My Favorite Mistake (27 page)

“What?” The trainer sounded surprised and a little put out. “Are you saying you don't want to sell the horse?”

“Yeah,” Tommi said. “Sorry to have wasted your time.”

“I'm sorry, too.” The trainer's voice was clipped and tight. “Good-bye.”

Tommi didn't have a chance to say anything else before the line cut off. She couldn't really blame the trainer for being annoyed. And she didn't even want to think about how Vanessa would react when she found out.

But she couldn't quite find it in her to care. She was the only one who needed to face herself in the mirror every day, and she just couldn't do that if she sold a horse like Legs into a situation where he was set up for failure from the start. Even if nobody else blamed her when things went south, she'd blame herself.

“What was all that about?” Zara asked through a mouthful of gooey pastry.

Tommi had almost forgotten she was there. She told her the gist of what had just happened. “Sorry, guess that means you won't be getting your commission,” she joked weakly.

“Bummer,” Zara said. “But don't sweat it. That girl seemed like a royal beyotch. Legs is too good for someone like her.”

“Definitely.” Tommi smiled. “And it's not like I don't still have plenty of time to find a better match for him. In the meantime, what my dad doesn't know won't hurt me, right?”

Tommi slammed on the brakes as a taxi cut her off right outside the Holland Tunnel. “Asshole,” she muttered. Then she glanced at Zara, who was slumped in the passenger seat, staring out at the multicolored lights of lower Manhattan. “Sorry about that.”

“Whatever.” Zara yawned. “Just try not to crash before you drop me off, okay?”

Tommi rolled her eyes. “I'll do my best.” She spun the wheel, taking the turn onto Sixth Avenue. “So what are we going to do about Kate?”

Zara just shrugged. When Tommi looked over again, the other girl looked bored. No wonder. The two of them had spent the better part of the long Sunday-evening drive back from the show discussing Kate, but hadn't come close to any solutions. All Tommi knew was that she was worried about her friend. Really worried. What if she
was
spiraling into anorexia or something?

It seemed crazy. But it also kind of didn't. Kate had always been majorly intense, all about staying in control, always being perfect. Wasn't that pretty much a recipe for those kinds of problems?

“Maybe we need to talk to her,” she said. “Get her to admit what's going on, if anything is.”

“You mean like an intervention or something?” Zara shot her a look. “Not sure I'm up for that much drama.”

“Fine, if you don't want to help, then don't,” Tommi snapped. “
I'm
not planning to abandon my friend when she's in trouble. So sue me.”

“Big talk for someone who didn't even admit her
friend
had a problem until I brought it up,” Zara shot back. “Anyway, since when are Kate and I BFFs? She sure didn't act like it when she tried to sneak around behind my back and pawn those gloves I bought her.”

“Cut her a break,” Tommi said, wanting to defend Kate but definitely not about to spill all her secrets to Zara. “You don't know why she did that. Maybe she had a good reason.”

“Yeah. Like turning me into her personal cash machine. Cha-ching!”

“Whatever,” Tommi muttered. “Let's not talk about it anymore. I need to pay attention to the traffic anyhow.”

Zara was glad to see her building appear on the next block. It had been a long drive back from the show.
Really
long. Tommi had spent the entire time chewing over Kate's possible problems as obsessively as Chaucer gnawed on his rawhide bone.

Not that Zara didn't get where she was coming from. If their suspicions were right, this was a big freaking deal. But Zara wasn't really used to worrying that much about someone else's life, and she was tired from the long weekend of showing and not in the mood right now.

“Here we are,” Tommi said, pulling to the curb behind a parked van. “And listen, sorry if I was a little cranky before. I'm just worried about Kate, and it's stressing me out, you know?”

“Yeah. Me too.” Zara shot her a small, cautious smile. “Thanks for the ride. I'll see you Tuesday.”

Tommi nodded. “Maybe we can figure something out by then. I'll text you if I come up with anything, okay?”

“Okay, cool.” Zara climbed out of the car, grabbed her bag out of the backseat, and headed inside.

As she rode up in the elevator, she braced herself for party central. After leaving Stacie alone for the entire long weekend, she figured it was lucky the building was still intact. She wasn't even going to try to guess what the inside of the loft looked like by now. Or how many of Stacie's new “friends” were in there right this second, trashing the place even further.

The elevator doors slid open, and Zara stepped out onto the landing. To her surprise, it was quiet—no pounding music, no muffled voices or screams of laughter coming from behind the door.

“Weird,” she muttered, fishing for her key.

She pushed the door open and stepped inside the silent apartment. All the lights were on, and the place was an even bigger mess than usual. Zara stepped over a crumpled beer can, wrinkling her nose. No way was she cleaning up this shit.

“Stacie?” she called. “You home?”

There was no answer. Zara picked her way through the discarded cans, bottles, cigarette butts, and other debris into the main area. She had a pretty strong stomach, but the stink was already getting to her—a rank combination of stale smoke, stale beer, bad cologne, and old puke.

“Hope she's out buying cleaning stuff,” Zara muttered as she noticed the source of the puke smell, a half-dried splat on the floor near the TV. Gross. Wherever Stacie was, she'd better get back soon and deal with the mess she'd created.

Zara stepped back to the foyer to deposit her boots under the ledge in the message center. As she did, she noticed a note stuck to the schedule board. When she grabbed it, she saw that it was from her cousin.

