Flying Changes

  As our little car disappears behind a long row of SUVs, I struggle to a brass luggage caddy, shove my shoulder in front of the other woman heading for it, pile on our suitcases and bags, and drag it into line at the reception desk.

  "Looks nice," says Eva, looking around. "Think they've got a pool?"

  "I don't know, honey."

  "Ooh! Colleen! Kris!" Eva squeals. "Are you headed out already?"

  A group of girls headed up by Maureen is crossing the lobby. They nod assent.

  "Got room for me?" Eva says.

  "Sure, hon!" says Maureen. "Climb on in the monster van. Annemarie, we have room for you too, if you want."

  "Thanks, but I haven't checked in yet," I say, although the stupidity of stating this while in line at the reception desk strikes me immediately. My oozing face reddens further.

  Eva turns to me. "Do you mind if I catch a ride with them instead?"

  "Well, I--"

  "Because Nathalie wanted us to get the horses settled in before we got settled in ourselves and the vet inspections are this afternoon and I know she's watching me to make sure I do everything right and after this morning I really want to make sure--"

  "Go! Shoo!" I say, flicking my hands toward her friends.

  Eva pauses halfway across the lobby and turns to face me. "Can you ask if Dad and Sonja have checked in yet?" she says.

  "What? They're staying here?" I cry in horror.

  "Yup!" she says cheerfully. "Hey, this'll be the first time you've seen Jeremy, won't it?" Then she turns and skips off through the revolving doors.

  I stare after her for a moment, on the verge of hyperventilating.

  "May I help you?"

  I whip around.

  A placid-faced clerk is staring at me. Her thin blonde hair is pulled straight back under some type of burgundy fez. Her blue eyes flicker as she takes in my oozing face and plastic bags, but then she recovers her equilibrium. She's a professional. She's seen worse. I hope.

  I approach the counter, pulling my baggage caddy. "Uh, yes, I'm checking in. Annemarie Zimmer," I say, straightening up and trying to pretend that my face isn't a seeping mess.

  "That's two people for four nights?"

  "Yes."

  I look around anxiously. Roger and his new family could be arriving at any moment, could be behind me right now. Somehow it becomes imperative that they not see me like this--that she not see me like this.

  The clerk is muttering about do I want to keep the room charge on the original credit card and it's a nonsmoking room and there are dire fines if I yadda yadda yadda, and I get antsier and antsier because I'm now absolutely sure that Roger, the picture-perfect Sonja, and their Gerber Baby have just pulled up, are headed for the revolving doors at this moment and are going to come through and find me standing here at the counter oozing like a bag lady with no Dan and no ring and no anything, not even Eva.

  I keep swiveling toward the door, but the clerk seems not to notice. She keeps going and going and going--I'm just about to snap and tell her that I really don't CARE about the fee for using the safe or the charges for long distance or whatever the hell else she's going on about when she suddenly smiles and pushes something across the counter at me.

  I blink down at it.

  "This is your room key. The room number is written inside," she says sweetly.

  "Oh," I say, wide-eyed. "Oh. Yes. Thank you. My daughter just went out again--she'll need a room key when she comes back. Her name is Eva Aldrich."

  "Oh," says the clerk, looking perplexed and pressing a lacquered nail to her computer screen. "Is it possible she made a reservation under her name as well? Because--"

  "No, no, no, that's her father," I say impatiently, swiping my key from the counter. "My name is Zimmer. Please make sure you give her the right key when she comes back. That would be the one to my room."

  "Yes, of course, Mrs.--"

  I grab the cold brass rail of my baggage caddy and stalk away from the counter. This would be more effective if one of my plastic bags--the one holding all my toiletries--didn't slide off and spill all over the burgundy and gold carpet.

  The room door closes behind me with a satisfyingly heavy click. And then it's just me.

  The room is comfortable and unremarkable--there are two queen beds, a dresser, an easy chair, a table that doubles as a computer desk, and an armoire that hides a television, minibar, and safe. The art on the walls is of that peculiar hotel variety--inoffensive, not attractive enough to steal, and bolted down just in case.

