Horse Love (8 page)

It was already two-thirty, so there was no time to waste. She had to tell him right away.

She put her key card back in her pocket, slipped her sandals back on her feet, and hurried out the door.

First she thought Tec might be in sight. It had only
been a matter of seconds since he’d kissed her good-bye, but there was no sign of him. His room was in another area of the resort, and she knew the number because he’d had to give it for identification when they’d returned the snorkeling equipment.

She hurried over to his section, still hoping to spot him on his way. It took a few minutes to locate his cabin. She was uncomfortable knocking at his door, but she had no choice. Time was passing, and she had to get to the rehearsal, but she’d need to shower and change first.

She listened at the door. There was no sound. Perhaps he was asleep already. That wouldn’t surprise her. She raised her hand and knocked.

There was no answer. She waited a few seconds and then knocked again. He was a pretty sound sleeper, as she knew from watching him at the pool. She almost wished she had a water polo ball to wake him with. She knocked a third time. There was still no answer.

Either he was totally zonked, in which case he’d be too tired for the rehearsal, or he was in the shower. If that was the case, then all she had to do was to let him know what was happening. She took the paper Jane had left for her, folded it, and slid it under Tec’s door. He might get there late, but he’d get there.

Satisfied, she returned to her own room for a very quick shower and changed into clean, dry clothes.

By a few minutes to three, she was racing through the open-air lounge area to the theater.

The lounge area abutted the swimming pools where she’d met up with Tec that morning. She glanced over at the seats, wondering who was occupying them now and if they were enjoying being there as much as she and Tec had.

The seats were empty, though each had a towel draped on it. Lisa turned her attention to the theater, but something caught her eye. At first she thought it was Tec, but it was hard to tell because there was a big splash fight going on.

She looked again. It wasn’t Tec. It couldn’t be. For one thing, Tec was taking a shower or a nap. For another, that boy was with another girl—a skinny thing, wearing a string bikini, and they were splashing one another in the pool. Tec wouldn’t be with another girl, and he’d told her that he didn’t like to swim in freshwater pools. It was funny to think that there would be two boys at the same resort who had similar looks—what good news for the girls who hadn’t been lucky enough to meet Tec first!

Then she turned her attention to the theater and, following the clear signs, went right on in.

The rehearsal had already started. Jane waved Lisa in and straight onto the stage.

“Okay, now, chorus line, let’s see how you can kick!”

Lisa put her arm around the waist of the woman next to her and, without missing a beat, joined in on the kick line. She’d certainly had enough ballet and tap lessons over the years to be able to manage that.

“Nice work, Lisa!” Jane said.

The PA was blasting a poor rendition of “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” leading Lisa to assume, correctly as it turned out, that they were working on the grand finale. That was one of the things she loved about putting a show together. Sometimes there appeared to be little or no logic to the order.

However, as Lisa looked around, she knew exactly what the logic was. There were almost no men present. Since a kick line was all women, it made complete sense to begin with that.

Jane had them go over the steps four or five times until it was roughly passable.

“We don’t need this to be too professional,” Jane said. “Enthusiasm is much more important than precision!”

Lisa smiled to herself. That was typically the case with amateur shows. The fact was that precision was impossible, so enthusiasm was essential.

Once they had the finale down, Jane checked her clipboard for other acts to rehearse.

She shook her head. “We need men,” she said.

“I’ve got one coming,” Lisa promised.

“Where is he now?”

“Taking a nap,” Lisa said. “But he’s got talent and I can fill him in on stuff so he’ll be up to speed tomorrow. I mean, I don’t think he can do the kick line.…”

“I don’t expect that—just that he can hold a tune and is willing to sing with the chorus.”

“You can count on that,” Lisa promised.

“Okay, leave a space for him,” said Jane, indicating where the group should make room for one more.

Jane had worked up a number of funny skits for the performers to put together. One of them was about a honeymooning couple who didn’t notice anything else going on around them. It was very funny, and Lisa could easily imagine herself and Tec playing the parts—for real—but Jane wouldn’t cast anyone who wasn’t there.

There was a skit making fun of the activity director, and another that involved a barnyard and required several people to share costumes for horses and cows. Lisa’s favorite skit was about snorkeling. Almost all of the skits required a chorus of some sort, and in each case Lisa made a space for Tec. None of this was hard. All of the music for the chorus parts was recorded, so the chorus had to do little more than be there and lip-sync. Tec could do that, for sure.

Lisa had had the foresight to stick a notepad in her pocket. As Jane described the blocking for each skit, she made notes for herself and for Tec. Since there would only be three rehearsals before the dress rehearsal, Tec would have to work hard to catch up. He could do it, though, she was sure.

“Okay,” Jane said, inviting them all to sit down on stools on the stage. “Those are the general skits, and since we do variations of them with every group of guests at the resort, I can assure you the audiences love them—especially the all-male
Swan Lake
takeoff. The other part of the show will be individual performances by guests. If there are people who would like to perform, sing, dance, juggle, twirl batons, whatever, they should see me. I’ll be holding auditions tonight at six and tomorrow at four. Thanks for all your good work, and I’ll see everybody tomorrow afternoon, same time, same place.”

