately? It’s his birthday. He should be having fun. He’s a fun guy, ask anyone. Everyone would say, Oh, Axel, he’s a great guy at a party. He’s so funny. One time, at a party at Wick’s place, he invented a game of drinking croquet and made himself captain. There are still kids who call him Captain Croquet.
Well, today he’s not fun. And he’s mad at himself for not having fun, which seems like an even worse way to feel on this day. His birthday.
Determined to relax, he sneaks a sip out of his mum’s wineglass. Then another. And another. Gigi giggles nervously. Doesn’t she mind? she whispers. My parents would freak out.
Axel shrugs. No, he says. She’s French.
Gigi’s nervousness is bugging him. He’s just generally bugged. He stretches, like he can pull the irritation right out of himself. His mother pushes the wineglass over to him. At home, he’d be allowed his own glass, which honestly he’d have refilled at least twice by now. Maman never seems to notice. But in public ... well, it is illegal after all for a minor to drink wine in restaurants in this country.
Maman is France-French, as opposed to French- Canadian. “Real” French, as she says. She was born and grew up south of Paris in a smallish town where she still has a little house that they haven’t visited since the accident. They used to go when they were kids. Behind the cottage were fields of lavender and a row of trees that had the best apples he’d ever eaten. The little room that they shared always had mould on the walls but somehow that was okay, it was French mould. It was all still somehow charming. And fun. He and Zara made up their own version of French that was more like secret code. It was like a mixture of pig Latin and adding le and la in front of every word. Dad never came with them to France. Maybe that’s why Axel’s memories of it are so happy. So easygoing.
Besides, in France everyone drinks wine. The babies practically drink it. No one cares. He gulps. The wine hits his nearly empty stomach quickly. He can feel it warming and then smoothing the edges. Gigi fidgets with her napkin, tearing off little pieces so small that when she puts them into a heap, it looks like a pile of dandruff.
I’m not going to eat, Gigi lunges forward suddenly and whispers urgently into his ear. I can’t eat in front of people.
He laughs, though he’s not altogether sure she’s kidding. His hair is standing up a little from her hot breath on his skin. He can’t quite think of how to react.
Hey, Gigi, says Zara from across the table. Want some of my chicken while you’re waiting to order?
No, says Gigi. She rolls her eyes at Axel. He’s confused. What should he say?
Thanks, though, he says to Zara.
Sure, she says. I’ve go
t lots.
Axel gives Gigi a questioning look. She shrugs. I just can’t, she whispers. I can’t.
Oh, he says.
One person who is not shy about eating in front of people is Sin. It’s short for Cynthia, but no one calls her that. Axel leans back in his chair and watches her. For one thing, she’s mesmerizing. She’s so big. Huge. Her mouth is huge. Her lips are huge, like Angelina Jolie’s. Her eyes are huge, too. It’s so much hugeness in one face. She isn’t tall, but there is something about her that makes her seem like she is. And it’s not that she’s fat. She is actually a bit fat, but not what he would consider fat fat. She’s not grotesque, she just fills up all the space somehow.
It’s both her body and her personality. Huge breasts, too. The kind of breasts he wants to call boobs. Or tits.
Or something really crude that he wouldn’t ever say out loud. He has an image (that he likes) of being a nice guy: preppy, smart, kind of refined. It’s the horses that give him that aura, he figures. Rich and well-dressed, even though he isn’t actually very rich or particularly well-dressed. Like someone in a Ralph Lauren ad or a J. Crew catalogue.
But anyway, he’s not the sort of guy who calls breasts bazookas or hooters or anything like that. Of course, the rest of Sin’s inexplicable hugeness somehow makes her breasts less okay. There is something about her manner that is off-putting, like if he ever asked her out (which he wouldn’t), she’d probably somehow laugh at him. There’s something about imagining being with her that would be crushing. It makes him feel like he’s holding his breath.
Not that he’d ever consider it. All the other riders have blonde, preppy, tiny girlfriends and now so does he. Tasia was blonde, preppy, tiny. Gigi is blonde, preppy, tiny. It all fits.