  I drag our motley luggage over to the dresser, haul the larger suitcase up on top of it, and then line my plastic bags up beside it. I locate the one that holds my toiletries and take it into the bathroom. At some point I'm going to rearrange the contents of the luggage so that I end up going home with a suitcase instead of plastic bags. But now is not the time, since I don't feel up to having Eva accuse me of going through her things.

  I choose the bed closest to the window, thinking that if there's an intruder he'd have to get through me to get to Eva. Of course, an intruder might also come through the door. When it dawns on me that I haven't done my man check yet--usually the very first thing I do at a hotel--I realize just how out of sorts I am.

  After I've peeked inside the bathtub and closets, looked under the beds, and checked the heavy folds of the curtains for stray men, I strip my bedspread. I do it carefully, rolling it inside out to minimize my exposure to its horrifying outer layer. Then I toss it behind the chair and wash my hands. I saw a television expose on hotel bedspreads once and I've never gotten over it. The second I lay eyes on one, I have visions of naked drug orgies, and the only way to get rid of them is to fold the participants up inside the bedspread and toss them behind the chair.

  I help myself to a beer from the minibar, kick off my shoes, and collapse on the bed. But not before exchanging the top pillows with the bottom ones, since the top ones have touched the underside of the bedspread.

  The sheets are not the highest thread count, but they're smooth and clean and a far sight better than what I slept on last night. I wonder vaguely how the kittens are doing, consider calling Mutti, and then turn my head toward Eva's bed. I blink at it for a moment, realize that I'm watching a holographic naked drug orgy, and get up to give her bed the same treatment.

  After I've removed Eva's bedspread, I'm now contaminated enough that I need a bath. Fortunately, this is a nice hotel, and they've provided a mini bottle of bubble bath.

  So what if it's Raspberry Ripple. It's bubble bath and it's free.

  I run the bath almost up to its rim, and then sink into it. I swish my fingers through the bubbles, patting them flat in some places, and gathering them into puffy mountains in others.

  Ah. That's better.

  Or so it seems for a few minutes, but before I know it terrible thoughts are creeping into my head, things like how Roger and Sonja are probably in this building at this very moment, down the hall or up the stairs, cooing to their beautiful baby and planning on doing God knows what after they finally get him to sleep. Which, unfortunately, I can picture only too well. I close my eyes and try to sense which direction their room is from ours using my Roger-locator homing beacon, but it doesn't work anymore. I've been away from him for too long.

  And then my thoughts drift to Dan, who is probably halfway to Canada, and a great numbing void starts in my chest and spreads evenly through my body. I know I can never see him again because if I did, he'd probably propose. Not because he wanted to but because he's a decent man, and now that he knows how I feel he probably feels obligated. And if we married under those circumstances our whole relationship would be predicated on a power play, and every time we had a disagreement--or even if he just grew quiet--I'd wonder whether it was because he never really wanted to marry me in the first place. And that's no way to live.

  Next thing I know, I'm sitting up in my bubble bath sobbing onto my knees.

  It's almost midnight before Eva shows up.

&n
bsp; The clickity-clack of the automatic door lock wakes me up, so I have a moment's warning before she throws on the room light.

  "Oh hey, Ma, did I wake you up?"

  "That's okay," I say, squinting and shielding my eyes with my hands. "Did you get Joe settled?"

  "Yeah. But it took some doing. The stabling has Dutch doors and apparently he jumps out of those, so we had to rig something with a mesh stall guard."

  I lean up on my elbow. Stall guards are made of webbing, and rigging something for a horse that's inclined to jump out sounds like trouble. "Does Nathalie know?"

  "Yup. They bring it along for that purpose. Margot actually bolted it onto the stall. It's got snaps along three edges so we can get him out."

  "Oh. Well, then," I say, lying back down. "Did you have dinner?"

  "Yeah, we went to a great little--" her eyes pop open and she covers her mouth. "Oops. Say, Ma, you didn't want to come, did you?"

  "No, it's okay," I say gloomily. "I wasn't hungry anyway."

