Another Kind of Cowboy (14 page)

When they reached the music store, which was located in an ungainly purple building, he walked boldly up to the door and tugged. It didn't budge.

“They must be closed,” he said.

Meanwhile Cleo had found the customer entrance and held the door open for him.

So much for pretending he was the kind of person
who haunts record stores and is up to the minute in his musical tastes.

“I download most of my music,” he mumbled as he walked past her and through the real doors. That wasn't true, of course. He was afraid that the first time he downloaded a song, the FBI, CIA, RCMP, and Interpol would swoop down on his house in helicopters. No way was he taking the chance. Plus, he wouldn't have known what to download, since most of the time he listened to whatever radio station was playing in the barn.

The front of the store was filled with televisions and stereos. Alex looked around, unsure where to go.

“Back here,” said Cleo. He followed her up a step and into the back of the store.

“So what do you like to listen to?” she asked, waving a hand around the store like she was a majority shareholder.

“I don't know. What are you going to use?”

“I've decided I'm going to buy my freestyle music. There's a woman who'll put it together for you.”

“Oh,” he said. He'd heard of that woman. She did a great job, but there was no way he could afford to hire her.

Alex stood uncertainly in the back of the store for
a moment, looking at the racks of CDs and DVDs. A clerk in a black T-shirt that read
ARCADE FIRE
sat at a stool behind the special orders desk. He carefully avoided looking at Alex and Cleo.

“What kind of music does Detroit bring to mind?” Cleo asked.

The big gelding had a relentless curiosity about the world as well as a certain dignity and quiet reserve with strangers. He was a horse who had opinions.

“I don't know. Maybe something kind of…” Alex struggled to find the words. He moved his hand to indicate waves.

Cleo squinted. She waved a hand back at him. “What does this mean?”

“To me that means sinewy,” said Sofia, coming out from behind a rack. She wore dark-red lipstick and her black hair fell in a sheet to her shoulders. She wasn't wearing her glasses. She looked very beautiful. Alex noticed the music clerk staring at her.

“Can I touch you?” Sofia asked, making a show of reaching for his shoulder. “I want to make sure you're real. I was beginning to think you didn't exist outside of school. And the barn. Hey, Chris!” she called. “Look who's here!” A moment later Chris appeared
behind her. When he saw Alex his face broke into a wide smile.

Alex was surprised at how pleased he was to see them.

“What are you guys doing?” he asked.

“If you want to see Chris outside of school, you have to be willing to go to the record stores,” said Sofia. “But the real mystery is what you are doing out of the barn.”

“We're trying to find some music for Alex's freestyle. That's a dressage test set to music,” Cleo replied.

“Cool,” said Chris.

“Yeah, the music's supposed to match your horse,” she continued. “I was just asking Alex to describe his horse. So far he's come up with…” She mimicked him waving his hand.

“Is that the horse we met?” Sofia asked.

“Turnip,” said Chris.

Alex felt oddly touched that Chris had remembered his horse's name.

He shook his head. “No. I'm riding a different horse now. Turnip is sort of retired.”

“So you need a style of music that suits the horse?” Chris had pushed back his giant headphones so they cupped the sides of his neck.

“The beats in the music are actually supposed to match the footfalls of the front feet at the walk and trot. At the canter, the beats are supposed to match the downbeat of the horse's leading foreleg. We use a metronome to figure out the tempo of each of the different gaits.” Alex abruptly fell silent, realizing he sounded like a textbook.

“
Then
you're supposed to consider the horse's style on top of that,” added Cleo.

“And so far all you've decided is that your new horse is…” Sofia waggled her hand around and grinned.

“No, I've timed him and done the choreography of the test. I just don't know what kind of music to use,” said Alex. As he spoke, it suddenly came to him that he was talking to not one, but
three
people. And those three people
were his friends
! The sensation was strange but also thrilling. This, he thought, must be what it's like to be popular. To have a social life.

An image popped into his head of himself wearing a crown. He was surrounded by adoring fans. He stepped onto a stage where he was handed the reins to the world's most beautiful horse. Sitting astride the horse, shirtless, would be…

“Alex?” said Cleo, rudely pulling him back to the
present and ending his fantasy. “What kind of music?”

“Well, probably not death metal or gangster rap,” he said, and then blushed because he wasn't used to making jokes.

“How would you describe your new horse?” asked Chris, getting into the challenge.

“Well, he's not my horse,” Alex said. “But he's kind of athletic and, I don't know, deep.”

“He's handsome,” said Cleo. “And graceful.”

“There's something kind of mysterious about him. Like I could see him running along a tropical beach somewhere after a shipwreck,” said Alex. Then he really blushed, because now he was letting on about his Black Stallion fantasies.

“I think I get it,” said Chris, nodding seriously.

Cleo squinted at Alex. “My God, are you being
eloquent
?”

Alex shrugged.

“Okay,” said Sofia. “We've got athletic, deep, graceful, mysterious, elegant, exotic.” She ticked each adjective off on her fingers. “I'm going to make an executive decision and rule out Korn.”

