Horse Fever (4 page)

Annoyed, Lisa nodded. “Yeah. Haircut,” she said, giving a brief wave as they drove off. It was one thing to have Carole and Stevie know she had left right after the lesson. It was another to be caught by Veronica.

“Wasn’t that that nice diAngelo girl?” asked Mrs. Atwood. “I do wish you would invite her to sleep over sometime, Lisa. Her family is
so
well connected.…”

S
TEVIE KNEW AN
opportunity when she saw one. She sank down onto a tack trunk, yanked off her boots, and wiggled her toes. “Phew, what a lesson. I’m exhausted,” she said. She eyed Carole narrowly. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Carole said. “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know.… I was just thinking that, you know, I’ve got some laundry to do at home. And with Lisa gone, we’re going to be a lot less efficient. So maybe we ought to, oh, say …”

“Skip the barn work entirely?” Carole guessed, her black eyes sparkling.

Stevie grinned. Unlike Lisa, Stevie didn’t mind being accused of ducking out on stable chores. It was a well-known fact that Stevie despised barn work. She didn’t really
hate
it, but work was work. And no work was the best work. She would have ducked out every day if she could! “Now, Carole, I know what you’re thinking, but—”

Carole was about to argue Stevie into staying when she caught sight of the
Horseman’s Weekly
crushed under her friend’s right ankle. A curious instinct seemed to take
over. She heard herself saying, in a falsely bright voice, “Hey, we don’t have to hang out every single day. It’s vacation! We should enjoy ourselves.”

Surprised, Stevie sat up. “Now you’re talking!” she said. “So you’ll head out with me?”

“Oh, no,” Carole replied. “I can’t. I’ve got to work with Starlight and organize my tack trunk and put my brushes in order and—”

“All right, all right, you’re making me feel guilty!” Stevie protested.

“Don’t,” said Carole. “I mean, I want to stay awhile, but you do what you need to do.”

Disconcerted, Stevie put her boots back on. She’d been all ready to bargain with Carole, but Carole was letting her off the hook completely.

“All right—well, bye,” Stevie said when she was ready.

“Bye! Have fun!” Carole said.

“Thanks,” Stevie said flatly. For the second time that day she found herself face-to-face with Carole’s constant and total devotion to Starlight. And for the second time she found it annoying. Couldn’t Carole ever think of anything else?

On the way out Stevie passed Belle’s stall. She paused to say good-bye. She told herself she was just as devoted
to Belle, but in a different way. “If you were a human, you wouldn’t want to clean tack, either,” she rationalized, rubbing the mare’s forehead. “Would you, you Southern Belle?

“Whoops, I better skedaddle!” she said, hearing Mrs. Reg coming down the aisle. Before the older woman could catch her idle, Stevie had jogged out of the barn and down the driveway. But after fifty yards she was forced to slow to a walk—actually more like a pained shuffle. Hobbling home, she chewed on a thumbnail. Could it be true what Alex had said about her level of physical fitness? “Ha!” she said aloud. “Let him try riding without stirrups!”

W
HENEVER
C
AROLE ATE
a piece of cake, she ate the cake first and saved the frosting for last. It was a habit she’d had for as long as she could remember. Sometimes it applied to other things, like what she did that day: As soon as Stevie left, Carole snatched up
Horseman’s Weekly
and turned right to the advertisements. But before letting herself study the ad Stevie had noticed, she reread some of the others. Then, making sure she was still alone, she slowly savored the “frosting.”

Carole looked up. She could almost see the horse’s “big, floating trot.” The phrase
the right rider
sent a shiver down her spine. What exactly did it mean? Did it mean an Olympic-level dressage rider? Or maybe a young rider with a lot of potential? Carole read the ad once more. Warmbloods, as she knew, were wonderful horses. Bigger and steadier than Thoroughbreds, they were bred for dressage and eventing, whereas Thoroughbreds were bred for racing. Originally from Europe, many types of warmbloods were now bred in the United States. Still, a horse that was imported had a certain allure, almost as if it were more authentic. It was one of Carole’s wildest dreams to be able to import a horse of her own. As she pictured herself in Holland or Germany, touring the national studs, the door opened and a woman came in.

