A Summer Nowhere

The stable where Gary's horses were seemed like it was at least twice as big as it should be. There was a big overhang on the outside where you could sit in a rocking chair and look out at all of their land. It was on the easternmost corner of their lot, so you couldn't even see Sam's house from there. Then inside, the ceilings were so tall I got dizzy if I looked right up at the rafters. At that time, he had six horses in their own stalls, but there was room for at least a dozen more. Above the stalls, there was a loft where they kept hay. You'd think a horse stable would smell awful, like manure and urine, but Gary kept it so clean, it smelled like fresh hay and the shampoo he used to wash the horses with. I used to wonder how he got so much done, but then I found out that whenever he wasn't doing something else, he was working in the stable. He'd go do one thing and then he'd come back, and then he'd go do another thing and then he'd come back again. Sometimes he was in there late at night, cleaning up or making sure the horses had blankets on if it was too cold. He treated them like they were his children. Except they were bigger and bossier than children were.

Sometimes when I didn't have anything else to do, I liked to come hang out with him and feed the horses carrots while he got work done. It was the Friday that Brad and Heather got to go home and spend the weekend with their mom, so I was finally coming out of my funk a little bit. If it hadn't been for me telling Mama about what happened with James' that last weekend, I might've preferred to be at home. But that was all she wanted to talk about. How was I feeling? Did I want to talk about it? What exactly did he say? How exactly did he say it? Was I sure I was okay? Was I sure I didn't want to talk about it?

I was sure.

The only horse that had never left Dulworth Farms was Tessa. She was a beautiful dark bay quarter horse with black smoke all over her. Her mane and tail were black, but her feet were white up to her ankles. Gary's dad would never sell her, because he'd gotten her for Gary's mama as a wedding present. I didn't know horses could live so long, but Tessa was going on twenty and she still looked just as young and spry as ever. She was the only horse I'd ever ridden. Gary decided to teach me on her because she was so gentle. Since I was so short, it took me a while to get on her back and she didn't really mind me hanging all over her to get my bearings. She was sweet and gentle and mostly did whatever you told her. Gary tried to get me to ride some of the thoroughbreds, but I'd seen them run around the fields and I wasn't about to get thrown off of one of them. But they were nice to look at.

While Gary was sweeping up, I sat on the edge of Tessa's stall. She'd nudge my shins when she was ready for another bite of carrot. I wondered if she was wondering where Sam was because usually she came with me and we'd both feed her carrots. I bet she liked it better when there were two people spoiling her rotten at one time.

“Are you gonna' tell me why you're moping around?” Gary asked, hanging the big push broom up on the far wall. “Sam said you haven't talked to her in a week.”

“It won't be a week 'til tomorrow.” I corrected him, like there was a big difference.

Whenever Sam and I had a disagreement, Gary was always in the middle of it. And he always took my side, but the problem was that Sam could get to him first. So I always had to do all the explaining because he only ever had her side of the story. All she'd said was that I hadn't talked to her. She'd called every day and I kept telling Mama to tell her I was asleep or in the shower or I wasn't feeling well. So I could either tell Gary the truth and look like an ignoramus or I could lie and say I really had been sick. Either way, he'd back me up. And that made me feel like an even bigger asshole.

“I'm just in a mood.” I shrugged, letting Tessa scarf down another carrot before I hopped down and walked aimlessly around the stable. “I don't know.”

“What'd she do?” he asked, hauling a big bag of oats out of the back of his dad's trailer and cutting it open.

I didn't know how to answer that. The more I thought about it, the dumber I felt. I was embarrassed and my feelings were hurt, and I kept thinking that it was all her fault. But technically, Sam hadn't done anything. I was just mad at her for existing. And she didn't even know it. She was so pretty and so smart and so cool and that just made me so mad. But I couldn't do anything about it.

“Do you think she's pretty?” I asked, pulling a feed scoop from the peg board and handing it to him.

“Who?” he looked up at me. “Sam?”

“No, this horse.” I rolled my eyes, patting the stall next to me where a palomino was standing. “Yes, Sam.”

“You're so ornery.” he shook his head, walking around and filling feed buckets with oats. “I've never thought about it before.”

“You're lying.” I said.

“I'm not.” Gary looked at me like I'd slapped him across the face. “If you asked me to describe her, I don't even know if I could.”

“You look at her every day.” I laughed. “You know what she looks like.”

“Sure, I know what she looks like. I know she's blonde and skinny.” he shrugged his shoulders. “I know she always wears too many clothes or not enough and it's never weather appropriate.”

I nodded my head. That was true enough. Sam usually just did whatever she thought would shock people. Sometimes that meant wearing big flannel shirts and tights under her shorts in the summer time and wearing halter tops and mini skirts in December.

