The Perfect Distance Read online

  “I’ll be on in a minute,” I told Katie as I headed down the aisle to Tobey.

  “No prob,” she said. “I’ll wait.”

  Katie and I rode down to the ring together. Rob had set up a new course in the indoor like he did every day during boot camp. This time he told me to go first and, thank God, I didn’t lean up the neck or do anything else stupid.

  “Good,” he said. It was the most positive thing he’d said to me in weeks. I wished he would say something more, but I figured “good” was better than nothing. It was certainly better than getting yelled at.

  Afterward Katie and I rode up to the barn. I asked her if she wanted to walk the loop around the rings to cool the horses down. Stretch was still huffing, and if she didn’t walk him, Dad or Camillo would have to.

  Katie glanced at her Rolex. “I can’t.”

  “Tutor?” I asked.

  “No, sports shrink.”

  Katie wasn’t the only girl on the show circuit who saw a performance psychologist. Lots of other girls did, and sometimes I wished I could. I could talk all about Rob and how he thought I could never win the finals.

  Just then someone I’d never seen before walked out of the barn. He was wearing boots and breeches and looked like he was waiting to mount up.

  “Who’s that?” Katie asked.

  “No idea.”

  “I didn’t think anybody else was coming in for the finals.”

  “Me neither.”

  Most riders trained with Rob all year, but every once in a while someone from the West Coast would show up for the finals because historically East Coasters won the Finals more than kids from the West Coast. He saw us looking at him and started walking our way. As he came closer, Katie whispered, “He’s kind of cute.”

  She giggled, and I tried not to laugh, too, because he was only a few strides away. The thing was—he was kind of cute. And any guy at West Hills—cute or not—was a big deal since hardly any guys rode. An L.A. Clippers hat sat low on his head, and hair the color of a golden retriever peeked out from its edges. He had a barely noticeable cleft in his chin and big, goofy ears that together made him look kind of hot in a not-perfectly-perfect way.

  “Let me guess,” he said when he reached us. “Tara and Katie.”

  Before I could say anything, Katie said, “Right. I’m Katie and this is Tara.” She gave me a go-along-with-it look and I kept quiet.

  “I’m Colby.”

  He even had a cute name. And I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like he was looking at me more than Katie.

  “You’re here to ride with Rob?” I said, and immediately regretted it. He was standing right in front of us in breeches and boots. Of course he was there to ride with Rob.

  “Yeah,” Colby answered. “I’m from L.A. You guys from around here?”

  “I’m from New York City,” Katie said. “And Tara’s from Indiana.”

  I waited for her to crack up and tell him who I really was, but she didn’t. I kind of thought Colby might know what Tara looked like from photos of her on The Chronicle of the Horse website but I figured maybe he wasn’t sure because she might look different in real life, and sometimes it was harder to tell riders apart with their helmets on.

  Dad came out of the barn, leading a chestnut mare that Colby must have brought with him, because I’d never seen her around the barn before. Now I remembered Dad saying something about a horse that was coming in, but horses were always coming and going and it must have been while I was at school. Colby traded his baseball hat for his riding helmet. Dad gave him a leg up and wiped off his boots with the rag that always poked out of his back pocket.

  “Muchas gracias,” Colby told him, making me shudder.

  Dad hated it when people tried to talk Spanish to him. “I can speak English perfectly fine,” he always said to me, although he would never say anything in front of the clients. “I’ve only been in this country for twenty-five years.”

  Colby turned his mare toward us and said, “Maybe you guys can give me the quick tour?” It seemed like he was talking to me more than Katie, and I couldn’t figure out why. Did he think I was pretty? Could he possibly?

  “I can’t,” Katie said, clearly bummed. “I’ve got an . . . appointment.”

  “How about it?” Colby said, looking at me again.

  I shrugged, trying to act like I didn’t care one way or the other. “Sure.”

