Sea Horse (10 page)

“I’ll lose my balance if I move my hand to take it,” Jill said.

“You won’t,” Lisa promised her, hoping she was right.

She dismounted and hooked the bit end of the bridle onto Jasper’s pommel. He stood absolutely still. Very carefully and very slowly, Lisa approached Jill, afraid that if she startled her, Jill would lose her balance. Lisa talked quietly and reassuringly all the way. She felt as if she were talking to a frightened horse who just needed to hear a calm voice, and then she realized she wasn’t far wrong. Jill didn’t respond to any of the words she said—not that
Lisa even knew what she was saying—but she did respond to the confident tone of her voice.

“Now, in just a few seconds, I’m going to reach out and place this in your right hand,” Lisa said. “You won’t even have to look. You’ll be able to feel it. Then I want you to grip it as tightly as you can. After that, you’ll feel it pulling you away from the edge, away from the danger, away from the ocean. Go with the pull, go away from the edge to safety. Do you understand?”

“Don’t touch me. I’ll fall,” was all Jill said.

“I won’t,” Lisa promised.

When Lisa was as close as she could get to Jill without endangering herself on the edge, she reached for Jill’s hand, stretching every muscle of her body and arm. At first, she didn’t think she could do it. Then, with a final effort, she slid the leather into Jill’s open hand. Jill’s fingers grasped the leather and Lisa knew everything was going to be all right.

Lisa returned to Jasper. “Come on, fellow, your turn now,” she said. She took his reins and tugged gently. He began moving very slowly, taking up the slack in the bridle that led from his pommel to Jill’s hand. Lisa watched as Jill gripped the rein even tighter, her knuckles turning as white as Lisa’s had at the beginning of the trail ride. It was a grip of fear.

Jasper moved back from the cliff, and when the rein became taut, just like magic, Jill stepped back away from the edge as well. All it took was three steps and Jill was on her own. Still clutching the rein, she spun around and
ran away from the edge, straight toward Jasper, and straight toward Lisa.

Lisa grabbed her and hugged her. Jill was still shaking with fear.

“You’re okay now,” Lisa soothed her. “Everything is all right. You’re going to be fine. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. You’re safe. You’re really safe.”

Jill glanced back at the cliff only once and then she began crying. Lisa sat down on the grass. Jill joined her, sighing and crying with relief.

“Thank you,” Jill managed to say between sobs. “I was so scared I couldn’t move.”

“I saw that,” Lisa told her. “And I know how it feels. There’s something that’s really easy to do, but you’re so scared you don’t think you’ll ever be able to do it. I knew that all you needed was a little confidence.”

“That thick rope gave me all the confidence I needed,” Jill said.

“That thick rope was just a thin piece of leather,” Lisa said. “All the confidence you needed was already inside you. You just lost track of it for a few minutes.” She waited for Jill to stop crying.

At last, Jill looked up at her. “I’m so ashamed,” she said. “I owe you about a million apologies, as well as thanks—”

Lisa patted Jill on the shoulder. “If you really want to thank me, you can ride with me tomorrow.”

“Would you want to ride with me now?” Jill asked.

“Of course,” Lisa said.

They were interrupted by Frederica’s arrival.

“What’s going on here? Are you both okay?” Frederica asked, bringing her horse to a stop. She gazed curiously at the two girls sitting in the grass fifteen feet from the edge of the promontory.

“Oh, we were just admiring the view,” Lisa said easily.

For a second, she thought Jill was going to start crying again, but Jill swallowed hard and managed a weak smile. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” she told Frederica.

Lisa began giggling then, and Jill joined her.

Frederica shook her head in disbelief, but Lisa was sure she was smiling at the same time.

“C
AN YOU BELIEVE
it’s only two more days to the dance?” Phil asked Stevie on the phone. “I tried to call you yesterday and the day before, but no one answered. Where were you?”

