Lizzie Flying Solo

by Nanci Turner Steveson

  She stood on tiptoe to see and smiled. “Good for Kennedy. I like her.”

  “Me too.”

  She got busy changing into her pajamas. Still nothing about the card.

  “Mom?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Did you read Dad’s card?”

  “No. I found it under my bed this morning and left it for you.”

  “It must have fallen under there. I forgot about it. I thought maybe he’d send money.”

  “No money?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t expect it, really. Do you know when his trial is going to happen?”

  “No, I don’t, but it doesn’t have an impact on us anyway.”

  “I just want everything to be over.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you think he misses us?”

  “I would hope so, but he made his choice, Lizzie.”

  “I know.”

  She reached her hand over the top of my bunk and squeezed my arm. “We’re okay. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah, I do. We’re making a new kind of normal.”

  She smiled. “Yes, a new kind of normal. I like that.”

  On Sunday evening, Mom rubbed menthol lotion into my sore shoulders.

  “Ouch! What was I thinking?” I groaned.

  “Maybe that you wanted to step up and help Angela?”

  A tiny ping of guilt rose in me. Mom still didn’t know I was getting paid for helping.

  “Between the horse show yesterday and the girls all day today, I feel like I was run over by a truck. I don’t even know if I can climb up to my bed.”

  “Oh, the drama.”

  “Easy for you to say: you’ve been crocheting all weekend.”

  “I did Saturday chores for both of us, remember, so you could go to the show. Nothing wrong with hard work. Hard work makes things happen for you.”

  “Yeah, well, this hard work is making me go right to bed. Good night.”

  Later, when Mom flipped on her reading light, I unfolded the money Angela paid me and counted. Twenty-three ones, four five-dollar bills, and one ten. Fifty-three dollars for the day with the girls. Fifty-three dollars closer to buying Fire. I added the money to the columns in my notebook and crossed off another day on the calendar I’d taped inside the cover. Eighteen days left to earn the rest of the money. I was going to make it. I just had to have a little faith in myself.

  Twenty-Six

  Bryce was grounded from everything except the barn, and he wasn’t allowed lessons with Kennedy for a month.

  “I don’t know how much more I can take. He’s such a jerk.”

  We were in the tack room after my working student duties were done on Wednesday, cleaning tack for more riders who had read my sign. The room smelled like glycerin soap and pony sweat.

  “You don’t think your mom can talk to him?”

  He shot me a steely look and dipped his sponge into a bucket of clean water. “I’m almost done with this saddle. How many more?”

  “Two. Bridles are done and the saddle pads and polos are in the dryer.”

  “This was a smart idea. You saving for Fire?”

  I’d never said anything to anyone, ever, about saving money for Fire. But that’s how Bryce and I were. We knew each other.

  “Yeah. I’m almost there.”

  “Cool. How much more do you need?”

  “After I get paid for these, less than one hundred dollars. Joe told Mike he could get a thousand for Fire before he was a seasoned show pony. I’ll be so close to a thousand.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive, Lizzie.”

  “Yeah.” I let his compliment sink in. “It is, isn’t it?”

  At lunch a couple of days later, I unwrapped the tuna sandwich Bryce brought for me, peeled off the crust, and tucked it into my pocket for the bird feeder.

  “Does your dad ever ask why you bring all this extra food and still buy school lunch, too?” I asked. “Maybe he thinks you’re trying to beef up. That ought to make him happy, right?”

  Bryce had been melancholy all day, walking around with his head down and barely talking. He dragged a cold french fry through a mound of ketchup, then swirled it in circles and figure eights and serpentines until that poor slice of potato was a soggy red mess.

  “I think I’m going home,” he said.

  I picked celery out of the tuna salad. “You sick?”

  “No, I mean home-home. To Wyoming.”

  “What?”

  He pushed the plate of fries away. “I can’t do it. I can’t stay with him.”

  “No, Bryce, you can’t leave—” I stopped just shy of saying “me,” but he knew. “You can’t leave Tucker!”

  “I’m not leaving Tucker. My mom is going to borrow the money to get him home.”

  “But why now? Is it because of the dressage?”

  He shifted his head and pushed away the long bangs he often wore down over one side of his face, just enough for the fluorescent cafeteria lights to shine on a faint purple mark around his left eye.

  “Where’d that come from?”

  “Where do you think?”

  “Bryce, no.”

  “Lizzie, yes.”

  He smashed his empty milk carton under his fist and tossed it like a basketball into the trash can in the corner.

  “Not your dad,” I said. “He couldn’t—”

  The first bell rang, and kids at the other tables got up and started shuffling toward the hallway. Neither Bryce nor I moved.

  “Oh, yeah, he could. He did, and he will again if I stay.”

  “Have you told anyone? Like a teacher?”

  He shook his head. “I told my mom, finally. I’d been hiding it from her, but every time I talked to her I felt guilty for letting her think I was okay. That’s the way he makes me feel, like it’s my fault.”

  The tardy bell rang. Bryce stayed in his chair, staring at the table with his head tilted again so his hair covered the bruise.

  “We’re late for class,” I said gently. “You think you can go?”

