Another Kind of Cowboy Read online

  Then there was the small matter of his father.

  Alex’s parents’ marriage had begun to unravel soon after he got the horse. His mom announced she wanted a separation, and that she wanted his dad to move into a condominium in town. Instead, Mr. Ford purchased a recreational vehicle off his own sales lot and parked it in the driveway. He told anyone who asked that he wanted to stay close so he could keep an eye on the kids and on his wife’s “gentlemen visitors.” He must not have kept close enough watch, however, because a couple of years after he moved into his RV, his wife informed the family that her affair with a local insurance adjuster was serious and they were moving to Florida together. The adjuster, who had long sideburns and favored skinny ties and pointy shoes, was at least ten years younger than Alex’s mother. She said he reminded her of Rod Stewart.

  Now, four years after he’d moved out of the house, Mr. Ford’s trailer was still parked alongside the house, and he was still living in it, even though his wife was long gone. He seemed to think that if he stayed very still and didn’t change anything, she’d come back.

  Alex didn’t want to do anything to upset his father, who was in a precarious mental state, and switching from Western to dressage would definitely upset him. Mr. Ford never missed a horse show. He loved parading around in his expensive lizard-skin cowboy boots and tight blue jeans. He was always first into the beer garden at the shows and last out. Somehow, Alex couldn’t see his dad getting the same kind of thrill out of hanging around dressage competitions.

  Oh, but I would, thought Alex as he stood near the dressage rings at the Fall Fling Horse Show. At any mixed-discipline show Alex always found himself standing at the edge of the dressage rings. He loved looking at the horses in their neat braids. He admired the riders, almost all of whom were female, in their tidy breeches and velvet hats. But most of all he was fascinated by the dressage tests. There was something about the precision of it that appealed to him.

  Today he stood against the wall of a judge’s booth, tucked into the shade of the roof, his face hidden under the brim of his cowboy hat. When he turned to see who was up next he noticed a slender girl with bright blond hair tied in a neat bun at the nape of her neck standing just outside the warm-up ring. She held the reins of a huge horse in one hand and a pair of white leather gloves in the other. Alex was transfixed by the sight of the impossibly elegant girl and the gleaming, perfectly turned-out horse. The girl’s white breeches and black jacket fit like they’d been custom-made. Her horse had to be nearly seventeen hands and seemed lit up from inside. The girl and her horse looked like an advertisement for gracious living.

  Alex was so busy admiring them he was surprised when the girl turned her head slightly and stared right at him. At first he wasn’t sure how to react, and he gave her what he hoped was a friendly smile. He’d fallen out of the smiling habit in the last few years. The girl looked away and he was flooded with embarrassment, standing there in his cowboy boots and big buckle, an unfamiliar smile sitting on his face like a fake moustache. The girl looked like she belonged in the pages of Town and Country and here he was, gawking at her.

  Alex might be dressed like a cowboy but he didn’t feel totally comfortable in the role. Real cowboys dreamed of girls with big hair and tight jeans, bars with sawdust floors and cows and the open range. His dreams ran more to other cowboys as well as firemen, cops, and, for some reason he’d yet to figure out, paramedics. The less open range and the fewer cows, the better.

  He realized that the girl, who had a pretty, fine-boned, inquisitive face, was staring at him again. Surprised, he nodded at her. In response, she turned and walked away.

  Nicely played, Ford, he thought.

  He was about to make his way over to the dressage ring to watch her ride, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Then another one.

  “Alex,” said his sisters, speaking in unison. “You better come. It’s Dad.”

  He turned to look at the twins, who wore black T-shirts and the short, wide-legged pants from their kung fu uniforms.

  “When did you get here?” he asked.

  “Grace picked us up from practice. Sorry we missed your classes. Did you win?”

  “Of course he won,” said Maggie. “He’s related to us, isn’t he? He’s not some loser who doesn’t win.”

  “Solid point,” agreed May. “No one could argue with that logic.”

