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  “Jeez!” Queenie looked up at him. Click! “Excuse me for living!” He flipped her a cracker.

  Queenie ignored it. A smile dawned in her eyes, warming them. She gave a little wag and a tiny, all-over wiggle and licked his hand. Then she capered up the road in front of him, front paws reaching high and prancy like a carousel pony’s.

  Chad stared after her. What did she mean? It seemed as if she’d said, Oh! I get it! I’ll do that for free.

  Could she mean that?

  “Queenie?”

  She looked back at him, and he crouched, arms wide. She came, looking unsure, and he grabbed her, ruffled her chest exuberantly till the corners of her mouth stretched in a grin. “Wait’ll I tell David—”

  You don’t work for David anymore! his brain reminded him.

  “Queenie? Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  That dog smile again, warm and steady in the eyes. Maybe, it said. So what?

  A few minutes later he heard a slow crunch of hoofbeats above him, and voices, and headed into the woods with Queenie. When he turned, he saw Louise’s white-helmeted head, gliding downhill as if disembodied.

  Only one head? He could hear Julia. She must be leading Tiger. Something must have happened.

  “I’ll be all right!” Louise’s cold and colorless voice carried through the trees. What was going on? Chad nearly dislocated himself, standing on tiptoe to see better while keeping hold of Queenie’s collar.

  “God, I’m sorry!” Julia. She seemed to be walking between the horses, leading both. “He gets the bit in his teeth … Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”

  “Yes … I’m … fine.”

  Tiger must have galloped up behind Rocky and reminded him of his bucking days. Louise was hurt. Chad was sure.

  “Come, Queenie!” He bounded downhill at a widening angle to the road, faster and more recklessly as he got out of earshot, dropping down steep slopes, crashing through brush. When he reached his lookout, they hadn’t arrived yet.

  He waited; it seemed like an hour. Finally the horses came into the yard. He heard Louise call, “Daddy!” but when David came out, Chad couldn’t hear their voices. David hurried to Louise’s side and helped her down. She tested her right leg, putting weight on, then a little more before she collapsed onto David’s arm. He helped her into the house.

  Numbly Chad watched Julia being pulled in opposite directions by the grazing horses, watched her watch the door.

  He was supposed to hate Julia. She had taken Shep out with her and he’d been hit by the car. Now she’d hurt Louise, and Louise was a dancer. She couldn’t afford to hurt her legs.

  But Julia looked small down there, a huddled patch of too many colors, and she must feel terrible.

  Chad didn’t like knowing that. He didn’t like caring.

  Against his will he remembered when it was just the two of them, out on the swing set, playing in Jeep’s barn. Julia did everything first because she was oldest, then helped him because he was little. They’d slid down the big rope in the haymow, and the bristles had pricked their tender palms. He’d cried, and Julia had taken him to the water tub and washed his hands. It hadn’t helped, but she had done it.

  David came out and took Rocky’s reins. Tiger tossed his head and sidled his haunches and rushed off the moment Julia put foot to stirrup. She swung up, anyway, hard and lithe as a trick rider, her leg just crossing Tiger’s back as he passed out of sight between the trees. David looked after her, shaking his head.

  A deerfly stung Chad’s neck. He swatted it, crushed one on Queenie’s nose, and waited. David put Rocky in the pasture, helped Louise out to his car, and drove away.

  Not till the next morning did Julia call to find out how Louise was doing. Chad lurked, listening, waiting, until finally he heard her dial.

  “Hi. How’s your leg? … Good.… Good.… Good.” With each repetition Julia’s voice warmed. Louise’s must be warming, too, on the other end of the line.

  Julia laughed. “Rice? What’s that mean?” Pause. “Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. R I C E! So you’re going to be okay?” Longer pause. “Good! Do you still feel like coming to my birthday party? Great! Friday evening around five. My little brother’s dying to see you.”

  Chad’s blood went hot, and then Julia said, “No, Sky! So how come Chad’s not working for your dad anymore?” She listened. Chad’s heart went bom-bom-bom. “Oh. Okay, I won’t ask.”

  What had she said to Julia? What could she have said?

