Out of Order

by Robin Stevenson

IN THE CAR, Max is quiet. She drives the way she does every­thing else, giving it her full attention. I keep pushing thoughts of Zelia out of my head, especially thoughts of her and Josh together in that dark room. I don’t know what I feel. There’s a weight in my belly that could be anger, but I think it’s mostly fear. I’m scared of losing her. I wish things could go back to the way they were in September: the excitement of a new friend­ship, the secret thrill of starting over, re-creating myself.

  I sneak a glance at Max from the passenger seat. She has a strong face with definite features: dark eyebrows, clear skin, straight nose, square chin with a small dent in its center. So different from Zelia. Max isn’t exactly pretty, but I like her face. It suits who she is.

  “What?” Max says suddenly.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re staring at me.”

  I feel my cheeks and ears get warm. I wish I didn’t blush so easily.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “S’okay. I just wondered what you were thinking about.”

  “Nothing,” I say.

  Max always seems so confident. Of course, I’ve always thought that about Zelia too. Maybe I’m the only one who can’t just be myself. Whoever that is.

  “Hey, Max,” I say.

  “Mmm?”

  “Have you ever had Mr. Delgado for art?”

  “No. Why?”

  “He said this thing in class last week,” I begin. I hope I can explain this properly and that Max doesn’t think it’s totally dumb. “He said that this sculptor, Michelangelo, believed that statues already existed within the marble, and the sculptor’s job was to chip away all the excess stone. You know, to reveal the figure inside.”

  “Cool.” Max looks at me expectantly, like she knows where I’m going with this but wants to hear it anyway.

  I bite my lip, hesitating, and then plunge forward. “So I was thinking...what if we’re kind of like the statues, you know? Like there is some way we are supposed to be or really are inside...and all this stuff we’re doing now is just the way we chip away at the stone. Just living our lives and bumping up against things, knocking bits of stone off here and there...” I hold my breath and scrutinize Max’s face for any sign of scorn.

  There is a long pause in which Max nods thoughtfully.

  “I like it,” she says. “Though, I don’t know. Do you really think we are supposed to be one particular way?”

  She keeps glancing sideways at me while she drives, watching my face for my reaction. As if my answer is really important.

  For some reason, a picture of Gran pops into my head: her shocked face when she saw me on the sidewalk that day. I watch the trees flashing past, and I choose my words care­fully. “Yeah. I guess it’s not a totally rigid thing—I mean, we can change and make choices and all that, as long as we’re honest about who we are.”

  When I finish talking, I look over at Max.

  Her cheeks are suddenly flushed, and when she speaks, her voice is forceful, almost angry.

  “You can’t always be honest about who you are,” she says.

  There is a long silence. I stare down at my feet, wishing I could snatch back my words although I don’t know what I have done wrong.

  Max sighs. “Sorry, Sophie. I didn’t mean to bite your head off. It’s not you.”

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” I whisper.

  She shakes her head. “It’s nothing. Forget it.”

  We drive in silence for a few minutes, and then Max starts asking me questions about riding. It is obvious she wants to change the subject, and I chatter on, wanting things to feel normal between us again. Inside, though, I’m dying to know what it is that Max can’t say. I’m wondering if her secret is anything like mine.

  Sixteen

  MAX PARKS NEATLY beside the barn, and we pull on gloves and hats before we even get out of the car. It’s cold and clear and the barn smells like apples, sweet feed and leather. Tavish is sitting on a bale of hay, cleaning a saddle.

  “Hey, Sophie. Hey, Max,” he says. He looks up, and then he quickly drops his eyes back to the saddle. His light brown hair flops forward over his eyes. It reminds me of a horse’s forelock.

  “You riding today?” he asks, rubbing a sponge against a block of saddle soap.

  Max answers. “Yeah. You should ride with us, Tavish.”

  “Lots to do,” he says.

  Tavish never says much. I guess some people would think it’s weird, the way he never makes small talk, but it’s one of the things I like about him. He never talks just for the sake of talking.

  Max laughs. “Yeah, and you have to exercise Schooner too...and Honey...and your own horse. So come with us.”