  He touched the bruise with his fingertips.

  “Do you want me to get you a wet washcloth?”

  He shook his head. “It’s just going to take a few more days. It always does.”

  “He’s done this before?”

  “One too many times now.” He looked up, his eyes half dead, half hopeful. “Want to go to the barn?”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah, now.”

  “You mean like skipping school?”

  He pushed his chair back and shot up. “It’s okay. Forget I said anything.”

  “No, wait,” I said. “Come on, let’s go.”

  He shouldered the backpack and let his bangs fall over the left side of his face again.

  “Follow right behind me,” he said. “Don’t look at anyone. Eyes on the ground. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Bryce knew a back way to get from our school to Birchwood. We walked up a long hill and through a field leading to the woods where my stone wall was almost hidden by snow.

  “Wait here,” Bryce said. He darted across the ring and peered into the barn, then waved for me to come. “All clear!”

  I ran in behind him and followed him up the ladder to the hayloft. In the very back, behind stacks of hay and racks of saddles and assorted tack that needed to be repaired, Bryce had carved out a little cubby for himself. He unfolded an old horse blanket and laid it on the floor.

  “Gotta have some kind of cushion, otherwise the hay pricks through your jeans.”

  “Do you come here a lot?”

  “Eh,” he said, shrugging.

  We both sat on the blanket. Spanish music drifted up from the radio below.

  “Can I use your cell to text my mom?” I asked.

  “What are you going to tell her?”

  “That I’m at the barn. If the school calls and says I’m missing, she’ll freak out.”
/>   “Will she tell my dad?”

  “Not a chance.” I made an X over my heart. “Promise.”

  I tapped the buttons for her number.

  ME: It’s me, Lizzie. This is Bryce’s phone. I’m at barn, explain later. I’m fine. Please do NOT tell Mr. McDaid.

  A few minutes went by before she answered.

  MOM: Is everything okay?

  ME: I’m fine, don’t tell Joe or anyone we’re here.

  MOM: What’s going on? You’re worrying me!

  Bryce read the text. “Tell her there’s a sick pony you were worried about.”

  ME: There’s a sick pony. I’ll explain later promise <3

  MOM: Should I come?

  ME: No! I’m fine.

  MOM: K

  ME: Can you call Miss May and tell her I’m going straight to Birchwood after school?

  MOM: You’re asking me to lie?

  ME: Not a lie. I went to school, now I’m at Birchwood.

  MOM: Too smart for your own britches but okay. <3

  I clicked the phone off and leaned back against stacked bales of hay.

  “Nice that your mom is like that,” Bryce said.

  “Yeah. I lucked out.”

  “What about your dad? What’s he like?”

  I picked at a piece of hay, then held it to my nose and inhaled the sweet aroma that never failed to make something warm and happy bloom in me.

  “I used to think he was perfect. I guess in a way I thought he was the biggest piece of us, our family, like if he wasn’t here, we wouldn’t be us. But I was wrong.”

  “You wanna talk about it?”

  Yes.

  No.

  Never.

  Desperately.

  Speak!

  “He traded us in for a lady who could pay his bond so he didn’t have to stay in jail until his trial. Mom couldn’t pay to get him out because they froze all our money because he embezzled from his company.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah. He got out before we moved here, and I didn’t even know it. He’s been out this whole time, living with some lady with money, and he’s never even told me he’s sorry. He’s never even admitted what he did was wrong and hurt us, even after we had to move—”

  I shut the words off. Bryce didn’t ask what I meant. Maybe he already knew Mom and I lived in a homeless shelter. But after saying everything about Dad out loud for the first time, suddenly the part about living at Good Hope didn’t seem to matter as much. It wasn’t what I’d been hiding all along.

  “Parents trick you,” Bryce said. “I thought my dad changed after he and Mom got divorced. I thought it hurt him enough that he would be nicer, but that only lasted long enough to get me and Tucker here. He’s never going to change. Since I’ve been here, he’s only gotten worse.”

  “What did your mom say when you told her?”

  “She cried. I didn’t tell her for a long time, but I can’t live here with him.”

  I wanted desperately to say something brilliant that would comfort him, something that would make him feel the tiniest bit better, but I had nothing. There just wasn’t the right combination of words to take away what had happened. Instead, I slipped my hand into his and we sat in silence, listening to the Spanish ballads playing below.

  Twenty-Seven

  Neither of us heard Joe climb the ladder until he had come around to the back and found us. I jerked my hand away from Bryce’s.

  “Hey, guys, what’s going on here?”

  “We’re skipping school,” Bryce said.

  “I gathered that, but why? What’s up?”

  “My mom knows,” I said. “I can show you the text. I told her there was a sick pony.”

  “Why did you pick that to tell her?”

  “Because telling her the truth would take too long in a text,” Bryce said.

  Joe pulled a string hanging from a single bulb above his head. The yellow light barely had any effect on the dark.

  “So what is the truth?”

  He looked from me to Bryce and back again. Neither of us said anything.

  “If you aren’t going to tell me, I’ll have to call your parents to take you back to school.” He reached into his pocket for his phone and let his finger hover over the screen.

