“Are you guys okay?” Missy asked.
She’d come out of the room and closed the door behind her. Owen was in her arms, blinking at us with his big blue eyes. I felt sorry that he’d been subjected to all that negative energy.
“We’re fine,” I said, pulling away from Jordan and wiping my face on my shirt.
“It’s the drugs,” Missy said, shaking her head. “He woke up like that from the anesthesia. The nurse said it should wear off soon, that some people have weird reactions to all that medication but so far it hasn’t.”
“Are you sure he didn’t hit his head?” I said.
I knew that it wasn’t like my father and there had to be some other explanation than a mixture of drugs making him crazy.
“He had a scan,” she said with a shrug. “They didn’t see anything and now he is refusing to have any more tests because of the size of the bill he is going to get.”
“What are we going to do about that?” I said, my heart starting to thump in my chest.
A big medical bill would mean that we’d need to start scrounging up money. Horses would have to be sold. My horses. Even Arion. My father had given him to me but I knew that in his eyes he still owned the horse and would have a final say in his future.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said.
I ran to the nearest bathroom and stood there shaking over the sink. My stomach churned but nothing came up, probably because I hadn’t eaten anything all day. I splashed some cold water on my face and stared at the girl who looked back at me from the mirror. She was a far cry from the one who had gone with Jordan on a date. There were dark circles under her eyes and her skin was sallow and pale. She looked as bad as I felt and yet she didn’t look like me at all. Like she was someone else staring back at me.
“Are you okay?” Missy said as she came in to check on me.
“I think I’m losing it,” I said.
“You’re just tired. We all are. You can hold it together, can’t you? Things will get better.”
She put Owen on the baby table and started changing his diaper. He giggled and reached out for the toggles on Missy’s hoodie. It must have been nice to be a baby, completely oblivious to everything that was going on around you. I envied him. He didn’t have a care in the world except when he was going to get his next bottle and figuring out how to fit his toes in his mouth. He didn’t know how bad things could get.
“How are things going to get better?” I said. “Dad is not going to be able to work when he gets home. Who is going to teach his lessons or ride the horses?”
“We have you,” Missy said with a smile.
“I know but I’m not a miracle worker. There are only so many hours in the day.”
I thought about all the school work that I hadn’t done in the last few days and my stomach churned again. The last thing I needed was to start failing my classes and get kicked out of virtual school but how was I supposed to fit it all in?
“Once your father is up and about on crutches, he’ll be able to teach,” Missy said. “I’ll be coming home tomorrow and I’ll try and pick up the slack too and I have a friend. She said she might stop by. She’s a trainer. She might be able to fill in for us.”
“Okay, good,” I said. “At least we have a plan.”
“Just go home,” Missy said. “And try not to worry.”
“I’ll try,” I said. “But I don’t think it will work.”
She reached over and gave me a quick hug.
“Thanks,” I said. “For taking care of Dad.”
She nodded and finished with Owen, pulling up his little red shorts over his diaper with a workmanlike tug. She was doing a better job than I would have been able to but I had to guess that this was a side of my father that she had never seen before either. It was like he was Jekyll and Hyde, a sweet kind man who suddenly turned into a monster at the flip of a switch. If he was going to be like that, I wished they’d just keep him in the hospital. Surely it wasn’t fair to release crazy people?
“See you tomorrow then,” I told her.
Jordan was standing outside the bathroom.
“You okay?” he said.
“Fine,” I lied.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go and get some food.”
“I’m not hungry,” I protested but Jordan wouldn’t listen.
CHAPTER TWELVE
He took me to the burger joint in town where he worked and disappeared into the kitchen to get our food. I stared at the mothers eating and the kids playing and tried to figure out what I was feeling. It was sort of like being sad and numb all rolled into one. I wanted to go back to that moment in time after I’d won my class at the show when everything was perfect and we’d all been happy. My father should have listened to me when I told him that Canterbury wasn’t ready. That I didn’t have a good feeling. Instead he ignored me and brushed off my concerns as that of an insolent child and now look what had happened but I couldn’t say I told you so because he would more than likely bite my head off.
“I brought us the good stuff,” Jordan said, coming back with a tray full of burgers and fries. “And I got lots of mayonnaise.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I said, picking up a French fry and putting it in my mouth. I chewed it, not tasting anything even though I knew there was nothing wrong with the food.
“What?” he said. “Get food?”
“Be nice to me,” I said.
“Look,” he said, stuffing his burger into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. “I don’t know what this is or what we are but if nothing else we are friends, aren’t we? And you really look like you need one of those. Now I could be wrong so if you want to tell me to clear off I will.”
“No, I don’t want you to go,” I said.
“Good.” He grinned. “Now, do you want five packets of mayonnaise or six?”
We ate our food and talked about things other than horses or my father. Instead we found out that we both had a similar taste in movies and that we liked the same TV shows. Jordan talked about his band and how maybe they were going to get back together after the summer and how he really wanted to back pack across the country with nothing but a tent and his phone.
