Out of Order (15 page)

Mom pulls the elastic off her ponytail and shakes her hair loose. She switches on the light on my bedside table and sighs. “I feel bad for her. I don't think she's had an easy life.”

“You do like her, though?” I ask stubbornly.

Mom hesitates. “It's not that I don't like her...really, it isn't. I just think she hasn't always been very nice to you. I think... I don't always trust her. I think Zelia cares most of all about Zelia.”

I am quiet for a moment. “I'm so sorry about what happened. I couldn't believe it when I saw...”

Mom stands up. “I know, Sophie. I know.”

THAT EVENING I
call Max. “Are you riding tomorrow?”

Max's voice is guarded. “I'm planning to.”

I hesitate. “I didn't see you at school last week,” I say. Something about Max always makes me wary of asking too many questions. She seems so straightforward, but there's something very private about her. Like she'll let people in so far, and then that's it. “Jas and Maisie said you were doing your own thing...”

“Yeah. I've been going to the library at lunch. I screwed around last year, so I need to pull my grades up. Anyway, the smoking thing, you know...”

“I quit too,” I offer.

“You did?”

I want Max to be pleased. “Yeah. I did.”

“Good.”

“So.” I feel shy and awkward. “So, I guess I'll see you at the barn then. Tomorrow morning?”

“I'll be out there around nine.”

There is a pause, and then Max asks, “Is Zelia coming too?”

“No. No, just me.”

“Okay then,” Max says. “I'll see you there.”

I hang up and sit there for a minute, grinning foolishly at the telephone.

THE NEXT DAY
is bright, clear and cold. Out at the barn, the horses are all impatient and eager to get outside. Keltie dances around, swinging her head up and down as I mount.

Max is trotting Sebastian in circles in the ring, trying to get him settled down before we go into the woods. Keltie can be silly sometimes, and she likes to go fast, but Sebastian is a bit of a nut. At four, he's still a youngster, but he's almost seven­teen hands high—huge and very strong. He spooks all the time, taking great leaps sideways and running away from things only he can see.

I wave to Max, and she turns Sebastian toward us, trotting slowly onto the trail that leads to the woods. I haven't seen her since the time I was here with Zelia. It was just last weekend, but it feels so long ago.

“Hey.” Max slows to a walk so that I can bring Keltie alongside.

“Hey.” I grin up at her. “It's good to see you.”

“You too,” she says, grinning back at me. “I've missed you this week. Had to look after the twins a lot after school. Mom's aunt died and she had to go to the mainland for the funeral.” She slaps Sebastian's neck affectionately. “Missed riding too. This big lunatic is wild today—he hasn't been out all week.”

We ride in silence for a while. There was a frost last night, and a thin crust of frozen mud crunches beneath the horses' hooves. The sun shines small and white against the blue sky. I breathe deeply. The outlines of the bare branches look sharp and distinct in the morning light.

Keltie is excited by the cold clear weather. Her steps are springy and she keeps snorting and throwing her head up joyfully.

Alongside, Max is struggling to keep Sebastian calm. He is dancing along, the whites of his eyes showing and his nostrils flared. She nods an apology to me and lets the big Thoroughbred pull ahead. I drop into single file behind her and watch her sitting deep and relaxed in the saddle. She is good, really good. I wouldn't want to be riding Sebastian today.

“Hey, Max,” I call out.

“Yeah.”

“Okay up there?”

She laughs. “He's a head case, but I'm used to him. We're fine.”

We ride on in silence for a few minutes. Usually I enjoy this, but today I want to talk to her. I watch, frowning a little. Her legs are glued to her horse's sides, and I know that it is taking all her strength and concentration to keep Sebastian's wild energy in check.

“Are you busy later? Do you want to come over?” I shout.

Max glances over her shoulder at me. “Isn't Zelia staying with you? Because I don't want to be, you know...”

“No,” I tell her, “she left.”

BACK AT THE
barn, I borrow Max's phone and call my mom to tell her that Max will drive me home. We are about to get in Max's car when Tavish pulls up in a pickup truck piled with horse feed and other supplies. He leans out the window and calls over to us.

