Course of Action

by Bonnie Bryant

  As she was trying to figure out what new horrors her parents would come up with to punish her twin if he forgot he was grounded, she heard a sudden commotion from several cars down. Turning idly to see what was going on, she gulped as she saw Scott and Veronica facing off beside Scott’s green sports car. Veronica’s eyes were blazing, and she was yelling something about two-faced weasels—Stevie couldn’t quite make out the rest of the insult.

  “Uh-oh,” Stevie whispered. She eased around the back of her own car, trying to get close enough to hear them without being noticed. She needn’t have worried. Veronica and Scott were so caught up in their conversation that they never even glanced her way.

  “… and so after all we’ve been through together, you have the nerve to tell me you just want to be friends?” Veronica shrieked furiously. She slammed her designer handbag down on the hood of Scott’s car so hard that it snapped open and a couple of lipsticks and a gold-trimmed compact flew out. “I can’t believe this!”

  Scott dropped to his knees and frantically started collecting the spilled items. “Please, Ronnie,” he said. “I’m sorry. Don’t take this the wrong way. I think you’re great. It’s just—”

  “It’s just that you were using me, and now that you’ve got everything you want, you’re finished.” Veronica folded her arms over her chest and stared at him icily, ignoring the retrieved makeup in his outstretched hands. “Well, maybe you could get away with that sort of thing back in your old school, but you’re not going to get away with it with me.”

  “Listen, Ronnie,” Scott said, laying the makeup on the hood of his car and touching her arm. “I’m really sorry about the timing here. If you’re upset about the dance—I mean, if you were counting on me, I guess we could still—”

  Stevie cringed on Scott’s behalf as Veronica’s eyes opened wide in disbelief. Talk about saying the wrong thing, she thought ruefully.

  “Don’t do me any favors,” Veronica snapped contemptuously, cutting Scott off in midsentence. “I don’t need your stupid charity date. I don’t need you at all.” She whirled and started to storm away. But then she paused and looked back at him, her angry expression fading slightly and a crafty gleam coming into her eyes. “Of course, that doesn’t necessarily go both ways,” she said enigmatically before turning and stomping away.

  “Ronnie, wait,” Scott called after her anxiously. “I’m sorry. Can’t we talk about this?” He hurried after her.

  “Hey, sis. What’s going on?”

  Stevie turned and saw that her brother had just wandered up and was gazing after Scott curiously. “You missed it,” she said. “Scott just—well, I guess you could say he broke up with Veronica.”

  Alex whistled. “Wow.”

  “No kidding. Needless to say, she didn’t take it well.” Stevie rubbed her ear, feeling worried. “I’m afraid she’s going to take some horrible revenge on Scott. You know, like paying every student at Fenton Hall a hundred dollars to vote for someone else on Tuesday, or—”

  “Don’t worry,” Alex interrupted. He walked around to the passenger’s side of their car and opened the door. “Scott’s a big boy. He can handle it.”

  Stevie shot him a surprised look through the driver’s side window. Opening the door, she slid inside and fished for the seat belt, which was forever getting stuck beneath the seat. “Gee, do you think you could be a little less sympathetic? This is a major crisis here.”

  “Sorry.” Alex sighed and ran a hand over his face, looking tired. “I know you’re really into this election thing, but to be honest, I’ve got other stuff on my mind.”

  Stevie fished the car keys out of her pocket. “Like what? I’m grounded too, remember.”

  “It’s not that.” Alex shot her a sidelong glance. “It’s just, you know …”

  “Oh.” Suddenly Stevie realized that he must be thinking about Lisa. She knew it had been really hard on him to discover that Lisa had been hiding the truth from him about her talk with Skye. “Look,” she said matter-of-factly as she gunned the ignition. “You’ve got to get over this. I know she wasn’t totally honest with you, but it’s not like you were much help. Everyone knows how much you hated her going to California in the first place, and how jealous you’ve always been of her friendship with Skye.”