“What about bhangra?” asked Chris.

“Isn't that the stuff your aunt listens to?” Cleo asked Alex. He nodded and as soon as he thought of
the insistent rhythms of the East Indian dance music he knew Chris was right.

“That could work,” he said.

“It's very cool. Very rhythmic,” said Chris. Alex noticed that his friend had on a Pixies T-shirt under his old cardigan. He found himself wishing he was familiar with the band so he could say something intelligent about them.

“The world music section's over here,” said Sofia, and the four of them walked over to the rack. The India section had about ten CDs in it, and none of them seemed to be bhangra.

“Let's ask the clerk,” said Cleo. She led the way to the special orders desk. The clerk peeked up when he saw her coming and quickly looked back down again.

“Excuse me,” Cleo said. “Do you have banga music?”

“Bhangra,” Chris corrected quietly.

The clerk reluctantly raised his head. “Do we have what?”

He had longish straight black hair, parted in the middle, and a sharp widow's peak. He kept glancing at Sofia.

“Bhangra,” said Cleo. “It's an extremely popular type of music.”

“It's East Indian dance music, but it's contemporary,” added Sofia. “It's got a bit of hip-hop and electronica. Even disco.”

The clerk unfolded his long, gaunt body, got off his stool, and walked over to the rack they'd just been looking at.

“The India section's right here,” he said. Then he shot another surreptitious glance at Sofia and walked quickly away.

“He was totally checking you out,” said Cleo, impressed.

Now it was Sofia's turn to look uncomfortable.

“I've got some bhangra,” said Chris. “At home.”

“So does his aunt,” added Cleo.

“Good. We can listen to a bunch of stuff. See what fits,” said Chris.

“Alex is going to need help putting the music together. You know, mixing it so it matches the different movements,” continued Cleo.

“Chris can do that!” said Sofia.

Chris nodded.

“You two should make a date,” said Cleo. Alex refused to look at Chris. He focused on a large poster for a rock band. The poster described them as
THE BIGGEST BAND IN THE WORLD
. He'd never heard of them.

“I can come to your place if you want,” said Chris.

“He videotaped his test,” said Cleo. “You guys can watch that to check for timing.”

“Right on.” Chris smiled and Alex noticed the sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of his nose. Alex reminded himself that Chris wasn't interested in him. He was probably interested in Cleo. Or Sofia.

“How about Monday after school?” asked Chris.

Alex nodded and then tried to look as noninappropriately interested as possible. He only barely stopped himself from giving Chris a punch in the arm as he nodded back.

“Super,” he said, and immediately regretted it.

“Okay. We've got to book. I'm going to be late for French tutoring this afternoon,” said Sofia.

As soon as Chris and Sofia were gone, Cleo turned to Alex. “Just in case you're blind, that guy, who, by the way, is incredibly cute, likes you.”

“He's a friend.”

“Alex, if you spent any time looking at anything other than horses, you'd see what I mean. I'm telling you he likes you.”

“Please,” said Alex, but his heart gave a little skip as Cleo's suggestion worked its way into his mind.

“You are a social being. A teenage male who is
capable of having fun. Hey, why don't you come to the party with Jenny and me tonight and I'll prove it to you.”

Alex didn't answer.

“Come
on
,” said Cleo. “It's time you figured out that there's more to life than just riding.”

Alex was as surprised as Cleo when he found himself nodding yes.

FEBRUARY 10

“
IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT
,” said Cleo, slurring her words just a bit. “It's not like we're showing tomorrow. We'll stay five more minutes and then we can go. I know he's going to come. I can sense it.” Cleo tried to swing her arm affectionately around Alex's neck, but ended up cuffing him in the head.

He couldn't believe he'd let her talk him into driving her and her roommate to this party. The roommate, a big blond girl, disappeared quickly, leaving him and Cleo alone in a crowd of strangers in the basement of this house in Ladysmith. All the fun from their shopping afternoon had disappeared. Now he was just tired and uncomfortable.

“I should get going,” he hinted, trying for the
twentieth time to get her to budge.

Cleo leaned onto him from her place on the arm of the threadbare orange love seat. Her elbow poked painfully into his shoulder. They were supposedly waiting for the elusive boy she'd met just before Christmas. So far her relationship with Mr. Right involved making out with him in public at house parties. She wasn't even sure of the boy's name. The guy's friends called him Rob, but she thought that might be his last name.

When Alex was tempted to think of Cleo's personal life as pathetic, he had to remind himself that she was doing better than he was. He was 100 percent romance-free and had resigned himself to staying that way until he was out of high school. Maybe until he was dead.

Alex vaguely recognized a few of the people around them. He thought a couple of them went to his school in Cedar, although he was so far out of the social loop he wasn't even sure. They were mostly druggies and skaters, boys with haircuts that ranged from mod to dirty disco freak circa 1975, girls in low-rise tight jeans with T-shirts cropped short to show their pierced navels. Eminem and 50 Cent were on the stereo, giving him a headache.