  Tavish looks at me. “Is that cool?”

  “Sure. Of course,” I say, surprised. “I mean, that’d be fine. Great.”

  A quick grin creases his face, lights up his eyes and disap­pears just as fast as it came. “Okay then. I’ll go get Schooner ready.” He lifts the saddle and places it gently on the door of an empty stall. Then he disappears down the aisle of the barn.

  Max looks at me and winks. “He likes you,” she whispers.

  “Shhh. He does not,” I say immediately. I’m embarrassed but curious. I’ve never really thought about Tavish much. “Why? I mean, what makes you think so?”

  “Obvious.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Well...he’s all shy around you. He keeps looking at you, then looking away. He practically blushes when you talk to him.”

  My own cheeks are burning. “Max! Stop it.”

  Max laughs. “I think it’s kind of sweet.”

  We ride into the woods and follow the wide dirt trail around the edge of the lake. We are quiet, and I keep thinking about what Max said. I wish she hadn’t said it. I want to enjoy the silence, feel the rhythm of the hoofbeats, lose myself in Keltie’s speed and power. Instead I find myself sneaking glances at Tavish, noticing how his long legs wrap around Schooner’s narrow sides, how his gray leather chaps are old and stained with mud. I wonder if Max was just teasing me.

  We come to a long gentle slope where we often gallop, and Keltie starts dancing sideways in anticipation. I close my fingers on the reins and sit deeply in the saddle to steady her.

  “Easy girl,” I murmur.

  Max looks over her shoulder at me, eyebrows raised in a silent question.

  I look at Tavish. “Would Schooner be okay for a gallop?” I ask. “He’s the baby of the group.”

  Tavish runs a hand down Schooner’s hard gray neck. “He’ll be fine.”

  I let Keltie go: relax my hands, lean forward slightly, drop my weight into my heels. She leaps forward, lowering her head and releasing all that pent-up energy in a burst of speed. Hooves drum on the hard ground. Ahead of me, I watch Max fight to keep Sebastian under control; he is shaking his head and it looks like he is trying to buck. A spray of mud from his hooves splatters across my face. I can hear Schooner snort­ing and pounding behind me. The wind burns my eyes and snatches tears from my cheeks. For a sharp second, I remem­ber Zelia, half-naked and tangled in bed with Josh, but I push the image aside, close my eyes and lose myself in sensation, in speed, in the power singing in my veins.

  When we finally pull up, all three horses are breathing hard, and we are all laughing and breathless.

  “Did you see Sebastian?” Max slaps his neck affectionately. “Old lunatic nearly bucked me off.”

  Tavish is grinning widely. “That was great.”

  He looks at me. His eyes are the color of celery.

  “It was great,” I say softly. It was better than great; it was like, just for a moment, I’d grown wings. I grin back at him. “It was incredible.”

  By the time we get back to the barn, the horses are cool but still sweaty. We tie them in the aisle and rub them dry. I toss brushes out of my box but can’t find my hoof pick.

  “Here,” Tavish says, handing me his.

  I reach out to take it, and our hands touch for a second. Before,
I wouldn’t even have noticed this, but now I’m self-conscious and quickly pull my hand away, dropping the pick. I bend over to grab it, and my eyes meet Tavish’s.

  “You’ve got mud all over your face, did you know?” he says.

  I laugh, relieved. Max must have been imagining things. “Yeah. Thank Sebastian for that.” I rub my hands over my face. “Any better?”

  “Well...if you consider streaks an improvement on splotches.”

  “Oh yeah. Definitely. Thanks, Tavish.”

  Tavish fumbles in a pocket. “I have a rag somewhere. Well, I thought I did.” He pulls out a pack of candy instead. “Here. Have a Life Saver.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Come on...they’re butterscotch. And you’re way too skinny.”

  Mom and Gran are always saying this, and I usually just tune it out. Now, for some reason, I find myself looking down at my legs. My once-snug riding boots are loose around my calves, and for a second I wonder if Tavish is right. The thought slips like a splinter under my skin, sharp and uncomfortable. I shrug and try to ignore it.

  “Not for me, thanks,” I say.