Individual performances. Maybe that included duets. Could she and Tec do something? There were a lot of wonderful Broadway show duets they could sing, like “Anything You Can Do” from
Annie Get Your Gun
. Or maybe something like “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.” Either one of those would be great. They’d be showstoppers. They’d be wonderful! She knew it would
be unbelievably fun to work with Tec on a silly song like that, but she also knew, and was less eager to admit, that it would be a way of showing him her talent. She didn’t like to think of herself as a show-off or think that she had anything to prove, but it
would
be nice to show Tec that she wasn’t exaggerating. She talk with him about it tonight and they could practice together tomorrow. It might not be exactly like a picnic on an almost-deserted beach, but it would mean being together and working together. She got excited just thinking about it.

“Okay, that’s it. Rehearsal’s over. See you next time!” Jane said. “And Lisa, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning on the trail ride, right?”

“Of course,” Lisa said. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

She wouldn’t—and she had no intention of letting Tec miss it, either.

Lisa hopped down off the stage and headed back out into the bright tropical sunlight. It was just after five o’clock, and the afternoon seemed even hotter than it had before. She became aware of her overall exhaustion, recalling the nap she’d promised herself for the afternoon, now mostly gone. She was expecting to see Tec at eight. That gave her two and a half hours to rest and a half hour to freshen up and change before he came to pick her up for dinner. She glanced at the pool as she walked past it, wondering if she would see the guy who
reminded her of Tec, but there was no sign of him or the skinny girl in the skimpy bikini.

“She probably got a terrible sunburn,” Lisa told herself, and then realized she was being unnecessarily mean. She needed a nap.

“I
THINK THERE
’
S
a way to do this on the computer, but I don’t know what it is,” said Carole, glaring at a sheet of paper. What she held in her hand was a list of names. It seemed like everyone in the stable wanted to help with the painting, and that was good news. It also seemed like they all had different schedules.

“Why don’t we just tell everybody to come whenever they can?” Stevie asked.

“Because then we’d end up with fourteen people in a room that can hold only four. Anyway, we only have six paintbrushes.”

“And two cans of paint.”

“That, too,” Carole agreed. “So you had this bright idea to ask everybody when they had time. Some of
them wrote times they were available; others just said when they were busy. I think if we look at this carefully, we can figure out Dr. Faisal’s entire schedule for the week.”

Dr. Faisal seemed to be everybody’s orthodontist, and apparently every single rider at Pine Hollow was getting his or her braces tightened during school vacation.

“Well, his office is between school and the stable,” Stevie reminded her.

“I know. It’s just funny to see it on this paper. Now, how do we organize?” Carole asked.

“We think what Lisa would do,” said Stevie.

“Ah, yes,” said Carole.

Stevie perched on the desk next to where Carole had placed the sheet of paper. The two of them studied it for a while.

“Okay, first we have to reorganize this list,” said Carole.

“Just what I was going to say.”

Stevie pulled a fresh sheet of paper out of the desk drawer, turned it sideways, and made six columns. The first one was
NAMES
and the rest were the days of the week, Tuesday to Saturday. Then she broke the days into thirds and called those
MORNING
,
MIDDAY
, and
AFTERNOON
. This was for them to work out who was available at which times. Once they knew that, they
could then begin to assign times on a second sheet of paper.

“This is just what Lisa would do,” Carole said, beaming.

“Sure,” Stevie agreed. “But she’d know how to do it on the computer.”

Carole shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Lisa’s not all that hot with the computer. It’s Phil who could figure out how to do it on a computer.”

Stevie looked at the handmade chart and smiled. “Computers? Who needs ’em? Not me!”

L
ISA
’
S EYES FLUTTERED
open. She was aware of little more than the total darkness of her room. At first, she wasn’t even aware of what room it was, but then the soft breeze coming through the light cotton curtain reminded her she was on vacation, at a resort on San Felipe, and that she was falling in love with the most amazing boy she’d ever met.

Then she looked at the clock on her bedside table. It was almost nine! She only had a few minutes to get to the dining room before they stopped serving dinner. She leaped out of bed, brushed her teeth, ran a comb through her hair, and pulled on a white cotton dress. She grabbed her key card, slipped into some sandals, and was out the door and onto the path to the dining
room before she remembered that Tec had promised to pick her up for dinner at eight. Had she been sleeping so soundly that she’d missed him? How embarrassing!

She still felt the vague disorientation of a sound sleep when she arrived at the dining room. The line was dwindling and they were clearly getting ready to stop seating people, but she was in time … to have dinner with whom?

She stood on her tiptoes and looked around the place for Tec. She spotted him quickly. He was at a table full of other kids around their age. He waved to her cheerfully.

She slid past the hostess and went over to the table but was disappointed to find that there weren’t any empty seats. It might not matter anyway, because it was clear they were almost finished eating.

“I guess I must have been sound asleep when you knocked,” she said.

Tec looked slightly confused and then embarrassed. “Oh, no, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t wake up until after eight, and I figured you’d already be here by then, so I came straight over.”

That made sense. “Oh, good, because I was so sound asleep—well, you can’t imagine,” she said. “Look, I’ve got a lot to tell you,” she began.

“Then let’s get together after dinner, okay?” he asked.

“Okay,” she said.

He turned to the other people at the table. “Hey, guys, this is Lisa Altman—”

“Atwood,” she corrected automatically.

“Sorry. Atwood. Anyway, she’ll meet us in the lounge after she’s eaten, okay?”

“Great,” said one guy. “I’m Will.”

Lisa nodded as the others introduced themselves, too, a sea of names she was sure to forget until she got to know the owners of those names better—Kiki, Sophie, Grant, Brian, Meredith, and Alex.

“We’ll see you over there, okay?” Tec said. He smiled warmly at her, once again showing those dimples that melted her knees.

“I won’t be long,” she promised.