“I've got to go,” he said. He was stopped by Cleo's death grip on his arm.

“He's here,” she said. “Oh my God, look over there. He's here!”

Alex followed her gaze. There, in the entrance to the living room, stood a boy. His black hair was longish, and it fell into his eyes. He held a skateboard tipped up at his side and his loose jeans were held up by a belt with a big silver buckle. The boy's blue eyes locked on Alex's and Alex felt his chest constrict at the same time as Cleo whispered, “It's him! And he's totally looking at me.”

As the black-haired boy got closer, Alex felt himself go very still. Cleo slid down beside him onto the couch so she was almost in his lap.

“Hey,” said the boy. He smiled but his eyes were appraising.

Cleo grinned, bleary but ecstatic.

“This is my friend Alex,” she said, her voice coy.

The boy's smile widened. “Hey, Alex. I'm Cameron.”

Alex felt like someone had punched him, if it was possible to be punched in a good way.

Cameron stared at Alex for an extralong few seconds, then turned his attention back to Cleo.

“Alex and I ride together,” said Cleo. “We're just friends.”

Cameron laughed. “Right on. All I ride is my skateboard.”

In the dim light of the party Cameron's blue eyes were cast into shadow. There was a slick confidence and a hunger about him that made Alex's stomach jump.

“Alex does dressage. He's really good,” said Cleo.

Cameron nodded, his eyelids hooded and heavy.

“I bet he is,” he said. “So you guys want to get high?”

 

By the time Cameron and Cleo had smoked a joint and Cleo had one more beer it was one o'clock in the morning and Alex was ready to crawl out of his own skin. He'd never been to a party like this before. The clouds of smoke made his throat hurt and the music and people made his head ache. Being so close to Cameron made him want to dive underwater and stay there.

Cleo lay on the couch, her head on Alex's lap, her feet on Cameron's. She was too loaded to talk, but she wasn't quite asleep, either.

“Look, I've got to go. I've got to ride in the morning,” said Alex.

“I'll help you take her home.”

Alex was relieved. He didn't want to leave Cleo at
the party, but knew she'd protest if he tried to pull her away from Cameron.

“Come on,” said Cameron, sliding out from under Cleo's legs. The two boys sat her up, then hoisted her off the couch. They walked her past her roommate, Jenny, who sat beside another girl, on the floor, just inside a darkened hallway.

“Hey,” she said. Her eyes were glassy and unblinking.

“We're going to take Cleo home. You want to catch a ride?” Alex asked her.

“No worries,” said Jenny as she rocked back and forth to the music.

Cameron and Alex half walked, half dragged Cleo out of the basement, up a short set of concrete stairs, and onto the wet, dark street. Their arms touched where they met behind Cleo's thin back.

“Good thing she's not very big,” said Cameron. “She's like a little bird or something.”

Cleo stirred between them; she seemed about to speak but then her head dropped back down.

“There's more to her than you might think,” said Alex softly.

“Sorry?”

“Oh, nothing. My car's over here.”

As they approached the IROC, Cameron laughed.

“Nice ride,” he said.

“It's my dad's. Or it was.”

They folded Cleo into the backseat and then drove in silence out of Ladysmith back toward Yellow Point. At this hour the streets were quiet and black, except for the odd car full of teenagers spinning through the rain.

Alex was so busy trying not to be aware of the boy beside him, he jumped when Cameron spoke.

“You go to school out here?” he asked as Alex turned onto Yellow Point Road.

“Yeah. Cedar. You?”

“Not really in school right now,” said Cameron.

They didn't speak again until Alex pulled the car over to the side of the road outside the entrance to Stoneleigh.

“This way,” Alex directed. They carried Cleo along a brick path that led to the back of her dorm. She'd told him enough times how the girls snuck in and out of the school to know where to take her. When they reached the back door, which had been propped open with a stick, Alex and Cameron turned Cleo so she was looking at them.

“Cleo,” Alex whispered. “Wake up. You're home.”

When Cleo opened her eyes, Alex thought he could see his face reflected in them.

“I love you, Chad,” she whispered, and her eyes fell shut again.

Cameron made a face at Alex.

“That makes a guy feel special.”

“Cleo,” Alex persisted. “Wake up. You have to go in now.”

“Okay,” she said. Then, like a sleepy child, she walked through the open door and let it shut gently behind her.

Alex and Cameron walked back to the car in silence. When they reached the road Alex turned to Cameron.

“If you tell me where you live, I'll give you a ride home,” he said, wondering if Cameron could hear his heart pounding.

“Thanks, buddy,” said Cameron, his voice hoarse. “And maybe you should give me your phone number.”

Alex couldn't see the other boy very well in the dark but he could sense his body and smell his aftershave and the spicy scent of marijuana, and when Cameron leaned forward and, without speaking a word, kissed him under the flickering streetlight, Alex was only half surprised.