Flying Changes

  Chapter 19

  Back at Maple Brook, a small war erupts. I want the baby to sleep at the stable with me, and Mutti is insistent that he sleep at the house--with all of us. This issue doesn't arise until most of the things have been unloaded into the house and we're down to the crib, dresser, and nursery lamp. When I instruct Dan to drive the U-Haul down to the stable Mutti puts up a hand and yells, "Nein!"

  "I beg your pardon?" My voice is weak, because I know the look on her face.

  "What on earth are you thinking?"

  "But, Mutti," I argue, "there's no room at the house."

  "Of course there is. He can sleep in my room. You can sleep in Eva's. I'll move down to the dining room, and Eva can sleep in the study."

  "No! No!" I say, shaking my head in horror. "Please! I don't want anyone sleeping in the dining room."

  "Fine. Then I'll sleep in the living room."

  "I don't want to sleep in the study!" cries Eva.

  Dan steps forward with Jeremy on his hip. The baby is tired, and his head rests on Dan's shoulder. "And where exactly am I going to sleep?"

  This new development shuts all of us up.

  Mutti recovers before I do. "You're moving in?"

  "Well, yes. I sort of figured I would. Especially now that we've got Jeremy. Unless you object," he says.

  "No," says Mutti, clearly stunned. "No, of course I don't object."

  "Because we could wait until after we get married, but even then we're going to have to live here until the house is built," Dan continues.

  "The house?" says Mutti, eyes widening even further.

  "We're building a proper house at his place," I chime in.

  "The trailer was fine for a bachelor," Dan explains, "but it's no place for a family. I only ever meant it to be temporary anyway. It's just that for a while there was no real urgency. Now there is," he says, taking Jeremy's little fist in his hand and moving it up and down.

  "Ah," says Mutti. She presses her lips together and frowns into the distance. Then she turns back to us. "Okay then. You two will take my room. Jeremy will take Eva's. Eva can take the study, and I'll take the living room."

  "Oma!" says Eva, turning in outrage. "You can't just kick me out of my room!"

  "Why not? You're only spending one night a week there anyway."

  "No, I'm not," Eva says miserably.

  "What?" says Mutti.

  I inhale deeply, realizing that with everything that's been going on, we never got around to telling Mutti what happened at Strafford. And also that I still have to retrieve Eva's things from Wyldewood.

  "Well?" says Mutti expectantly, looking from Eva to me and then back again.

  Eva kicks the gravel and storms off toward the stable.

  I exhale, letting my lips rumble like a horse. "Dan, I guess you'd better bring the crib and stuff into the house." I grab as many of the plastic bags that hold Mutti's and my personal effects as I can, and hold them out to Mutti.

  "I want to know what is going on," she says, taking the bags.

  I loop the handles of three bags on each of my hands and start walking toward the house. "Come on inside," I say, inclining my head to indicate that she should follow. "I'll explain everything."

  "Ahem," says Dan.

  "Yes?" I say, stopping.

  "If you want me to unload this stuff, one of you is going to have to take this baby."

  Mutti and I bang into each other in our rush to ditch our bags back in the car. She beats me to it and ends up with Jeremy.

  "Ha," she sniffs, passing me with what can only be described as a look of victory. Jeremy's head bobs up and down as he looks over Mutti's shoulder at Dan, who is trying unsuccessfully not to laugh.

  With Jeremy installed in the ExerSaucer and Dan constructing furniture upstairs, Mutti and I sit in the winged chairs. After a moment, Mutti gets up and lights the fire, like I knew she was going to do all along.

  Once the fire is going, Jeremy stares and stares and stares. He occasionally bangs a fist against the edge of the ExerSaucer, setting off a musical toy or sending a rattle spinning, but mostly he is entranced by the flames.

  I explain Eva's situation to Mutti.

  She gets up wordlessly, and returns with two glasses of wine. She hands me one, leans over to run a hand over the baby's blond tufty hair, and returns to her chair.

  "Und so. What now?"

  "I don't know. I haven't had a whole lot of time to think about it," I say, taking a swallow of wine. I hold the glass up so that I can see the fire through it. I like the way it distorts the flames, giving them a rounded, sensuous look. I also like how the flames reflect off my diamond.

