Taming the Star Runner

  He looked up, and Travis felt for a minute that Ken had forgotten who he was and what he was doing here. He'd felt that before. It made him really wonder why Ken had let him come in the first place.

  "Finish your schoolwork?"

  Ken asked him that every night. It was like it was the one safe conversation piece.

  "Yeah." He hadn't, but he could do it on the bus in the morning. "Can I have a beer?"

  "No."

  "I drink it at home."

  "You're not home."

  "Yeah, but--"

  Ken put his papers down. "Subject is closed, kid. I don't have the energy for this kind of garbage. You want to drink beer, go home."

  "Yeah, okay, no big deal." Travis figured he'd just sneak down later for a swig of bourbon.

  "You doin' legal stuff?"

  "Yeah, I'll shuffle these papers around awhile, then I'll give them to someone else to shuffle and when enough people have shuffled for the appropriate time, something of no lasting value will be decided."

  "I thought being a law partner was a pretty good job."

  "Being a partner is fine. It's the practice of law that sucks."

  Travis wandered around the room, picking up stuff and looking at the pictures on the wall. Most of them were of a chubby blond baby growing into a chubby blond little boy. Ken's son Christopher--would that make him his nephew, cousin...?

  "Ken?"

  "Yeah."

  "How old are you?"

  "Thirty-seven."

  Travis was shocked. "Oh, wow, man, you don't look that old."

  "Thanks." Ken's voice seemed even drier than normal.

  "Can I ask you something?" Travis was talking almost absentmindedly. It was a good thing he'd brought a lot of books with him, there didn't seem to be many here.

  "I'm betting you can."

  "Huh?"

  "Yes, you may ask me something."

  "Oh." Travis dropped into an armchair, fiddled with a lever, and almost flipped himself over backward. When he got straightened up he said, "Was my dad some kind of gung-ho Rambo, joining the Air Force to whip the commies?"

  His dad had been shot down over Vietnam two months before he was born. Travis was curious about him. Mom always spoke of him as a "good man and a brave soldier," but Travis couldn't tell much from that. Not that she'd have the story straight anyway. She tended to remember things the way she wanted them to have happened, instead of the way they did.

  Not that it had much to do with him. He didn't have a dad, but neither did a lot of people. No big deal.

  "No," Ken said slowly. "Not at first. But he got more and more militant, got so bad, in fact, that we couldn't carry on a conversation for five minutes without getting into a fight ... No, at first he just wanted so bad to fly--"

  Travis got up abruptly. He didn't want to hear about flying right now. And Ken seemed glad to change the subject.

  "Kid."

  "Yeah?"

  "Change the cat's litter box."

  Stan had griped a lot about that too.

  "I'm goin' to start lettin' him out tomorrow--he'll whip your dogs."

  "They won't bother him. They're used to cats."

  "Yeah?" Travis was interested, "You got a cat?"

  "I had a cat. Teresa's got custody."

  Travis wandered back to his room. Maybe Ken was so preoccupied because of this divorce deal. Well, it probably was rough, but you had to admit, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as attempted murder.

  Chapter 3

  The whole world had turned on him! Travis didn't get it. Nothing was happening the way he wanted it.

  Ken was too distracted to pay much attention to him, but Travis hadn't expected an open-arms welcome, and who knows what Ken had expected.

  No, Ken was okay, it was school. The other kids. Travis was easily the coolest guy in the school. That was apparent the first day. He didn't see anyone worth hanging out with. They all talked so weird, slowly, dragging out every word with a drawl too hokey to be real.

  He was sure the first day that this was all an elaborate put-on for his benefit. Just a joke on a new kid. He was stunned and amused to find out the truth--people really talked like this! And they moved so slowly, his own movements made him look like a speed freak. They even ate lunch slowly.

  After the first week it was a little less noticeable, at least enough to keep him from laughing out loud. But by then he wasn't much in the mood for laughing, anyway.

  It was starting to dawn on Travis that these people didn't seem to realize how cool he was, much, much cooler than anyone else in this hick school--you'd think people would be standing in line to suck up to him. But it wasn't happening.

