Kept Animals Page 11

  “Where is everybody?” Rory asked, following.

  “They all went for drinks with Adler. Robin, Daddy.” June sat down on the lip of the pool and set her feet onto the shallowest step. The rest of the motel was quiet, a few lights flickering in the split between curtains. June pulled a joint from inside her bra and lit it up.

  “Is Wade with them?” Rory asked, pulling her sweatpants to her knees, dropping her feet in the water beside June’s.

  “The favorite child,” June exhaled. “Of course. Daddy will have him riding in one of Adler’s clinics in Colorado soon enough. I’d put money on it.”

  “Where’d you get this?” Rory asked, looking at the toothpick of a joint.

  “Stable hand.”

  “Not Tomás?” Rory asked.

  “No, a guy from Flying J. Perfect, right?” Rory was coughing. “Yeah, it’s dirt weed,” June said. “But it’s better than nothing.”

  Rory lay back on the asphalt and they passed the joint back and forth. The sky was darker here, devoid of city lights, the stars sharper, more glittering. “It’s kind of beautiful out here,” she said.

  “Now I know you’re high,” June said. “It’s Fresno. It’s kind of a fucking nightmare.”

  “Wait,” Rory said. “Why aren’t you with them? With your dad and Robin? I mean, if anyone should get to ride with Mark Adler, it’s you.”

  “Yeah, but Wade’s the one with the injured horse that Daddy can hold over Adler’s head. That’s Daddy. A surgeon in and out of the operating room. His business motto is: There’s a fortune to be made in every misfortune. That is literally his motto. I’m sure he’s making Adler feel like he’s saving himself a lawsuit.”

  “A lawsuit might be preferable,” Rory said, still lying down, talking to June’s back.

  June laughed then, but when she stopped she landed in that melancholy place and Rory thought they’d sit not talking for a while, but then June said, “I asked him if I could bring you.”

  Rory couldn’t see June’s face, couldn’t read it. But her robe had slipped, revealing one shoulder. “Bring me?” Rory asked.

  June turned to look at her. “I wanted to go with them, see if I couldn’t get in on all of this, honestly, but then I thought about you and I wanted us both to go. I thought you should at least get to meet Mark Adler, but when I asked—”

  “So your dad does blame me? For Journey?”

  “No,” June said. “It’s not that. It’s that he—he understands that you aren’t just a friend to me.”

  That phrase. “But I am,” Rory said.

  “I know, but when a friend is also—you know, someone I—”

  “You know?” Rory sat up. “I don’t know—” She looked at her hands, squeezing one inside the other, thinking about Wade.

  June was assessing her. “You’re serious?” she asked. “I mean, I know you’re not exactly clear on it, but it’s not just going to go away, Rory. You think if you ignore it, it’ll just starve and die off? Is that it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Really? What about Vivian? Sitting out there, watching her? Because your television was broken? Come on, Rory. We’re the same.”

  “You’re wrong,” Rory said. “I was bored. She’s—they’re famous. Anyone would want to look.”

  “I know you better than that,” June said. “You don’t care about famous.”

  The water at Rory’s feet had gone cold. “You’re wrong,” she said again. This weed was no good, her teeth chattering, her body rife with anxiety. She wanted to talk about anything else, anything but herself. “Maybe you can still meet with Adler. Maybe even ride with him—”

  “Rory, that’s never going to happen,” June said. “My brother might be a C student while I go premed, but Daddy will always prop Wade up, however he has to, because Wade is the legacy he prefers to this. To me.” She fanned her hand at herself.

  “I bet you win tomorrow,” Rory said, grasping.

  “For sure,” June said. “I have to win. That’s all I have.” She took a long drag on the last sliver of joint then flicked it into the pool.

  “And you’ll snap those suspenders, right?” Rory said, letting herself smile.