  "So did Dad and Sonja check in?"

  "I forgot to ask."

  "What?" she says, her jaw dropping in teenage outrage. "I asked you right when you got to the counter!"

  "I'm sorry. I just forgot. We'll check in the morning on the way to breakfast."

  "Oh," says Eva, slightly mollified. She wanders over to the suitcase on the dresser, unzips it, and pulls out a large T-shirt.

  "Eva, at some point over the next few days we're going to have to rearrange things so that I'm not living out of plastic bags."

  "Yeah, sure," she says stripping out of her clothes. She is completely unselfconscious. "There's a mall just down the street."

  Buying additional suitcases wasn't quite what I had in mind, but we'll come back to that later.

  She pulls the clean T-shirt over her head and disappears into the bathroom with a quilted blue-and-red cosmetics bag. Seconds later I hear her brushing her teeth.

  She reappears, plops down on her bed, and fiddles with the alarm clock until she finds some suitably horrible radio station. She turns it up loud, sets the alarm, and then clicks it off.

  "What time are you setting it for?" I ask, rolling over and burying my face in my pillow.

  "Six."

  "Good God! Really?"

  "Well, I figured you'd need some time to get presentable, and I also need a turn in the shower."

  I sigh deeply. "Good night, Eva."

  When the alarm goes off the next morning, I nearly scream. Eva has set it to both alarm and radio, and so our silent blackened room is suddenly filled with grating thumping music and horrible loud buzzing.

  "Oh God, turn it off!" I shout.

  "I can't! I can't find the switch!"

  "Whack the top! Whack it all over!"

  Smack! Smack! Smack!

  Finally, she locates the Snooze button.

  I take a deep shuddering breath. So does Eva.

  I lean over and switch on my bedside light.

  "Oh, Ma, do you have to?" she says, her face all scrunched up.

  "Yes. Because you only hit the Snooze. If you don't want that happening again in nine minutes, you'd better turn it off for real."

  Eva regards me in horror and then flips onto her side to investigate the clock radio.

  I drag my sorry body out from under the covers and head for the washroom to make myself presentable.

  An hour later, and I don't look too bad. The eczema has mostly cleared up, although if you look closely at my cheeks and forehead there are still patches of roughened pink. But at least it's not oozing anymore. I bolster everything with makeup, lightening the circles under my eyes, and adding foundation to the pink bits. When I reach for my mascara, I hesitate and then grab the waterproof, since it's bound to occur to me several times over the course of the day that I've just lost the love of my life.

  Apparently I pass muster, because Eva is quite chipper as she gets herself ready, babbling happily about the day's events and wondering whether the hotel's breakfast buffet is open yet.

  As we head out to the lobby, I brace myself. This is ridiculous--I know I'm going to see Roger's new family at some point, but I can't keep my heart from pounding. What if they're in the breakfast room? Is Eva going to expect us all to sit together? Somehow I hadn't gotten past the moment of recognition in my head. I have no idea what is expected of me.

  Eva leads the way to the breakfast buffet, her fuzzy head bobbing in front of me. When we enter the dining room, she scans it and turns back to me.

  "They're not here."

  "They have a baby. They're probably still sleeping," I say.

  "You get a table. I'm asking at the desk."

  An elderly waitress in a mustard-colored dress approaches me. She has a coffeepot in each hand. "You on your own?"

  "No, there are two of us."

  "Booth okay?"

  "Perfect."

  She leads me to one. I slip behind the table and turn my coffee cup upright so she can pour me a cup. She doesn't bother asking whether I want regular or decaf. Apparently it's obvious.

  Eva returns, clearly furious. She thumps down on the bench opposite me and crosses her arms.

  "They're not here yet."

  "Take it easy. When did they say they'd get here?"

  "They were supposed to come last night. They're going to miss my dressage test!"

  "Not necessarily. Maybe they're coming straight to the show and checking in afterward. Things don't always go smoothly when you're traveling with a baby. Did they leave a message?"

  "No," she says, scowling. "Did they try your cell phone?"

