Riding Lessons

by Jane Smiley

  And as soon as that booms out, I stop talking and can’t even remember what I think of Sissy. I can feel my mouth drop open, and I make myself close it. Abby says, “Sissy worked hard today.”

  He says, “That’s a change.”

  I say, “I like Sissy.” I sound like I am whispering. So I clear my throat and say, “Sissy has a future.”

  He laughs and says, “I should hope so. She’s only six.” His voice is loud. Abby and her mother don’t seem to notice.

  That makes me blush, as if I said a stupid thing. It is really funny the way you are not the same person for everyone. I think that if Miss Cranfield were a fly on the wall and saw how shy and quiet I am around Mr. Lovitt, she wouldn’t believe her own eyes.

  After lunch, I had to wait while Abby rode Oh My, a very pretty paint. Sometimes the Lovitts have cattle around, but they didn’t have any around this spring. I knew I was going to have to wait, so I brought my book with me—Misty of Chincoteague, which I’ve already read four times. I got it out of the barn, where I had put it with my sweater (now I would probably forget my sweater), and carried it over to the back porch and opened it to chapter three. I read a page. But from Abby’s back porch, you can see the geldings in their pasture, and so of course I started watching Ned, but I didn’t try to talk to him.

  Abby’s dad was on one of the mares, and Rusty was following him. They were at the top of the hill behind the pasture, walking slowly along the fence. At every post, the horse would stop, and Abby’s dad would reach over and jiggle the post, then walk on. Ned was watching them, his ears pricked. One time, he whinnied, and then one of the mares in the mare pasture whinnied, but the horse Abby’s dad was on didn’t pay any attention. I thought all of a sudden of Ruthie Creighton, the way she would look at the other kids sometimes at lunch. She is a strange girl. We all wear kneesocks, and kneesocks always slide down your leg and you have to pull them up, but Ruthie sometimes lets hers go all the way down and bunch in her shoes. Lots of times you can tell that no one brushes her hair—she just pushes it out of her face, and there are plenty of tangles. Her clothes are nice enough, mostly like the clothes that all the other girls wear, but they are wrinkled, and sometimes she buttons the buttons wrong and doesn’t notice. As I was thinking this, it came to me that maybe she needs a trainer, just like a horse. Maybe if she is an only child, there is no one to tell her or show her things. I don’t know where her house is, but it can’t be too far from my house. I started to wonder if I should walk over there, just walk down the street, and have a look. I imagined Ruthie coming out the front door looking like all the other kids, and then letting everything go, step by step, on the way to school. This is a problem with being an only child—most of the time it’s your brothers and sisters who tell you what to do, especially when, as Mrs. Murphy says, “I can’t be everywhere at once!” I am lucky that I have not only Mom and Dad, but also Grandpa and Grandma. But clearly, Ruthie isn’t lucky.

  I set down my book and walked along the fence of the gelding pasture until I was pretty close to Ned. I climbed onto the fence and sat there. Ned looked at me (I have given him some treats, after all), and I said, “Okay, Ned. Tell me what you know.”

  “I know how to break from the gate. If you have an outside post, you have to break fast and cross to the railing right away, or the other horses will block you. If you have an inside post, you can jump out and go to the front, but then you have to run fast all the way. You can also break slow and hold back, then when the others run out of steam, you can get through and into the lead.”

  “Did you ever win?”

  “No, but I saw how it was done. I might have. I was fifth once, fourth once, and then third.”

  “Why didn’t you win?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Pip-squeak,” said Gee Whiz as he walked by.

  Ned pinned his ears.

  I said, “What else do you know?”

  He said, “I know to switch leads on the turn. When you break from the gate, you are on the outside lead, but that will slow you down on the turn. The horses who can’t switch leads get very tired.”

  “Did you think racing was tiring?”

  “No. This is tiring. Having nothing to do.”

  I thought of Ruthie again, and said, “Who were your friends there?”

  He said, “I liked my morning rider. He was nice to me. He didn’t hold me tight and he had good balance. If I got nervous, he would sing me a song.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Alfredo.”

  “Who else?”

  He curled his lip and blew out some air. I took this to mean that he didn’t have any other friends at the track. I said, “What about other horses?”

  “Other horses aren’t your friends.”

  “Ever?”

  “Never.”

  By now, Ned was standing near me, and finally, he came over and nudged me with his nose. Abby would have said that he wanted a treat and that he should have to earn one, but I was thinking of Ruthie. I decided that he wanted some petting, so that is what I gave him—smooth, easy strokes on his cheek and under his mane. He seemed to like it, because he put his head down and let me do it. Gee Whiz was looking at us, but didn’t say anything.

  By the time we left Abby’s ranch in the car, it was really cloudy, and as we got closer to where I live, it started to rain. Abby and her mom were smiling. Her mom said, “I always love a late rain. The hills stay green longer. I hope we get at least half an inch.”