“I don't know if she's pretty, though.” Gary said. “Everybody else seems to think so, so maybe she is.”

All of a sudden, I felt really protective of her.

“Sam's gorgeous.” I told him. “I know a million girls who'd kill to look like her.”

“Well, that's extreme.” he laughed. “You're not one of them, right?”

“Of course I am.” I said. “If you were a girl, you'd want to look like her, too.”

He screwed his face up so hard that you could see wrinkles form between his eyebrows. It made me laugh.

“Just look at her eyes. All by themselves.” I insisted. “They're like icebergs. They could take down ships.”

“You're being dramatic.” he shook his head.

“No, I'm not.” I argued. “She's stunning.”

“Not that it matters.” he cleared his throat and looked back down at his oats. “But I think you're beautiful.”

My chest got cold, like when you knock a glass over and get startled to hear it smash on the ground. After a second, I let some air into my lungs.

“You're just saying that to make me feel better.” I told him.

“If you say so, Jobie.” he shrugged.

I climbed back up onto the side of Tessa's stall. She sniffed at my knees and walked up to put her head in my lap. I rubbed the tuft of hair between her ears and twirled it between my fingers. She made me think about what it would be like to live back in the days when there weren't cars, so you had to ride a horse everywhere. I bet girls didn't stop talking to their best friends because of boys back then. Because marriages were probably arranged. That would make life a hell of a lot easier. I thought about seeing women on television who had nosy mothers that were always trying to set them up with men they knew.

Except if that happened to me, we'd meet and he'd go. “Hey, your Sam's friend. Is she single?”

Gary stepped up beside me and poured a scoop full of oats into Tessa's bucket. She forgot all about me and dunked her head in to get a bite.

“Hey, I forgot to tell you thank you for the candy.” I suddenly remembered. “I've gotta' bring you your hoodie back.”

“No big deal.” Gary shrugged. “And you're welcome. I know they're your favorite, so when I passed that candy store, I couldn't pass 'em up.”

I didn't know what to say, so I just thanked him again.

“Gary, your mom told me to bring you this.” Sam came in through the side door off the porch. She was out of breath and carrying a little red cooler. When she saw me, her eyes got real big.

“Thank God!” she let out a big breath like she'd been holding it for a while. “I thought you were gonna' die or something!”

Instead of telling her she was being dramatic, I just nodded my head and lied. “I've been real sick.”

“Your mom said.” Sam sighed. She hopped up to sit next to me and put her hand on my forehead, then my cheek. “You don't have a fever. Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah.” I said, dropping my head. “Thanks.”

I'd been avoiding her for the better part of a week and she wasn't even mad about it. She wanted to know if I was okay and that made me feel even worse. It made me feel like the worst best friend on the face of the earth.

Gary dug into the cooler and pulled out a bottle of iced tea and a plastic bag with a sandwich in it.

“It's so cute that your mom still makes your lunch.” Sam laughed, pushing whatever crap there was between us to the side.

Gary's Mama Eileen was probably the sweetest lady I'd ever met. She was petite with long, dark curly hair and the same chocolate brown eyes her son had. Any time I came over, she was cooking or baking or cleaning and she'd either put me to work or try and feed me. Even though she'd gone to college for accounting, she'd always been a housewife. Her husband and sons were her main priority. Gary's younger brother Jeff was in fifth grade. Eileen said he'd been a surprise baby, because she and her husband Rick had only ever wanted one kid. But Jeff was spoiled rotten. Gary complained every once in a while about Jeff never having to do anything around the farm, but I knew he'd rather do it by himself anyway. Eileen kept the books and the house in order, Rick and Gary took care of the farm, and Jeff just got to be a kid. He was at summer camp in Grayson County with their church.

“Somebody's gotta' feed me.” Gary smiled, patting his flat stomach like there was nothing in it.

I looked at him for a few seconds and guessed I could figure why girls thought he was so cute. He was the tall, dark, and handsome type. He had dark hair and dark eyes, muscular arms, and sharp features. His face was covered in a five o'clock shadow and that day he was wearing a tank top and a pair of khaki cargo pants. You could see the muscles in his arms and shoulders flex every time he lifted anything. I wondered if he'd ever been scrawny, or even a little bit chubby, because he'd been full of muscles since before I met him. I couldn't imagine him any other way.

Yeah, I guessed Gary wasn't that hard to look at.

“I have to catch you up on so much stuff.” Sam gasped, dragging me out of my thoughts. “First of all, James seemed super upset when you left. He was worried you were gonna' get hit by a car or something. But don't worry. I told him you didn't feel well. It was so cute how worried he was.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat instead of saying anything. But she didn't give me time to make a comment, anyway.

“He said you guys were having a great time.” she continued. “Anyway, I figured out the perfect thing to do for your birthday. You just have to get your mom's permission and James is totally down to come along.”