  June looked at her. “You know, it took me a while to get up the nerve to knock on your door tonight.” She was looking at Rory’s lips, at her mouth. “Because I knew I had to tell you how I felt and that it was going to be awkward for you, but …” Her hand was turning Rory’s face toward her, the same as when they’d sat on her window ledge, the curtain of June’s cropped hair falling around them, the tips of their noses touching. Rory anticipated June’s mouth on hers and she held her breath as if this would stop time, giving her the nerve she needed to brush June back, but then June’s leg crossed over, straddling her. Rory tried to back away, dragging herself back on her elbows, the skin scraping the pocked pavement. “Stop,” June said. “You’ll hurt yourself.” Her breath was laced with smoke, her skin with the White Musk she always wore. “Just relax.”

  If she shoved June, she would fall backward into the pool, and what a commotion that would make. Rory didn’t want anyone to come outside. “You’re wrong,” Rory said. “You’re wrong.”

  “For sure,” June said, her lips against Rory’s. “I’m wrong,” she said, the words pouring into Rory’s mouth and then the wetness of June’s tongue was traveling over her lips and the silk of her robe was brushing against Rory’s arms. “Lie back,” June said, pushing her hips into her.

  Rory hadn’t kissed anyone since Martin Jarvis in sixth grade, a dare at a party. It had not felt like this. He had been hesitant and clammy where June’s mouth was warm and her hands roving. From Rory’s neck, down her chest, and then her knee slid between Rory’s legs, right up against her, relieving a kind of ache, a soreness, that Rory hadn’t yet registered as being there. “It’s okay,” June said, tugging at the string of Rory’s sweatpants, a new chill in the air hitting Rory’s skin, before June’s hand slipped between her thighs and Rory was twisting against it, like an animal folding into a net, but June didn’t stop, didn’t pause her hand from rocking until Rory was having the sensation that she had been dropped, that she was falling, plummeting, as if down a hillside—the same sensation as in the dream she had been having, almost every night since the accident, a dream about her house endlessly falling—but here, now, distantly, was the possibility of relief, even comfort, and Rory gasped, released, reaching the ground, her whole body springing awake. She pushed June away, startled to find her still on top of her, the weight and warmth of her. Suddenly, she could barely breathe. And June was giggling. “It’s okay,” June said. “That was so—”

  A door above them was opening and June had turned to look.

  It was Tomás. And Rory saw them from his point of view, how she was halfway out from under June, June’s pink robe falling off, Rory’s sweatpants undone. “Stop fucking smiling,” Rory said, catching June’s smirk, knowing that from that angle Tomás could see everything.

  * * *

  COUSIN EVERETT HAD left the house as if wearing a cape and mask, dead set on finding his wife.

  Vivian turned on the television, wanting its noise now. NASA was continuing to send out communications to the Observer every twenty minutes, hoping to regain contact.

  “It’s out there somewhere. It has to be. It’s trapped in heliocentric orbit,” McLeod said.

  Vivian had called him without wanting to talk really, just wanting the warmth of the phone to her ear. She certainly wasn’t going to mention Mommy’s running away. “We keep this quiet,” Cousin Everett said, tripping over a box of VHS tapes on his way to the door.

  “Heliocentric orbit,” Vivian repeated. The night was an eerily still one, not even a whisper of a breeze, no sound of birds or leaves to fill in the sense of vastness all around her, but holding ever so still, rooting herself to the slate of the pool, she could feel the day’s heat seeping up out of the earth around her. She’d taken a Klonopin,
had a few sips of vodka.

  “You’re awfully quiet tonight, Vivian Price,” McLeod said. “Do you want to talk about it? Any of it? We’ve yet to talk about your brother and I was wondering if that article, if the headline—”

  “What, bothered me? But I am living it up. Did that make you jealous, Mickey? My picture with the son of a doctor to the stars? I thought I looked a little pasty, no?”

  “Have you been drinking?” McLeod asked.

  “I am drinking.”

  “I’ve never heard you drunk before.”

  “I’ve never heard you drunk before.”

  “Is this a game, Vivian?”

  “No, Mickey McLeod. This is, very much, not a game.”

  “Do you need me to come over?”

  “Yes, need,” she moaned.

  “Jesus, Vivian.”

  A drawer opened and closed. The snap of a lighter, the hiss of escaping fuel (oh, this was new!). “Have you taken up smoking, McLeod?”