Hope you had a fun show, Z!
it read in Stacie's big, loopy handwriting.
I'm going away for a week or so—Steve wants to take me to his family's place in the mountains. Isn't that romantic? See u when I get back, prolly end of next w/e or so. Ciao! XXXOOO

Zara gritted her teeth, then crumpled the note in her hand. Great. Just great. So Cousin Stacie trashes the place, then skips town with some random guy Zara never even heard of? Fabulous.

“Whatever,” Zara muttered. Noticing that the message light on the phone was blinking, she punched the button with a little more force than necessary. There were more than a dozen messages. Most were skippable—boring stuff from Zac's lawyers or moronic interviewers who hadn't yet figured out he was touring or whatever. She fast-forwarded through
those quickly, then stopped on the second-to-last message when she heard her father's familiar voice.

“How's it going, Little Z?”
Zac sounded cheerful. And maybe a little drunk.
“Things are cool over here—European fans are awesome. Anyway, hope you and Stacie are good. Give me a call back whenever if you want.”

That was it. Zara hit delete, then kept her finger hovering over the button, waiting for the last message. It was another familiar voice.

“Zara, love, it's Mom!”
Gina sang out.
“It's Sunday morning early, and I'm sure you're still at your show—that was this weekend, wasn't it? In any case, I have some fabulous news. Well, more of a silver lining, really.”
Her musical laugh tinkled out of the tiny speaker. “
Remember how I told you we were having permit problems here? Well, it looks like there's going to be a longer delay than they thought, so we've got some unexpected time off. And what better way for me to fill it than by popping home to New York to visit with my darling baby girl? I just booked the flight—I'll be there in time for lunch on Tuesday. Can't wait to see you, my love!”

Zara froze, trying to process what her mother had said. Tuesday. Here. Gina was coming here. In less than two days.

She turned and stared out at the disaster that was the loft. Great. Just freaking great.

Kate still felt kind of shaky when she arrived at the barn on Monday morning. It had been a rough weekend, but she just wanted to put it behind her and move on. As much as possible,
anyway. Tommi had covered for her with Mrs. Walsh as promised, though Kate couldn't help wondering exactly how long it would take her to pay her friend back for those expensive breeches. She knew Tommi wouldn't care if it took a year—or if she ever paid her back at all, for that matter—but somehow that made it even worse.

She was surprised to see a couple of familiar cars in the parking lot. Most of the other juniors stayed away on Mondays, since the barn was supposed to be closed to clients. Especially the Monday after a show, when Jamie preferred to give most of the horses a well-deserved day off. But there was Tommi's car, and Fitz's right next to it.

Anxiety fluttered in the pit of Kate's stomach as she cut her engine. She'd managed to convince Jamie that she'd just had a mild flu or something. But she wasn't sure her friends believed her—she'd noticed Tommi and Zara giving her weird looks when she'd dragged herself over to the showgrounds on Sunday afternoon to watch Jamie ride in the Grand Prix, where he'd come in fourth on a client's new horse. At the time she hadn't worried too much about what they might be thinking. All she'd had on her mind was surviving the rest of the weekend, then going home and sleeping for about twenty-four hours straight.

But now here she was, and it looked as if she might have to face them sooner than she'd planned. She just hoped they didn't overreact to what had happened. Anyone could get overtired and run down, right?

As soon as she stepped into the barn, she saw Tommi and Zara sitting on one of the benches. They were obviously
waiting for her, judging by the way they leaped to their feet and hurried over.

“Kate!” Tommi said. “How are you?”

“Fine!” Kate made her voice as cheery as she could manage. “What are you guys doing here? Never mind, don't tell me—too much to do.”

“Not so fast.” Tommi grabbed her by the arm as she tried to hurry past. “We need to talk to you.”

Kate pulled back, but her friend's grip was strong. “Can it wait?” she asked. “I should really go see if the guys need my help cleaning out the trailers.”

“No, this definitely can't wait,” Tommi said.

“Yeah. Besides, I can't stay long,” Zara added, checking her watch. “Actually, I can't believe I got up this early. I need to get back to the city soon to meet the cleaning service—God, I hope they weren't lying when they claimed they work fast! And while I'm at it, maybe I should start working on finding a detective who specializes in missing persons of the idiotic variety.”

Kate had no idea what she was talking about, but didn't have the mental energy to worry about it. “Listen,” she told Zara, “if this is about the glove thing, I'm really sorry. It's just that Summer really wanted them, and I just thought—”

“Forget it,” Zara interrupted, waving a hand. “Not a big deal. Anyway, I should've guessed it was all Summer's fault somehow. The girl's a major pain in the ass.”

Kate was relieved that she didn't seem mad anymore. Meanwhile Tommi was still dragging her down the aisle toward a deserted storage room.

Once inside, Kate turned to face the other two. “Well?” she said.

There was a moment of silence. Tommi and Zara traded a glance, both of them looking uncomfortable. “Well …,” Tommi began, then stopped.

“Um, yeah,” Zara said. “Listen, we …”

Her voice trailed off, too. Despite her own anxiety, Kate couldn't help a flicker of amusement as she glanced at the two of them. Tommi was always so confident, so on top of things, Zara so carelessly cool and mouthy. It wasn't every day anyone got to see that particular pair struck speechless.