"That's right Shelby! Just sit up straight in the saddle and squeeze!" I called out as Shelby and her horse, Patrick cantered around the paddock. Patrick was a beautiful horse and the Shahanians kept him well. His nut-brown hide shone in the early morning sun and he held up his head and tail as he moved. Shelby smiled as she took the turns, brown braids flying. At age nine, she was a natural. This was only her first day of her second summer of riding lessons, and I could already tell that by the end of August she would be ready to compete in her age group.
Early last summer, my father had been surprised when Shelby and her mother had shown up at our front door in the middle of dinner, asking about riding lessons. Most people knew that our house and our stables, while on the same property, were two different entities. One was for family, the other was for business. Our ranch style house sat on top a small hill, the west facing windows looked over the stables, the paddock, and the fields down below. Our driveway ran between the paddock and the grazing field, then cut left rounded a clump of trees as it climbed the slope. It finally cut back right and ended in the dirt lot just outside our porch door. Vendors, trainers, vets, and riding students almost never drove past the stable and came to our front door, especially not after business hours.
Dad had been ready to toss the Shahanians out, but when I heard them mention my name, I had immediately joined them at the door. It turned out that they had asked around and someone had recommended I teach little Shelby. I never found out where they got my name, but I had been begging dad to let me take some of my own riding students for two years. And there was someone specifically asking for me. How could he turn that down?
Well, he couldn't. It turned out that Mrs. Shahanian's offer of $100 an hour, coupled with my big, begging doe eyes, nudged dad into agreeing. Last year, I ended up having three other riding students aside from Shelby. And this year I had landed even more.
I glanced at my watch as Shelby and Patrick came around their last turn. Her hour was almost up. Easiest hundred buck I would ever make. Unfortunately, 50% went directly to the ranch, when was the same for the other instructor, Penny Haberman. Another 40% my parents made me put into my untouchable savings account, which I couldn't go near until I graduated college (a little agreement I made with my parents when I first started teaching). That meant I just made a whopping ten bucks to use as spending money or put towards the competition entrance fee. It was going to take me a lot of lessons to earn that money before the competition on the third weekend of August, especially if I wanted to have any kind of life this summer. I mean, it would be nice to be able to buy myself the occasional ice cream cone.
"Okay, Shelby! Bring him in!" I called out.
"Kay!"
Down at the bottom of the drive, Mrs. Shahanian's black Mercedes SUV signaled and turned in. I smiled and tried not to shake my head. All the summer locals drove high end cars, but not all of them were as nice as Mrs. Shahanian's.
Shelby and her family were not year round Lake Logan natives. They were what we actual towns people call "summer locals" or, more commonly and less charitably, "invaders." Dotted all around the periphery of or lovely hamlet -many of them on or near the remote shore of the lake- were huge Victorian mansions, all of which were deserted 9-10 months out of the year. They were vacation homes for the wealthy- those who considered themselves too old-school or too humble to hit the Hampton's with the rest of New York City's elite. Instead, they wondered their way north every June or July in their Lexus convertibles, their Jaguars, their BMWs, and took over the town of Lake Logan. They bought up our fresh corn, lamented about our lack of espresso bard, and looked down their noses at us whenever they got the chance. The Lake Logan Country Club became a swing site for balls and charity events and the omnipresent "Summer Fling," an event to which all their teens sons and daughters flocked in their designer gowns and tuxes. Inevitably there would be a drunken caravan of limos and sports cars through the center of town, these over privileged kids waving their champagne bottles out the windows laughing and showing off. They were all such prize losers.
Not that I'm bitter or anything.
"How did I do?" Shelby asked, dismounting with ease and dropping to the ground.
I sighed and smiled "You did great," I told her. "I can tell you two have been practicing a lot this year."
"I went to the stables twice a week every week," Shelby said proudly. "Patrick didn't like being left alone there so I visited him as much as I could."
"You are a very good horse owner and a good friend to Patrick too," I told her.
The Mercedes pulled up a few feet away on the dirt lot and Mrs. Shahanian got out. She was wearing a white jumpsuit with black heels and a white fur cardigan. Did I mention that she didn't exactly know how to dress for the country? She was nice, but not all that bright. But at least she was wearing a straw cowboy at. That would probably protect her skin from the sun, sort of.
"Hello, Cassie!" she called, waving her hand and smiling as she tottered over in her stilts. "Hey Shell, how was your first lesson?"
"Cassie think I can compete this year," Shelby said with her gap-toothed grin.
"Really? That's great!" her mother replied. "You should have seen her this summer, Cassie. All she could talk about this winter was horses. Her father and I love to see her so excited about something other than the IPad. For a while, we actually thought she was going to get sucked in," she added with a laugh.
"Mo-om!" Shelby protested.
"Well, she's amazing at it," I told Mrs. Shahanian, tucking my hair behind my ears. "I think she was born to be on a horse."