“Hey, Max, Sophie. Are you guys riding?”

“We did already. We're just leaving.” Max unlocks the passenger-side door and opens it for me.

“Too bad,” Tavish says, getting out of the truck. He looks disappointed. “I've been running all kinds of errands this week. Haven't had time to ride as much as I should.”

I'm standing with one foot in the car. “Maybe this week? I'll be coming out most days after school.”

He brightens and pushes his floppy brown hair out of his eyes. “That'd be great. Really great.”

When Tavish grins, his green eyes narrow into little trian­gles, and laugh lines stretch toward his temples and down his cheeks. You can tell where his wrinkles will be when he's old. Even though it's almost December, his face is still tanned from working outside so much. His teeth are slightly crooked and very white.

I wish he was from anywhere but Georgetown.

“Come on,” Max says, getting into the car. “See you, Tavish.”

I realize I am staring and quickly slip the rest of the way into the car.

Max starts the engine and backs up. Tavish waves; then he turns and begins unloading the truck.

“I don't know how he does it,” she says.

“Does what?”

“Oh, he just works a lot of hours here. You know? And he's in grade twelve, so he has a lot of schoolwork too. Though I don't think school is really his thing. He really wants to ride professionally, and it's hard if you don't have money.”

This is all new to me. It is a bit of a shock to realize I don't know much about Tavish. We've only ever talked about horses. I didn't realize Max knew him so well.

“How long has he lived here?” I blurt.

She looks surprised. “Ages. Since he was a kid, I think. Why?”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “Just wondered. So...do you like him?” I ask.

“He's a great guy,” she says. “A smart, honest, no-bullshit guy.”

I shake my head, watching her serious face. “No, I mean... do you
like
him?”

Max takes her eyes off the road for a minute and looks at me. She laughs. “No,” she says, “not me.”

We drive by a Weld that was full of pumpkins a few weeks ago. Now, with Halloween long over, it is brown and bare.

Max tilts her head to one side. “Do you?” she asks.

I shake my head in confusion. I know I am blushing. “I don't know,” I say.

Max drums her fingers against the steering wheel. Her expression is hard to read. “He's a stellar guy,” she says.

We are almost back at my place when Max asks abruptly, “So Zelia went home?”

I sigh. “We kind of had a fight.”

Max opens her mouth and shuts it again.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing.”

“No, go on. What were you going to say?”

Max pulls a pack of gum out of her pocket and offers it to me. I shake my head. She pops a piece out of the bubble pack and sticks it in her mouth. “You and Zelia. It's none of my business.”

I twist in my seat so that I am facing her. “It's okay,” I say. “I know you don't like her.”

Max frowns, dark eyebrows drawing together. In the bright sunlight pouring through the windshield, I can see a scattering of pale golden freckles across her nose and upper cheeks.

“I don't exactly dislike her either,” she says judiciously. “I just don't really get what you see in her.”

I'm quiet for a moment, thinking. How can I explain Zelia's magnetism, the irresistible energy that pulls me into her orbit and holds me there? Even though she can make me crazy— even though she does awful things sometimes—I can't imagine my life without her in it.

“I didn't know anyone when we moved here,” I say. “Zelia just kind of...drew me in. I don't know how to describe it.” I stare out the window and squint into the sun. “She's different,” I say. “She's kind of exciting, I guess.”

Max says nothing. Images of Zelia are flickering through my mind: Zelia drawing dark eyeliner along the inner edges of her eyes; Zelia sitting beside me on the sidewalk while my grandmother stares at the hat by our feet; Zelia lying on her bed, a blue stone twinkling in her freshly pierced navel; Zelia pulling down her sleeve to cover the cut on her arm; Zelia sitting on the floor in my mom's office, open files scattered around her.

“I'm worried about her,” I say softly.

We pull up in front of my house. Max parks the car and turns to look at me.

“Worried about her? How come?”