  He sticks the pack of candy back in his pocket. “Keltie enjoyed herself,” he says. “The girl who leased her before you was a bit too nervous to let her have a good gallop in the woods.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say so much all at once. “Yeah. I’m enjoying it too. Where I lived before, there weren’t a lot of trails.”

  “Where did you live before, anyway?”

  “Ontario,” I say.

  His face brightens. “Me too. Whereabouts?”

  My heart speeds up. Ontario is huge, I remind myself. Millions of people. “Georgetown,” I say.

  Tavish smacks his hand against his thigh. “No way.”

  I hold my breath. I feel like my heart has stopped beating.

  “I used to live there,”he says.“Well,just outside Georgetown, anyway.”

  I’m frantically calculating: He’s older than me, and he’s obviously lived out here for a while, and he definitely wasn’t at Georgetown Middle School when I was there. He won’t know Chloe or Patrice or anyone from my old school...but panic is rising inside me like a hot sticky wave, and my mind is racing ahead, ignoring my logic. What if he is still in touch with people from there? What if he mentions me? I picture him on the phone and imagine a guy’s voice saying to him, Sophie Keller? No way. She went to school with my little sister, I think. Complete loser, right?

  My heart is beating so hard and fast it feels like a woodpecker is trapped inside my rib cage. I swallow a wave of nausea and force myself to smile. “Small world,” I say. Then I turn back to Keltie and slowly and methodically start cleaning the mud from her hooves.

  Seventeen

  IT’S ALMOST TEN o’clock that night when Zelia finally calls. Her voice is thick as though she has been crying.

  “Zelia?” I hesitate. “Are you okay?”

  “No.”

  “Is it Josh? Did he break up with you?”

  There is a pause.

  “What are you talking about?” Zelia asks. She sounds irritated. “I’m not going out with Josh.”

  “You’re not? But what about at the party? You and Josh?”

  “Sophie, it was just sex. It doesn’t mean we’re a couple.”

  I can’t help gasping. “You didn’t.”

  “What? Oh. Not actually. People kept walking in, for one thing.”

  This is a dig at me, but I don’t care. I’m just relieved she didn’t have sex with Josh.

  “Don’t you think...I mean, shouldn’t it be...”

  Zelia interrupts. “Please. You sound like my mother. Wait till you’re married, Zelia. Save it for someone special, Zelia. Men won’t respect you if you are too easy, Zelia. God. She’s such a hypocrite. I’m so sick of it.”

  There is a long pause. I’ve never even kissed anyone, so I don’t know what to say.

  “So, what is wrong then?” I ask at last.

  “It’s Lee. She doesn’t want me here.”

  “You live there. What do you mean she doesn’t want you there?”

  “She says she and Michael need some time alone. To center their relationship,” Zelia says bitterly.

  “Center?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what she says.”

  “What does she want you to do then?”

  “I could stay with you, if your mom says it’s okay. Otherwise I have to go to my aunt’s. But I don’t want to. I’ll miss school if I have to go there. I’m failing half my classes as it is.”

  “I can ask,” I say. “I’ll go ask. Hang on.”

  Mom is sitting at the kitchen table writing Christmas cards. She always does it early because she writes about a thousand of them. She still sends cards to parents of kids I went to preschool with. She never loses touch with anyone.

  “Mom? Can Zelia come and stay?”

  “Tonight?”

  “No, I mean, for a while.”

  Mom frowns. “Why? For how long?”

  I lean against the counter. “Lee says she has to come here or go to her aunt’s.”

  “What?” Mom puts her pen down and brushes aside a lock of hair that has slipped out of her ponytail. “Did Zelia say why?”

  “Not really.” I make a face. “Oh, yeah. I guess Lee wants time alone with Michael.”

  Mom grimaces. “So she’s kicking her daughter out?” She shakes her head quickly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It just makes me so...”

  “So can she stay?”

  “Are you sure you want her to?”

  “Mom! She’s my best friend.”

  My mother leans back, folds her hands together on top of the brightly colored cards littering the tabletop. She looks at me in silence for a moment.Then she says,“I wasn’t sure if you two were getting along as well as you used to.”

