Horse Love (2 page)

That didn’t make sense. The European trip was in the middle of her spring semester.

“
We
are?” Lisa asked.

“Yes! We’re going to San Felipe.”

“That’s in the Caribbean, not Europe,” Lisa said. One of the things she was good at was geography, and she knew that the Caribbean was nowhere near Europe.

Lisa’s father could see that she was confused. “Well, your mother and I talked about this last night and decided it would be good for all of us to get away, together,” her father said, emphasizing the word
together
. “So I called the travel agent, and she’s found a last-minute bargain for us.”

“What do you mean, ‘last-minute’?” Lisa asked.

Mrs. Atwood’s eyes brightened. “Tomorrow! We’re leaving on a flight at eight-thirty tomorrow morning and we’ll be on the beach by, well, I would say three o’clock. Does that sound about right, sweetheart?”

“It sounds about perfect, darling,” he said.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Mrs. Atwood asked.

Lisa swallowed, taking the time to think. Her idea of wonderful was a week spent with her friends at Pine Hollow. Her parents could be
together
all they wanted in San Felipe, but she’d rather be with her friends. On the other hand, it had been a while since they’d taken a trip together, and her father had been doing a lot of traveling alone. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad—not that she had a choice.

“Well, I—”

“Oh, sweetie,” her mother said. “Think of the palm trees and the tropical breezes and the moonlit beaches …”

Her mother was directing the words at her, but Lisa knew she was talking to her father. It gave her another pause for her own thoughts. Being in San Felipe would mean missing out on Stevie’s great idea. Now
that
had something going for it!

“And there’s so much to do! We’ll have to shop and buy some resort clothes.…”

The idea of shopping anywhere, anytime, was enough to thrill Mrs. Atwood.

“I don’t need any clothes,” Lisa said. “I’ve got all my summer stuff.”

“Well, you’re going to need a new sun hat.”

“I can’t get that here. I’ll bet they have them at the resort.”

“And some sunscreen.”

“They’ll definitely have that on San Felipe.”

“I guess they will. Well, even if you don’t have to shop, I certainly do.”

“The car will be here for us at five-thirty tomorrow morning,” her father said.

“I’ll be ready,” Lisa promised him. “For now, though, I’m going over to Pine Hollow. I’ll stop at the drugstore on my way back and I’ll pick up some sunscreen just in case. I could use another bottle of shampoo.”

“See you later, sweetie,” her mother chirped.

“Bye,” she said, taking a piece of toast with her on her way out the door.

Parents
, Lisa thought,
are infinitely confusing
. Last night and this morning, she’d been able to feel the ice between the two of them, and now, at the ring of a phone her mother was happy and her father was hopeful.

“Hey, look who’s here!” Stevie declared brightly as Lisa walked into Pine Hollow a few minutes later.

“Sleepyhead,” Carole teased.

“Don’t waste time making fun of her,” Stevie said. “There’s too much to do.”

“Listen, I—”

“Yeah, right, wait until you hear what Stevie’s cooked up this time,” Carole said.

“Well, but I—”

“No buts,” Carole said firmly. “It’s a good thing you didn’t wear your dressy clothes because—”

Lisa realized that she’d never be able to get a word in edgewise. The only thing she could think of was to move the conversation out of the aisle.

“Let’s get into the tack room,” Lisa said, shooing her friends in that direction.

“Exactly what I had in mind,” said Stevie. “Did you come up with the same plan?”

“What is she talking about?” Lisa asked Carole.

“It’s her great idea,” said Carole.

“What is?”

“The tack room,” Carole said, though her reply didn’t tell Lisa anything. She was beginning to think that her friends were more confusing than her parents.

The three of them stepped into the tack room and Stevie closed the door.

“Well, what do you think?” Stevie asked.

“About what?” asked Lisa.

“Start from the beginning,” Carole said.