  As Katie slid off Stretch and handed him over to Dad, Colby and I headed out on the loop. I didn’t have to look back to know Dad was watching us for a moment before he took Stretch inside.

  We headed away from the barn. I pointed out the main ring, the gymnastics ring, and the hot walker, which were all pretty obvious. I racked my brain for something to tell him that only the riders knew so I’d seem in the know, but I came up blank. Colby nodded to a building site next to the main ring where workmen were busy laying a foundation. “What’s going on there?”

  “That’s the new indoor.”

  Over the years Rob had slowly rebuilt West Hills. It had once been a grand estate, but the person who had owned it before Rob had let it fall apart, which was why he had been able to afford it.

  I glanced over at Colby, hoping to check him out for a second, but he caught me. My stomach fluttered like it usually only did before I went into the ring.

  “So, everyone in California thinks you’ve got a good shot to win one of the finals,” he said.

  And that was when it hit me. He wasn’t looking at me because he thought I was cute or pretty but because he thought I was Tara. I wanted to kill myself for being so stupid. He was scoping me out, seeing if he thought he could beat me. So I decided to say something Tara would say. “I’m going to win both the Medal and the Maclay, maybe even the Talent Search.”

  This was exactly what the real Tara would have said. Although the words felt odd coming out of my mouth, they also felt kind of good. As much as I hated Tara for saying things like she’d said to Rob the other day—I won’t let you down . . . I’m going to win—I really wished I was the one saying them. Humility might be a virtue, but in riding it got you nowhere. You had to believe in yourself—absolutely and completely. You had to walk into that ring thinking, I’m going to win. Something Tara did every time and something I was still working on.

  Colby halted his mare. I walked a step farther and then stopped Tobey and swiveled in the saddle to look back at him.

  “People in California say you’re a bitch, too—I was waiting to see for myself but I guess they’re right,” he said. Then, as he turned back the other way, sarcastically: “Thanks for the tour.”

  I hesitated—feeling like the biggest idiot ever. Why couldn’t I have just been normal around him? I hated myself for being such a loser. I legged Tobey into a trot and caught up with him. I rode alongside him at the walk, but he wouldn’t look at me.

  “I’m not Tara.”

  Still nothing.

  “When you came out and said, ‘Let me guess, you’re Katie and you’re Tara,’ Katie just went along with it and so I did, too.”

  “So the other girl was Katie?” Colby asked, staring between his mare’s pricked ears.

  “Yeah,” I said, relieved that he seemed to be talking to me again. I wished we could back up and start all over.

  Finally Colby turned to me. “And that makes you?”

  “Francie.”

  I thought Colby might ask me why I kept pretending to be Tara and why I was so rude, but instead he said, “What’s Francie short for? Francis?”

  “Francesca.”

  “Well, Francis, what else do you have to show me that I need to know around here?”

  There wasn’t much else to show him, but I didn’t want the tour to end, not when things were getting good between us again. I liked how forgiving he was. “I guess there’s Rob’s house,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  I turned Tobey away from the barn. Rob made sure that the grounds were immaculate. The lawns were lush green even
now in September, and all the hedges were trimmed to perfection. Outside the barn was a giant fountain with a horse. There was also a koi pond complete with fish in there.

  Rob lived in the restored farmhouse, a brown brick colonial draped in ivy. Pablo was washing Rob’s black Range Rover in the driveway while Mexican music played from a nearby radio.

  “¡Hola, senorita!” he called to me.

  “¿Es que lavar coches es mejor que lavar caballos?” I asked. Is washing cars better than washing horses?

  “Al carro no hay que decirle se quede quieto,” Pablo quipped. No telling the car it has to stand still!

  “That’s cool you speak Spanish so well,” Colby said. “I’ve been taking it for four years, and I can still hardly say more than ‘hello,’ ‘thank you,’ and ‘where’s the bathroom,’ and that’s just because Senorita Sanchez won’t let us go to the bathroom unless we ask in Spanish.”

