Horse Spy (26 page)

He walked her back to her house.

“This is going to be hard,” Alex said finally.

“I know,” said Lisa. “I guess it’s time to acknowledge it, too. We’ll talk, we’ll send e-mail. You’re probably going to be spending more time communicating with me over the summer than you do now.”

“Probably,” he said. “But it won’t be as much fun.” He
stopped her in a shadow, and they kissed. “I’ll be thinking of you a lot.”

“When?” Lisa asked.

“Often,” he said, a little surprised by the question.

“Why don’t we make a date to think of one another—say every night at nine or something like that?”

“That’s midnight here.”

“So, you’ll still be up. You’ll probably be in your room then. You can look out the window at the moon. The very same moon will be looking down on me in California, and I’ll be looking up at it at the same time.”

“It won’t even be dark some nights—”

“So I’ll look where the moon probably is,” Lisa said. “I’ll know. If you’re looking at the same time, I’ll know. I’ll be able to feel it, and that’s how I’ll know where the moon is.”

“How could I have ever been in love with anyone before I met you?” Alex asked. And then he kissed her again.

Lisa took that as a yes.

The house was dark and the phone was ringing when Lisa unlocked the door. Her mother was at what she called Group. It was supposed to be a therapy session, but the group was comprised of women whose husbands had left them. Behind her mother’s back, Lisa referred to it as Gripe Therapy.

She picked up the phone in the still-dark kitchen.

“Hi, honey!” a cheerful voice said. It was her father. He knew when Lisa’s mother was likely to be out of the house and often called then.

“Hi, Dad,” she said, flipping on the light.

“It’s just one day now and I can’t wait to see you.”

“Me too,” she said, meaning it. Sad as she was to be leaving Virginia for the summer, she loved her father and was looking forward to having time with him.

“I wanted you to know that I’ll be at the airport to meet your plane. Evelyn has all the ingredients to make the vegetarian chili you liked so much, so don’t worry about eating any lousy airplane food. We’ll feed you when you get here.”

“Will Lily still be awake?” she asked.

“Lily is
always
awake,” said her father. “Why didn’t someone remind me how little sleep babies get at night? The only time she sleeps really well is in the daytime. Whatever it means, it seems to be good for her because she’s thriving. Wait until you see her.”

“I can’t wait. I got the pictures from Evelyn and I can’t believe how much she’s grown.”

“She’s a real beauty—almost as lovely as her big sister.”

“Thanks, Dad,” said Lisa.

“And speaking of her big sister, you got a piece of mail here today.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not exactly sure, but it’s from WorldWide Studios and the initials on the envelope are
SR.
”

“Skye? He said he’d talk to me when I got out there.”

“Well, apparently he decided to write first. You can see what he wrote tomorrow.”

“As if I could wait that long. Go ahead. Open it and read it.”

“Your private mail?”

“What do I have to do to convince the world I’m not in
love with Skye and he won’t be writing anything all that private?” she asked.

“I guess the best way is to let me read the letter,” her father said. She could hear him opening the envelope. There was a pause. “Okay, here it is. ‘Dear Lisa, I’m so glad—’ yadda-yadda. ‘Lots of things to show you—’ blah-blah. ‘One thing I—’ Got it. ‘One thing I want to ask you about, though, is if you know anyone who might be interested in working on our show’s set this summer. The show is about horses, as you know, and we have a whole stable full of them. One of the assistant stable hands has left and we need to replace her. The job requirements are knowing something about horses and being willing to look after them. It’s not glamorous, of course. A lot of it is going to involve mucking out stalls and carrying buckets of water. Do you, by any wild chance, know of anyone, over sixteen years old, who might, possibly, fit that description, who could be persuaded to take a summer job on a television film set?’ ”

“Wow! Oh, Daddy, can I? Please?”

“You mean you think he might have you in mind for this job?”

“Dad!”

“Well, I guess he probably does,” her father conceded. “Sounds perfect. We’ll talk with him when you get out here. We have to consider things like hours and transportation, but it might be a good idea.”

That sounded enough like a yes that Lisa didn’t think she’d have to ask again. Now she really had some news for Carole and Stevie!

“Dad, I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for calling. Love to Evelyn, and give Lily a little hug, okay?”

“Deal,” he said. “I love you, honey.”

“I love you, too, Dad.”

She hung up the phone just long enough to get a dial tone. Stevie’s line was busy. She was probably talking to Phil, and there was no telling how long that would be. Lisa tried Carole next.

Carole was every bit as excited as Lisa about her news. “A whole summer working with horses and Skye Ransom!” Carole said. “Sounds like every girl’s dream come true.”

“I don’t think I’ll be spending that much time with Skye,” Lisa said sensibly. “He’ll be on the set most of the time, or in his trailer, or rehearsing. But I will see him, and, best of all, I’ll be with horses. It’s almost perfect.”

Carole was still grinning when she hung up the phone. That sounded like great news for Lisa. Carole sighed. If only the news around Pine Hollow were better. Lisa would be gone. Stevie wanted to be friends with Callie. And Carole’s world felt a little more mixed up than she wanted it to be.

Stevie glared at the phone. It had been glaring back at her ever since she’d walked into the house after work. Its glare was almost as bad as the broken taillight’s. She hadn’t had any run-ins that night—no crushed impatiens, no mangled garbage cans, and no more dented fenders.

But it was the dented fender that was causing her trouble. Every time she’d looked at her own taillight, she remembered the scratch on the Foresters’ car. Her mind was doing flip-flops. One second she was sure she’d done it. The next second
it could have been anyone at any time. Then she knew she’d done the damage to her own car that night. How could the Foresters’ car not have gotten damaged? But the damage to her car was so obvious—there was no way that bad dent would have made just the tiny scratch she’d seen on the Foresters’ car.