  “Everything’s fine,” I say. “Besides, maybe if Zelia stays with us, things will be better. More like they used to be.”

  She studies my face. I can tell she wants to ask more about this, but she has always prided herself on not prying. Respecting my boundaries, she calls it.

  “Let me think about it, okay?” she says at last.

  “Mom! What am I supposed to tell her?”

  She puts her pen down and pushes her chair back from the table. “Is she on the phone right now? Waiting?”

  I nod.

  Mom sighs. “Okay. Okay. She can come for a few days, but tell her I’ll be calling Lee to make sure it’s okay with her.”

  ZELIA ARRIVES LATE the next morning. I expected her to be subdued and unhappy, but she seems just the same as always.

  “Michael dropped me off,” she announces, dropping her duffel bag in the front hallway.

  “Hi, Zelia.” Mom pokes her head around the corner. “Everything okay?”

  “Fine.” Zelia gracefully balances on one foot as she pulls off her tall leather boots. “Thanks for letting me stay with you.”

  Mom smiles at her. “You’re always welcome, Zelia. You know that.”

  “Come on,” I say, picking up her duffel bag. Zelia follows me upstairs to my room.

  “Your mom is so great,” she says.

  “She’s okay.”

  Zelia unzips her duffel. “Look what Michael gave me,” she says. She pulls a small blue jewelry box out of the bag and flips the lid open. Inside, a pair of small diamond earrings nestles against the dark velvet.

  “Wow. Those are really pretty.” I bend forward to look more closely but Zelia snaps the box shut.

  “They’re real,” she says. “White gold with real diamonds.”

  “They’re pretty,” I say again. Even to my own ears, my voice sounds flat.

  Zelia gives me a sharp look. “What’s wrong? Are you pissed off about something?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Because if anything, I’m the one that should be pissed off. Where did you take off to, anyways? At the party?”

  I stare
at her. “I left. You told me to, remember?”

  Zelia blinks. “I didn’t mean it, Sophie. I’m sorry. You know I was just kidding, right?” She leans toward me and tilts her head to one side. “I looked everywhere for you, but you were gone.”

  “Max drove me home,” I say.

  “Max?” Zelia opens her eyes wide, like she doesn’t know who Max is.

  “You know Max.”

  “Well, yeah, sure. Black lipstick. One of the Goth triplets. Though I haven’t actually seen her with her pals lately.”

  Zelia is looking at me expectantly. There is a long silence, which I refuse to fill. “So why did Max drive you home?” Zelia asks finally.

  “Because I needed a ride, Zelia. Forget it. It’s no big deal.”

  Zelia lifts her chin slightly and studies me from beneath her long lashes. “You seem different.”

  “I do?”

  “Mmm.” Zelia gives me a sudden conspiratorial grin. “It’s going to be so great staying with you. I’ve missed our old talks, you know? We’re going to have so much fun. Your mom is awesome for letting me come.”

  “I’ve missed our old talks too,” I say softly.

  Zelia lifts her hands and presses them against mine, fingertip to fingertip.

  “Best friends forever,” she whispers.

  My heart leaps. “Best friends forever.” It doesn’t matter what Zelia does; she is still my beautiful crazy wonderful friend, and I still can’t resist her.

  Eighteen

  AT LUNCH, MOM asks if I am still planning to ride.“I know you usually do on Sundays, but I thought, since Zelia is here...”

  Max, Tavish and I had planned to ride together. I think again about yesterday’s exhilarating ride. I remember Max’s laughter and the light in Tavish’s green eyes as they met mine. I’m not sure why, but I don’t want Zelia to come to the barn. It feels like two worlds colliding. I wouldn’t know how to act or who to be.

  “I can skip it,” I say quickly. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I don’t want to mess up your family’s plans, Dr. Keller.” Zelia turns to me. “I could come too, couldn’t I?”

  And then I remember something else: Tavish used to live in Georgetown. My stomach tightens and clenches like a fist. I don’t want to see him. And I definitely don’t want Zelia to talk to him. “Maybe we should just hang out here,” I say. “You’d probably be bored out at the barn.”