  Sometimes fourteen-year-old Maggie and May, with their shiny eyes and glossy brown hair, reminded Alex of otters. Their relentless playfulness had the effect of raising his spirits, no matter what else he was fretting about.

  “I did okay,” he said.

  “Don’t be like that,” said May.

  “Humility has no place in the personality of the elite athlete,” said Maggie.

  “Just ask Lance Armstrong,” added May. “You’d never catch him being all humble like that.”

  Alex squinted at his sisters. What were they talking about? As usual, he had no idea.

  “What’s this about Dad?” he asked.

  “He’s plowed,” said Maggie.

  “Totally smashed,” added May. “He’s in the beer garden with some woman. Grace said you need to get him out of there before he ruins her chances with a vet student she’s trying to pick up. She says he’s about to open a large animal practice so he’s ripe for either a relationship or a receptionist.”

  “Dad?”

  “No, the vet student.”

  “I’m not old enough to get in,” Alex pointed out.

  “Grace said that if the vet finds out she’s related to Dad, he’ll think she’s not well bred,” said Maggie.

  “Grace isn’t well bred; she’s Dad’s sister,” Alex said.

  Grace had been living with them ever since their mother had abandoned the family for a warmer climate and her insurance-adjusting boyfriend. Grace was supposed to be helping out, but she wasn’t one to do housework. In fact, she was messy and disorganized and nearly doubled Alex’s workload of chores. She was always available for conversation, however, and spent much of her free time trying to draw Alex and the twins into highly personal discussions about how they really felt about their hair and skin tone, which she then turned into opportunities to test out new cosmetics and innovations in hairdressing.

  Grace was around the house quite a lot when she wasn’t seeing anyone, but rarely glimpsed when she had a boyfriend. Her relationships never lasted longer than a month. Alex’s theory was that her relationships never made it past her first home-cooked meal. Grace was a good, if overly adventurous, hairstylist but an extremely bad cook. Her cooking tended to taste like her hairdressing smelled.

  It was just like Grace to expect him to get his father out of the beer tent so she could seduce some innocent vet student. Alex muttered a mild swear word under his breath.

  “Don’t worry,” Maggie assured him. “We’ll wait for you outside. You have any problems, just yell.”

  His sisters behaved as though they were Bruce Lee reincarnated as Caucasian female twins. Their supreme confidence in their physical strength was a source of mystery to Alex, who constantly suspected his body of betrayal on a hundred fronts.

  Alex pulled his cowboy hat more firmly down on his head as he followed his sisters away from the dressage rings, past the looming red indoor arena, and over to the large white tent that housed the beer garden.

  At the beer garden he stopped to let his sense of dread subside.

  Alex glanced from his sisters to the two women who sat behind a table, guarding the entrance to the beer garden. He could hear Kenny Rogers on the sound system inside.

  “Hey, honey,” said one of the women. She wore a brilliant pink T-shirt with the words SAVE A HORSE, RIDE A COWBOY written on the front.

  “You plannin’ on joining the party?” she asked.

  “Maybe in three years’ time he will be,” said her fellow door watcher, who had a wandering eye.

  “I have to get my dad,” he said, trying to focus on the woman’s goo
d eye.

  “I’m sorry, hon. No minors,” said the pink T-shirt lady.

  May leaned forward and whispered, “You may have to put the moves on her before they’ll let you in.”

  “It’s for the good of the family,” Maggie added encouragingly.

  Alex ignored his sisters.

  The door watchers finally relented. “Okay. But just you. The girls will have to stay out here. We can’t have a bunch of kids running in and out of a licensed establishment.”

  Alex shot his sisters a glance and then walked quickly through the doorway. It took him only a second to spot his dad, who sat near the entrance, deep in conversation with a red-haired woman. His aunt sat across the room beside a man wearing rubber boots and denim coveralls. Grace jerked her head toward Alex’s father and grimaced.

  Mr. Ford, whose drinking had become heavy and constant after his wife left, was beginning to sag, as if about to pass out. It was one thing for him to pass out in the lawn chair outside his RV at home, another thing for him to do it in a public beer garden.