  "I suppose we could call the school and see if they'll let her re-enroll next year," says Mutti.

  I shake my head. "No. Her school record is horrible. It's also predictable. She already lost last year. If we don't get her a tutor now, she'll lose this one as well."

  "Are you going to try to get her back into Nathalie's?"

  "I don't know. I don't even know if she wants to go back. Besides, I'm not sure being away from us for six days out of seven would be a good idea right now."

  "Well, if she doesn't train somewhere, we have a serious problem."

  I look up.

  "Think about it, Schatzlein. If she's not training, and she's not going to school, what on earth will she be doing? Whatever it is, it won't be good. It won't even be her fault. She can't help herself."

  "Ugh," I say, making a frog face. After a moment I slap my hands on my thighs.

  Jeremy shakes his little fists in surprise, and for a moment I think he might cry. Then he recovers.

  I rise and set my mostly full glass of wine down on the table--slowly, so as not to startle Jeremy again. "Okay. I'll go talk to her."

  "Honey?" I say.

  Eva has Flicka out in the cross-ties just outside her stall. Her purple plastic grooming tray is beside them, but Eva isn't grooming her. She's standing at her head, running her hands over Flicka's rounded Arabian cheeks and whispering into her cocked ear.

  Eva glances at me, but just momentarily.

  I walk behind Flicka, laying a hand on her rump so that she knows I'm there, and come to a stop beside Eva.

  "You never told me Freddie had kittens," she says, her tone accusatory.

  "Sorry," I say.

  She straightens Flicka's forelock and then leans over and chooses a brush. She takes a few steps away from me and begins grooming, sweeping the bristles all over Flicka's body. She throws her whole body into the effort, swinging her arm round and round, and following the path of the brush with the palm of her other hand, smoothing the black hair until it shines like onyx.

  "So are their eyes open yet?" I ask.

  "Two of them," she says. "The other one's are still closed."

  "Are they still on my bed?"

  "Yup."

  There's a long silence while she continues brushing. Soon she's bent over double, brushing Flicka's stomach. She pauses for a moment, switches the brush to the other hand, and drops her hand between Flicka's rear legs. She's checking to see if the crease between Flicka's teats needs cleaning, because when her udder gets itchy, she tends to rub her tail against walls, trees, and fences, which breaks off the hairs at the top. Eva takes great pride in the state of Flicka's tail, and so she has the cleanest udder in the stable. It's one of the benefits of having a mare, because cleaning a gelding's--or, God forbid, a stallion's--sheath is a whole different kettle of fish.

  Eventually I step around to the grooming kit and pick up the long purple comb.

  "May I?" I ask.

  Eva glances at me. "Sure," she says.

  I work on Flicka's tail in silence for several minutes. I work on it until I run out of tangles, and then I keep working on it because I enjoy the way the long hairs fall from my hands, shimmering like a waterfall even though they're coarse. I rub a little Cowboy Magic on my hands and massage it through the length, feeling the hair shafts smooth between my palms. An i
dea pops into my head, fully formed and from absolutely nowhere: I wonder whether anyone has ever strung a violin bow with black horsehair, and if not, why not.

  "So, um," I say. Then I grind to a halt. I have no idea how to approach this.

  "What?" says Eva, her face suddenly appearing over the top of Flicka's back, because she's been working on the other side.

  "Well, I think we need to talk, don't you?"

  "About what?"

  "About what you want to do."

  Her head disappears again, although I see flashes of dandy brush as Flicka gets the scouring of a lifetime.

  "Do you want to go back to Nathalie's?"

  There is no answer from the other side of Flicka.

  "Okay, well," I continue, "if you don't want to, we can get you a tutor. And you can ride Hurrah. I mean, until we find you another horse, of course."

  "I don't want another horse."

  "Eva--"

  "If I can't ride Joe, I'm not riding anybody."

  Eva slams the brush into the grooming kit, ducks under the cross-tie, and marches down the aisle, leaving me alone with Flicka.

