Hay Fever (4 page)

“Smells good, Chad,” Mrs. Lake called encouragingly.
She looked happy and refreshed, having relaxed with the newspaper and a glass of wine, instead of cooking dinner.

Stevie glanced at her mother, wondering if she’d thought to grab a burger on her way home from the law firm.

“Dinner is served,” Chad announced. He walked into the dining room carrying a tray laden with serving bowls.

Stevie closed her eyes and prepared for the worst. She opened them just as Chad was whisking the covers off the dishes. For a minute Stevie thought her eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the light. All the food looked purple.

Chad grinned wickedly at her. “
Some
of us have gotten a little tired of the color pink lately,” he said. “I decided it might be nice to have dinner in a different color. So help yourselves.”

Stevie had been right. The food really
was
purple. There was what looked like fettuccine Alfredo dyed purple with food coloring, a purple cabbage and purple onion salad, and grape juice to drink.

Stevie looked around the table. Her mother and father and brothers all looked as if they were about to burst out laughing. Stevie beat them to it. She laughed so hard her face started to turn the color of the meal. The rest of the Lakes joined in, including Chad, the triumphant cook. Stevie had to hand it to her brother—he could be very clever when he wanted to be. She, for one, was impressed.

“You know what the really funny thing about this purple food is?” Stevie asked when she could breathe again. She stuffed a bite of pasta into her mouth. “It’s really good!”

Right after dinner—as soon as she had pitched in with clearing and washing dishes—Stevie dashed up to her room. She wanted to call Carole and Lisa to tell them how dinner had turned out. Lisa’s line was busy, so she tried Carole. Carole laughed when Stevie told her the story, but she sounded distracted.

“What’s up?” Stevie asked. “It sounds like you’re in two places at once.”

“You’re right,” Carole admitted. “I keep thinking about the Max problem.”

“Problem? It’s not a problem yet, Carole. We’ve only just begun.”

“I know, but the Fourth is only days away,” Carole pointed out.

“I think it’ll be fun to find women for Max to marry—I mean
a
woman. The candidates will probably all be really nice to get to know,” Stevie said.

“You know, you’re right,” Carole answered. “My father has met a ton of women over the last year, and some of them
were
pretty nice.”

“Why didn’t we think of that earlier? You could get all of their names out of your dad’s address file and invite them to the picnic,” Stevie suggested.

“That’s true, but—”

“Don’t worry: I’m sure they’d remember who you are. Didn’t you say they were always trying to get on your good side?”

Carole smiled into the receiver. In her enthusiasm Stevie had forgotten one important point. “Sure, that’s a great idea,” Carole said, “as long as Max doesn’t mind dating women fifteen years older than he is!”

Stevie realized her mistake. It was really too bad—Colonel Hanson’s files would have been such a great resource. Maybe there was still some way they could use them. Love could cross age barriers, couldn’t it? “Hey, what’s a generation or two when you’re in love?” she said.

“Nothing,” Carole teased. “That’s why you can’t wait to meet a nice, handsome twenty-eight-year-old, right?”

Stevie laughed. “Okay, okay. I get the point. But at least we’ll have some backups if we can’t find some younger women,” she added.

L
ISA RAN BREATHLESSLY
into the stable at Pine Hollow the next morning. She was practically bursting with the news about Tiffani and couldn’t wait to tell Carole and Stevie about her “model” candidate. She had tried to reach them the night before, but both lines had stayed busy for an hour—no doubt talking to one another, Lisa guessed. Luckily, The Saddle Club had planned to meet at ten
A.M
. to go riding together.

“Carole! Stevie!” Lisa called.

“Hi, Lisa! I’m over here!” Carole answered. Lisa didn’t have to ask where “over here” was. Carole’s voice came from the direction of Starlight’s stall. Besides, Lisa knew from experience that nine times out of ten she could find Carole there. Before she’d owned her own horse, Carole
had spent hours fussing over whomever she was riding. Now that Starlight was hers, she spent decades!