  Alex walked over and said, as quietly as possible, “Dad?”

  Mr. Ford turned his head. “Alex?” he said, as though speaking long distance over the phone to someone he never expected to hear from again.

  “Yeah, uh, Maggie and May need to get home. And I’m done for the day. Meredith’s going to trailer Turnip home later. So I was thinking maybe we could go.”

  His father blinked at him and for the millionth time Alex wondered how his father could be so blind drunk yet appear sober to the untrained eye. Handsome, even.

  “Are you ready to go?” Alex asked again.

  “I can give you a ride later, Brian,” said the redheaded lady who sat next to his dad.

  Alex frowned at the woman. She had thinning hair that was dyed bright red and eyebrows that had been plucked into surprised arches and penciled in for emphasis. She was dressed in an electric-blue business suit. Alex thought he’d seen her face somewhere before, but couldn’t remember where.

  “You’re old enough to drive yourself, aren’t you?” she said, giving Alex a thin smile.

  He nodded reluctantly. Why was she making this more difficult? Her hot date was about to collapse onto the floor. If that happened it would take at least three people to get him up.

  “Thanks,” said Alex. “It’s just that he’s got this thing he has to do.”

  It was amazing to Alex how many women, with the exception of his mother, seemed to find his father attractive. Especially women of a certain age. Maybe they thought that his used RV dealership made him a good catch. What they didn’t know was that his ex-wife had taken a good chunk of his income and his business had begun to falter.

  Suddenly Mr. Ford sat upright and shook his head.

  “Colette, Ms. Reed. I’d like you to meet my son. He’s a fine horseman,” he said. “A cowboy.”

  The red-haired lady gave Alex another insincere smile and he grimly gave one back.

  “Okay, Dad. So are you ready?” Alex went to help his father up but was stopped when the woman put a hand on his arm.

  “I live just down the road from you.”

  Alex nodded, not really listening. He wished she’d take her hand off his arm. Once his father was standing he was relatively easy to maneuver. Getting him up was a trick.

  “You know, I have a horse that needs riding,” the lady continued, her hand still on Alex’s arm. “I simply don’t have the time anymore. Of course, he’s a dressage horse and you ride Western so you probably wouldn’t be interested.”

  Now she had his attention.

  “He’s a very nice boy. A Dutch Warmblood.”

  Alex kept his face impassive.

  “One of these days you and your father should come and see my horse,” she said, batting her short, spiky eyelashes at Mr. Ford, who didn’t notice.

  “Sure, okay. Thanks,” said Alex. He gave his father a nudge and was happy to see him rise unsteadily to his feet.

  “I’m on Willowbank Road. Not five minutes from your place,” continued Ms. Reed. Alex looked at her more closely. She did look familiar. He realized that he’d seen her face on half of the COMING SOON signs around Cedar. She was a realtor who specialized in selling vinyl-sided tract housing built on filled-in wetlands and negotiating deals with private landowners that enabled developers to clear-cut the last remaining pockets of forest around Nanaimo, making room for mini-malls. She finally took her hand off his arm and spoke again to Mr. Ford.

  “Good-bye, Brian.”

  Alex’s stomach dropped as his father abruptly swooped down to kiss Ms. Reed’s hand. He gave an involuntary sigh of relief when his father completed the move without collapsing on her.

  “I will see you later,” said Mr. Ford to Ms. Reed, throwing her what was probably supposed to be a charming wink but looked more like a gnat had flown into his eye.

  Colette Reed smiled coyly.

  “This way, Dad,” Alex said, propelling his father toward the exit. As he passed by, he glanced at his aunt, who gave him a thumbs-up.

  SEPTEMBER 7

  2

  Cleo O’Shea

  I NEVER SHOULD have let my mom make me switch from plastic horses to real ones. I started collecting model horses when I was a little kid. By the time I turned twelve I had over two hundred of them: bays, chestnuts, palominos, grays, blacks, duns, Thoroughbreds, Appaloosas, Arabs, Morgans, paints, and quarter horses. I had mares, stallions, foals, and yearlings. In my fantasy, I was a veterinarian who’d rescued the horses from abusive owners and nursed them back to health.