  “I know, I know.” Alex sighed and propped one foot on the dashboard as Stevie pulled out of the parking lot. “I just can’t help it, you know? I mean, I really, really want to make things work with us. But it’s like whenever I’m with her now, I can’t stop thinking about”—he grimaced slightly—“you know, him. I can’t help imagining how much time they spent together this summer and how he was probably hoping to win her over the whole time. And now she’s going back there for Thanksgiving.…” His voice trailed off, and he lifted his hands helplessly for a moment before letting them fall limply back onto the seat.

  Stevie sighed impatiently, wishing that everyone she knew could just step back and get some perspective, see what they were doing wrong. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” she told her brother. “You’ve just got to get over it. The important thing is that you two want to be together. Right?”

  “I guess,” Alex agreed reluctantly. “But how does that help me, really? I still hate the fact that she keeps going off to California without me. I know it upsets her that I feel that way, but it’s the way I honestly feel, you know? How can she expect me to change that?”

  Stevie didn’t know how to answer him. And just at the moment she didn’t want to spend time trying to figure it out.

  I’m sure he and Lisa will work things out somehow, she thought, glancing over at her twin, who was slumped against the car door staring moodily out the window. She returned her own gaze to the road, clutching the wheel tightly as her thoughts strayed back to the problem occupying her own mind. Scott and Veronica, on the other hand …

  SIX

  Later that evening Stevie walked into the kitchen and found her mother sitting at the table reading the newspaper. “The bathroom is so clean you could perform surgery on the floor and sterilize your scalpels in the toilet,” Stevie announced wearily, pushing a sweaty strand of hair out of her eyes before she remembered she was still wearing rubber gloves. Peeling them off, she tossed them in the general direction of the kitchen sink. “Is it okay if I call Phil now?”

  Mrs. Lake gave her an appraising glance. “I suppose so,” she agreed. “But don’t talk longer than ten minutes. You’re grounded, remember?”

  “How could I forget?” Stevie muttered under her breath as she left the kitchen and headed for the stairs. When her mother cocked a warning eyebrow in her direction, Stevie forced a weak smile. “I mean, thanks, Mom. Ten minutes. Got it.”

  Soon she was sitting on the edge of her bed with the phone in her hand. She quickly dialed Phil’s number, suddenly realizing how eager she was to hear his voice. He went to a different school in a town a few miles from Willow Creek, which meant that because of her grounding, she hadn’t seen him since the party.

  “Hello?” he answered a moment later.

  “Hi, it’s me,” she said, settling back against her pillow. “What’s up?”

  “Hey, Stevie.” He sounded so happy to hear from her that she felt better immediately. “How’s life on the chain gang?”

  “Disgusting,” she said. “I’m now more intimately acquainted with all the toilets in this house than I ever thought was possible.”

  His familiar laughter bubbled through the phone. “Tough break,” he said. “But think of it this way. At least after this you’ll have a marketable job skill. The world will always need its toilets cleaned.”

  Stevie grimaced. Phil had been grounded because of the party, too—thanks to Stevie’s encouragement, he’d had several beers and ended up being driven home by the police. But his parents had set his punishment at a measly two weeks. “Very funny,” she said. “You’d better watch it, or once you’re sprung I’ll expect you to come over and help me.”

  �
��Sounds good to me,” Phil replied quickly. “I’m willing to clean as many toilets as it takes, as long as it means we can be together. I miss you, you know.”

  Stevie smiled, pleased at the compliment. But she couldn’t concentrate on Phil’s romantic words for long. She only had ten minutes to talk, and she really wanted to get a few things off her chest before she exploded. “Me too,” she said quickly. “But listen, I can’t talk long. And you’ll never guess what happened at school today.”

  “What?”

  “Get this.” Stevie snuggled down deeper into her pillow and switched the phone to her other ear. “Scott broke up with Veronica.”

  “Were they actually going out?”

  “That was the problem.” Stevie smiled grimly. “She thought they were. He thought they weren’t.”

