8

When I got to my room, Skip waited outside my door for a half hour straight asking me to come out for a tour. He had been ordered to show me around pony town, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I could only stall him by pretending I didn’t know what to wear.

“Are you done yet?” he asked for the fifth time.

“No,” I said. “I’m totally naked. Go away.”

“You’ve already been in there twenty-five minutes.”

“I’m giving myself a Brazilian,” I said.

He turned the handle and opened the door.

“I could have been totally naked,” I said.

“But you aren’t.”

“But I could have been. . . .”

“C’mon,” he said. “The golf cart’s waiting.”

And it was. Just sitting there, puttering away as golf carts do. So we got in and sped over the gravel road. And Skip started up right where he left off.

“Stoneshire has had just about every breed of horse you could imagine at one time or another. We’ve had Paso Finos, Quarter horses, Arabians. Warmbloods. Every kind of horse. And we’ve bred ’em all!”

Now that I was next to him, Skip seemed younger than he did earlier, maybe closer to my age than I first thought. And he wasn’t terrible looking actually. I hadn’t noticed his masculine jaw at first. It was strong and coated in a light amount of stubble. I could imagine him nursing a calf back to health with a baby bottle before going inside to have wholly unselfconscious sex with a beautiful woman. And the sex would definitely make a baby. A stupid, angelic baby.

“This right here is the Thoroughbred training track. This is where we get our young horses in shape and teach ’em to race. Our youngbloods are broken to ride in September, and they can gallop a mile by December. You can bet on it!”

The problem with Skip, I decided, was that he said things. Also, he probably believed that the world was a beautiful place. But I could forgive him that if he would just stop speaking. If you could just watch him smile and frown as he drove various vehicles around, he might be okay.

“They got this machine in there called a vibration plate. Wiggles around like crazy to get the circulation going in a horse’s legs. It’s hard to get them to stand on . . .”

I don’t care, I thought. I don’t care about this at all.

Skip hit the breaks, and the cart bucked to a stop. I jolted forward in my seat.

“Well, jeez,” he said, “if you want me to stop bending your ear, you could be a little nicer about it.”

I covered my mouth with my palm.

“Shit,” I said. “Did I say that out loud?”

Skip gave me a puzzled look.

“Yes,” he said. “You definitely did.”

It was hard to tell if he was hurt. He seemed more confused.

“Well, the cat’s out of the bag, I guess,” I said. “I don’t really care about horse training or breeding or . . . any of this. I think it’s sad and weird and sad. And if it didn’t exist I would be fine. I might even be happier.”

I was sweating all of a sudden, and breathing heavily, a couple of sure signs that I was about to welcome a passing spell of dread. The golf cart was idling in a field of old oaks. The horizon beyond was so endless it was a little frightening. I stepped off the cart and plopped down in the grass. I closed my eyes and took long deep breaths.

“Are you all right?” asked Skip.

“Just give me a minute,” I said. “I just have to wait out the terror.”

A cool breeze kicked up and blew my hair against my cheeks.

“The what?”

“Terror.” I said, “You know, the terror that humans feel. You don’t have any weed do you?”

There was a long pause. I kept my eyes closed and my breath started to normalize a little. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and held it with a worn tie from my pocket.

“You don’t feel good?” said Skip.

“Uh-huh,” I murmured.

I heard the golf cart lurch forward behind me.

“Why didn’t you say so,” he said, “I got just the thing!”

“Is it medical-grade marijuana?”

“Nope.”

“Then I don’t want it.”

The cart was coming closer to me. For a second, I wondered if he might hit me with it. Maybe that was his plan. To put me out of my misery.

“You don’t even know what it is,” he said.

The golf cart was chugging away right next to me now.

“I don’t need to. I don’t want just the thing,” I said. “Whenever anyone says that, it’s something terrible.”

I finally opened my eyes and looked back at him, smiling in his miniature car.

“Come on, now,” he said, “get in the dang cart. It’s on the way back.”

■   ■   ■

Fifteen minutes later we were speeding toward a barn. You couldn’t spit without hitting a barn in this place, and the one we were approaching was the usual burnt red color. Skip pulled the cart up and parked it beneath an overhang. Then he got out and walked over to the entrance, waiting for me to follow.

When we stepped inside, I immediately breathed in that hay-and-pee smell of animal barns I’d walked through at the state fairs of my youth. I made my way down the middle of the stalls in a dim, dust-choked light. From around me came a few high-pitched whinnies and the occasional muffled snort. I found myself walking closer to Skip. The animals seemed to surround me on all sides.

“She’s just down here,” said Skip in a hushed voice that made me even more nervous. What the hell was in this barn?

“What the hell is in this barn?” I asked.

“Just relax,” said Skip. “And see for yourself.”

Skip came to a stop a few steps ahead of me and then just stood there with his arms folded over his chest. I walked up and peered through the slats of a metal gate into a large stall strewn with fresh sawdust.

First I saw the sleeping body of a large mare, its chestnut coat expanding with breath. Then I heard a soft rustling, and out of the shadows of the far corner something small stirred and came forward.

It was a little creature. The tiniest horse I had ever seen.

“This is Linnie,” said Skip. “Our newest foal. She was born just two days ago.”

I slowly bent my knees and met the foal’s eyes in a low squat.

“Linnie,” I said.

The little horse took an unsteady step toward me, its bulbous black eyes searching my face. It was piebald, spattered with white across its forehead, black along the muzzle and ears. It walked closer to me, right up to the metal bars.

Without thinking much, I reached out my hand and unfolded my fingers. Linnie extended her muzzle and began to explore my hand with her lips. They were spongy and delicate, like a baby’s, as they moved over my fingertips. I closed my eyes and waited for the clamp of teeth on my fingers.

“She doesn’t have her milk teeth yet,” said Skip. “She can’t hurt you.”

I looked over at him and found him grinning as usual. But, this smile seemed like more than his usual display of life satisfaction. He looked heartened. His faith in the beauty of the farm had persevered in the face of a crazy girl’s skepticism.

I traced my fingers over the foal’s forelock and then down her muzzle. Though I guess I had gone through a brief horse phase as a girl, I’d never had the desire to own one until now. I wanted to take this wobbly beanpole and smuggle her home in my duffel bag. That was all I needed to be happy. A pony.

I watched as Linnie gamboled around her stall, kicking up sawdust, eventually scrambling up her mother’s flanks until she found a place to suckle.

“Just so you know,” said Skip, behind me, “I have some weed, too. If that’s what blows your hair back.”