Sliding On The Edge (15 page)

“
Wow, cakes,” I say, but I
didn’t mean it in a bad way. I never thought about someone baking
me a birthday cake.

She stares at the floor. Then in a
voice that sounds like she’s reining it in tight, she says:
“Shawna, we have an appointment with a therapist next Wednesday
afternoon, after school. We are going in there and we are going to
find out what each of us has to do to get along together. I don’t
care what you tell her or how you feel about going. I only care
that each of us survives and maybe comes out somewhat whole at the
end.

She stands up and gives me that
red-eyed look of hers. “I’ll pick you up exactly at 3:00 o’clock
after school.” She disappears down the hall and she doesn’t exactly
slam her office door, but it closes harder than usual.

I never got mad when Mom snuck out
late and hit the tables. I never yelled at her about being the
responsible person and letting me know where she was going and when
she was leaving. I never . . . And what if I had? What difference
would that have made? I make a circle with my thumb and first
finger and hold it up. “Zero. Zip. Nada.”

So what’s with the queen?
Why’s she so sensitive? Manual Entry #5: Keep Her Informed About
Where You Go. Ha, like there are so many choices.

I pound the cushion next to me and
push my face into it. Lights dance behind my eyelids, and I lie
there, trying to digest what Kay said. I think about what happened
in the café with Casey and then with that creep, and why the visit
to The Troll’s house weirded me out so much. “I don’t know how many
more Sundays I can do here,” I whisper into the cushion.

I stretch up from the sofa
and walk outside. There’s still a lot of the day left, and no
prospects of anything happening until dinner.
Whoopie!

I think about taking Magic
an apple and talking to him. Then I think about never seeing him
again, and my throat burns like it did when Casey told me about
Texas and what it means for horses.
I hate
this place! I wish I’d never come here.

I walk to the end of the
house and look across at Drunk Floyd’s. Magic hangs his long neck
over the top rail and rubs against the rough wood. The other two
lean against the shady side of the barn and twitch their
tails.
Why’s that dumb horse standing
there in the hot sun?I know why.

“
Stupid animal!” But I’m
already walking into the kitchen. I grab an apple and cut it up the
way he likes it. I stashed the vitamins from Rural Supply at the
back of the cabinet under the sink, so I grab the now very legal
bottle, shake out two pills, and hurry down the back
steps.

I climb up and over the fence and
Magic has already taken a chunk of apple before I land. I grind the
pills and stir them in the pan of water. He cleans the pan then
nudges me until I rub the white spot on his head, something that
pleases him now that he’s used to me.

“
Come on, let’s get out of
the sun. Don’t you think it’s hot enough to cook your hide out
here?”

He follows me under the shade tree,
eats the rest of his apple, and keeps nosing me for more. “That’s
it. I’ll bring you another one tomorrow. Maybe.” He rubs against my
side, the hair on my arms tingles under his hot breath. I bite my
lip hard.

I check the water trough and make sure
all three horses have grass hay, but Magic, ignoring the fresh hay,
trails after me as I make my way back to Kay’s.

“
What’s up with you today?”
I reach my arms up around his neck.

Stay
, he says to me, or at least I think that’s what he’d say if
he could.
Ride with me.

This is great, now I’m starting the
Sweet River mind reading, only I’m reading what’s going on inside a
horse’s head? “I . . . I . . . don’t know how, Magic.”

I’ll teach you. Climb on
that fence and put your leg over my back. I’ll teach you to ride.
I’ll teach you to do a lot of things, Shawna. Try. Don’t be
afraid.

“
I’m not afraid of anything.
Why is everybody and . . . everything on the planet trying to tag
me with that?”

Magic snorts and paws the ground. Now
he’s giving me that stare. That, “You-Can’t-Kid-Me, Kid,” look that
The Queen uses.

“
Okay.” I glance away. “I’m
afraid. You satisfied?”

He shakes his head.

“
And if you tell another
soul what I just said, I’ll punch your lights out, buddy! Besides,
you’re not really so smart. If you were so smart, you wouldn’t
belong to Floyd now, would you?”

He butts me in my side with his
head.

Don’t be
afraid.

He turns, walks to the fence and waits
for me to catch up.

The best way to do anything that’s new
and not too much to your liking, is to do it fast. But Magic is
suddenly ten stories taller than he was a minute ago, and his back
looks slick as oil. I’m going to fall and break bones. I just know
it.

He gives me another
look.
Well?

“
If I die, you are gonna
hear from my lawyers.”
Funny. I said,
if
.

I climb to the top rail, balance; then
swing my leg over Magic’s back before I give another thought to the
prospects of not getting down again in one piece.

He stands until I have a grip on his
mane, and then he takes me with him. I cinch my thighs tight
against his sides, squeeze my eyes shut, and wonder what in the
hell I think I’m doing on the back of this humongous animal. I
relax my grip and he picks up his pace. Now he is sort of jogging,
or whatever horses do, and my butt is slapping against his
back.

“
I’m not good at this,
Magic. Slow down, okay?”

You’ll get better. Riding
is easy. It’s like breathing.

“
Right. And I don’t do that
so good, either. Maybe I need breathing lessons before I take your
riding lessons.”

He shifts into another gear, and now I
feel like I’m on a ship, rocking forward and back. I squeeze my
legs tighter and lean over his broad neck.

He slows, and I’m back to the
butt-slapping again, until he drops to a walk and returns me to the
fence.

Now you can climb down.
You’re free to go.

I climb onto the fence and watch Magic
walk to the barn.

“
I’ll bring you an apple
tomorrow after school!” I yell.

He doesn’t look back at me.