  There wasn't any group for him. Back home there were lots of different groups. He could even comfortably drift with two or three. Here it was just hicks. Hick jocks and hick nerds, maybe. He didn't fit.

  He preferred Trans Ams to pickups, speed to four-wheel drive. He liked hard rock instead of country. His language shocked even the boys. The girls worth looking at were looking at somebody else. He felt weird, moving so much faster than everyone; when he tried to slow down he became clumsier than ever. Getting into trouble for his foul mouth, he tried to curb it and couldn't--the solution seemed to be keeping his mouth shut. Nobody wanted to speak to him anyway.

  His English teacher was not impressed by his first theme. The first page was covered with red corrections. At the top of the second she'd written, I give up! Buy a dictionary.

  A D on an English paper in a school where they barely spoke English!

  Well, he'd lived before with teachers who weren't madly in love with him. He could handle that. But he'd never been without friends.

  He remembered feeling sorry for new kids at his old school, not that he ever went out of his way to make their lives easier. At least he didn't torment them, like Kirk had.

  In fact, in the eighth grade, he went out of his way to get the twins into his group, figuring twins might be interesting; he hadn't known any before.

  They weren't particularly, but Travis didn't regret befriending them.

  They had transferred from another school in the middle of the school year when their parents got divorced; maybe that accounted for their stunned and rabbity-looking faces. Skinny, blond, never quite clean, dressed alike in plain T-shirts and jeans, Travis got to where he could tell Billy from Mike when he saw them together, but didn't know whether he was speaking to Billy or Mike when he bumped into one of them alone. They rarely were alone, though, it made them uneasy--all their mother had to do to keep them in line was threaten to send one to live with their father.

  No, Travis never regretted including them, though once the novelty of their being twins wore off they weren't anything outstanding. And when their mother remarried, their stepfather would buy them grass.

  Interesting or not, Travis would have given anything to have them over for an evening, or better yet, gone to hang out with them while they flipped burgers for McDonald's, because on top of everything else, he was starving.

  Joe--

  This place is okay except there's nothing to eat. Really. Remember how you guys thought I was absentminded? Well, you should see my uncle. He keeps forgetting I'm here--he works late a lot and eats a sandwich at the office and I'm stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with no wheels and an empty fridge. So Ken comes in at nine o'clock and does a double take at finding someone else here and swears and off we go to the 7-Eleven for a microwaved barbecue beef...

  Mom would croak if she knew how he had to scrounge around this big old house trying to find something edible. Mom was a good cook, you had to give her that. The memories of the dinners she used to fix could almost make him cry. Macaroni and cheese and pork chops and potato pancakes and fried chicken--homemade desserts every night.

  He hated to admit it, but he was sick of pizza.

  Listen, Joe, it sounds funny, but the other night I got desperate enough to try to cook spaghetti. The directions say "cook till tender." H
ow am I supposed to know when that is? Anyway, it came out kind of chewy and the only thing I could find to put on it was a can of tomato soup. Ken came in and found me eating that stuff and we drove clear into town to an all-nite Safeway and we stocked up on frozen dinners and lunch meat so at least I'm set for a while. You'd think Ken'd realize somebody's living here by now...

  Travis got up and wandered down to the den, where Ken sat in front of a Star Trek rerun working on papers. It was hard to keep on writing Joe letters when he didn't write back--Travis had known he wouldn't, but still, it was like putting a note in a bottle and tossing it out to sea. Actually, it was hard to write anything these days.

  Here was the perfect time to hole up in his room and write, but his mind seemed as blank as a typing sheet. Maybe because it wasn't his choice, anymore, now that there was nothing else to do.

  "How's school?" Ken asked automatically. Usually, Travis said, "Okay," and that was their evening conversation. But tonight Travis said, "Rotten."

  Ken looked up.

  "Really. Nobody likes me."

  "I like you."

  "Yeah, but you don't go to my school."

  Ken laughed and put down his papers. "Okay. Listen, hang in there a little while longer and if it doesn't get any better I'll get you transferred to East River. It's a lot bigger, there'd probably be somebody who'd like you."