  “Uh-oh,” Phil said. “So listen, do you think your parents would count shopping as a date? Because I need some new shoes, and I was hoping—”

  “Forget it.” Stevie cut him off. “I’m chained to the house for the next decade at least. But anyway, like I was saying, Scott suddenly decided to turn into Mr. Straight Up and tell Veronica they weren’t going to happen. So now she’s mad, and you know what Veronica’s like when she’s mad.”

  “Psychotic,” Phil said helpfully. “Vengeful. Uh, malevolent?”

  Stevie grinned. She recognized the last two words from the PSAT vocabulary list she and Phil had studied earlier that fall. “Right,” she agreed. “So now I’m afraid she might try to mess up the election somehow. Maybe try to make Scott look bad at the dance or something like that.”

  “Of course,” Phil said.

  “That’s why it really sucks that I’m not going.” Stevie bit her lip and stared at her bedroom ceiling. “I wish I could be there to keep an eye on Scott.”

  Phil cleared his throat. “I’m sure Scott can deal,” he said. “He strikes me as the kind of guy who can take care of himself.”

  “Maybe,” Stevie agreed. “But then again, Veronica is Veronica. And Scott can be kind of easily distracted sometimes. It would be better if I could be there, you know, to keep him on track.” She tapped her fingers restlessly on the phone. “That’s why I need to find someone who’s going tomorrow night. Someone I can count on to watch out for him.”

  “Hey, you know I’d help you out if we were still going,” Phil said. “Especially if part of our spy cover was that we had to make out so nobody would think we were watching them.”

  “Yeah, big help,” Stevie muttered. “Anyway, that’s the problem. Hardly anyone I would trust with this job is going. Alex is grounded too, of course, so he’s out. And Lisa won’t even think of going to the dance without him.” She sighed. “I tried to talk Carole into it when I saw her at Pine Hollow this afternoon, but I can already tell that’s a lost cause. She wants to spend every possible second preparing for the horse show. I doubt she even remembered there was a dance until I reminded her.”

  “That’s Carole for you,” Phil said lightly. “One-track mind.”

  “Tell me about it.” Stevie frowned at the ceiling. “I was thinking about getting Callie involved. After all, this is sort of her fault—apparently she was the one who gave Scott the idea to ditch Veronica. But she’s got that date with George. I don’t want to get in the way of that, you know?”

  “Right. God forbid you should stand in the way of romance.”

  Stevie noticed that Phil sounded a bit odd. But she dismissed the thought, figuring she was probably imagining it. Worrying about what Veronica would do next could make anyone a little paranoid. “So what do you think I should do?”

  “I think you should take your mind off it by whispering sweet nothings in my ear,” Phil said. “It won’t be the same over the phone as in person, but—”

  “Come on,” Stevie said, starting to feel a little annoyed with him. He didn’t even seem to care about her problem. “This is serious.”

  “So am I,” Phil insisted. “Seriously wishing you weren’t grounded so we could meet at the park. You know, settle down in our favorite spot under that tree …”

  Stevie sighed. Obviously Phil wasn’t going to be any help—all he could seem to focus on was making out and complaining about her being grounded. “Uh-huh. Listen, I think I hear Mom calling me,” she lied. “Guess that means my time’s up. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay. Love ya.”

  “Back at you,” she said automatically. Then she hung up, rolled onto her back on the bed again, and rubbed her face dejectedly. Why didn’t anyone seem to care that her whole campaign could be going up in smoke?

  “Hold still, boy,” Carole murmured, moving with Starlight as he shifted from side to side, tossing his head. With her lower lip clamped in her teeth, she made a grab for the girth, which was swinging crazily beneath the horse’s belly because of his antics. Finally she caught it and began to fasten it. “There we go,” she told the tall bay gelding as soothingly as she could. “Just a minute and we’ll be ready to go, okay?”

  The horse turned his head to look at her, stamping one hind foot impatiently. Carole gave him an apologetic pat, then returned to her task, pulling the girth tight after smoothing the glossy mahogany hair lying beneath it.

