Horseflies (14 page)

“What did she say?” asked Stevie.

“She said she thought that was a good idea, and she asked me for Max’s number.”

“All right!” Carole held up her hands for a high fifteen. “Another rider for Pine Hollow, and another convert for The Saddle Club!”

“And he’ll make a good rider, too,” Lisa said thoughtfully. “He’s not afraid of horses, and he’s gentle with the reins.”

“Maybe he’ll go to the Olympics and be a big star,” Carole predicted. “Then we can say we’re the ones who put him on his first horse.”

“And nearly killed him with kindness at the Cross County Fair,” added Stevie.

The girls were wondering what type of riding Jamie might go into when the waitress arrived at their table, order pad in hand.

“Let me guess,” she said. She pointed her pencil at Lisa and Carole. “You two will have your usuals—a dish of chocolate with marshmallow sauce and a double cone of strawberry and pistachio, right?”

“Right,” Lisa and Carole answered together.

The waitress scribbled on her pad, turned to a clean page,
then looked at Stevie. “Now,” she said wearily. “You. What new frontiers of ice cream cuisine are we striving for today?”

Stevie looked at her friends and sighed. “I’d like a dish of vanilla, please.”

For a moment no one spoke. In fact, for a moment no one even moved. Everyone was too shocked to do anything.

“And?” the waitress finally managed to say.

“And nothing,” replied Stevie. “Just a dish of vanilla ice cream.”

The waitress stared at Steve, her mouth agape. “What? No nuts? No pineapple sauce with peppermint chunks? No chocolate sprinkles with pretzel
garni
?”

“No thank you.” Stevie shrugged. “Just vanilla.”

The waitress squinted at Stevie for a long moment, then turned back toward the counter. “Kids,” she mumbled, shaking her head. “Go figure.”

Lisa put her hand on Stevie’s forehead as soon as the waitress left. Carole grabbed her wrist to take her pulse.

“What are you doing?” Stevie cried irritably. “All I did was ask for vanilla ice cream.”

“We know,” replied Lisa. “That’s what’s so scary!”

Carole pressed her fingers into Stevie’s wrist. “Well,” she finally announced. “From all I can tell, she’s still got a pulse.”

“I’m telling you, I’m fine!” Stevie insisted. “I just felt like vanilla today.”

“Listen, Stevie. If Carole and I have learned anything about misdiagnosing problems in the past two weeks, it’s that when someone goes from ordering three different flavors of
ice cream with three different sauces to just plain vanilla, something’s wrong. And we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”

“But I just feel like—”

“Wait a minute, Stevie.” Carole frowned. “When did you say you had chicken pox?”

“When I was little. The same time Alex had them.”

“But you don’t really remember anything about them, do you?” Lisa said.

“No, I don’t. I was too little,” Stevie said.

“Right. But you remember Alex having chicken pox, and Alex having to take an oatmeal bath, don’t you? If you’d had chicken pox, don’t you think you’d remember at least some little something about it?”

“Well, no, I don’t know …”

Carole looked at Lisa, then turned to Stevie. “Stevie, unbutton your shirt.”

“Right here? In public?” Stevie answered in a goofy high voice, and batted her eyelashes extravagantly. “Please!”

“Stevie!” Carole warned.

“Okay, okay.” Stevie unbuttoned her collar and peered down into the darkness inside her shirt. “Can’t see a thing,” she announced happily. “Looks like the misdiagnosis twins have struck again!”

“Wanna bet?” Carole got up, walked around the table, and pulled Stevie’s shirttail up from her pants. She and Lisa gasped. A fine rash of tiny red dots speckled Stevie’s stomach.

“It’s chicken pox!” Carole and Lisa cried at the same time.

For once Stevie was stunned into silence. She sat there with her mouth open, staring at her stomach.

“We’ve got to get you home,” Carole said. “Lisa, go cancel our ice cream.”

“Okay.” Lisa got up and ran to the counter.

“I don’t know what to say,” Stevie began.

“Don’t say anything, Stevie. Chicken pox happens to the best of us.” Carole reached down in her backpack for the small plastic bag Jamie had given her earlier that morning and held it out to her. “Take this home with you. Pegasus helped remind Jamie when he was sick that he would soon be riding Nickel again. Now Pegasus can do the same for you.”

“But what if it’s not chicken pox?” asked Stevie.

“If it’s not chicken pox, then it must be lice or botflies,” Lisa said as she returned to the table. “In that case, Dr. Hanson and I will give you a good grooming, shave your hair, burn all your clothes, and apply insecticide.”

Carole laughed, still holding Pegasus out to Stevie. “Yeah, Stevie. You can take your choice. It’s either the horseflies or the flying horse.”

Stevie put the bundled-up Pegasus into her shirt pocket and looked at Carole and Lisa. “Since you put it that way,” she said with a tired smile, “I’ll take the flying horse and friends like you any day!”

“D
O YOU THINK
we’ll get there in time?” Stevie Lake asked, looking around for some reassuring sign that the airport was near.

“Since that plane almost landed on us, I think it’s safe to say that we’re close,” Carole Hanson said.

“Turn right here,” said Callie Forester from the backseat.

“And then left up ahead,” Carole advised, picking out directions from the signs that flashed past near the airport entrance. “I think Lisa’s plane is leaving from that terminal there.”

“Which one?”

“The one we just passed,” Callie said.

“Oh,” said Stevie. She gripped the steering wheel tightly and looked for a way to turn around without causing a major traffic tie-up.

“This would be easier if we were on horseback,” said Carole.

“Everything’s easier on horseback,” Stevie agreed.

“Or if we had a police escort,” said Callie.