“What would happen to Wizard if you went off to see the world?” I said.
“I wouldn’t be seeing the whole world,” he said. “Just the United States. Besides, you’d take care of him for me, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course,” I said but I wanted to add, who would take care of me?
Because if it hadn’t been for Jordan I think I would have already fallen apart. I thought the horses were the things that were holding me together but maybe he was too.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jordan dropped me back at Fox Run and took his mother’s trailer home. He left Bandit behind but I warned him that if my father went ballistic when he saw him that Jordan might have to come and rescue him. I didn’t want Bandit caught in the middle of the sell-a-thon I knew would happen when those hospital bills finally came in the mail.
The barn was quiet. The grooms had finished for the day. Henry had left a note on the desk saying that he would come back later and do the night check but there really wasn’t any need. I didn’t think I was going to get any sleep and I was certainly more than capable of walking through in the dark and making sure all the horses were okay.
He’d also left a note saying that we needed to order more hay. I thought that was his job. How was I supposed to know where to order hay from?
I went to the filing cabinet and opened one of the drawers. There were folders all in a row but they weren’t labelled. I started pulling them out and looking at them. My father was pretty organized but I couldn’t understand much of what was in them. I found something that looked like a feed order but I couldn’t read the address or the phone number. I was going to have to ask Missy about it tomorrow and hope that she knew more than I did.
I slid the drawer closed with a sigh. It had never looked like my father had
done much. I knew he joked around with the grooms and kept them in line with doughnuts and coffee and chatted with the clients, catering to their every need in order to keep them happy but it had never really looked like it was hard work, until now.
Bluebird was back in his stall. I slipped inside and gave him a treat, and then I rubbed his face. He was all soft and warm and I hugged his neck. Then I sank down into the corner.
“What are we going to do?” I whispered.
He came over and sniffed me, sticking his face in my lap. I wrapped my arms around his head and a tear rolled down my cheek.
“I don’t know why I keep crying,” I said as he sniffed my wet face.
But I did. Things had been going so well. It wasn’t fair that they were going to fall apart so soon. Jordan said that I didn’t know what was going to happen. That it was silly to expect the worst but that was the way my whole life had been. I could see disaster coming from a mile away and when it hit, it hit hard. It wasn’t a question of getting out of the way. It was just all about hunkering down and trying to protect yourself the best way you could. Only I didn’t just have myself to protect now. I had my horses too. Bluebird and Arion, Four and Hashtag and now little Bandit. They were counting on me and I wasn’t about to have them sold off at some auction to pay a bill that wasn’t even anything to do with me.
“We’re going to have to stick together,” I told Bluebird. “Just like we always do.”
He picked his head up and blew snot on my face. I guess that was what he thought of my bright idea.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The next day a woman in bright purple breeches came striding down the aisle.
“I’m looking for Missy,” she said.
“Missy is not here,” I said. “Did you have a lesson?”
I thought maybe she was a lesson that I’d forgotten to cancel but she just looked down her pointed nose at me and laughed.
“Hardly darling, I don’t take lessons anymore, I teach them.”
I wanted to tell her that even the best riders in the world still took lessons from time to time to stop bad habits from creeping in and she hardly looked like she was anywhere near the best but I bit my tongue because I suspected that she was the help that Missy had been talking about and we kind of needed her right now.
“You’re Missy’s friend,” I said. “The one who is going to do some teaching while my father is laid up?”
“Maybe longer than that too if you know what I mean,” she said, winking at me.
“Dad will be back on his feet in no time,” I said, feeling defensive all of a sudden.
“I’m sure he will,” she said, patting me on the head like I was five. “But until then I’ll be filling his shoes.”
“No one fills my father’s shoes,” I grumbled but I took her into the office anyway.
She filled in paperwork and signed forms but she didn’t seem very happy about it.
“I’m just here to do Missy a favor,” she said with a sigh. “My old barn didn’t make me do all this.”
“It’s the rules,” I said. “No release form. No riding. And you have to wear a helmet.”
“What?” she cried. “I haven’t worn a helmet since I was twelve.”
“You have to set a good example for the students,” I said again. “You won’t be helping any of us if you crack your skull open, will you?”
“Missy said you were a firecracker,” she said.
I looked at the forms that she slid back over to me.
“Thank you Sandra,” I said, looking at the name she’d scrawled across the top.
“Sandy,” she said. “Everyone calls me Sandy.”
“I’m Emily,” I said.
“And what do people call you for short?” she asked.
“Emily,” I said, giving her what I hoped was my best steely glare.
My father called me Em but I wasn’t about to tell her that. I don’t know what it was but there was something about Sandy that I didn’t like. She had a fake smile and sugar coated words and help seemed like the last thing on her mind. In fact I got the feeling that she had shown up to try and rip us off and lately my feelings had been pretty spot on.
“I’ll show you the lesson horses,” I said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sandy seemed interested in every other horse except for the ones I was trying to show her, the lesson horses. She was especially fixated on Bluebird.