  Travis didn't see anything funny about this, and it might have shown on his face, because Ken said, "Just try it a little longer, okay? I've got a heavy caseload right now, and this thing with Teresa's on my mind--"

  Great, thought Travis. Ask him to spend two minutes on my problems and we're back to his ... "You're not being a farmer anymore?"

  "Rancher. No. At one point I was going to be a gentleman rancher, which I found out is impossible. Unless you're fantastically wealthy and unbelievably sane, you can't ranch in your spare time. Fortunately, I got out before the bottom dropped out of the market ... Teresa was bored out here anyway..."

  Why would he care if she was bored? They were divorcing.

  "There's nobody to hang out with," Travis said, getting back to the main problem.

  "The barn is swarming with girls every afternoon. Some of them are pretty cute. Hang out with them."

  Hang out with girls! Now he could believe Ken's remark about not being totally sane. The idea was too dumb to even discuss. All he said was, "I don't think what's-her-name, Casey, likes me."

  "Unless you're on a horse, or are a horse, she's not going to like you. You sure seem to worry a lot about being liked."

  For the first time Ken had really ticked him off. Travis had never, in his whole total life, given a damn about being liked. Who cared? Who gave a-- He got up off the floor and went outside. He hated Star Trek reruns. Mom was a Trekkie. She even made Stan take her to the Star Trek movies.

  He sat on the short wall of the patio. Except for the purple glow of the bug zapper, it was pitchblack. It got so dark out here ... Motorboat jumped up and walked along the wall. Travis held out a fist and the cat shoved his face against it, then the top of his head, rumbling loudly.

  After a while, Travis went to spit in the bug zapper, to hear it zit.

  It was invisible-man time again at school the next day. Even the big hulk who'd gone out of his way to harass him the first week had given it up, like it wasn't worth the bother. Travis remembered a kid at his old school, a real loner who was suspected of being a psycho, and for the first time wondered if that kid had really wanted to be a loner. If maybe somehow all the other kids had forced him into it, without even being really aware of what they were doing. He'd always assumed that being a loner was something you chose--now he knew other people could choose it for you.

  Okay, so this was the way it was. He kept up his swagger and answered his teachers in monosyllables; he spent lunch smoking in an empty corner of the baseball field or in the library. He kept a faint sneer on his face, even while combing his hair in the john, noticing miserably how round his ears were, like teddy-bear ears, how pale his face. These damn suckers were making him doubt his looks.

  He went down to the barn after school. Not to hang out. Just to see what was going on...

  Casey gave riding lessons after school and on weekends; she was at the barn to feed and water before he caught the bus in the mornings. He'd gone down to the barn before, carefully waiting until her Jeep was gone, to look at the horses. Now he was going to look at the girls...

  Casey stood in the middle of the ring, four little girls on ponies trotting in a circle around her. As each one went by she barked an order: "Molly, get your heels down. Amber, get your leg back, your leg should be on the fat part of the horse. Megan, you're posting too high. Wrong diagonal, Liz."

  Travis folded his arms on the top rail of the ring and watched. God, it was hot. It'd be a lot cooler at home by now. Here the heat just sat on you, like a cloud. The riders looked even hotter, with all that hot junk they had to wear--boots and pants and hats. Casey was wearing shorts and a T-shirt and a sun visor, and she didn't look too cool either.

  "When you get to the brush box, canter."

  Only one little girl managed what he assumed was a canter. The rest of the ponies just trotted faster.

  "Don't throw yourself forward! Sit up! Pull up and try it again. Get organized."

  Travis had thought about learning to ride, but he'd thought Ken could teach him. All this flitting around in an English saddle looked too la-di-da for him. Besides that, he hadn't seen anyone except girls doing it.

  "Hi. You ever get any cigarettes?"

  Travis had seen Jennifer coming up behind him, but had pretended not to, deciding to let her speak first.

  "Yeah, I did. You riding today?"