  I undo the cross-ties and drop them against the walls--clink, clink. Then I take hold of Flicka's noseband, lead her into her stall, and remove her purple halter. After I slide her door shut, I hang the halter on the door. If a horse can be described as having a wardrobe, then Flicka's is purple. Grooming kit, halter, lunge line, lead rope, show sheet, brushes, buckets--even bell boots, although she never wears them.

  After I get Flicka settled, I climb the stairs to the apartment. As I make my way up the dark wooden stairwell, I feel like I'm climbing the gallows.

  Eva is collapsed across the bottom of my bed, bawling. Freddie is curled up against the pillows with her kittens lined up at her belly. They squiggle and squirm, looking, at least from the back, more like piglets now than rats. Their mother watches us with narrowed eyes.

  "Eva? Honey?"

  "What?" She sits up, takes the tissue I'm offering, and honks into it.

  "Do you want to go back to Nathalie's?"

  "She won't have me."

  "Maybe. Maybe not. But that's not what I'm asking. I want to know if that's what you want."

  She turns, her face crimson, clearly ready to yell. I take a step backward, bracing.

  "I don't know! I want to have not fucked everything up! I want to not feel guilty because I can't imagine going on without Joe when Dad is dead! And I want Dad to not be dead!" Then she collapses into a crumpled heap on my bed, crying like she'll never stop.

  I walk quietly to the foot of the bed and sit beside her. I rub her back for a while, and then drop forward so that my head is next to hers. I whisper shushes into her ear and stroke her mostly bald head rhythmically until she finally calms down. She remains slumped over.

  "Come on, sweetie. Come back to the house with me," I say.

  "No," says a muffled voice.

  "Please?"

  "No. I'll come later. I want to be alone for a while."

  I sigh deeply, kiss the top of her head, and then leave quietly, taking care not to slam anything on my way out.

  Hurrah nickers as I reach his stall. I stop just long enough to kiss his velvet-soft nose, which pokes through his feed hole.

  When I get back to the house, Dan is sitting in my chair drinking a beer. My glass of wine is still on the table, so I grab it and take a seat on the floor in front of the ExerSaucer.

  Jeremy looks like he's about to nod off, even though he's upright.

  "How did it go?" says Mutti. "Or should I ask?"

  "It didn't go very well. But at least now I know what I have to do."

  "And what's that?"

  "I have to talk Nathalie into either taking Eva back or selling me Smoky Joe."

  "And if she does neither?" asks Mutti.

  "Then I'm up the crick," I say, turning to stare into the fire.

  After a while I realize something else is going on. I whip around and find both Mutti and Dan staring at me.

  "What?" I say crossly.

  "Perhaps I should leave you two alone," says Mutti, starting to rise.

  "No, Ursula," Dan says quickly. "I mean--unless you want to, but I think everything will be, er..." He looks uncertainly at me.

  "Oh, for God's sake, you two, what is it?"

  Dan straightens in his chair. "We have a proposition. Now remember--it's just a proposition. Nobody's going to get upset if you don't want to do it."

  "Don't want to do what?"

  I'm afraid my conversation with Eva left me a little overwrought, and so I probably sound angry even though I'm just anxious.

  Actually, there's no "just" about it. I'm hugely anxious. Obviously they're preparing to tell me something big.

  Dan looks me in the eyes. His forehead twitches. "It's just that I was thinking that maybe instead of building a brand-new place over at Day Break, maybe we could just put an addition on this house. So that, you know, Ursula would be living with us."

  I blink at them, looking from face to face. "Is that all?" I ask.

  "Yes," they say in unison.

  I finish my wine in a single slug, and then break into giggles that immediately mushroom into hysteria. I can't tell if I'm crying or laughing. I think maybe I'm doing both, because I thought I was going to be the one talking Dan into letting Mutti live with us.

  In a flash, Dan is on the floor beside me, and so is Mutti, but I'm bleating too hard to explain myself. And besides, I'm not sure I could. I'm still trying to figure out how the line between tragedy and comedy can be so blurred.

  I drive to Wyldewood the next day, not at all sure of my mission. What I really want is to make all options possible, so that Eva can choose.

  The gatepost crackles something completely incomprehensible at me.

