“No, she has a dinner party tonight that she is hosting. Don’t worry. I asked her to please just be normal and make sandwiches,” she said. Just then, her mom returned to the kitchen.
“Ready for lunch, girls?” she asked as she pulled out the ingredients to make sandwiches, and Isabelle started to question her.
“Mom, why are you pulling out so many things? I thought we agreed to normal, boring sandwiches,” she said, as she got up and walked around the island to playfully nudge her mom. Then Isabelle washed her hands and helped her make our lunch. I watched as they both cut and prepared the ingredients for sandwiches. It wasn’t something I was familiar with. My Mom was an excellent cook, but the thought sank in that I had never once experienced cooking with her.
“This is so amazing!” I said, biting into the Italian sandwich, filled with every authentic type of deli meat, mustard, and mayo on a rosemary ciabatta bun.
“I’m so glad you like it, Allie!” said Mrs. Wharton. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Just some water would be nice, thank you,” I said. She nodded and passed me a sky blue Mason jar full of ice water.
After lunch, we helped clean up the dishes, then made our way towards the back door. Her Mom followed us, but before we went outside, she stopped us.
“Allie, have you ever ridden a horse before?”
“Yes, just a few times at a Dude Ranch.”
“Ok, let’s have her ride Lucky,” she said, looking at Isabelle.
“That was the plan,” Isabelle said.
“Just making sure,” she said, as Isabelle sat down on the bench to pull on her riding boots.
“Duh, mom, I’m not stupid,” she said, with a smile and a slight roll of her eyes.
“You girls have fun, it’s a beautiful day for a ride!” Mrs. Wharton said as she stepped back inside and shut the door behind her.
“Your mom is amazing, I am so jealous,” I said, as we stepped off the porch and headed to the barn.
“Yeah, she’s pretty great.”
The walk to the barn was peaceful. I could smell the first blossoms of the apple orchard as Fall was in full swing. As we got closer to the barn, the smell shifted to hay and horse manure. Once we got inside, Isabelle stepped into the tack room, then reappeared and passed me a red halter with a frayed cotton lead rope attached. The halter had a brass name plate that read “LUCKY” in block letters engraved on the side. We continued on down the aisle, and she stopped outside a stall as a chestnut horse with a small white star on his forehead suddenly stuck his head out and whinnied.
“Hi, Lucky!” Isabelle said, as she stretched out her hand and ran it all the way up his nose until it was between his eyes, and then back down again. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a treat, and passed it to me.
“How do I feed it to him?” I asked nervously.
“Hold out your hand flat,” she said, demonstrating with her hand.
Tentatively, I held out the treat to him as he quivered his lips into my hand. As soon as his prickly lips and massive teeth grazed my palm, I pulled my hand away, but the treat was already gone. Isabelle doubled over in laughter, then collected herself, opened the stall, and took the halter from me.
“I guess I’d better do the rest,” she said, still laughing.
I watched as she led him out of the stall and put him in cross ties, then groomed him for me before tacking him up with his saddle and bridle. She left him there until she was done tacking her own horse up, too.
“This is my horse, “Fury,” she said.
Fury was a light yellow Palomino with a white blaze all the way down his face and four white socks. He looked like one of those Breyer horses I played with as a child. He was beautiful.
We led both of the horses outside and climbed on, then Isabelle turned around and stopped her horse so that we could ride side by side. She gave me instructions on how to get the horse to stop and go. Those were all the directions that I needed.
We made our way towards a clearing in the trees and onto a dirt trail. The breeze rustled the leaves as we moseyed down the path in silence for a moment while I adjusted my pant legs that were riding up. Isabelle warned me that they would cause blisters if I didn’t tuck them into my boots, so I wanted to fix them before we got too far along. Once that was settled, I cut the silence.
“So what is going on with you and Watson?”
“Well, he asked me if I wanted to hang out after we saw each other at the mall, so that’s pretty cool!”
“Wow! What did you say?
