“What?”the woman asks.“What was it?”
“I forgot something important,” Sam says.“My horse was lame—recovering from a suspensory tear—so I was ‘borrowing’ a green, baby horse from one of the rich ladies at the barn who wanted a junior to put some miles on him.He was spooky, but talented.Racing around on a windy day was just what the trainer ordered for him.Natalie was on her own horse, and he was a saint and talented to boot.But poor Vanessa had an older horse, and he was far too old to do anything fun, like cross-country.He was twenty-one.His name was?—”
“Whiz Kid,” I say.“But we all called him Cheese Whiz.”
The woman with them is really pretty, and quite young.She snaps her head my way.“You must be Natalie, right?”
When she smiles, I place her.Her smile isjustlike her brother.It’s the dimples, I think.
“You’re Quinn.”I say.“Is that right?”
“That’s me, but I must know what Jack told you that let you identify me immediately.Did he make fun of my hair?Was that it?”
“Not at all,” I say.“I’ve only heard good things, but you two have a similar face.”
“Natalie must’ve been very excited to meet you,” Samantha says.“She doesn’t usually interrupt amazing stories like this.”She mock-glares.“As I was saying, we came around the corner, startled, and just then, an empty cat food bag tumbled across the ground behind us, and that was it.Even though our trainer had just stacked three picnic tables up on the back side of the barn, luckily small ones, our horses decided it would be better to jump over them than to slow down.”
Quinn’s jaw drops in a very satisfying way.
“I knew my insane horse would go flying over,” Sam says.“So I just hung on for dear life.”
“I was halfway prepared for mine to as well,” I say.“Even though I got left behind a bit, and boy did my back hurt.”
“But no one thought Cheese Whiz could make it,” Sam says.
“But he sailed right over it, landing even nicer than that spooky baby you were on, Sam.What was his name?”Vanessa tilts her head.“Hot Stuff?”
“Homestar Runner,” Sam says.“Named after some dumb cartoon.”
“That was it,” I agree.“Anyway, that’s when we decided that Cheese Whiz was wasted in the hunter ring.Vanessa convinced us all to try cross-country after that.”
“And?”Quinn raises her eyebrows, her lips slightly parted.
“Cheese Whiz was rubbish at dressage,” Vanessa says, “but he loved jumping outdoors.Never said no to anything, and no one who saw him would have guessed he was in his twenties.In the ring, yes, but out on the courses outside?”Vanessa shook her head, her eyes almost glossy.“He shone out there, galloping along like a colt.”
“Not all horses, or humans, are great at the same things, and sometimes they surprise us,” I say.
“You have got to meet my parents,” Quinn says.“We’re having a big family dinner next week.You need to come!”She claps.“Oh, I love that idea.I’m going to text me mum right now.Say you can make it?”She looks up.“Mum’s a great cook, I promise.And what she can’t make, she buys from the best places.”Her laughter’s as open and inviting as Jack’s.I can’t imagine them coming from a woman anything like the one Vanessa described.
Could she have been mistaken somehow?
“Actually, I was coming with some bad news, because I have to interrupt.”I don’t want Vanessa to have to answer without time to think it over.“But we need to man the candy stations.It’s trick-or-treating time.”
Vanessa makes a big show of half-rolling her eyes, but it’s clear that she’s a little relieved, at least, it is to me.
We’re all three heading back up the stairs when I hear voices from the closet around the corner.I freeze, and then I creep slowly toward it.No one at a party should be hiding in a closet.I wonder what...
As I get closer, I realize they aren’t in the closet.They’re outside it, standing in a place that’s somewhat sheltered from the rest of the house, but not really private.After all, had we turned the other direction from the billiards room, we’d have walked right by them.And now, going past the stairs, we’re next to them again.
It’s Clara.
And she’s not alone.
Trace is talking to her.
“It’s not just our music taste, though.Surely you noticed that I like you,” he’s saying.
A chill runs up my spine.