“So
you’ve
got the
Horseman’s Weekly
,” she said.

Carole looked up. “Yeah, I was just reading about the annual writing contest,” she lied, wondering, as she did so, why she would bother to fib to a stranger. “Did you want the paper?”

“I’ll have a look at the ads, if you don’t mind. But go ahead, tear out the page for the contest.”

“That’s okay. I’ll—I’ll just copy down the rules later.” Hastily Carole handed over the paper.

“Thanks. I’m Pat Naughton, by the way,” said the woman, extending a hand.

Carole shook it. “Carole—”

“Oh, I know who you are, Carole.”

“You do?” said Carole. On closer look she thought she recognized the woman as well.

“Of course. You own Starlight. You and he are one of the top junior teams at Pine Hollow. You’ve won everything—Pony Club, dressage, eventing, jumping—”

“Mostly jumping,” Carole broke in, flattered and flustered at the same time. “Jumping is our favorite and it’s what we’re best at.”

Pat Naughton beamed. “I’ll say. I’ve watched you two in lessons. Starlight’s fantastic over fences.”

“He’s a great natural jumper—” Carole began.

“Who had a great trainer,” Pat finished for her. “But you sure are lucky. If I had a horse even half as perfect as Starlight, I wouldn’t have to spend my days scouring the ads.” She tapped the newspaper. “Anything good this week?”

“What are you looking for?” Carole inquired politely.

“That’s what I keep asking myself!” said Pat. “May I?”
She sat down beside Carole. “You see, I haven’t owned a horse since I was your age. I just got back into riding a year ago, when my daughter started kindergarten. I used to show. I rode hunters, jumpers, equitation—you name it. But this dressage stuff is pretty new to me.”

Carole nodded understandingly. “I’ll bet you were doing dressage before without even knowing it.”

“Really?” said Pat. “All this ‘on the bit’ stuff?”

Carole laughed. “Sure. All that means is that the horse is moving forward from the leg and accepting rather than resisting the bit.”

Pat looked impressed. “Wow.”

Feeling shy, Carole averted her eyes. She was used to grown-ups being surprised at the information that would come popping out of her mouth, making her sound much older than she was. “It—It sounds like you want a good all-around horse,” she suggested, looking up again. “And probably something … experienced?”

“Definitely!” Pat exclaimed. “I’ve got a daughter at home. I don’t need a green horse to raise at the same time.”

Slowly, with a few knowledgeable questions, Carole managed to piece together an idea of what Pat wanted in her new horse. Horse shopping was not a precise science. A rider couldn’t expect to go out and find her dream horse, especially since a lot of the ads would exaggerate
the pluses and downplay the horse’s faults. But it was good to at least have an idea of what characteristics—age, experience, and breed, for example—were most important. Some riders had little idiosyncrasies, like a favorite color, but Pat’s requirements were fairly straightforward. Besides experience, she needed a large horse because she was tall. Because of her daughter, she wanted something quiet-tempered. “It doesn’t seem as if it would be that hard,” Pat confessed, “but I’ve been looking for over a month with no luck.”

“Let’s take a look,” suggested Carole, her enthusiasm for the project mounting. “You never know. This could be your lucky week.”

Together she and Pat pored over the advertisements. Pat had a pencil, and whenever she saw something she liked, she marked it. Pretty soon Carole had Pat’s system figured out: A star meant “sounds great,” a circle meant “worth looking into,” and a squiggle meant “probably not but might as well give them a call.” The “seasoned hunter” got a star. The “superbly talented four-year-old” got a squiggle. Then Pat poised her pencil above the Dutch warmblood. Carole felt her stomach turn with apprehension.

“Gosh, this warmblood sounds like a beauty,” Pat remarked.

“He sure does,” Carole said quietly.

Pat chewed the end of her pencil. “Hmmm … ‘Imported,’ it says. ‘King’s Ransom’ … 
Costs
a king’s ransom, I’ll bet!”