  As she reached for the bridle, she made a move to check the time. Her wrist was bare, and she remembered she’d removed her watch a little while earlier when she was giving Samson a bath. She smiled automatically at the thought of that day’s workout with the big black horse, which had gone very well, as usual.

  But then her smile faded, and she sighed. What’s wrong with me? she wondered as she buckled the throatlatch on Starlight’s bridle. He shook his head again, almost bonking her on the head with his nose, and she shoved him away a little more roughly than necessary. She blinked, feeling guilty and annoyed and out of sorts. What’s my problem today? Her weird mood had been building all afternoon, ever since she’d arrived at Pine Hollow. There wasn’t any good reason for it as far as she could tell—her chores had gone smoothly, there hadn’t been any big lesson groups that day to cause a hassle, Samson was in great shape, the other horses were all healthy.…

  “All I can say is, I’d better not be coming down with something,” she told Starlight as she finished buckling his bridle. “I don’t have time to get sick right now.”

  She shuddered at the very thought, imagining lying home in bed while Stevie and Ben and the others went off to Colesford without her. But she didn’t really think she was getting sick—aside from being a bit tired from her busy schedule, she felt just fine. Physically, at least.

  I’m probably just feeling grumpy because I’m hungry, she told herself, leading Starlight out of his stall. It was getting late, so she headed toward the well-lighted indoor ring, planning to exercise him over the small jump course Max had set up for a private lesson earlier that day. I guess an apple and a piece of cheese doesn’t really make much of a dinner. Her father was attending a charity event in Washington, D.C., that evening, so Carole hadn’t bothered to go home to eat.

  Of course, this wasn’t the first time she’d skipped a meal when she was busy at the stable. And it had never made her feel this way before—unsettled and almost depressed, as if she might start weeping if she didn’t watch herself.

  She took a few deep breaths as she and Starlight turned the corner at the end of the aisle, hoping that would calm her down. But she couldn’t seem to banish the weird, dejected feelings that continued their melancholy dance somewhere deep inside her.

  It’s probably because of what happened in history class today, she thought. I’m still feeling guilty about that test. I guess maybe I always will.

  But that explanation didn’t quite satisfy her, either. It was true that she’d been plagued by thoughts of her cheating ever since it had happened. Those thoughts had even intruded on her work at the stable from time to time. But never like this. Never giving her the creeping, ominous feeling that her world might be ending.

  The heavy wooden doors o
f the indoor ring were propped open, so she led Starlight inside without delay, heading for the mounting block to one side of the entrance. She wondered if everything that had happened at the party the weekend before was finally catching up with her. It had been an emotional evening—she’d accidentally betrayed one of her best friends, watched the resulting breakup of a couple she had never ever seen fight before, witnessed several of her close friends getting drunk and acting totally different than usual, made a complete fool of herself in front of Ben.…

  She still shuddered at the thought of everything that had happened that night. But once again, none of it seemed adequate to explain her current mood. Realizing that she’d walked right past the mounting block, still leading Starlight, she turned and retraced her steps, feeling foolish.

  As they reached the block again, she glanced at her horse. He stared back at her placidly, waiting for her to go through the familiar motions of climbing into his saddle the way she’d done hundreds, maybe thousands, of times before.

  “Ready, boy?” Carole asked the horse, running her hand down his neck. She gulped as a sudden wave of sadness washed over her. Shaking her head to clear it, she gazed at Starlight as another explanation for her weird mood dawned on her.

  Maybe that’s what’s bothering me, she thought. Maybe it’s what Stevie said. Maybe I really have moved on without realizing it—outgrown Starlight when I wasn’t even paying attention. Maybe I’m just starting to see that he doesn’t fulfill me anymore, at least not the way a horse like Samson could.…

  She shook her head again, more fiercely this time. “Don’t be stupid,” she muttered to herself angrily. She wondered if she was even more tired than she’d thought—why else would she be thinking such crazy, melodramatic thoughts? Stepping onto the mounting block, she stuck her left foot into the stirrup and swung herself aboard. The motion felt familiar and automatic, though somehow less comforting than usual.