  I knew I should have told him right then the real reason I spoke Spanish so well. He would figure it out sooner or later. But for some reason I didn’t. And it wasn’t because I was ashamed of who I was either. Maybe I just wanted to see what he acted like around me without knowing so I could see if it would change when he did know. Life for me was kind of weird that way. When I was with Dad or any of the other grooms, I was Mexican. I could banter with them in Spanish and I knew all about where they’d come from and what they’d lived through to get here. But since I grew up in America, I was also comfortable around people like Katie, Tara, Becca, and Tracy. It was like hovering between two worlds. Sometimes being able to choose whichever world I wanted to be in was nice, but sometimes it made me feel like two entirely different people.

  “What’s your horse’s name?” I asked Colby, hoping to change the topic of conversation.

  “Ginger.” Colby patted her neck. “I think she’s still a little wiped from the plane ride here, aren’t you, girl?”

  “This here’s Tobey,” I offered.

  “He yours?”

  “No, he’s Rob’s. I get to ride him because everyone thinks he’s, well, kind of mildly insane.”

  I wasn’t exaggerating. When Rob imported Tobey he thought he was going to be as good as Stretch, and he had all the talent to be. But he was incredibly temperamental. Like sometimes when he saw another horse coming at him in the ring, he’d leap to the side. Or other times at shows he got so nervous that he sweated profusely and wouldn’t walk or trot but would only canter. When Rob saw he wasn’t going to be able to lease Tobey out or sell him for anything, let alone the price he had had in mind, he gave him to me to ride. “Maybe you can figure him out,” he said at the time. I wasn’t really sure I’d figured him out, but we got along and most of the time he was good for me. Since I cleaned his stall and groomed him every day, I knew him well and he trusted me. I tried never to make him do anything he hated, like ride in a ring with lots of other horses going in all different directions, and if he got upset, I didn’t get mad at him, because I’d found that only made it worse. Instead I just kept going and tried to make the best of it.

  “What’s down there?” Colby asked, taking his reins in one hand and pointing to the dirt road that led to where Dad and I and the other grooms lived.

  “That’s where the grooms live,” I said.

  “Can we go down there?”

  “There’s not much to see.”

  “It’s not nice?”

  I shrugged. “It’s fine.”

  “Are they all illegal?” Colby asked. “At my barn at home a lot of them are.”

  Them—I knew Colby didn’t mean anything by it, but I couldn’t stop thinking how I was one of them. I shook my head. “No, Rob won’t hire anyone who doesn’t have a green card.”

  Some barns did hire illegals because they’d usually work for even less money. Every now and then there were raids at the shows. There was even a code that shows used when INS was on the grounds. If you ever heard the announcer say, “Elvis is in the building,” over the PA system, you knew half of the grooms would be jumping in cars or hiding in the bushes.

  “I’m not sure how I feel about it,” Colby said. “I mean, if people can’t get work where they’re from and want to work hard why not let them in, but then again, what about all the people here that need work?”

  Not really wanting to discuss the finer points of immigration with Colby, I said, “We should probably head back.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m a few minutes late.”

  “Late for your lesson?”

  I must have looked completely horrified because he added, “What?”

  “It’s just that Rob doesn’t like it when people are late.” Actually, Rob had refused to teach people because they were a few seconds late. No one had ever dared be a few minutes late.

  “He’ll just have to deal,” Colby said.

  Rob—deal? Colby sounded like a rule breaker in the making. “I should let you in on a few important things,” I told him, and explained the rules. I was glad to be able to fill him in.

  “Who made these up?” he asked.

  “No one. We all just know them. Mostly because we learned the hard way. I thought I would try to save you getting yelled at.”

  Colby shook his head and smiled. “Thanks,” he said. As we headed back to the barn, he asked, “So what else can you tell me about yourself?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Just anything.”