"I have no idea where she gets it from, but we have you to thank for her inspiration.
"Inspiration?" I asked. It was an odd choice of words.
"Last summer I saw you riding Lola over by the lake. I thought it was the coolest, so I begged mom for lessons."
"After about an hour of her non-stop pleading, her father and I finally asked around town and found out you were the mysterious girl on the horse. That's how we ended up here. I thought you knew all of this."
"No, never heard the whole story," I said, touched. I couldn't believe Shelby was riding because she wanted to be like me. As far as I knew, no one else had ever wanted to be like me. Even I sometimes wanted to be less like me.
"And I turned out you were the best! Speaking of which, I told all of my friends about you. Marni Locke should be calling here tomorrow. She wants to bring her two boys here for lessons. And I wouldn't be surprised with there were many more where they came from."
I smiled, dollar signs lighting up my mind. One good thing about invaders: They were definitely going to help me inch closer to getting the money. Sure, the more lessons I gave the less time I had for fun, but lets be honest- there wasn't all that much to do around Lake Logan anyway.
"We didn't have to go shopping dad. I could have had cereal," I said, glancing my shoulder at my father as we walked out from Wonder Mart, our local food market.
"You could have had cereal, but when this man needs his Spanish omelet, he needs his Spanish omelet."
I laughed as my stomach rumbled. I had inhaled a banana and some juice before Shelby's lesson, but by the time she was done, I was starving. We were putting Patrick up for the summer while Shelby and her family had a stable built on their property, a $200,000 project from what I understood. A lot of money to spend on a little girls hobby, no matter how good she is at it. Keeping Patrick meant that I had to brush him, rub him down, and feed him. The Shahanian's paid extra to rent the stall for all the extra hard work, but it was a lot of extra hard work especially when Penny had the day off.
Dad opened the door of our rusty old truck, which squealed horribly, and placed the grocery bag on the vinyl seat. I plopped down, avoiding the faulty spring under the passengers side. My mother, who usually had to drive 20 miles to the Elementary school she worked at , had the newer car. Dad always maintained that as long as the truck was running, it was good enough to get him where he needed to go. My mom thought it was an eyesore, but I liked the old thing.
I rolled down the window, then leaned forward and flicked on the radio. Music blasted so loud, that I jumped and fumbled with the knobs to turn it down. I was a good two seconds when I realized that the wailing guitars were not coming from our old speakers.
"Here comes the caravan," my father said.
I looked past the open drivers side door where my dad stood and saw the gleaming silver Lexus sedan gliding by. Behind it was a red sports car, a model I had never seen before and the source of the rock music, with a guy younger than me head banging along. A couple seconds passed, a Porsche and a BMW convertible followed.
"They're heeee-eree," I sung.
My dad laughed and shook his head, scratching at a couple days' growth on his chin. He dropped into his seat and slammed the door to the truck.
"Sometimes I wonder why we tolerate them taking over our town every summer," my father said.
"Because they rent stalls and hire us for lessons and after one more summer it's all going to pay for the brand new stables?" I suggested innocently.
My dad grinned. "Oh yeah, that's why," he said with a wink. He turned the key, and revved the loud engine. "Let's go make us some breakfast."
After a long day of chores and excising Lola, I borrowed Dad's truck and headed into town to hand out with Donna and Derek at the theater. The Regency Theater was an old movie house built back in the 1950's by Donna and Derek's grandfather, who had the idea of bringing a little Hollywood glamour into Lake Logan. From the pictures that hung in the office, the place was once a glittering beacon in the center of an otherwise sleepy town. But in my life time the multi-hundred-light bulb Regency sign had never once been lit, and the burgundy and gold carpets just kept wearing thinner and thinner, The Regency only had one screen and a balcony that had long since been roped off by some state official due to the buildings lack of "structural integrity." Scary as that phrase was, it didn't stop me from hanging out there almost every weekend night during the year and every single night during the summer.
Where else did we have to go?
That night, Donna and I hung out behind the concessions counter and emptied the cabinet of every last one of the gummy bear boxes. Our plan was to make a huge candy box castle on the counter to pass the time. Derek sat on the back counter popping popcorn. Both her and Donna were wearing the Regency uniform: black pants, whited shirt, black bow tie, hideous maroon jacket.
"Are your parents going to get any good movies this year?" I asked as I built the base of the castle.
"Just the usual lineup of cartoons and badly written inspirational flickers starring awful child actors," Derek said with a sigh.
"In other words, nothing that any of us would remotely want to see," I replied.
As we spoke, the latest Disney 'toon was playing in the theater. The only people here were the Marlin family and Alison and Dino. They found no better place to make out in accept the back of the theater.
"Dad is never going to make money off of this place of he doesn't start getting some better stuff," Donna said, propping her head on her hand. She stared across the lobby at the framed poster advertising next weeks movie , something about a boy and his baseball. "Like something with explosions, curse words, and sex."