  Anyway, she was coming. Chad had thought she would never step into this house again, and she was coming.

  CHAPTER

  19

  THROUGH THE NARROW slit between blanket and doorframe Chad watched Louise come in. She limped a little. One ankle, under green leggings, looked bulky.

  Sky ran to hug her. “Lou-weez! Lou-weez! You didn’t come play with me!”

  “I’m here now. Did you build the horse cave?”

  “Yes, but you never came, and then it rained and Mom brought the chairs in. I can build it again now.”

  “Now probably isn’t a good time because it’s Julia’s party. Did you help frost the cake?”

  “Yes! I saved you a spoonful of frosting. It’s in the ’frigerator, in a yogurt cup. Here!”

  Chad stepped back from his blanket. You saved her frosting? Sky, boy, you’re in a bad way!

  He slid through the wall to look at himself in Julia’s mirror. The mustard had never quite come out of the one white T-shirt, or the ground-in hay chaff out of the other. His third shirt wasn’t all it might be, and he’d dug out last year’s BARRETT BASEBALL shirt. It was blue, faded French ultramarine, and it had shrunk, or he had grown, because it fitted close across his shoulders. He didn’t look muscled, though. He looked … thin. His hair was short and light blond from sun, and he was tanned and … thin.

  He went downstairs in his bare feet.

  Louise leaned against the dishwasher, spooning her frosting out of a lemon yogurt cup. When Chad came in, her eyes made no change. She looked right through him, and the bottom of Chad’s stomach rushed toward the floor.

  But her face flushed, all the way to the forehead. She wasn’t ignoring him, just pretending. He wasn’t a dog to be fooled that way.

  “Hi,” he said.

  She hesitated and said, “Hi.” Her voice was colorless; that was pretend, too. Now if he could think what to say! It would help if he knew what he thought or what he wanted.

  Meanwhile he could get a soda. He could go to the refrigerator, passing her, brushing her shirtsleeve with his elbow.… His heart banged so loudly he was afraid she’d hear it. He grabbed a soda and stepped away from her.

  A car arrived. Queenie barked. Below waist level Sky gabbled about some game. Chad asked, “How’s David?”

  Louise flushed darker. “He’s a little stuck, no thanks to you! He doesn’t understand. He’s a trainer, so he doesn’t believe that some people are unimprovable jerks!”

  Chad just stood while her words beat on him. Okay, he was grateful for any attention from her. He was a dog.

  “It was just a stupid door!” she said. “You helped Daddy with the stove, and I thought you’d like it.” He saw a shine of angry tears in her eyes.

  “I’m going to have a door,” Sky said. “It’s going to have spikes like a castle door, and a moat—”

  “Good!” Louise said. “I think spikes are a great idea!” She took Sky’s hand and stalked toward the sliding glass door.

  The unopened soda can was wet and slick, warm already. Chad put it back in the refrigerator and went out the front door. His mind felt perfectly blank. He had no plan, no idea what to do next.

  V was climbing the stairs. She wore red today, a vibrant silky tunic. Julia hovered at her elbow. “Aunt V, I really need your help. Could you do a reading on Tiger? Because—”

  V raised her chin so her profile looked cold and elegant. “You know I never give a reading without being compensated. In this culture nothing is
valued that comes for free.”

  “I’ll—”

  V turned away, lips folded in the line that said she wouldn’t speak for hours. Since V was beautiful, that line of her lips was beautiful, not sullen and childish. She nodded to Chad—he was included in the coldness—and went around the corner. “Oh! Hello, Louise!”

  Who’s withholding what? Where’s the hoop?

  David’s mantra flashed through Chad’s mind, and everything popped into focus.

  V kept them on the hook with her blazing attention, with the power of sometimes. Sometimes she would look into your eyes in that intense way. Sometimes she seemed to know things about you that you only half suspected and nobody else had any idea of.

  And sometimes not. Most times not, but did anyone remember that? Only a little bit, only in the apprehensive quickening of the heartbeat when she was near.

  Louise refused to be caught. She stood looking almost rudely distant, till Sky led her away to the table.