  “I shouldn’t have asked that. I want to be clear with you. I can’t come there.”

  “But I’m all alone,” she said. In the space between his voice and hers came the chatter of coyotes. No pups, all full-grown animals. “No one would ever know.”

  “These calls are in my capacity as your former teacher–turned-friend.” She knew the flush of his cheeks, the way he was shaking his hair back from his eyes, how he probably held his cigarette too delicately. “I can be here for you as a friend, but that is all.”

  “Friendly friends,” Vivian said. “Does your wife know you smoke, Mickey McLeod?”

  He sighed. “No.”

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way,” she said. Everything had gone quiet again. The quiet was the worst reminder of Charlie being gone; everything she couldn’t hear anymore, everything that would never be as boisterous as it once was. Bunnies, she’d wanted to get him bunnies (they’d have been eaten by the coyotes—facts were facts). “McLeod,” she said.

  “I’m here.”

  “No,” she said. “You’re not. You’re way over there. As lost as any of us.”

  “Trapped in heliocentric orbit,” McLeod said.

  * * *

  IN THE MOTEL lobby, Robin said, “Keep your head in the game today, Rory.” She was signing the bill, sliding the keys across the counter to the clerk. She’d not come back to the room until midnight, tiptoeing in, assuming Rory was asleep. “You can stay in the ribbons, I know it. You’re the most tenacious rider I’ve got.”

  “I think you mean June,” Rory said.

  Robin smirked. “She’s focused, but she’s also used to winning.”

  “Right,” Rory said. She was tugging at the sleeves of the button-down she had to wear for the final day of competition, feeling they were too short. “Wade left, right?” she asked, hoping.

  “No, just Preston,” Robin said. “Wade wanted to stay and cheer June on. He’s got plenty to look forward to now anyway.”

  “A clinic with Adler,” Rory said, not doubting this had worked out for him.

  “Yeah,” Robin said. “How’d you know?”

  The night before, when June had followed after her, knocking on the door again, Rory had refused to answer. “Come on. That wasn’t so bad,” June had whispered into the doorframe. “It was just for fun, okay?” The clock had read 11:12 then. Not even an hour had passed. She found she was holding June’s lighter, her fingers stiff around it. “We can forget that ever happened, okay? It’ll be our secret.” June was saying this outside the door. Tomás had gone back into his room. When June finally left, Rory pulled the picture of Wade and Vivian from the drawer and under the rattle of the bathroom fan, she held it over the toilet, clicking the lighter until the glossy image lit, dropping it as soon as it got too hot to hold.

  * * *

  The jumping phase didn’t require Chap’s mane to be braided, but Rory was braiding it all the same, standing on a bucket, her fingers still tight, folding one plait of hair over another.

  “How is she?” Tomás asked, startling Rory. “Sorry,” he said. “I scared you.”

  Rory only glanced at him, worried what his face would reveal of the night before. “No, you surprised me, that’s all,” she said, steadying herself on the bucket, her eyes back down.

  “I heard you moved up,” Tomás said, pulling on the brim of his cap. “You’re in fifth?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Rory said, unraveling the braid she’d messed up. “Chap’s bound to pull a rail.”

  “Okay. Well, I just wanted to wish you good luck.”

  She looked at him now. His face was changed, softer somehow. Like he knew, like he understood—that hadn’t been her. “Thanks,” she said. “That means a lot.”

  Wade and June were down the barn aisle; June’s voice rising up, full of irritation: “I’m in first and he leaves, Wade. He’d have thrown a party for you and you know it.”

  “Hey,” Wade said. “I stayed. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “Whatever,” June said.

  * * *

  And then June wasn’t in first anymore. On the second fence, she hesitated, and Pal added a hopping stride, leaving them no room to get off the ground, his front hooves taking a rail down on ascent and then his back hooves taking down another. Eight faults, four for each downed rail.

  Rory was still trotting Chap around the warm-up ring, relieved the mare felt as supple and relaxed as she had after yesterday’s hard run. She kept her head down, but she saw June cursing as she exited the ring.