“Oh, right,” said Stevie. Starting at the beginning was not the easiest thing for her. She took a deep breath.
“Okay, so here’s my idea: Max’s birthday is next week, and he and Deborah have taken baby Maxi on a trip. They’re going to be gone for a full week. That should give us just enough time to clean and repaint this disaster of a room.” She gestured, pointing out the obvious: smudged walls with peeling paint, hooks bent askew, and drooping tack.

“He’s been complaining about the condition of this place for months,” Carole said.

“You’re right, he has,” Lisa agreed. Max was not only their riding instructor, but also the owner of Pine Hollow, and he always cared about its condition.

“Won’t it be great?” Stevie asked.

Lisa nodded. It would be. And Stevie was right: It was a weeklong project for three hardworking volunteers. The bad news was that there would be only two of them, and she had to tell her friends that.

“Um,” she began.

“You’re not going to disagree, are you?” Stevie asked.

“No, I don’t disagree. It’s a perfect project and birthday present for Max. I don’t disagree at all. It’s worse than that, though. I can’t help.”

All the enthusiasm drained out of the room.

“Why not?” Carole asked.

“I won’t be here,” Lisa answered. Then she told her
friends about that morning’s events at home. “I can’t say no to my parents. They were really happy about the trip and about being together as a family.”

Stevie was not one to be daunted when she was on the trail of a great idea. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We can do it without you.”

“What do you mean,
we
?” Carole asked. “The two of us can’t possibly do this alone.”

“I didn’t mean just the two of us,” she said. “I talked to Phil last night and he was all excited about it. He said he’d help, and he told me he’d get A.J. to help, too. Those two guys together will be almost as good as one Lisa.”

Lisa laughed for the first time all morning. Phil Marsten was Stevie’s boyfriend, and A.J. was Phil’s best friend. The two of them lived in a nearby town, and both were riders who owned their own horses. They had been talked into joining in on more than one of Stevie’s great ideas before, so it didn’t surprise Lisa and Carole that they’d been enlisted this time around.

“Okay, look,” Stevie said, pulling a large piece of paper out of her pocket. “I’ve worked out this schedule.” She unfolded the paper to reveal a chart. The chart broke down the task of emptying the room by setting up a temporary tack room in the feed storage room, and it included a plan for cleaning, spackling, painting, and
then restocking the tack room. It broke the tasks down by half days and showed the entire job being completed by the following Sunday morning, a few hours before Max’s anticipated return—and, incidentally, Lisa’s return as well.

“Look, all we have to do is to take Lisa’s name out and insert Phil’s and A.J.’s and we’re in business. We’ll miss you, that’s for sure, but these guys can do it. And Phil promised.”

“I feel terrible,” said Lisa.

“Don’t,” Carole told her. “Just think how nice it’ll be to sit on a tropical beach while we sweat, scrape, sweep, and paint.”

“That’s what I mean,” Lisa said.

“And it’s what I mean, too,” said Carole. “You’ve been talking about how your parents have seemed sort of crabby recently. They need a vacation and so do you. You need the time on the beach.”

“And don’t worry,” Stevie said. “When you get back, we’ll have lots and lots of things for you to do to make up for all the work you missed this week.”

“I guess that’s what I’m afraid of,” Lisa said. “The manure pile?”

“It’ll be waiting for you,” Stevie assured her.

“Well, then, maybe it’s okay if I go.”

Just then, the door to the tack room flew open. The
girls didn’t even have to look to see who it was. There was only one person at Pine Hollow who would not respect a closed door with at least a knock.

“Come on in, Veronica,” Carole said without turning.

Veronica diAngelo sashayed into the room as if she owned it, looking disdainfully at The Saddle Club.

“Have you rented the place for the day?” she asked.

“No,” Stevie told her. “We were just planning. We’re going to paint this room as a birthday present for Max. Would you like to help?”

Stevie, of course, knew what the answer would be. She just wanted to give Veronica the opportunity to utter her favorite phrase.