  Chad followed. He felt strange, dizzy almost. Everything was unnaturally clear, like waking after sickness, the morning when you’re finally better, and weak, and famished. He perched on the deck railing near, but not too near, the picnic table and watched.

  If you didn’t listen, it was like a dance. Louise and Sky were partners. Jeep and Helen were partners, but Helen kept ushering other dancers up to Jeep, getting Gib or V or Julia to talk to him, standing back approvingly … while Julia tried to dance with V, or tried to butt in between Sky and Louise, and V tried to dance with Louise, and Louise politely ignored her.

  On the edge of this circle of giving and withholding Mom juggled hamburgers, buns, ketchup, and salad. “Gib, I could use a hand here! V, do you think you could toss this salad?” At the moment Mom was the one Chad liked most, even more when she walked by and glared at him. Get off the railing! that look meant. Once she’d passed, he slid down, feeling grateful. She could have said it out loud. She could have embarrassed him severely. He tossed the salad since V showed no sign of doing it.

  “These your tomatoes?” Jeep asked Gib when the salad was put on the table.

  “These are them! I try to have tomatoes by Julia’s birthday, but I don’t always make it.”

  Jeep looked at him. You could reasonably conclude it was a curious look. Gib started to explain his techniques, and Helen smiled approvingly. For once Gib was talking about something that interested Jeep. She turned to V and fended her off from interrupting the men. The hamburgers sizzled, Mom took orders for cheese on top, and Chad sliced it.

  “Thank you!” she said, sounding so surprised that Chad looked directly at her. It felt as if he hadn’t done that in a long time. He made a face, half smile and half grimace, and she just stared, probably not knowing what to think. Chad couldn’t have helped her out. He put the cheese on the burgers and listened to the background noise.

  “Louise, look!” Sky kept insisting, and Julia would say, “So, Louise—” Both of them softly. Both of them!

  “I think these are ready, Chad,” Mom said. He held the platter for her and then put it on the table, between Jeep and Sky so he wouldn’t brush Louise’s shoulder. Having created a space there, he sat down, feeling her to his left like a radiating sun.

  Queenie squeezed past his legs and lay under the table, pointing at him like an arrow. Chad bore down on the smile that wanted to break over his face. He cut a piece of hamburger with the edge of his fork. Looking straight ahead, showing, he hoped, no expression, he dropped the meat between Queenie’s paws. He heard her snarfle and gulp. When he risked a glance again, she was lying with her chin just off the floor, aiming her eyes at him.

  He couldn’t afford to have V see this, but he couldn’t afford not to respond either. This was the two-way street. He waited for a moment, shaping her to lie down longer. Queenie thumped her elbows on the deck, scrabbled her hind legs, and gave him a laughing, sassy look. He flipped her another piece of burger.

  All right, he thought. All right. If I’m going to let my dog manipulate me, I could take a door from David and Louise.

  There was no way to tell Louise. She wouldn’t look.

  Pia and Chess called midway through lunch, from horse camp. Julia looked happier when she came back out to open presents.

  There was a tack shop gift certificate from Mom, and from Gib, the key to the car with the sapling through its bumper. “By the time you have your license it’ll be running again.” There was a shirt from Helen that Julia didn’t like: neat and pale blue and girlie. From Jeep came a pair of earrings like little silver stirrups. “How did you know?” she asked, and Jeep just smiled.

  Then she opened Chad’s present. Chad looked toward the sliding door behind him as the paper ripped. Maybe he should vanish.

  Too late. The paper was off, and Julia was flushing with pleasure. “Oh! Chad, thank you!”

  “A horse model?” Mom kept herself from saying, Aren’t you too old for horse models? but didn’t keep the thought from being apparent. Maybe that was good because it cut off Julia’s question. If she’d asked him how he knew, he’d have no good answer.

  And if she asked him why? A range of answers was possible. I thought you wanted it. I thought it would embarrass you. I thought I’d be embarrassed if Louise knew I didn’t get you anything—and that was truest. He’d biked to town for the present only after he’d known Louise was coming. He was happy to see Julia set the horse model beside her plate and open Louise’s present.