  Robin called her over. “That’s the deal with this sport, each test matters as much as all the others. Nothing is ever cut-and-dried, Rory. You have a real shot at this now.”

  June was out of the ribbons, Rory realized, doing the math. “I can’t beat June,” she said, understanding that there had been this unspoken contract.

  “You are beating June,” Robin said. “You just have to keep beating her now. Pick up a canter and let’s keep Chap spry until your number’s called.”

  Don’t let it matter who else is competing. That’s what Gus had said to her as she was leaving, as if he’d hoped this for her. Rory slowed her breathing, matching Chap’s. She was aware of being watched from the stands, of Wade sitting up there.

  “The next bell is yours,” Robin said as Rory passed.

  Twelve fences inside a ring at 9:00 a.m., with shadows slanting across ground her mare had never run over before. The first fence was a four-foot-three oxer. Chap was up and over, clean. A left turn to a triple combination: up and over, two strides, up and over, one stride, up and over. And then on fence five, she felt Chap’s back left hoof touch a rail. She was cresting fence six when she looked back for the rail on the ground; she was so sure that it would be lying there, but it was still in its metal cradle, barely rolling. She was over fence eight when she saw June, no longer on Pal, but up alongside the judges’ box, her arms crossed, wiping at her face, her skin splotched. Chap kicked out between fences, a kick of frustration, and Rory heard Robin outside the ring. “Let her out, Rory. She wants more freedom.”

  Fence ten, eleven, twelve were a blur, but she was done. Finished. And exhausted. She’d hardly slept.

  “Do you hear that?” Robin asked.

  Rory shook her head, but she was looking into the bleachers, to where Wade was coming down the steps, heading for June, and she realized then that everyone else was clapping. The raucous sound of it turned on. “You’re the first clear ride that course has had all day, Rory. You’ve won, Rory. You’ve fucking won.”

  “But I didn’t—” Rory started.

  “I know,” Robin said, smacking Rory on the knee. “I told you.”

  * * *

  By the time the ribbon ceremony was over, and Rory had walked Chap back to the stalls, only Tomás was there, bent down beside Pal, wrapping his legs for trailering home.

  “Where did they go?” Rory asked.

  “You can ride with us,” Tomás said, and Rory followed his gaze, to where June
’s Mercedes was pulling out of the event grounds, making a dust bloom on the horizon line.

  “Did she say anything?” Rory asked.

  Tomás shook his head no, but Rory could tell he was embarrassed for her.

  “Shit,” Rory said.

  In the truck, wedged between Tomás and Robin, Rory kept her ribbon on her lap.

  Tomás watched the passing fields outside his window—the neat corduroy of almond trees, then orange trees. Robin turned on the radio, fiddling with the knob to get around the static, eventually finding a Tracy Chapman song, humming along, lost in self-congratulatory thoughts.

  Suddenly, the land outside was a blackened swath, from the roadside back to a line of fencing in the distance. “A fire,” Rory said.

  Tomás nodded. “It’s the fastest way to prepare the ground.”

  Gus had told her fire was nature’s great decomposer, how it enriched the ground, allowing seeds to take root. That sometimes it was necessary.

  Tomás turned toward her, and she saw how tired he was, how long the three days had been for him. “I grew up on fields like these,” he said. “Before we moved.” He looked across to Robin, who smiled back at them, not listening. He touched the long silks of Rory’s ribbon, sliding them through his fingers. “You’re not happy you won, are you?”

  “I am,” Rory said, “I am.” Neither way sounded true. “It’s everyone else who’s not.”

  “They’re not everyone,” Tomás said.

  * * *

  THE WEATHER WAS shifting, cirrus clouds streaking the sky. There was Mercury, no, Venus, but Vivian wanted to find some sign of the Mars Observer, though she’d heard that required a telescope (one of the few things Cousin Everett hadn’t brought home). She was trying to find the switch to turn the pool lights off when Johnny Naughton came around the corner with Wade leaning into him, walking like he was wearing high heels, knees dancing, head tipped onto Johnny’s shoulder.