“Isn’t that what stable hands are for?” Veronica asked. She picked up her horse’s tack and walked back out of the room without another word.

The girls waited until Veronica was around the corner before they began laughing. It was strangely comforting to have someone so completely predictable in their midst.

“I still wish I could be here this week,” Lisa said when the girls calmed down.

“Don’t worry. We both wish we could be in San Felipe,” Stevie assured her.

“I guess that makes us even,” Lisa said, smiling. “And
I can’t even help you begin the pre-paint cleanup. I’ve got to go get some sunscreen, shampoo, and boring stuff like that before I pack. I’m out of here.”

The girls hugged one another. Lisa promised to send postcards, which they all knew would arrive about a week after she got home.

As she walked out of the room, Lisa could hear Stevie flipping open her chart.

“All right, now, the first item is moving everything.”

“Then let’s get started,” Carole said.

Lisa smiled. She definitely had mixed feelings about missing out on this great idea, but the beaches of San Felipe seemed like a good alternative.

L
ISA FUMBLED WITH
the key card to her cabin. She slid it in one way and it didn’t work. She turned it around. Still no luck. She turned it over. The little light turned green and the door swung open.

Glancing around, Lisa realized it was a nice cabin—not too fancy, but just right. It had a single bed in it, nighttable, dresser, mirror, clean bathroom. It was all she needed, really, but it seemed kind of empty. She wished, not for the first time that day, that she had a friend with her.

The trip to San Felipe had been uneventful. The plane was full of vacationers, all traveling in pairs or as part of groups, headed to the islands in search of sun. Lisa had suddenly felt lonely. It didn’t help that, since
their reservations had been made so late, her seat was far from her parents’. She’d sat with a young couple, apparently on their honeymoon, who seemed totally uninterested in talking to Lisa except when they had to climb over her to get to the lavatory.

When they’d arrived at the resort, she’d found the same held true for their rooms. Her parents’ cabin was in one section of the resort and hers was in another. It didn’t really matter. Lisa was old enough not to need her parents next door, but she did feel isolated, as she had on the plane. The one piece of good news was that the honeymooners were nowhere in sight.

Well
,
the first few minutes or hours in any new place are always a little awkward
, Lisa told herself.
The thing to do is to be logical
. Lisa was good at being logical, and she knew what the logical thing to do was now: She unpacked. It took her all of five minutes. It only took another five to shed her spring clothes from Virginia and put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt with some sandals.

The next step was to see what her parents were up to. Lisa tucked her key card in her pocket and set off in search of their cabin.

Her parents were nowhere near as logical as Lisa. Their suitcases weren’t unpacked, and they hadn’t even changed their clothes.

When Lisa asked what they should do first, her
mother told her that they were both tired and were planning to take a nap. Lisa could do whatever she liked, but if she didn’t want to nap, how about going for a swim?

“We’ll see you at dinner. Seven o’clock in the dining room, okay?” her mother suggested.

“Okay,” she agreed, though it didn’t feel okay, and it particularly didn’t feel okay when the door to her parents’ room closed. What it felt was lonely.

On the other hand, Lisa realized that her parents had been up even earlier than she had and that they were both probably tired and they also needed time together.
Okay
, she told herself.
I’ll go far a swim
. After all, the ocean was there, it was warm, it was inviting, and she had enough sunscreen to last three vacations.

She returned to her room, put on her bathing suit, picked up her sunscreen, book, two towels, hat, and sun-glasses, and headed for the beach.

It was late afternoon when she got there—late by resort standards. Most of the vacationers had gotten their fill of sun and fresh air and were back in their rooms showering and getting ready for the evening. Lisa welcomed the quiet. She spread her beach towel out on the sand, slathered herself with sunscreen, and then lay down, tucking the other towel under her head for a pillow.
It was all she needed. Almost as soon as she closed her eyes, she was asleep, her mind filled with visions of scraping and sweeping, washing and painting, and mounds of tack piled in the middle of her room at the resort.