  I took a breath and pondered the question. I felt like I was in school and the teacher had asked about some book I’d read but suddenly couldn’t remember anything from, not even the main characters’ names. What was it about Colby that made me feel so clueless? “Well, I’ve been doing the equitation and riding with Rob for six years. I’ve gotten ribbons at the regionals, but I always manage to mess up at the finals. This is my last year.”

  “Okay, that’s a start; what else?”

  “What do you mean? That’s pretty much it.”

  “I don’t know, like, what else do you do?”

  “Not much. I mean, I go to school; I come here and ride.”

  I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to do more. I was already exhausted from working at the barn, riding, and doing my schoolwork.

  “Are you applying to colleges?” Colby asked. “Do you want to stay on the East Coast?”

  “What are you, my dad?” I asked.

  Colby dropped his reins and held his hands out in front of him, stick-’em-up style. “Jeez, touchy.”

  “My dad wants me to, but I want to turn professional,” I explained. “What about you?”

  “I’m definitely going to college. Riding’s fun, but it’s not my life, that’s for sure.”

  “So what else do you do, then?” I asked, turning the question back on him.

  “Let’s see—I run track. I’m obsessed with the films of Wes Anderson. I’ve written a screenplay. I can juggle.” Colby paused and then added, “Oh yeah, and I’m a killer chess player.”

  “Quite an impressive résumé,” I said.

  “Thanks,” he said with a smile. “I like to think of myself as a well-rounded individual.”

  I didn’t want to stop talking, but we had reached the front of the barn. Plus, he was already late for his lesson.

  “Your lesson’s at four?” I asked. I checked my watch—it was 4:07.

  “Yeah,” Colby said, still not leaving.

  “I guess I didn’t really show you much,” I said. “Sorry for the bad tour.”

  “There’s always tomorrow,” he called as he finally turned and trotted off.

  I watched him trot away for longer than I should have. I was glad no one was there to see the idiot grin I had plastered on my face.

  Chapter Five

  * * *

  The next day when I got to the barn after school, Dad was in Finch’s stall with his ear pressed to Finch’s side.

  “Again?” I asked.

  “Yup,” Dad answered.

  “He wasn’t eating,” Dad
said. “Pablo said he hadn’t picked manure out of his stall all day and then I found him lying down.”

  “Any gut sounds?” I asked.

  “Minimal,” Dad said.

  He clipped a lead rope to Finch’s halter and led him out into the aisle. “Can you go get Rob?”

  I jogged down to the indoor, where Rob was teaching four women that Katie liked to call the Horny Housewives. They were middle-aged, wealthy women who lived in suburbs like East Aurora or Orchard Park, didn’t work, and were completely bored. Their children were either off at boarding school or college and their husbands were always working or playing golf. To relieve their boredom, the HHs spent their time riding. They weren’t very good, but they took the sport incredibly seriously and burned outrageous amounts of money on horses, lessons, and riding clothes. They also tended to fawn all over Rob, buying him expensive gifts and always bringing him Starbucks. Katie said she was sure they all fantasized about having torrid sex with him.

  “Sitting trot, ladies!” I heard Rob holler as I made my way down the hill to the indoor. “Come on, Heather, stop shaking and baking. Sit still up there!”

  I waited at the door for Rob to acknowledge me per rule number one—Wait until Rob tells you to.

  “What’s up, Francie?” he said. Sometimes Rob just saying my name like that, acknowledging me and me alone, even if it was only because I was there to ask him a question, was enough attention to keep me going for days.

  “It’s Finch,” I said. I didn’t need to say anything more. Despite endless Gastroguard and probiotics, Finch was a chronic colicker, and we were all used to the routine. So close to the finals, though, it was more concerning.

  “How bad?” Rob asked.

  “Not too bad, but Dad said to come get you.”

  “All right, ladies,” Rob called out. “Take a quick break. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  The women brought their horses down to the walk, a jumble of sighs and “whews.”