“Gosh, I never thought of price,” Carole admitted, her face falling.

“Heck, why should you? You’re not looking yourself,” said Pat.

“Oh, I know,” Carole said hastily. “I mean—I never thought of price for you.”

“Don’t worry,” Pat joked. “My husband will think plenty.” Her eyes scanned the page. “No price listed on the warmblood. Naturally. They never put the price when they’re asking a bundle. Well, we’ll give it a circle, anyway.”

Carole didn’t stop to analyze why, but she was glad—glad that the warmblood got a circle instead of a star.

W
HENEVER
S
TEVIE MADE
cookies, half the batter ended up in her stomach. For her, half the
point
of making cookies was eating the batter. If you just wanted cookies, you could go to the store. Today she was making her favorite kind: oatmeal chocolate chip. Most people made oatmeal raisin, but Stevie knew better. In the first place, she detested raisins. Who wanted those icky, dried, chewy things in their cookies? If you wanted fruit, you could eat an apple! But straight chocolate chip cookies were almost too sweet. After a few you just couldn’t take the sugar. Better to moderate the sugar taste with something grainy like oatmeal. Adding oatmeal had two other advantages: One, it made the cookie sound healthful/nutritionally
sound/after-school-snack-acceptable, which meant her mother would let her eat a lot more than if she thought they were a plain old tooth-rotting dessert. And two, the batter was the best!

“Wanna lick the bowl?” Stevie asked Alex as he tore through the kitchen.

Alex stopped dead. He drew himself up to his full height and gave his sister an appalled look. “Did I hear you correctly? Are you suggesting that I eat raw cookie dough?”

“It
is
your favorite dessert,” Stevie reminded him, annoyed. She wasn’t going to let him get away with this health nut act.

“
Was
my favorite dessert!” Alex retorted. “Before I saw the light! Before I began representing Fenton Hall in athletic competitions! Before I reduced my body mass index to a mere—”

Alex ducked as Stevie chucked a wooden spoon at him.

“Perhaps,” he continued, righting himself, “if you found a physical outlet for your rage, sister dear, you wouldn’t feel compelled—”

“I’ll take up strangling!” Stevie growled, chasing him out of the kitchen.

“Maybe you’d have a prayer of catching me if you did more than sit around baking all day!” Alex taunted.

Back in the kitchen, Stevie asked, “Mom, do you think I’m out of shape?”

Mrs. Lake looked up from stirring her sauce. “Don’t you have required sports at school?” she asked.

“Yeah, but I got out of sports this semester to be in a play,” Stevie said.

“A play?” Mrs. Lake looked surprised.

“Yeah,” said Stevie. “But then I didn’t get the part, so I got out of the play to do special choir.”

“Oh.” Frowning, Mrs. Lake stared at the sauce. “Wait. Did you say
choir?
”

“C’mon, Mom, I have been taking voice lessons. Anyway, I got out of it,” Stevie assured her. “To do sports.”

“So you do get exercise at school?” asked Mrs. Lake, exasperated.

Stevie shook her head. “No, I don’t. Remember, Mom? I said I got
out
of sports.”

Mrs. Lake raised her eyes to the heavens. “When’s the last time you got any exercise?”

Stevie opened the oven door and put two cookie sheets in to bake. “Well … I just scooped a bunch of cookies,” she said hopefully.

“No, Stevie, I mean
real
exercise.”

“Does riding count?”

“I don’t know. Does it?”

Stevie thought for a moment. She tried to be honest with herself. In a way she understood why riding got such a bad rap. Riding was one of those weird sports. It required a lot of different muscles; it required stamina. Anybody who tried it would ache for days afterward. But even if somebody rode every day for an hour, she wouldn’t be in shape to run five miles. Or even, necessarily, two miles. Sort of,” Stevie said finally.

Mrs. Lake raised an eyebrow at her daughter. She was a high-powered attorney in Washington, D.C., and this was her high-powered-attorney look. Stevie knew that look well. It said: Until you make up your mind, I can be of no further help to you.