I want to tell Max about Michael, but I promised I wouldn't tell anyone. “She does things, sometimes...that aren't good. Aren't good for her, I mean.”

Max looks serious. “Like what?”

Michael, I think. Shoplifting. So many things.

“I promised I wouldn't tell anyone,” I say. “But then we had this fight, and she left, and...I don't know. I hope she's okay, that's all.”

Max is quiet for a moment. “What did you fight about?” she asks. “I mean, if you want to talk about it.”

I look straight ahead. Down the driveway, I can see the door to my mother's office. I feel sick to my stomach every time I think about the reason we fought. “I don't think I really want
to talk about it,” I say. I scrape mud off the heel of one boot with the toe of the other. “She did something really stupid. Something she shouldn't have done.”

Max sighs and opens her door. “I don't want to sound too harsh, but that's her problem. Not yours.”

I open my door and realize I've got mud all over the floor of Max's car. “I guess.”

We get out of the car and stand in the driveway for a moment in silence; then Max says, “You know that thing you told me? About the sculptor and the figures in the stone?”

I nod.

“Well, maybe Zelia's just chipping away at the marble, you know?”

“Maybe,” I say. I know Max is trying to help, but a feeling of foreboding is lying heavy in my belly and tightening like a band around my forehead.

Mom's in the kitchen making baklava, placing layer after layer of fragile phyllo pastry into a shallow glass tray. Back when I still ate dessert, baklava was my favorite. I figure that's why she's making it—she's always trying to persuade me to eat.

She looks up and smiles at us. “You must be Max,”she says, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

Max shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

I can tell Mom is studying Max carefully, probably trying to figure out whether she's going to be a good influence or not. It suddenly feels important to me that my mother like her.

“Max has twin brothers,” I offer inanely. “She babysits them a lot.”

Both Max and my mother turn and look at me blankly.

“That's great,” Mom says.

I silently vow to keep my mouth shut.

“I have to go out in a bit to pick up things for dinner,” she says. “Sophie, I don't want you two going in my office, okay?”

I blush furiously. She knows it wasn't my fault. She didn't have to say that.

“We won't,” I say.

Mom looks me in the eyes. “Okay.” She turns to Max. “Are you staying for dinner?”

“Oh no, that's okay,” Max says quickly.

“It's no trouble. I'm just going to pick up a frozen pizza or something.”

“Stay,” I urge her. “Stay for dinner.”

Max shakes her head and looks at my mother. “It's really nice of you but I have to go home in a bit.” She starts to laugh. “I'm babysitting the twins tonight.”

UP IN MY
room, Max seems uneasy. She sits on the beanbag chair; then she gets up and looks out the window.

“Clouding over,” she says.

I flop onto my bed and stretch out. “Mmm-hmm. You okay, Max?”

Max nods. She sits down cross-legged beside me. “Sophie... there's something I really want to tell you.” She hesitates before going on. “I've been wanting to tell you this for ages, but I don't know how you'll react and I—well, you're important
to me, you know?” Max's dark eyes are fixed on the bedspread, her face turned downward.

“What is it?” I say. “You can tell me.”

“Okay.”

There is a long silence. “Well, remember when I...you know, the night of the party...”

“Uh-huh.”

There is another long silence. Finally Max shakes her head. “You know, this isn't a good idea. Forget it. It's nothing.”

I prop myself up on my elbows and tilt my head to one side, trying to read her expression. “It's okay, Max. Tell me.”

“I shouldn't have brought it up.”

I sit up and lean toward her. “Max! You're making me crazy! What is it?” I think about what she said in her car that time, about how you can't always be honest about yourself.

Max shakes her head and her eyes are wet. She blinks furi­ously. “Damn it. Can we change the subject?”

I wish she would tell me. I remember that night at Max's place, how I whispered my secrets into the dark when I knew she was sleeping.

“Max,” I say hesitantly.

“What?”

“There's something I want to tell you too.”

“There is?” Max brushes the back of her hand roughly across her eyes. “Tell me then.”