“What?” I asked, shaking my head. “No. He doesn't have to come.”

“He wants to.” she assured me. “When you hear what it is, you'll be stoked.”

“What is it?” I asked, not really sure whether I wanted to know or not.

Sam always made these elaborate plans that involved what was sure to be the greatest time of our lives, but they almost always fell through and when they did, everybody was disappointed but her. She didn't care if her schedule changed at all. She was a go with the flow type, and I wasn't.

“There's a concert in Nashville.” she told me. “Lawn seats are only fifteen dollars. Everybody's gonna' be there.”

“Everybody who?” I asked.

She rambled off a list of rock bands that we both liked and a couple I'd never even heard of. It was on the riverfront and sponsored by one of the radio stations there. All ages were welcome, but they had a beer garden. Chris had told her that he'd been to a few different shows there and they never asked for your ID and they served the beer in those big cups like you could get at the gas station, so you could get good and drunk for not that much money.

It sounded like fun. If it weren't for James being invited, I might've wanted to go.

“Mama's never gonna' let me.” I shook my head. “Over her dead body.”

“You can talk her into it!” Sam whined, pleading with me.

“Even if she did say I could go, you know she's gonna' make me bring those two idiots along.” I argued.

“So we'll bring them.” she shrugged her shoulders. “We can set a meeting point and time and tell them to go fuck off until we're ready to leave.”

I let out a big, loud groan.

“And they're not even that bad.” Sam said. “Heather was kind enough to take Mike off your hands for you.”

I gave her my best death glare.

She just smiled at me, like she wanted to say how happy she was about that, but she kept her mouth shut.

“How are we gonna' get there?” I wondered aloud.

“Chris can drive us.” she said. “He can borrow his mom's van.”

The only time I'd ever been in Chris' mom's van, it had broken down out in the middle of nowhere and a nice Amish boy took us to the nearest gas station on his horse and buggy. We didn't need gas, but we called my mom and she came to get us. I didn't want that to happen on the way to Nashville. Mama would be livid and probably never let me leave town again.

“I don't think that's a good idea.” I shook my head.

“Why?” Sam whined. “It'll be fine. They finally got an oil, lube, and filter change.”

Gary chuckled under his breath, but distracted himself with something on the peg board when we looked at him to see what he thought was funny.

“I could bribe Papaw into letting us take his truck.” she offered. “With... y'know.”

Sam wasn't above using the trauma her Papaw had caused her to get what she wanted. She did it all the time. If she wanted money or even if she just wanted him to leave the house for a little bit, she'd corner him somewhere and tell him he knew what he'd done to her and if he didn't do what she wanted, she'd tell Granny. Sometimes she went into detail just to make him even more scared. She'd remind him of how he'd come into her room at night and sneak under the covers with her or how he'd take her out to the barn where nobody could hear her crying. Sometimes she'd do that while I was over; I think because it made her feel safer, like I was back-up for her. I'd never been more uncomfortable in my life. Or as angry, but not with her.

The only reason she hadn't told her Granny was because Lynn told her not to. I was pretty sure Lynn didn't even believe what Sam had told her. She didn't even get around to telling her until she was a little older, so I guessed Lynn just thought she was making it up. She'd lied to her mom about pretty much everything else. Also, Sam was well known for being a huge drama queen, so that was a big part of it. Anyway, Lynn said if Sam told Granny, she'd kick Papaw out. He made all the money. The house was in Granny's name, so they'd have to sell it and have to go and rent a trailer or something. Nobody wanted Granny to stress over it. The less she knew the better. But if it had been me, I would've ratted him out so quick, everybody's heads would spin.

I nodded my head. Papaw had a couple of trucks. One was just for farm work—an old, red pickup truck with huge cab lights on the front of the roof. The other one was a white F-250 with a camper shell on it. Sometimes, if Granny got real mad at him, she'd kick him out of their bedroom and instead of sleeping on the couch, he'd haul a blanket out and sleep in his truck. It wasn't an extended cab, but we could easily fit and be comfortable for the hour and a half trip to Nashville.

“That could work.” I said, letting myself get excited. “It'd be fun.”

“Hell yeah!” she cheered, pumping her fists in the air.

“Y'all are crazy.” Gary shook his head, tossing his now empty bottle into the trash can from across the barn. “Driving all the way to Nashville just to sit in the grass and watch a bunch of bands from so far away, you can't even see 'em.”

He made a good point, I thought. We were basically paying money to do what we did all the time for free: sit around and listen to music. But I guessed it was the experience you paid for. We'd be sitting around with a ton of other people we didn't know, all kind of bonding over the same thing without having to even really meet each other. I'd never been to a concert. There were always contests on the radio to win tickets to shows in Nashville, but I never even tried to enter. One, because I was too shy to call up a radio station on the phone to see if I was the sixth or seventh or tenth or whatever caller. Two, how was I supposed to get to Nashville to pick up my prize?