Sure enough, Carole had the bay gelding cross-tied in front of his stall and was currying him vigorously.

“Is Stevie here yet?” Lisa asked. “I have some news.”

“No, I haven’t seen her. I guess she’s running late. She told me she wanted to get here early and lunge Topside before riding. He’s in such good shape that he’s been too full of energy lately.” Topside was the former show horse that Stevie always rode.

Lisa was going to wait to share her news until Stevie came, but she just couldn’t. “Guess what? I found a model for Max!” she told Carole. She described Tiffani’s looks in great detail—her perfect teeth, her long blond hair, and her huge green eyes. “So I invited her to the picnic, and she’s going to come,” Lisa finished happily.

“And what’s she like?” Carole asked.

“What do you mean?” Lisa countered.

“Well, I mean what’s her personality like?”

“Oh. Oh, she’s—uh—friendly, very friendly. Yes, I’d definitely say friendly. It was a little hard to talk to her, but I guess that’s because she’s older. She really didn’t have much to say. And she looked at her nails a lot. But she’s absolutely gorgeous.”

“That’s nice,” Carole said a touch uneasily.

“Nice? It’s great!” Lisa said. She wondered if Carole realized what an opportunity this was.

“Yeah, I mean, that’s great,” Carole said. She paused for a minute, figuring out how to continue. “It’s great,” she said finally, “but remember what kind of a guy Max is. He might rather have a smart wife—who’s also pretty—than a drop-dead gorgeous one. Tiffani sounds, well, a tiny bit dense.”

To Carole’s relief Lisa laughed heartily. “Dense? She seemed dumber than a doornail to me. All she did was giggle and look beautiful. But I thought Max wouldn’t mind since they could have such beautiful children.”

“Beautiful maybe, but they’ve also got to have the sense to operate Pine Hollow, and that’s no easy job—as we should know!” Carole responded. She was referring to The Saddle Club’s attempt, several months earlier, to run Pine Hollow while Max was away.

Lisa had to agree. “We certainly got into a million mishaps, even with our great brains,” she said.

“Speaking of mishaps, what do you think has become of Stevie?” Carole asked. “I’m really surprised she hasn’t shown up by now.”

Lisa glanced at her watch. “I say we give her another half an hour to call. I hope we won’t have to go without her. It’s such a beautiful day for riding.”

S
TEVIE SWUNG HER
leg back and then forward as she kicked the groaning, whirring machine as hard as she could. “Stupid vacuum cleaner!” she yelled. Unfortunately, the
attack backfired. After making contact with the vacuum, Stevie recoiled her foot in pain while the vacuum stayed obstinately in place.

Life, Stevie decided, had never been more unfair. Or at least her mother hadn’t. Here it was, a beautiful summer day, at the beginning of a beautiful school vacation. The whole school year long she had looked forward to—no,
dreamed
of—days like this when she would sleep late, then go over to Pine Hollow to enjoy riding and hanging out with Lisa and Carole to her heart’s content. Mrs. Lake, however, had had other ideas. She had quickly put an end to the bliss of a lazy summer vacation with her insistence that Stevie and her brothers pitch in around the house. Today Stevie was not allowed to leave until all the vacuuming was done. It was worse than homework—at least with homework you could skim assignments and fudge problems. If you skimped on housework, everyone knew.

Sighing loudly, Stevie flopped down on the couch for a break. She stared at the clock on the wall, willing the hands not to move. Her mind wandered to all the things she was missing. She’d already missed meeting with Lisa and Carole for a long, gossipy chat about the Max situation. Right about now she was missing grooming and tacking up with them. And unless she finished the rugs pretty soon, she was going to miss their ride together and cleaning tack afterward. Of course, she’d have to do all
those things later, when she finally got to Pine Hollow, but they would be far less enjoyable alone—especially the barn chores.

After a few minutes of brooding, Stevie forced herself to get to her feet again, turn the machine on, and continue vacuuming. Idly she pushed the heavy nozzle back and forth, still thinking about how ruined her day was. She was so preoccupied with her Saddle Club thoughts that she hardly noticed when the vacuum sucked up her father’s favorite pen.