“Have you done that?” Stevie asked, trying to maneuver the car across three lanes of traffic.

“I have,” said Callie. “It’s kind of fun, but dangerous. It makes you think you’re almost as important as other people tell you you are.”

Stevie rolled her window down and waved wildly at the confused drivers around her. Clearly, her waving confused them more, but it worked. All traffic stopped. She crossed the necessary three lanes and pulled onto the service road.

It took another ten minutes to get back to the right and then ten more to find a parking place. Five minutes into the terminal. And then all that was left was to find Lisa.

“Where do you think she is?” Carole asked.

“I know,” said Stevie. “Follow me.”

“That’s what we’ve been doing all morning,” Callie said dryly. “And look how far it’s gotten us.”

But she followed anyway.

A
LEX
L
AKE REACHED
across the table in the airport cafeteria and took Lisa Atwood’s hand.

“It’s going to be a long summer,” he said.

Lisa nodded. Saying good-bye was one of her least favorite activities. She didn’t want Alex to know how hard it was, though. That would just make it tougher on him. The two of them had known each other for four years—as long as Lisa had been best friends with Alex’s twin sister, Stevie. But they’d only started dating six months earlier. Lisa could hardly believe that. It seemed as if she’d been in love with him forever.

“But it is just for the summer,” she said. The words sounded dumb even as they came out of her mouth. The summer
was
long. She wouldn’t come back to Virginia until right before school started.

“I wish your dad didn’t live so far away, and I wish the summer weren’t so long.”

“It’ll go fast,” said Lisa.

“For you, maybe. You’ll be in California, surfing or something. I’ll just be here, mowing lawns.”

“I’ve never surfed in my life—”

“Until now,” said Alex. It was almost a challenge, and Lisa didn’t like it.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” said Lisa.

“I don’t want to fight with you, either,” he said, relenting. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I want things to be different. Not very different. Just a little different.”

“Me too,” said Lisa. She squeezed his hand. It was a way to keep from saying anything else, because she was afraid that if she tried to speak she might cry, and she hated it when she cried. It made her face red and puffy, but most of all, it told other people how she was feeling. She’d found it useful to keep her feelings to herself these days. Like Alex, she wanted things to be different, but she wanted them to be very different, not just a little. She sighed. That was slightly better than crying.

“I
TOLD YOU SO
,” said Stevie to Callie and Carole.

Stevie had threaded her way through the airport terminal, straight to the cafeteria near the security checkpoint. And there, sitting next to the door, were her twin brother and her best friend.

“Surprise!” the three girls cried, crowding around the table.

“We just couldn’t let you be the only one to say good-bye to Lisa,” Carole said, sliding into the booth next to Alex.

“We had to be here, too. You understand that, don’t you?” Stevie asked Lisa as she sat down next to her.

“And since I was in the car, they brought me along,” said Callie, pulling up a chair from a nearby table.

“You guys!” said Lisa, her face lighting up with joy. “I’m so glad you’re here. I was afraid I wasn’t going to see you for months and months!”

She
was
glad they were there. It wouldn’t have felt right if she’d had to leave without seeing them one more time. “I thought you had other things to do.”

“We just told you that so we could surprise you. We did surprise you, didn’t we?”

“You surprised me,” Lisa said, beaming.

“Me too,” Alex said dryly. “I’m surprised, too. I really thought I could go for an afternoon, just
one
afternoon of my life, without seeing my twin sister.”

Stevie grinned. “Well, there’s always tomorrow,” she said. “And that’s something to look forward to, right?”

“Right,” he said, grinning back.

Since she was closest to the outside, Callie went and got sodas for herself, Stevie, and Carole. When she rejoined the group, they were talking about everything in the world except the fact that Lisa was going to be gone for the summer and how much they were all going to miss one another.

She passed the drinks around and sat quietly at the end of the table. There wasn’t much for her to say. She didn’t really feel as if she belonged there. She wasn’t anybody’s best friend. It wasn’t as if they minded her being there, but she’d come along because Stevie had offered to drive her to a tack
shop after they left the airport. She was simply along for the ride.

“…  And don’t forget to say hello to Skye.”

“Skye? Skye who?” asked Alex.

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Lisa said. “He’s just jealous.”

“You mean because Skye is a movie star?”

“And say hi to your father and the new baby. It must be exciting that you’ll meet your sister.”

“Well, of course, you’ve already met her, but now she’s crawling, right? It’s a whole different thing.”

An announcement over the PA system brought their chatter to a sudden halt.

“It’s my flight,” Lisa said slowly. “They’re starting to board and I’ve got to get through security and then to Gate … whatever.”

“Fourteen,” Alex said. “It comes after Gate Twelve. There are no thirteens in airports.”

“Let’s go.”

“Here, I’ll carry that.”

“And I’ll get this one …”

As Callie watched, Lisa hugged Carole and Stevie. Then she kissed Alex. Then she hugged her friends again. Then she turned to Alex.

“I think it’s time for us to go,” Carole said tactfully.

“Write or call every day,” Stevie said.

“It’s a promise,” said Lisa. “Thanks for coming to the airport. You, too, Callie.”

Callie smiled and gave Lisa a quick hug before all the girls backed off from Lisa and Alex.

Lisa waved. Her friends waved and turned to leave her alone with Alex. They were all going to miss her, but the girls had one another. Alex only had his lawns to mow. He needed the last minutes with Lisa.

“See you at home!” Stevie called over her shoulder, but she didn’t think Alex heard. His attention was completely focused on one person.

Carole wiped a tear from her eye once they’d rounded a corner. “I’m going to miss her.”

“Me too,” said Stevie.