This was a much better way to go about it.

“Who says we'll stay in the grass?” Sam said in that way she always did when she was about to do something she wasn't supposed to and she was announcing it out loud. “Chris goes to shows all the time and he says you can usually sneak past security and into the seats up front by the stage.”

Gary didn't say anything, he just continued to look at her like she was nuttier than a Snickers bar.

“If you think I can't get past some middle aged dude with a walkie talkie and a beer belly, then you're the one that's crazy.” Sam challenged, jabbing her thumb in my general direction. “And where I go, Jobie follows.”

I wasn't so sure about that. I did usually follow her lead, but I wasn't sure if I was willing to follow her into whatever kind of jail they put you in for sneaking into seats you didn't pay for.

“Don't get her into any trouble on her own birthday.” Gary said, sounding like a dad telling his kid to be home by nine o'clock.

“It's not a party unless you get into a little trouble.” Sam whined, then laughed, the way a crazy person would.

Gary just stared at her.

“We won't get in trouble.” she assured him, putting her hands up in surrender. “I swear on my honor as her best friend.”

Sam and I walked back to my house, every once in a while swaying into the grass on the sides of the road so we wouldn't get hit by an eighteen wheeler. I felt better about my chances of getting to go to Nashville knowing Sam was there. She and my Mama both had sharp convincing skills. They could both sell ice to Eskimos. One time, Sam convinced Lynn to let her go camping with Chris and his older brother, while she was grounded for sneaking out to see him. It was like her brain was a computer and that computer had a database of words on it. She just had to plug in whatever situation she was in, and the computer just spit out the right words in the right order and in just the right tone. It was impressive and it was scary.

Sometimes I worried—and sometimes more than sometimes—that one day she'd convince somebody to do something that was gonna' get her in the kind of trouble she couldn't talk her way out of.

It didn't take her long to talk Mama into the whole Nashville thing. But it didn't take Mama long to lay down ground rules, either. First, we had to take Brad and Heather along. She didn't budge on that one, even when I argued that they weren't here to spend time with me, they were here to spend time with their worthless father. Secondly, she said that we either had to come home and sleep or we had to make sure that Granny and Lynn were home if we were gonna' sleep at Sam's house. She didn't want us driving all over hell and creation dropping this one off here and that one off there. She said there was plenty of floor space in the living room. Thirdly, Gary had to escort us. Even when we told her that Gary thought going was a dumb idea, Mama said we couldn't go if he wasn't going with us. Then she gave me one of those knowing looks, except she knew whatever she was knowing and I didn't.

“You can convince him.” she told me.

Back in my room, Sam went rummaging through my closet, looking for suitable things for me to wear. While she did, she babbled on and on about what all I'd missed while I was sick and in bed. I still felt bad about lying, but since she was buying it, I guess I was still selling it.

“Mike spent the whole night hooking up with that scuzzy little trash pile.” she told me, tossing a Guns N Roses t shirt onto my bed, along with a pair of jeans. “Where is Heather, by the way?”

“Her mom's house.” I said, fiddling the corner of my sheet between my first two fingers. “Finally, some peace.”

“I should've known.” Sam rolled her eyes. “I really hate them.”

“Me, too.” I agreed.

She seemed pleased with that. She even smiled a little bit.

“Like I said, James was really upset you had to leave so early.” she said. “I think he's really smitten with you.”

“He's not.” I assured her.

“Jobie, you're crazy!” It was a laugh that came out of her mouth, but it sounded more like a shriek.

It startled me and got my attention immediately.

“Just because he used to like me doesn't mean he doesn't like you now.” she told me. “He told me about telling you that. He thought you left because he'd upset you.”

I did. He did.

“I wasn't upset.” I lied. “I just didn't feel well.”

“I know.” Sam said, shooting me a sympathetic look. “I told him how sickly you were. But I don't know if he believed me.”

“I don't think I like him that much.” I lied.

“Ugh!” Sam let out a long, loud, dramatic groan and fell backwards onto my bed so that her long, blonde hair hung off one side and her legs hung off the other. “Yes, you do! I saw the way you looked at him. I knew you liked him, because you couldn't get warm and I know you're only cold when you're nervous.”

“I had a fever.” I lied.

“It wasn't just that.” Sam argued, rolling onto her stomach and climbing back onto her feet like a jungle cat. “Promise me one thing.”

“What?” I grumbled.

“Try and have fun.” she said. “And maybe lose that V-card.”

“That's two things.” I mumbled, feeling red hot heat fill the apples of my cheeks.