“Oh, no!” Stevie groaned aloud. One minute the gold fountain pen had been there, the next it was gone. Why hadn’t she picked it up the second she saw it? It wasn’t only valuable—it was also a sentimental favorite, because Mr. Lake’s partners at the office had given it to him on his tenth anniversary of working there. Stevie shook her head ruefully. The only thing to do—if she valued her life—was to make sure it didn’t stay sucked up for good.

First she detached the bag from the hose and peered all the way up the hose. She couldn’t see anything. Then she reached her hand up. She couldn’t feel anything either. She spied an iron skewer over by the fireplace used to poke wood, grabbed it, and poked that up the hose. Nothing—except that she managed to poke a hole in the hose, which she would now have to find a way to fix. Finally she banged the hose on the coffee table, hoping
to dislodge the pen from wherever it was stuck. A mess of hair and junk rained down on the table. But no pen appeared.

Stevie was about to give the vacuum another kick when the phone rang. “I’ll be back,” she muttered threateningly to the Electro-Clean, and went to pick up the receiver.

“Hello, Stephanie,” the voice said. Stevie would recognize that cheery voice anywhere. It was Miss Cartwright, her science teacher.

“I’ve just been looking through my files, and I realized that I don’t have your final project. Of course I can’t give you a grade without it, and report cards were due last week. So you have an Incomplete in science for the moment, which I’ll change to a grade as soon as I get the project.”

Stevie could hardly trust herself to speak. If she did, she thought she would either cry or, more likely, scream at the top of her lungs. Obviously this was
not
her day. She was positive she had done the project. Distinct memories of wilted, dry, and dying leaves of the plants she had tried to grow came back to her in a flash. She had been trying to see how different types of soil affected the rate of growth of red, white, and blue blossoms. Unfortunately, the one thing she had discovered for sure was that plants die without water: She had forgotten to water them for about two weeks. Nevertheless, she was
sure she could figure out some explanation for the teacher.

“Miss Cartwright,” Stevie began, after calming herself with a deep breath, “I know I have the project. In fact, I even know where it is. It’s upstairs in my bedroom closet.”

“So you’re sure you can find it?” Miss Cartwright asked.

Stevie tried to picture where in her closet the cardboard graphs charting the plants’ growth would be. Under about a ton of dirty clothes, shoes, boxes of school papers, stuffed animals, photo albums, and random horsey stuff, she decided. It could take a little while to actually lay her hands on it—like maybe a millennium. Anyway, Miss Cartwright was one of the nicer teachers at Fenton Hall. She was young and pretty—not like some of the mean ones who’d been there for thirty years. If Stevie told her she could find it in a week or so, she probably wouldn’t mind.

“Miss Cartwright?” Stevie began in the sweetest, most innocent tone she could manage. All at once her brain did a double take. Miss Cartwright? Nice? Young? Pretty? The phone call had suddenly turned into a golden Saddle Club opportunity. And what was more, Stevie had the perfect lead-in.

“Remember how the flowers I was growing were supposed
to be red, white, and blue?” she asked. “Well, I was hoping to have them all blooming by the Fourth of July.”

“I see,” Miss Cartwright replied. “So what you’re saying is that you won’t be handing it in until next weekend?”

“Right,” Stevie said.

“All right, then. Why don’t you just drop it by my house, okay?”

“Actually,” Stevie said all in a rush, “I thought you might want to come to the annual Fourth of July picnic at Pine Hollow Stables where my friends and I ride. It’s always a great day—games, food, you know—and I could give you the project then, too.” Stevie crossed her fingers. If she could have a whole week to find her project and also get another eligible woman to come to the picnic, this day might not be so bad after all.

“That’s awfully kind of you, Stevie,” Miss Cartwright said, “but I’m afraid my younger sisters will be visiting me for the weekend. I do appreciate the invitation, though. You know I used to ride when I was younger? Of course I haven’t been on a horse in years, but I’ll bet some of it would come back.”