I’ve only been high a handful of times. I’m not going to claim stoner status like the boys at Quaker school who only put down the video game controller long enough to take a monster hit off a vaporizer. But as far as self-medicating goes, it helps take the edge off the anxiety sometimes. And it transforms microwave burritos into the food of the Gods. This time, though, I was in a little over my head.
Out behind the barn, I smoked a joint the size of a Pez dispenser with Skip. Then we took the golf cart joyriding. So there we were, racing over the vast pastures of the estate, laughing like idiots, when out on the fringes of the property, I saw a square aluminum building.
It looked like a mausoleum from the future. Something to house the cryogenically frozen heads of the Labelle family scions... or, as I realized immediately, their horses.
“Keep going!” I shouted. “Onward, Captain!”
As we drew closer, I saw two figures standing outside thecube building. They popped into focus as my dad and Mr. Labelle. And it didn’t look like they were getting along very well. Leroy’s voice hitched itself to a current and I heard him shouting.
“...because I’m pretty surprised!” he said, “I didn’t expect any squeamishness from a man in your business, Fowler! What did you think I was going to do with him, let him rot? Have you ever smelled a decomposing animal? That’s not the note we want to hit with Sarge’s ceremony.”
My father was slumped against the aluminum walls, massaging his temples. His ponytail was loose, and strands of gray-black hair danced in front of his eyes. He looked like he’d just seen a ghost. Which: okay, maybe he had.
“And you might be interested to know that I got an e-mail this morning,” Leroy barked, “from a trusted colleague!”
We bounced over the minor bumps and dips in the paddock and braked to a stop. My father cocked his head in my direction.
“What kind of e-mail?” he asked Leroy.
“He sent me a little news story about a funeral in Nantucket.”
“Oh,” said my dad. “That.”
Skip shot me a questioning look.
“Yes,” said Leroy. “That.It sounded like a disastrousfuneral is what it sounded like. Like it couldn’t have gone any worse if the devil himself had shown up, crapping fire!”
I looked at my father. I could already see him retreating, planning his escape route. I knew how his mind worked. When something started to go wrong, he was out of there. Gone.
I hopped out of the cart, a bit unsteady on my feet, and walked up to Leroy and my father. My head felt like it was full of helium. And it sounded like there were power lines crisscrossing my brain. I had no idea what I was going to say until I said:
“Everyone. I have just had a revelation.”
They looked at me like I was from another planet.
“Tess,” my dad said quietly, “you should head back and pack up your stuff. It’s time to go.”
A lone giggle escaped my mouth.
“Ha,” I said. “You’re all serious and everything.”
I took a breath and tightened my face into a more pensive, sober look.
“Seriously,” I said. “I have an idea. Hear me out.”
I watched my dad steal a glance at Leroy. He didn’t seem to be going anywhere. All eyes were now on me.
“Are you ready?” I said.
I waited a second or two and then I said: “Ponies.”
There was a lengthy pause. My father stared into my pink eyes. No one seemed to find my idea as amazing as I did.
“I don’t follow,” Leroy said.
“Well,” I said. “Okay. Not just ponies. But the horse babies. They’re at the heart of this. Because they kind of symbolize the whole idea.”
“What idea?” my dad said.