  My dad, who is a movie producer and director, had the props people from the studio build all these accessories for my horses. I had fences, stables, a racetrack, even miniature trees.

  One day my mother met someone at her tennis club, a lady who sent her daughters for riding lessons at a stable out in Lakeview Terrace. The lady, who just happened to be the wife of a studio head, told my mother that the lessons were “wildly expensive.” That was all my mom needed to hear. A day later I was booked at the same barn for twice-a-week lessons. One would assume that since I loved plastic horses, I’d have been completely thrilled at the thought of riding real ones. But I wasn’t what you’d call an athletic person. Our house had a pool, two housekeepers, and a TV in almost every room. I had my own plastic horse sanctuary. Who’d want to leave?

  The day before my first lesson at Performance Ponies Stables, I heard my mom on the phone with the owner.

  “I understand that yours is the best school in this area for young equestriennes.” My mother really drew out that last word and put a heavy French spin on it. “You’ve come highly recommended. Cleo is horse crazy. Simply mad about horses. I’m sure you’re accustomed to that.”

  There was a pause.

  “Experience? Cleo has read a lot of books. She even collects horses.”

  Another pause.

  “No, not real horses. Plastic ones. That’s right. So, no, I wouldn’t say she was a total beginner.”

  Another pause.

  “Been around actual horses? Well, no. I don’t think so. But she’s always reading that book about the racehorse. Consuela says she’s read it at least a dozen times.”

  Pause.

  “Actually ridden? Well, no. Not that I’m aware of.”

  My mother covered the receiver with her hand and whispered, “Have you ever ridden? At school or anything?”

  I shook my head. I’d never been on a horse before. I’d never even been on the same block as an actual horse. I was not an agricultural person.

  “I’m quite confident she’ll have no problems. She comes from a long line of naturally gifted athletes.”

  I had to leave the room. My mother is convinced that weighing only slightly more than a poor quality T-shirt and belonging to a tennis club makes her a two-sport Olympian. She’s delusional on the point. But that’s my mother for you.

  When we arrived at the barn for my first lesson, I got out of the car and looked
around. The driveway was paved with little red bricks and the barn reminded me of the houses we’d seen when we went on our school trip to Germany. The matching house was dark brown with white trim. It didn’t look very California at all.

  Chad rolled down the driver’s side window.

  “You want me to wait for you, C.?”

  Chad worked for the car company my parents used. He had genuine sun streaks in his adorably messy surfer hair and crinkly blue eyes. The back of his head was so devastatingly handsome I could barely answer him when he spoke to me. If I’d been smart, I would have kept it that way. It was my increasing ability to say things to Chad that actually landed me in the position I’m in now. But that day I was all about not letting Chad think I was timid, even though there are mice who are much braver than me.

  “No thanks,” I told him.

  “Okay, hon. I’ll pick you up in two hours.”

  My knees buckled a bit at the word hon. I must have had a strange expression when I watched the black Lincoln pull away because when I looked up I found a woman watching me with an amused look on her face. She was thin and elongated—like God had meant her to be five feet tall but she somehow got stretched an extra foot—and she had small, bright green eyes and wore no makeup. She had no-nonsense written all over her. She wore rubber boots.

  “You’re on your own?” the woman asked.

  I nodded. My parents had left that morning. They’d be gone for at least three months.

  The woman didn’t seem concerned. “I’m Dawn,” she’d said. “Welcome to the wonderful world of horses.”

  Dawn taught her students basic equitation, as well as show jumping, hunter-jumper, and dressage. Most of the girls chose to focus on some form of jumping as soon as they finished the basic equitation classes. Not me. I cried all the way through my first two jumping lessons, which involved riding one of the most docile school ponies over trot poles. After that, Dawn decided it would be best if I focused on dressage. That was fine with me. I liked the predictability of dressage and was pretty good at it, at least when I rode Dawn’s ponies.