  Abby nodded. They were both different from the way they are at the ranch or at the stables—it was like they were on a vacation. Abby’s mom said, “So, Ellen, is your mom still working Fridays and Saturdays? I hope she can help me find something nice. Bright.”

  Abby lifted her eyebrows.

  Her mom said, “But not too bright.”

  I said, “She’s working this week. But Monday we get the baby, so she might not go back.” This was the first time I had thought of this part of it.

  “What baby?” said Abby.

  “Joan Ariel, our new baby. We’re going up to San Jose to get her Monday.” I pretended this was the way you always got babies, but in fact, I wasn’t quite sure about how you got babies. I hadn’t ever thought about it before, and when the Murphys came home with Brian, my dad said, “Where in the world did they get yet another one?” And then my mom said, “Your aunt was one of thirteen, and her cousin was one of ten.”

  And Dad said, “Those days are long gone. Someone should tell the Murphys.” That was four years ago, and people don’t think I can remember that far back, but I can.

  We drove without talking, just listening to the rain on the roof of the car and the swish of the windshield wipers, and then I said, “I’m adopted, too. Mom and Dad told me last week.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Abby.

  “Well,” said her mom. “It’s no one else’s business, really.”

  I said, “Why?”

  She said, “All those are private things. Every family has secrets that they keep to themselves.”

  I said, “Like what?” It is really true that I was just curious here. I wasn’t asking for a secret, but there was a long silence, and then I said I was sorry, but I wasn’t quite sure what I was sorry about. When we turned down the hill toward my house, where they were going to drop me off, I decided that I was sorry I had told my family’s secret. When Abby’s mom pulled over and stopped in front of the house, Abby said, “I’m sure Blue will be fine by next week, but I will let you know. And you did a good job on Sissy.”

  “I liked her.” Then I remembered my manners, and said, “Thank you for lunch, Mrs. Lovitt.”

  “Ellen, you can come anytime. It’s nice to have you.” She leaned out the window of the car and squeezed my hand and smiled. They drove away. It was a little cold, and I realized that I
had forgotten my sweater.

  Mom was at work and Dad was reading some papers. Even in the few hours that I’d been gone, more stuff had come into the house, and because it is a small house, now the whole place looked like a nursery—baby clothes stacked on the couch, baby swing in the living room, high chair back in the corner of the kitchen. I babbled on about my riding lesson and how great I had been, but I was hardly even listening to myself, I was so busy looking at all the new stuff. Dad nodded and nodded and then said, “I’m sure you were terrific, Ellen.” He didn’t seem very happy, but that wasn’t my business.

  When I looked out my window before going to bed, the sky was clear and there was a quarter of a moon. Usually that meant that the sky was also clear at Abby’s ranch, and this time when I closed my eyes, I saw Ned better than the last time. He was standing in a spot in the back of the pasture near the fence line, down from where Abby’s dad had been riding that afternoon. The moon sat on top of the hill like a little bowl, just about to go down, but still bright. There were also plenty of stars. I saw the Big Dipper and Orion. Dad likes stars and tells me their names when we walk down by the ocean sometimes. The other horses weren’t around—maybe off to the side, under a tree, a pale mound that was Gee Whiz was taking a nice nap. It was very quiet. In our town, cars go up and down the street, and past my school, pretty much all night long, but where Abby lives, the only things you hear are birds and coyotes and the sound of the wind making the trees creak.

  Ned said, “It takes a long time to make a friend.”

  I said, “Why is that?”

  I didn’t think he was going to answer, and I started to fall asleep—it had been a long day, and it was very late. But then he said, “On the farm, before we went into training, we ran around in a big pasture with lots of grass. Much bigger than this one, and trees only along the fence, not in the pasture. We ran and ran and ran. We kicked up and we bucked and we played. The other yearlings would do a lot of things. One time, one of them found something draped over the fence. We didn’t even know what it was. He grabbed it and ran with it, and tossed it into the air. Some others tried to grab it from him. That was fun. I later realized that it was a saddle pad someone had left on the fence.”

  I made myself wake up and pay attention.

  “At night, we lay down in the grass and rested or slept. I had a friend then, a yearling who looked like me, but had a white foot and a big blaze. We slept near each other, and raced each other. We were evenly matched. Sometimes he won and sometimes I won. He was my friend.”

  I said, “What was his name?”

  “He didn’t have a name.”

  “Did you have a name?”

  “No. Not until I went into training. We got sold at the same auction. I never saw him after that. When I was at the racetrack, it was so big, and there were so many horses, that I thought he might turn up, so when I went out to train in the mornings, I would look for him, but I never saw him. That was my friend.”