She picked up the phone. She had to talk to Callie and Scott—or, worse, their parents. She had to know. No, that wasn’t entirely true. She was actually doing pretty well not knowing. Nobody had asked her about it. Nobody had called Pizza Manor and complained. They would have noticed. Wouldn’t they?

She hung up the phone. But if she didn’t ask, she’d never know. She picked up the phone. In another second she’d cradled it again. Finally she picked it up and dialed. She got a busy signal. That was really good news. She hung up again.

Callie held the phone tightly in her hand and punched in the now-familiar number. This time, she punched in
all
the numbers and listened to the phone ring.

“Hello?” It was an adult, probably Emily’s mother.

“Is Emily there, please?” Callie asked.

“Who’s calling?”

“This is Callie Forester.”

There was a long pause. Emily’s mother held her hand over the mouthpiece so that Callie couldn’t hear what was being said. Finally the woman came back on.

“Uh, Callie, Emily is busy now and can’t come to the phone.”

“It’ll just take a minute. I promise,” said Callie.

“Not now,” the woman said.

“May I call later?” asked Callie

“I don’t think she’ll be able to talk,” the woman said. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

“I guess it’s getting kind of late,” Callie said. “Tell her I’ll call again.”

“Sure,” said Emily’s mother. And then she hung up.

Callie couldn’t remember a time when she’d done something as thoughtless as what she’d done to Emily, and it bothered her a lot that she wasn’t getting a chance to apologize. Not that she really deserved it. She’d been rude. Apologizing wasn’t going to change that. It probably wouldn’t make Emily feel any better, but it might make Callie feel better. She couldn’t wait until the next day. She needed to do something that night.

She turned to her desk and took out a sheet of stationery. If she wasn’t able to talk to Emily, she could at least write to her.

Everything she wrote felt clumsy and inadequate, but by her fifth sheet of paper, she had something that expressed her shame and sincerity. It would do until they had a chance to talk.

Callie asked her mother if she could “borrow” some of the flowers from their backyard for a friend who wasn’t feeling well. It wasn’t exactly a lie. Her mother agreed. The impatiens were thriving. She should take some of those. Callie made a pretty arrangement, wrapped the stems in a moist paper towel, and bound it all together with aluminum foil. She put a ribbon around it and clipped her note to the ribbon.

Emily’s house wasn’t far from hers—perhaps a fifteen-minute walk or five minutes by bicycle. She told her parents she’d be back soon. Her mother said she hoped her friend would feel better. Her father had something else on his mind.

“Callie, can I ask you something?” he said.

“Sure.”

“Do you know anything about a scratch on the rear end of the van?”

“Rear?”

“Well, on the side, at the rear. I noticed it this morning. I meant to ask you earlier.”

“Um, no, Dad. I don’t know anything about that,” she said. “I’ll see you guys later!” She slipped out the door before her father could ask any more questions. Her father was as persistent as a committee chairman at a televised hearing when he started asking questions. She didn’t need that right then. She had problems of her own to deal with without covering for anyone else.

C
AROLE DIDN
’
T
work at Pine Hollow on Saturdays—at least she didn’t get paid for any work she did at Pine Hollow on Saturdays. That made her all the more eager to be there Saturday mornings because it meant she could do the work she wanted to do: primarily looking after, and riding, her own horse.

This Saturday was going to be a little different. She had to make good on her promise to exercise Fez. Once that was done, she could look after Starlight, and then that afternoon, she and Stevie were going to surprise Lisa by meeting her at the airport. The girls had said good-bye to one another about four times on the phone the night before, amid excited conversations about Lisa’s potential job on Skye’s show in California. Lisa didn’t know she was going to see her friends one more time. This would be a good surprise.

Carole opened the door and checked in at the office. Emily handled the office on Saturday mornings, and she was busily
assigning horses for the early-morning class. The plain, battered desk had a small vase of flowers on it.

“What’s the occasion?” Carole asked, pointing to the flowers.

“They were a gift,” Emily said.

“From an admirer?”

“Hardly. More like an apologizer.”

“So? Give,” said Carole.

“Kind of strange, but a little nice,” Emily said. “It was Callie. Yesterday she asked me for help, which I couldn’t give her because running is not my best event, but I did offer to call Ben for her. That ticked her off and she got huffy and threatened to report me to Max or some such. I didn’t pay much attention. I guess somebody told her about me and she was embarrassed—embarrassed enough to get my phone number, but when she called, I was getting therapy, and then I went out to the movies with my parents. When we got home, Callie had left these flowers on our doorstep, along with the nicest note.”

“Really?”

“Really,” said Emily. “Of course, that made me feel bad because I should have explained in the first place.”

“You don’t have to explain anything,” Carole said.

“No, normally I don’t. My crutches do it for me. But she couldn’t see my crutches. I owed her an explanation. You know I never expect anybody’s sympathy—I don’t need it—but I do need some understanding, and the only way people can understand is if they have information. Callie didn’t have the necessary information. That made her feel like a jerk.”

“Is that what she wrote?”

“Just that she felt she’d behaved like a jerk and she hoped I’d give her a second chance.”

“And?”

“Well, sure.” said Emily. “She tried to do the right thing. And the flowers are pretty.”

“I guess,” Carole said. “They sure dress up that messy old desk.”

“So, are you going to take Starlight out now?”

“No, I’m going to work with Fez first.”

“Operation Impress the Congressman’s Daughter?”

“No, more like Operation Big Mouth,” Carole said.

“Someday soon, you’ll find a way to tell Callie that Pine Hollow really doesn’t exercise boarders for free.”

“If this horse were any fun to ride, I’d keep on doing it forever,” said Carole. “But he’s not. He’s a pain.”

“You mean you’ve finally met a horse you don’t like?”