  She put aside the wrapping and flushed deeply. A clicker with a plastic coil so you could wear it on your wrist. A bag of horse treats. A booklet on clicker-training horses.

  Julia sat red-faced and tongue-tied, frowning. Why? Chad wondered.

  A frown started to gather on Louise’s brow, too, that beautiful swirling frown that made it look as if she were too gentle for anger, though that wasn’t true. She opened her mouth to say something, glancing swiftly at Chad as if he shared in Julia’s offense.

  The accident! Chad realized. Julia thinks—

  “Can I see?” He reached across for the booklet, turning his head to look straight at Louise. She thinks it’s an insult! he thought at her, making a face.

  Louise settled back in her chair, angry and bewildered.

  “Thank you,” Julia said stiffly and reached for the envelope from V. She opened it and turned to V. “But you said—”

  “Happy birthday, Julia!” V said. “Of course I’ll give you a reading. We can do it right now.”

  “Cake, V!” Mom said.

  But V took Julia’s hand and drew her toward the deck railing. Now she was looking at Julia, giving her the ultimate in attention. Julia, embarrassed, glanced back toward the picnic table.

  Poor Julia! Chad thought. What a rotten birthday!

  She deserved it. She took Shep with her—

  But that felt thin suddenly, like a movie seen once too often. Shep was gone, and here inside him, and maybe somewhere else, too, maybe out there in the ether where V claimed to communicate. Right here, right now Chad could give Julia something that mattered: the chance not to spoil things with Louise.

  He looked over Sky’s bobbing blond head and said, “She thinks it was an insult. Because of your accident. She thinks you’re telling her to train her damned horse already!”

  Louise’s jaw dropped. “Oh! Oh! I never met a family it was so hard to be nice to!”

  She wouldn’t give up being mad at him. Chad sat back in his chair and then thought, What the heck!

  “Is David home tomorrow?” he asked.

  “He’s always home!” She made that Chad’s fault. All right, she hated him. At least she was paying attention.

  “Tell him I’ll be down.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  HE PUT ON the BAREETT BASEBALL shirt again. It smelled the tiniest bit, but Louise wasn’t coming within smelling distance! His jeans, he discovered, had a chocolate ice-cream drip on one thigh, from yesterday’s party. He scrubbed it off with a washcloth,
leaving a large wet patch. But his other jeans were even worse, and anyway, the first time she’d seen him he hadn’t had any shirt on at all, and his jeans had been dark with hay grime.

  He collected the clicker and Don’t Shoot the Dog! It was unfortunate that his parents, working at the long table, saw him leave with Queenie. They didn’t comment. Mom smiled, though, and Chad felt himself turn red. It would have been better to have kept this a secret, because maybe nothing would come of it. Maybe his job was finished, anyway.

  Partway down the road, nearer his house than the Burtons’, a figure stood up from the stone wall as he drew near. Chad was almost not surprised. He’d almost known she’d be there.

  She wore leggings and a green tunic and would have looked like Robin Hood except for the thick-soled, cushiony sneakers. She barely limped as she stepped into the road.

  Chad thought he would make a joke: Is this a stickup? Something like that. But his voice caught in his throat. She swung in to walk beside him, and for a minute he thought she wasn’t going to speak either.

  “I didn’t tell Daddy you were coming,” she said abruptly. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

  Still mad. Scary, Chad had to admit. Nonetheless it lit a tiny spark of cheer in him. He didn’t know why.

  Louise said, “All right! I get how I insulted your sister. Now, how about you?”

  Chad opened his mouth and closed it again.

  “Doors? You’ve got a thing about doors?” She was getting angrier.

  Chad’s voice almost stuck, but he pushed it. “You were … conditioning me. You both were.”

  Louise whirled to face him, and one knee collapsed. “Ow! Damn! I was thanking you! I thought I’d found the perfect thing you needed, and you threw everything back in our faces!”

  Chad could only shake his head, not denying it, just overwhelmed. Yes, he’d done that. He remembered feeling like Jeep as he walked out. Feeling like a man … She was frowning at him. He had to say something. “It made sense at the time.” Then in all honesty he had to add, “I think.”