  I didn’t say anything. I thought this was a sad story, and anyway, it sounded like school, didn’t it? Lots of kids thrown together in a big group, and you make what you can out of the kids in your class. Ann tells me every day at lunch that she hasn’t really found a friend in her class—at least, as good a friend as I am. But when our class walked down the hall and passed her classroom Friday, the door was open, and I could see her in there, laughing with Audrey Snediger like they were friends. And I joke around with Jimmy Murphy and some of the other kids, even though I always sit with Ann and Todd. Is Todd my friend? I spend time with him. Is Abby my friend? She’s my teacher, and she treats me as if she likes me. Is Rodney my friend? I love his stories and he’s always nice to me. There are three girls in my class—Jane Ann Carroll, Martha King, and Carla Pinkerton—who always talk about how they are best friends and have been all their lives (they live on the same street) and will always be best friends until forever. But anyone can see that they have lots of fights and stop talking to one another for days until they make up and have a slumber party or something. The story Ned told me made me wonder just exactly what a friend is.

  I was tired. I think we could have talked about more things, but my eyes just closed, and the next thing I knew, it was morning, and the sun was bright in my window, because I slept until eight. The house was really quiet, but when I got up and looked out, I saw that Mom was in the garden, planting something. The mower was out, too, so I guess she was going to mow the grass in the garden one last time. The patch of grass is about as big as the rug in our living room, but it is thick and green, and Mom is proud of it. I put on my clothes and went down for breakfast—waffles and sausage links. I could see that the spoiling was going to continue, and that was fine with me.

  I was eating my second waffle when Mom came in from the garden. I said, “Did Abby’s mom buy a nice dress?”

  “I liked it. It was on sale, marked down from last spring, but it looked very nice on her, and she doesn’t care about style. We’re facing the hem and taking it down two inches. She would never wear a miniskirt, for sure.”

  I said, “She would look good in a miniskirt.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t allow that.”

  I knew she was talking about Abby’s dad. I said, “He’s a little scary.”

  She tossed her hand. “Opinionated. He means well. I guess the boy, what’s-his-name, Dan, is off to North Carolina for some sort of training. That’s a ways. But she says he’s just as happy to be seeing the world as to be sticking around here all his life. That’s the way your dad was. But he wanted to go west, not east.”

  I said, “What about you?”

  “Right here is fine with me. Right here, with you and your dad and your new sister. That is my idea of heaven on earth.” And she came over and kissed me on the forehead and gave me a little squeeze around the shoulders.

  All day long, we just did the things we wanted to do, and in the afternoon one of the things I wanted to do was go for a little walk, which I did. Mom went along, but I led the way. I walked around the school, looking down every block, and at the houses, and I paid attention to the street names. I hadn’t figured out how to get Ruthie to tell me her address, but when she did, I wanted to be able to see her house in my mind. On our way home, Mrs. Murphy stopped us. She was standing on her front porch, clanging her bell. She said that Jimmy and Luke, who is a year older than Jimmy, had gone down to the beach to look for starfish. If the wind was right, they could hear the bell; otherwise, she had to send one of the girls after them. But she ran down to the street and gave Mom a big hug, and said, “Louise, I am so happy for you! I will be the first to pay a visit, whenever you want, and I have about two hours’ worth of advice, so don’t dare ask me, or I will talk your ear off.” Mom laughed, and as we walked home, I said, “Is the adoption supposed to be a secret?”

  “Nothing is a secret in this town, and anyway, even if you wanted it to be a secret, there you are, one day, pushing a baby carriage around town.”

  “Abby’s mom thought it was a secret.”

  Mom was quiet for a moment, then said, “When you live out in the middle of nowhere, you think you have secrets maybe even when you don’t.”

  This made me think about secrets until I went to sleep. I have no secrets because I talk all the time. I’m not sure whether that is good or bad.

  The first surprise about Joan Ariel was that when I wasn’t dressed for school at seven-thirty on Monday, Mom said, “What is going on?”

  I said, “We’re going to get the baby.” Then I said, “Joan Ariel,” just to be helpful. Mom laughed and said, “Oh! That baby!” but then she shook her head, leaned toward me, and said, “You have to go to school, and then your grandma will be here when you get home. Your dad and I are going to get the baby.”

  There are a lot of places where kids aren’t allowed, and I decided that the orphanage must be one of them. I imagined it as
sort of like a big pet store, where the puppies are in little pens, and all the things you need for the puppy are right nearby, on shelves. Maybe Mom had been there before, and walked around and chosen Joan Ariel because she was the cutest or the only girl. I have been in a lot of pet stores, and I always like the puppy that looks right at you, wagging his tail and jumping up and down, ready to play. I thought about this as I was putting on my clothes. And then I didn’t think about anything, because I was almost late for school, and I was the last person to sit in my chair before the bell rang.