  Jennifer really was cute, dark hair in an expensive-looking short cut, dark eyes. She was wearing tight gray riding breeches, high boots, and a polo shirt.

  "I'm in the next lesson. I've got to go tack up in a minute. Casey," she called, "Robyn won't be here, she had to stay after school."

  Casey left the circle of riders. Dust had settled like a tan across her face, streaked here and there by little rivers of sweat.

  "What?"

  "Robyn got in trouble, she had to stay after for a conference with her mother."

  "Great." She kept an eye on the riders and suddenly yelled, "Molly, don't let him walk off with you like that! You should have pulled him up after the first step!"

  She turned back to Jennifer. "Robyn was going to do the stalls for me. I've got a horse-show meeting this evening!"

  "I'd do it," Jennifer offered, "but I've got my piano lesson right after this."

  "You. Nephew. What's your name?"

  "Travis." He was annoyed by her tone--sure, maybe she was a little older, but not that much.

  "Would you do something for me? I've got to split after this next class. Would you go up and water the stalls for me?"

  Her green eyes were a much warmer color than his own. They saved her face from plainness. Too bad, he thought, she had to go and ruin her nice long legs. They were way too muscled up.

  "Yeah, sure," he said. "Okay."

  "What a pal," she said, and went back to her students.

  "How old is she?" he asked Jennifer as they walked back to the barn together.

  "Casey? Eighteen, I think. She's the youngest pro in the state."

  "You like her?"

  "Oh, sure, I mean, she's a real perfectionist, she makes you work real hard, but we do win ribbons at shows. I'm a little bit scared of her."

  I can see that, Travis thought, but sounded surprised as he said, "Scared?"

  "Oh, not scared, but you know, she's so good and I'm such a klutz--I fell off right in front of the judge last time. I thought I was going to die."

  "What'd Casey do?"

  "Came out and gave me a leg up."

  Seeing his puzzled look, she added, "Boosted me back on and told me to finish the course."

  There were two girls in the barn, getting their ho
rses ready to ride, and one older lady, thirty at least.

  The girls were too young to be interesting, probably around thirteen. They looked enough alike to be sisters, blond and freckled, though one had a bad perm. And from the way they acted, they could have been twins. Unlike the pair back home, they were loudmouthed and silly, shrieking, "Oh, Kristen!" "Oh, Kelsey!" at each other, and in ten minutes they were driving him nuts. He thought they might be driving the older lady nuts, too, because she got her horse saddled and out of there, fast.

  Travis watched Jennifer brush and fly-spray her small brown horse. He liked the part when she cleaned its feet with a pick, because it called for a lot of bending over.

  Kristen and Kelsey were ready first and the barn was much more peaceful. They'd been gone about ten minutes by the time Jennifer had her saddle and bridle on, and Travis was surprised to see her near tears.

  "If my lesson runs late Mom'll kill me. I've got to go straight to piano from here. Oh, damn."

  She led the horse out of the barn at a trot, and almost ran down the red dirt road toward the ring.

  The little girls from the first class were riding into the pasture behind the ring. He decided he'd get the stalls watered and be back in the house before they got back. Little girls didn't interest him.

  The work didn't take long.

  He stopped halfway in the kitchen door. There was a blond woman in the kitchen. She looked too well dressed to be a burglar, but Travis froze a minute anyway...

  She paused, too, then relaxed. But she was staring at him as if she were seeing a ghost.

  "You must be Travis," she said finally. "God, you look more like Ken than Christopher does. I'm Teresa," she added.

  Teresa, Ken's wife, or soon-to-be ex-wife. Boy, she was good-looking--but he always had been a sucker for brown-eyed blondes. What was Ken divorcing her for? Then he remembered: she was divorcing him. Immediately he was on Ken's side.

  "I guess I mean you look like Tim. I never did meet him, but in their pictures they look quite a bit alike."

  "Yeah." Travis could remember only one picture of his dad, in his Air Force uniform; he remembered the eyebrows, especially, being like his, almost joined in the middle. Stan had made Mom put it away. But frankly, he didn't see this big resemblance to Ken everyone else did. "But he's premature gray."