“
If you’re still alive,” I
say. I kick the fence post hard. “Ow!” Hopping and holding onto the
toe of my tennis shoe I ask myself,
When .
. . did you . . . decide to . . . ow . . . be stupid?
I sit and pull my shoe off. My sock is
bloody.
You’re such a loser. And you can’t
help it, can you?

As carefully as I can, I peel the sock
off. My big toe kinda waggles when I touch it. The nail is
bleeding, and a dark bruise already covers it all the way to the
joint.

“
It’s broken.” Casey is
looking down at me.

“
Oh, no.” I drop my bloody
sock and cover my face with my hands.
Maybe if I block out all the light, I’ll be safe. I don’t
want him here. I don’t need him here. I don’t want or need anybody
or anything. But damn, I wish my toe would stop
throbbing
.

I feel his arms reach under and lift
me. I keep my face covered so I don’t have to see him, so I can’t
see where he’s taking me. I can feel his chest rising and falling,
his heartbeat against my side. I’m thinking about those movies,
with strong men sweeping up sexy women and . . . and my toe is
ready to explode. Why doesn’t he say something? If he says
anything, I’ll pop him in the nose. My toe has a heart of its own
now, and that heart is drumming so hard my whole foot
throbs.

“
What’s this, something we
have to shoot and put out of her misery?”

I peek through my fingers at Kenny
Fargo, who sits rocking in his favorite chair on the front
porch.

“
Broken toe is all,” Casey
says. He puts me on the step and walks away. “Shoot her if that’s
what you need to do.”

“
Looks like you got yourself
another friend,” Kenny said, nodding toward Casey’s retreating
back.

Chapter 29

Kay

Monday morning Kay dropped Shawna at
school. “Shawna, are you sure you can walk on that foot
today?”

“
It’s fine.”

“
All right, but call me if
you have problems later.” Kay waited until Shawna limped inside the
front door with her books hugged to her chest.

After a few errands, she returned home
and was putting groceries away when the phone rang. Kay answered,
expecting a call from the vet.

“
Kay, it’s
Jackie.”

The flat, nasal voice Kay
would never forget jolted her as sharply as an electrical charge.
Pictures from over sixteen years ago flashed in her head like a
slide show. Nicholas, sitting with his elbows on the kitchen table,
his hands covering his face. Jackie, standing next to him. Peter,
standing near the back door, looking out.
Where was she?
Behind the camera, she
guessed, because she couldn’t see herself. It was probably better
that she didn’t.

Kay gripped the phone tighter. “What
do you want?” She didn’t waste intonation on the question, so her
voice sounded as flat as the one on the other end of the
line.

“
I’d like to talk to
Shawna.”

“
She’s in
school.”

“
When—”

“
She’ll be home after
three.”

“
I’ll call back
then.”

Kay hung up the phone.

The next call came before Kay’s hand
left the receiver, and this time it was the vet. She made
arrangements with him to come to the barn later and check on the
gray. The rest of the day, she went from worrying over the gray’s
condition to trying her best not to think about Jackie. But even
while Kay sat watching over her horse, Jackie was never out of her
mind.

She walked between the barn and the
house, talking to herself. “The last thing I need is that one back
in my life. What are you talking about, Kay? She’ll always be in
your life, as long as Shawna’s around.”

At 2:30, Kay climbed into the truck.
Buster jumped into the bed and they were on their way to pick up
Shawna. It was a routine now, one she and Buster had built into
their weekdays. It gave Kay time to think about her day, to worry
over the gray’s temperature that Kenny couldn’t get down to normal,
to remind herself to make Kenny’s apple pie as she’d promised, to
put together a mental list of errands she still needed to do before
dinner. The ten-minute ride was Kay’s break.

She turned into the school parking lot
and drove to the front. Shawna stood on the steps, her chin jutting
out, her hip swished to one side, where she’d propped her books.
When she looked up, her expression surprised Kay. It was the first
time her granddaughter looked happy to see her. Something warm
flooded the inside of her chest, and she had to grip the wheel to
keep back the tears that threatened.

Shawna limped to the truck and climbed
inside.

“
How’s the toe?”

“
Whaddya think? It still
hurts.”

The same smart sass came out of
Shawna’s mouth when she answered, and Kay’s fuzzy feeling
evaporated. She pointed to the seat belt. Next she’d get a
recording and play, “buckle up” every time the girl got in. She may
be an AP student, Kay thought, but she doesn’t remember anything
she’s told.

She should warn the girl about
Jackie’s call, but maybe Jackie’d forget to call back. Reliable was
not an adjective that woman could even spell.

As they drove up to the house, Kenny
came out to meet them and gave Shawna a hand up the front steps.
For a moment Kay thought about the ranch without Shawna, but she
pushed that thought aside and opened the door for the doctor and
his patient.

“
Go into Kay’s office,”
Kenny told Shawna. “I’ll get my bag.”

Kenny’s bag was a magical leather
pouch that held dozens of ointments, pills, and bandages. No matter
how many things he retrieved from inside it, he could always
extract something more. Even the vet borrowed from Kenny’s bag. Kay
once asked him how he knew so much about medicine. But she never
did again, because his face had shifted into such despair that she
instantly regretted her question. How he learned the art of healing
didn’t matter anyway.

“
I’ll leave you to your
doctoring. I’m going out to see if the gray looks any better after
a few hours on this new antibiotic.” Kay walked to the barn and
opened the gray’s stall.

“
How’s it going, girl?” Kay
took the gray’s head in her lap and gently rubbed the broad
forehead. The gray turned her eyes to meet Kay’s. Kay was the love
of her life. The person she trusted above all. It was all there in
those dark windows that allowed Kay a glimpse into her cherished
horse.