  "I'm Annemarie Zimmer," I answer, aiming my mouth at it. "Eva's mother. I'm here to see Nathalie."

  "Kecheeweeeii...shewuu..." it says.

  Since this is what it has always said just before the gates swing open, I roll up my window and wait. But nothing happens.

  After a moment, I unroll my window and hang over its edge.

  "Hello!" I call into the box.

  "Kccchchhchcchch e weccchhhh, echy wachhhh ur nachhhh..."

  Its tone is clearly apologetic, its inflection explanatory.

  I lean out my window and shout directly into the box. "Let me make this perfectly clear. I'm not leaving until I see Nathalie. So you can either open the goddamned gate or I can park right here and climb over. Which is it going to be?"

  The box falls quiet, although I can tell from the crackling that the channel is still open. Then there's a click, as the person at the other end shuts off the microphone.

  Lord, I hope whoever it is decides to open the gates. The brick wall is high, and I'm not at all sure how well I'd handle the dismount.

  After a few seconds, the gates swing open.

  I find Nathalie in the indoor arena, wearing black breeches and high boots. I stand just outside, beside the door to the lounge, watching.

  She's carrying a cordless microphone and is instructing a girl on a dark bay Thoroughbred. Each piece of both girl and horse looks fine when taken separately, but somehow the sum of the parts is not making a whole.

  "No, Danielle, that's not it. That's not it at all," Nathalie calls out. She's clearly getting cross. "You've got to get him under you. He's spread out like a pancake. Collect him. Use your legs to bring his hindquarters forward. Yes, there you go--no! You've lost it again!" She shakes her head in frustration. "If you simply push him forward with your legs, it won't work. Period. You've got to keep the whole of him balanced. You're not keeping track of both ends of your horse."

  There are three girls standing in the arena with Nathalie, listening, watching intently. So far, no one has noticed me. Apparently the gatekeeper did not call down a warning.

  "There! There!" Nathalie suddenly shouts, stabbing the air with her finger. "That's beautiful! Do you feel
the impulsion? Hold it. Feel it. Memorize it. Beautiful! Beautiful, Danielle!"

  As the girl on the horse passes by, Nathalie catches sight of me.

  She stares for a moment. Eventually I decide to interpret this as an invitation to enter, since she's clearly not coming over to me.

  My heart beats faster the closer I get to the group in the center of the arena. Four sets of eyes are trained on me--even the girl on the horse sneaks occasional glances.

  Nathalie folds her arms across her chest. "I was wondering when you were going to show up. Eva's things are already packed. If you need someone to help you load, I'll have one of the girls find Miguel."

  I look from side to side, my face burning under continued scrutiny. "Um, can we talk for a moment?"

  "Go on," she says.

  "In private?"

  She glares at me for a moment, and then calls out to her mounted student. "Danielle, keep working. You girls watch, and if Peashooter gets all loose and rambly again, try to figure out why. I don't want you to say anything to Danielle, though, because you might be wrong. We'll discuss theories when she's finished." She turns to me. "Come on," she says. She leads the way to the lounge. Four girls are gathered around the watercooler. Their eyes widen when they see me.

  "Beat it," says Nathalie, jerking her thumb at the door.

  The girls file out wordlessly. This time when the door closes, there is silence from behind it. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't silence.

  "So what's up?" says Nathalie, striding across the room and flopping onto an ancient orange-and-brown-flowered couch.

  I take a seat in an old Barcalounger and look her straight in the eyes. "I want to know if you'd consider taking Eva back into your program."

  "That depends. Is she still in a snit?"

  I stare at her, gritting my teeth and trying to hide it because I know my anger is unreasonable. Nathalie doesn't know what's happened to us; and besides, last time she saw Eva, she was in a snit. A world-class snit.

  Nathalie spreads her hands, and drops them on her thighs. "Hey, I'm sorry to be blunt, but I call them like I see them. Personally, I'm not sure Eva has what it takes. One bad show, and she bailed."

  "She didn't bail. You withdrew her," I say quietly.

  "Two entirely different things," she says, leaning forward. "And you're damned right I withdrew her. What would you have done? Sent her, and your best horse, back out on a course that sloppy when there was no hope of placing?"