"Or at least just one of the three," I put in, balancing one box atop the other.
"Never gonna happen," Derek said. He pushed himself off the counter and came over to help me. "Dad is nothing if not a purist. Grandpa built this theater to be a family place and dad intends on keeping it that way."
"This is going to be the most boring summer ever!" Donna exclaimed, collapsing fully on top of the candy case. Her arms splayed out across the candy case. "Hey! Do you think the Kents will show this year?"
Derek and I exchanged a "here we go" glance and rolled our eyes. "Donna-"
"What? It could happen! They could be on their way right now in their gold plated stretch limos," she said, growing animated.
"Now, now, Donna. I'm sure that if they were to come, their limos would be solid gold, not gold plated," Derek said, kneading his sisters head.
"My mistake," Donna said sarcastically. "But seriously, their housekeepers and maintenance guys were up there last week and Courtney Billup said they even cleaned up the tennis courts with leaf blowers. They never clean off the tennis court."
"How would Courtney know?" I asked. "No one can even see the Kent's backyard."
I could though. And had, many many times. In fact, I already knew about the tennis courts. I also knew the pool had been filled with new water and the garage had been completely cleaned out. All this thanks to my daily, and illegal, morning rides with Lola. No one, not even Derek and Donna, knew that I rode her through the Kents' property every morning. My one transgression in life. But it was a sin to leave all that lush property sitting there unenjoyed.
"And her brother Andrew was on the crew," Donna said, crossing her arms over her chest. "What do you think about that?"
"Not much," I replied with a sigh. "We go through this same conversation every year, and every year the Kents don't come, no matter what their staff does to prepare their house. I don't see what the big deal is anyway. They're just another family of invaders."
"Cassie, please," Donna said. "Even you have to be a little bit curious ."
"Nope. Not one bit," I said, placing the final box on top of my castle.
But I was. A little. Everyone in town was. The Kent family was at the heart of every gossipy conversation I had ever heard. Their house was the most gorgeous mansion in town, sitting on top Hull Hill, which over looked the lake. In at least eight gables, two basket ball courts, an immense wraparound porch, and a detached garage that could hold six cars. The swimming pool was the size of an Olympic one and had a swirly slide. The tennis court had been dug up and laid to rest a couple years ago, even though not a soul had touched it. Their property stretched for a hundred-fifty acres and included woods, a fishing stream, and at least twenty acre of open fields. It was, in truth, the perfect vacation spot- if you weren't from around here. One that hadn't been used since before I was born, except my me and Lola.
No one in my entire generation had ever laid eyes on a Kent. Each year they sent an entire staff of cleaners, landscapers, plumbers, and carpenters to survey the house and do any work that needed to be done. For a week the place would be a flurry of action, saws buzzing, dust flying, bags of leaves being toted away. Then the staff would move out, leaving everything spotless, and the whole town would hole their breath. Would this be the summer the Kents finally decided to grace us with their presence? Would we at last get to see the woman who young Susan Morris had grown up to be?
Twenty years ago Susan had been a local girl and recent graduate like myself when, by all reports, the young devastatingly handsome Robert Kent and come into town with his grandparents and swept her off her feet. They had married in secret and Susan had gone off with Robert to live in Manhattan, never communicating with her family again. From everything the old biddies in town had told us over the years, Susan's parents had eventually died of broken hearts. I thought that was a little extreme- a little drama made up by our aging town gossips for their own entertainment- but her, you never know.
"Do you think Robert Kent really looks like James Bond?" Donna asked, staring off wistfully into space.
"Which one?" Derek joked.
"If it's Pierce Brosnan, good. If it's Sean Connery, bad," I put in.
Derek laughed, but Donna didn't seem to hear me.
"I heard they have this huge mansion in the Hamptons right down the beach from Ralph and Lauren," Donna said. "If I had a place like that, I'd never come here either."
She sighed and knocked over my carefully built gummy bear box castle.
"Hey!" I protested as the boxes tumbled to the ground.
"It's not like we don't have time to build another one," she said.
Derek walked around the counter and started cleaning up after his sister, a sight that was all too common. As he piled the boxes back in front of me, Donna didn't even offer to help. She was the messier, he was the cleaner.
"Maybe this year they'll come," she said, scooping out a mini cup of popcorn for herself, then two more for me and Derek. "Maybe they'll come and distinctively sense that an entire town is about to perish out of sheer inactivity and they'll swoop in and save us all."
Derek and I patted Donna on the back. "If they do, I'm sure you'll be disappointed." I told her, snagging a piece of popcorn and dropping it into my mouth. "There is absolutely no way that these people are half as interesting as everyone hopes they'll be."
* * *
Hello everyone!!! Chapter's are starting to get longer, just let me know if they get too long, then I can split them up, because sometimes like like to over write.
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