  I dig through my purse for my cell phone. Nine missed calls from Dan, but nothing else.

  "So did they call?" asks Eva.

  "No."

  "Then why are you making faces at your phone?"

  I flip it shut and stick it back in my purse. "No reason," I say.

  When we get to the lot, we have to park way out near the road and then trudge through three parking lots of cars and SUVs. We're just getting to the usual hundreds of horse trailers and RVs when a golf cart comes to a stop beside us.

  "You riding today?" says a gnome of a man from beneath a sunshade.

  "Sure am," says Eva, beaming.

  "Your number card was a dead giveaway," he says, winking. "Hop on."

  Before long, I'm clinging to the side of the golf cart and trying to keep from getting pitched out as we zip past all the pedestrians making their way toward the grounds.

  "Hey, check it out, Ma," says Eva, nudging me as we pass an RV with a portable satellite dish set up beside it.

  "Don't even think about it," I say in response.

  "Har," she says. "Just wait till I win my first big purse."

  I glance quickly at my bald, happy daughter, who clutches the golf cart tightly while her eyes take in everything.

  Nathalie zips around like she's on methamphetamine, barking orders and checking legs and sending girls back to redo braids or trim the hair above a hoof.

  One of the girls--Kris, I think, although I still can't tell the girls apart--is having trouble with a braid. Each time she sews it up, it's as fat as a dinner roll. I step up to help.

  "Annemarie! What are you doing!" snaps Nathalie.

  I stop cold. "I was just helping out with a braid."

  "She needs to learn how to do it herself," says Nathalie, striding onward, facing the ground. "Colleen! What do you think you're doing?"

  "Putting cornstarch on his socks!"

  "And all over his hooves too! Wipe them off!"

  Someone grabs my arm. It's Maureen Sinclaire. She leans in close. "What do you say we blow this joint?"

  "What?"

  "Let's go around and have a look at the vendors. We're just in the way here."

  I look around for Eva. She's standing on an overturned bucket, carefully sewing braids into Joe's mane. Her braids are small, tight, and evenly spaced.

  I catch her eye--and through expansive arm movements and facial expressi
ons ask her if she minds if I leave with Maureen. She scrunches her nose and shakes her head, all without removing the needle and thread from her mouth. Then she holds both hands by her head and spreads all ten fingers. She closes them again and then holds up a single finger.

  "Eleven?" I mouth.

  She nods.

  Her dressage test begins at eleven.

  At ten minutes to eleven, Maureen and I climb over the low-slung rope that separates the spectator area from the vendors, and take our seats right at the front.

  The one-star dressage tests ended at ten thirty, and a man on a tractor is dragging the arena in preparation for the two-star tests. After he leaves, a man comes out on foot, pushing a roller down the center line to flatten it.

  The seats are filling up. I twist in my seat looking, scanning the crowd.

  "Who are you looking for?" says Maureen, adjusting the brim of her hat.

  "My ex-husband."

  "Ah. I have one of those too."

  "He was supposed to show up last night. I can't believe he's going to miss her test."

  Maureen shrugs. "Well, what're you gonna do," she says. "You're not responsible for him anymore."

  "No, he's not like that. He's not like that at all."

  Maureen elbows me. "Here she comes."

  And indeed she does--looking glorious in her tailcoat, shining black boots, and top hat. You can't even tell she's bald. She sits tall and erect, her heels pointed downward and her black-gloved hands motionless in front of her. Her seat is glued to the saddle.

  A murmur runs through the crowd, reminding me of the inevitable reaction when I would first appear on Harry.

  "What on earth is that?"

  "Gracious, what a strange-looking--"

  "Oh! My! I've never seen anything quite--"

  Joe chomps the bit and throws his head, dancing a bit. They haven't entered the ring yet, but it's not a good sign.

  Eva approaches the ring. As she turns to enter, I see her eyes scan the faces for her father. When her eyes land on mine, I shrug and shake my head.

  She goes down the center line at a working canter and halts in front of the judges to salute. She dips her head and drops her left arm straight down. As she flicks her hand back, Joe skitters two steps sideways.