“I’ve been at the mall,” Stevie said. “The fact is, I’ve been looking for the right thing to wear on New Year’s Eve and I haven’t found it yet. I’m looking for something blue, you know.” She was sitting on her bed as she spoke, the phone held up with her shoulder, and applying clear polish to her nails. Her dress would probably be a disaster. The least she could do was make her nails pretty.

“I guess I’m lucky,” Phil said. “I got my outfit for Christmas.”

“You did?” Stevie asked, very surprised. She didn’t remember him mentioning anything about a suit or tuxedo under the tree.

“Sure, remember? I told you—”

She didn’t remember anything of the sort.

“—the sweater my mother knit for me. It’s blue, so it should go nicely with whatever you get. I’ll wear that, and a white button-down shirt and some khaki pants and loafers, and that should do it.”

Stevie gulped. She was beginning to get the impression that somebody had made a big mistake about the dance and that somebody was her. “For the dance on New Year’s Eve that I’m going to with you?” she asked, just to be sure.

“Well, for supper first at my house, too. You can come early for that, can’t you?”

Stevie could barely squeeze the words out. “I’ll ask my parents what time they can bring me,” she said. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay, but what’s the rush?”

The rush was that Stevie couldn’t believe what a colossal, awful, terrible, miserable, embarrassing mistake she had been making and she just couldn’t say any more.

“Talk to you then,” she said hurriedly, and then hung up the phone just in time before she gasped.

Sweater, khakis, and loafers?
She had to call Carole right away!

Carole wasn’t home. “She’s over at the stable, working with Starlight. I bet she’d love some company, though,” Carole’s father said. Then, because he and Stevie always enjoyed trading silly jokes, he gave her his latest one. “Did you hear about the Marine who saved his entire regiment?” he asked.

Stevie was beyond silly riddles at that point. She desperately needed to see her friend.

“No, tell me another time,” she said, and then found herself hanging up on Colonel Hanson as quickly as she’d hung up on Phil. There was just one thing on Stevie’s mind and that was talking to Carole. Carole was almost the only person in the world to whom she could confide the horrendous blunder she’d almost made.

Stevie hopped off her bed, slipped on her barn boots and her down jacket, and headed for Pine Hollow.

As Colonel Hanson had said, Carole was out in one of the paddocks talking sternly to Starlight.

“Whoa, there, Starlight. Stand still,” she said. Then, when the horse was motionless, she mounted him and patted him. “Good boy,” she said.

“Hey, you’ve gotten him to stop stepping forward when you mount him!” Stevie said with genuine admiration. “Nice trick!”

“But not an easy one,” Carole told her. “And just because he behaved this time, it doesn’t mean he won’t misbehave the next time. Judy says that’s the way it is with horses. You just have to keep working and working and telling and telling and then, eventually, they get it. Stepping forward when he was being mounted is a bad habit somebody let him develop. I have to break him of it. That is, if he doesn’t break me first.”

“Oh, you’re doing wonderfully,” Stevie said. “You always do wonderfully. You never make mistakes, especially when it comes to horses, and you’ve got all the patience in the world for them.”

“That’s what you think,” Carole said. “I’ve been working so hard all week and it seems like I’ve barely accomplished anything! Well, I don’t want to complain. You, on the other hand, have been trying on one fairy-god-mother-type dress after another and having a blast at the mall.”

“That’s what you think,” Stevie said.

“I thought you were having fun,” Carole said, surprised at Stevie’s tone of voice.

“And I thought
you
were having a blast,” Stevie said. “Mostly, I’ve been wishing you and Lisa could help me and now … well, wait until I tell you what’s happened.”

“Before you do, why don’t you go see if Max will let you take Topside out for a trail ride and we can talk while we ride. It sounds to me as if both of us need to take a break from what we’ve been doing and get down to what it is we like doing—namely, riding. I deserve it. Don’t you?”

“You bet I do,” Stevie agreed.

She found Max in his office, grumbling over some end-of-the-year paperwork. He told her she was welcome to ride Topside as long as she didn’t work him faster than a walk on the frozen ground.