  Bryce got up and pushed his hair away. “This is why.”

  Joe’s eyes popped when he saw the bruise. He winced and touched his own cheek, then reached out to Bryce with his hand cupped. Bryce’s forearm shot up to block him and he ducked. An awful sound came from his gut—part whimper, part grunt—and my heart shattered.

  “I wasn’t—” Joe said. “I’m sorry.”

  Bryce straightened slowly. “I know.”

  “Who did that to you?”

  Bryce looked away, his expression stony.

  “Who did it?” Joe asked again.

  “You know who,” Bryce said.

  Joe’s hands clenched and unclenched. “You never told me.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  Bryce kept his eyes cast down. The music changed to Spanish news, and dust drifted slowly from above.

  “It isn’t your fault,” Joe said. “It isn’t your shame to own.”

  Bryce pushed hay around with the tip of his boot, his hands in his pockets and his yellow hair falling over his face again.

  “You’re not going to call him, are you?”

  “As an adult, I’m supposed to report him. You need to get somewhere safe.”

  Bryce flung his head up. “Don’t. Please. I’m leaving. I’m going back to Wyoming. My mom is coming to get me and Tuck, and if my dad finds out before she gets here, he’ll find a way to stop her. You can call her. She’s making the arrangements now. But please, don’t tell my dad you know.”

  The lightbulb crackled, then sputtered, then went out. No one moved. Bryce watched Joe’s face, his eyes pleading. Finally, after Joe had clenched and unclenched his fists a dozen more times, he nodded.

  “I’ll call your mom.”

  We followed him down from the loft and waited outside the office while Joe talked to Bryce’s mom. We could hear his voice but not the exact words until the end when he said, “I’ll make sure he’s safe until you get here.” When he finally came out of the office, his eyes were red.

  “Okay,” he said. “But you have to promise if he does it again before you can get out of here, you’ll call me. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  We spent the rest of the afternoon helping Robert and Luis get the barn swept and putting feed in the horses’ buckets before they were brought inside from the fields. We were almost done when Joe called us into his office.

  “There are a couple of journalism students here from the high school. They’re doing an article on community spirit and want to take pictures of some kids and horses. I figure you don’t wanna do it, huh?”

  Bryce shrugged. “Nah.”

  “Could I have mine taken with Fire?”

  “Of course. You’ll have to catch him, but bring him up and they’ll get some shots.”

  The way Fire trotted to the gate when he saw me was exactly what I needed to get my mind cleared. I unwrapped a peppermint for him, then slipped the halter over his head and led him up the lane toward the barn. The two journalism students watched from the top of the hill.

  “Love your pony,” said the girl with the camera.

  For those few minutes it took to lead Fire into the barn, take off his blanket, and comb out his mane and forelock for the picture, he wasn’t just the pony of my heart. He was really mine.

  Later, Mr. McDaid picked up Bryce and me at the regular time to go to the polo matches. We sat in the back seat silently while Mr. McDaid yakked on and on about a sailboat he wanted to buy for him and Bryce to use in the summer. Bryce stared straight ahead, poker-faced, and never said one word.

  After the polo match, when Mom and I were both home, I told her what had really happened.

  “I’m sorry I lied in the t
ext,” I said.

  She tucked a piece of loose hair behind my ear. “You know how I feel about lying, but under these circumstances, I think you handled this very well.”

  “How?”

  “You made sure I knew in case the school called, which they did. And you protected your friend by giving him privacy.”

  “What did you tell the school?”

  “That it was an excused absence and I was sorry I didn’t tell them in advance.”

  “You’re learning how to tell white lies a lot better, Mom.”

  “I have an excellent teacher.”

  We were sitting side by side on the bed. In the soft light, Mom’s skin had that peach-colored glow that always made her blue eyes look bigger. She was so pretty, it was hard to imagine Dad picking someone else. I leaned my head on her shoulder.

  “Even after everything he did to us, at least Dad never hit us.”

  Mom stiffened, then kissed the top of my head. “The important things look a little different through someone else’s eyes, don’t they?”

  “I guess.”

  “I had a call from my lawyer today. Dad’s lawyer contacted them and asked if Dad could see you,” she said softly.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told them it was up to you, and I would speak to you and let them know.”

  The heater cranked on and a puff of warm air made the yellow curtains in the window sway. My birthday gift, a reminder of something I loved from home. Seeing Dad was my choice now. Like that buck in the woods on Christmas day, I finally had power.

  “Can I think about it before deciding?”

  “You can think about it as long as you want. It’s completely up to you.”

  Twenty-Eight

  The following Monday, I was watching lazy snowflakes drift from the sky outside the window when Ms. Fitzgerald tapped her knuckles on my desk. I had no idea what she’d been talking about because for three days I hadn’t stopped thinking about Bryce.

  “It is extraordinary,” she said, “that one of our seventh graders wrote a poem good enough to not only qualify for the high school competition but to earn Honorable Mention. It is truly a gift.”

  Ms. Fitzgerald beamed at me. Every kid, in every chair, turned to stare. Jenna’s mouth dropped open.