“That is the pony that won the first Talent Scout class,” she said, pressing her face against the bars.
“Yes,” I said. “He’s mine.”
“Well you have yourself a very cool pony young lady,” she said.
I didn’t know why she had to be so patronizing. I sucked at telling people’s ages but she couldn’t have been more than thirty and I was hardly a ten year old. I’d be fifteen in three months and hadn’t been called a young lady since I was five.
Bluebird stood in the back of his stall looking wary. He usually came to the bars to beg everyone who showed him even the slightest bit of attention for treats. Even he thought there was something wrong with Sandy or whoever she was.
“I can’t wait to get to know him better,” she said.
“Well you won’t,” I replied. “He doesn’t teach lessons and the only one who rides him is me.”
“Really?” she said. “Well that is a shame.”
“Don’t you have your own horse?” I asked her.
“Of course I do,” she said.
“Cool, what kind?” I asked, trying to sound interested when really all I wanted to do was figure out what this Sandy person was up to.
“Oh you know, the big jumping kind,” she said.
“I know but what breed?” I pressed her for the information.
“A Trakehner if you must know,” she said with a sigh. “She’s taking a year off to be bred. She’s in foal to the number two show jumping stallion in Europe. Now, why don’t you show me the tack room?”
I didn’t believe for one second that she owned a horse at all let alone a Trakehner in foal to a champion show jumper.
“I love foals,” I said. “When is she due?”
“December.” Sandy glared at me. “What’s with the fifty questions?”
“It was three questions,” I mumbled under my breath but I showed her the tack we used for the lesson horses, the saddles lined up on the wall in varying sizes and the hooks where the lesson horses all had their own bridles and boots or wraps depending on their individual needs.
“Dad likes the students to tack up themselves but you still have to keep an eye on them,” I said. “Especially the younger ones, otherwise you might find back to front splint boots on a pony or something.”
“Isn’t that what the grooms are for?” Sandy said with a sigh.
She wasn’t looking at the tack. Instead she seemed more interested in her fingernails, which were painted electric blue.
“Well that’s thirty bucks down the drain,” she said. “I thought gel manicures weren’t supposed to chip?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said, staring at my own peeling nails.
I was lucky if I remembered to trim them, usually resorting to biting a piece off when I was nervous. Mickey was the one who liked to paint her nails the color of the rainbow, not me. I had more important things to do like working my horses.
I set Sandy up in the office with a client list and phone numbers. It was up to her to convince people to take a lesson with her while they were waiting for my father to get better. Missy had texted me to say that it was still looking like my father might be released later that day. I told her that Sandy was here, just to confirm that she was in fact Missy’s friend and not some psycho who had just wandered in off the street. Missy seemed happy that her friend had arrived, though I couldn’t exactly see why they were friends in the first place. Missy was hardworking and compassionate. Sandy seemed like she was neither.
I didn’t know what to do with Bandit. He needed turnout but it seemed sil
ly to put a tiny horse in a giant field that we needed for the horses and he was far too fat. I was worried about his weight. I’d only given him the smallest handful of grain and he only got that because he started screaming when the other horses were being fed and he wasn’t. In the end I put his tiny halter on and took him out to the back paddock where Bluebird had first lived when he came to Fox Run. It was shaded and grazed down to almost nothing and it had wire fencing instead of the four boards that the fields had so there was less chance of him escaping.
He pranced next to me like a poodle on steroids, tossing his neck and flicking his tail. He really thought he was a big horse. It was hilarious.
“I hope you are going to behave if I put you in here,” I told him.
I crouched down to take off his halter. One minute he was in the paddock and the next he was darting past my legs and out the gate as quick as a flash. I stood there watching him high tail it across the grass to the field where the big horses were. He whinnied shrilly and they picked up their heads to see what all the noise was about, then came galloping down the hill. I walked over shaking my head. Bandit was going to be more trouble than he was worth, I could already tell.
“Easy little tiger,” I told him as I walked up with his halter.
He trotted away from me, his head high. The horses snorted at him and followed along the fence and the next minute he had found a spot where the ground was low and the bottom board was higher and he snuck under it and was in with the horses. All I could imagine was them stomping on him and crushing his tiny legs.
“Bandit!” I cried.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He was in-between their legs, looking up at the horse’s fat bellies.
“Come on Bandit,” I called. “Come here and I’ll give you a carrot.”
But he was having none of it. He found his way out from under them and took off at a gallop, his short legs going at light speed. The horses ran after him, their tails flagged. There was a fat tubby miniature horse galloping up the hill followed hot on the heels by three horses. When Bandit got to the top of the hill he spun and galloped back down. The horses watched him breeze past them and then they did the same. Spinning on their heels and galloping back down in a cloud of dust. When they got to the bottom Bandit dropped and rolled, scrubbing his body into the dirt, his short legs sticking up straight in the air as he grunted. The horses looked at him and then did the same, their knees buckling beneath them.
Double Standards (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 20) Page 3