“No problem, Max,” Stevie said. She was so exhausted from all her worrying that she didn’t think she could go faster than a walk anyway.

It took only a few minutes before Topside was saddled and ready to go. She led him to the stable door, touched the stable’s good-luck horseshoe, and joined Carole in
the paddock. The two of them opened the gate, left the paddock, and closed it behind them.

“Let’s go,” Stevie said.

“Where to?” Carole asked.

“The woods,” Stevie suggested. “I bet they’re still covered with the snow that fell on Christmas Eve, and I bet they’re beautiful.”

“Deal,” Carole said. “I’ll lead the way. You talk.”

Stevie fell in behind Carole and began telling her all about what had actually been going on at the mall, how the dresses were either ugly or expensive or, even worse, both.

“I didn’t realize you were having such a tough time,” Carole said sympathetically.

“Not that it mattered, though—”

“I know. Your mother wouldn’t buy a dress for you anyway.”

“Well, there’s that, but that’s not the worst of it.” Stevie told Carole about her most recent conversation with Phil.

“Blue sweater, with a tux?” Carole asked, as confused as Stevie had been initially.

“Without a tux,” Stevie corrected her. “With a white shirt, khakis, and loafers.”

It finally sank in.

Carole’s eyes widened. “You mean this isn’t a formal dance? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“Roger, over, and out,” Stevie said, imitating a radio operator.

At first, Stevie thought Carole was just speechless because she didn’t say anything. Then, from her vantage point in the rear, Stevie became aware of the fact that Carole’s shoulders were shaking in a very familiar manner. She was laughing!

“You’re not laughing at me, are you?” Stevie asked, a little hurt.

“Of course I am!” Carole said between bursts of giggles. “And the reason I’m doing it is because the whole situation is ridiculous.”

“It is?” Stevie said.

Carole couldn’t answer her then; she was laughing too hard. Stevie began to think about it in a new light. At first, she had been angry that her daydream bubble of the blue chiffon dress and silver sandals had been burst by Phil’s blue sweater, but as she thought about it, Carole was right. The situation
was
ridiculous.

Stevie laughed, too. “Can you see me in a blue chiffon dress that perfectly matches the sweater Phil’s mother made? Maybe she makes sweaters for all these formal occasions. He’ll get a black one for the senior prom, a white one for his wedding. And me? I’ll just switch chiffon outfits!”

“Absolutely. You can get a chiffon riding outfit and a chiffon gym suit—oh, don’t forget the chiffon bathing suit …” Carole gasped with laughter.

“I wonder what color sweater his mother will knit for that!”

Pretty soon, Stevie was giggling even harder than Carole. Their horses seemed a little confused by the hilarity.
Carole drew Starlight to a stop. Stevie pulled up next to her and they stayed there until they were in control of themselves.

“Oh, that felt good!” Stevie said, taking a deep breath of the cool December air. Along with the laughter, the air seemed to cleanse away all the misery and self-pity that had been building up in her for days.

“Phil must never know!” she said.

“Maybe on your fiftieth wedding anniversary,” Carole suggested. “But before then, we have to decide what you’re really going to wear.”

Stevie scratched her head to help her think, forgetting that she was wearing a helmet. “I’ve got it,” she declared. “If he’s wearing blue, I should, too. I’ve got a blue-plaid skirt and a white sweater that goes with it. I can wear a turtleneck under that and I’m all set, don’t you think?”

“Sounds good to me. Didn’t you wear that when he came to your house on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, though?”

“I’ll bet you anything he won’t notice. There, that problem’s been taken care of. Now, what’s been bugging you?” Stevie asked.

“I think I’ve just discovered what hard work it is to train horses. And it seems to take forever until the work pays off. The thing I have to remember is that it
will
pay off, and in the end, it’s worth it. But I’ve been so lonely.”

“Me, too,” Stevie said. “Malls are awful without friends.”

“Stables aren’t much better,” Carole told her. She
started Starlight walking once again and the two friends rode on into the woods in contented silence for a while.