What Z Sees Read online

  Get up! You’ll be late. I’ll help you do the barn because I’m nice, even though it’s your turn. But I’m not riding in this stupid show today, the weather is too bad. I’m sorry, but I’m not. We barely have time to get there now. Hurry up.

  Okay, I say from under the quilt, with it wrapped up around my face the way I like it, only my nose sticking out for air.

  I’m serious, Zara, he says. Get going. You’re still riding, right?

  I’m going! I mean, I’m coming! I say fuzzily.

  We seriously have no time for this, he says.

  Asshole, I say into my pillow, not looking at him. Honestly, just because he’s all in a twist about riding or not riding, he doesn’t have to take it out on me. I’m kind of looking forward to it myself, I have to admit. I love that the results don’t count, mostly because I know I won’t win. Lately, I never do. It’s like I’ve given up. Or like I don’t care.

  And actually, I kind of don’t. I love to ride, I don’t really love to compete. That’s Axel’s thing. The way he gets so fired up when he wins. The way he knows his point totals across the board at every second. How he compares. Who his closest competition is. He’s the best of all of us by such a long shot.

  But he hates cross-country. And cross-country is one of my total favourites: the trails, the long unwinding of the course as it hiccups across the countryside. The variety. The excitement. You never know what’s going to happen. It’s not at all like jumping in the ring, the boring predictability of the pattern of jumps. The little potted plants and flowers all over the place. The bright white fences. That’s all so totally contrived.

  I lie on my back and listen to all the sounds, trying to focus my thoughts before I sit up. Trying to will the cramps away. I hum, but somehow humming makes it hurt even more, so I stop.

  I can hear the hushed voice of the nurse helping Maman to get out of bed, to get showered. Maman can do most stuff herself but she has a catheter and all sorts of gross things I don’t want to know about too intimately, which she would hate for any of us to ever witness. It’s all very undignified. Un- French. So a nurse comes in the morning and at night, mostly the same one, Esme, who is also French. That somehow makes her and Maman great friends automatically. They chatter away in French non-stop. Sometimes, though, it’s total strangers if Esme is on a day off. It’s an agency. Today the banter sounds French so I’m sure it’s her. Which is good because Maman is so much more relaxed with her than with the others. So much more herself. I think if it were me, I’d rather have family do it, rather it be someone I know and not just some person who might have stood behind me in line at the movies or something, even if they do speak the same language. It’s so personal.

  I hear the clatter of something falling on the wood floor,, the rush of water through the pipes. The early morning sounds of a car starting, crows calling in the trees, a squirrel running across the roof. (At least I hope it’s a squirrel, not a rat. I hate rats so much that just imagining it might be a rat makes me want to crawl out of my skin and into someone else’s. Ugh.)

  I sink back into the pillow. My eyes feel like they want to close again, just for a ... second.

  Z, yells Axel, right in my face.

  ARGH! I scream. You scared me!

  Get UP, I’m serious, I can’t do everything for you.

  I’m up! I snarl. I’m up. -

  Downstairs, the dogs start barking, which sets off a string of reactions, dogs in the pens outside starting up, the newest puppies yipping. It’s the sound of my whole life, a cacophony of dogs. I love them, I do. I just wish they weren’t so loud. Why can’t Maman breed those barkless Egyptian dogs instead? The German shepherds are so noisy. Their deep guttural voices fill up my whole head and echo.

  It’s a freaking zoo in this house, I say out loud, pushing back the covers. Not that anyone is listening, Axel having already stomped off down the stairs. This house is a maze of floors and stairs, five levels all separated by narrow wooden staircases built at perilous angles. Poor Maman is pretty much confined to the bottom two floors, where we’ve put in a lift.

  It’s still dark outside with just a smattering of light trying to force its way through the smear of night. I sit up. Oh, that’s not right. Immediately, I lie down again. The cramps, the cramps, the cramps.

  Ouch, I moan. Help, help. The pain.

  Not that anyone’s listening, but you know, it helps to say it out loud.%

  The cramps are so fierce and low that they are like a stereo with way too much bass, reverberating. Ugh. What a horrible day to get my period, to have to stuff myself into riding clothes, to have to ride at all. I poke at my bloated belly and moan some more, for good measure.

  I stagger out of bed and shock myself awake in the cold shower, the pressure on high so that it’s firing at me like a machine gun. I shave off a patch of skin accidentally when I swipe at my stubbly legs with the razor; streaks of blood running down the drain. Like a bad omen, I say out loud, then laugh at myself for being so overly dramatic, sticking Kleenex to the bleeding spots. Stupid dull razor, I chuck it into the garbage. Why was I bothering to shave my legs anyway? It’s not like anyone will notice them, they’ll be under clothes. It’s such a dumb thing to have to do all the time. Who cares if your legs are hairy? I mean, honestly. What a waste of time. Time that could be used for sleep, lovely lovely sleep.

  I drag my raggedy hair into some semblance of a pony- tail and slap on some blush so I don’t look so pale, which makes my freckles pop like chickenpox. Not that anyone will notice what I look like, and judging from the sound of rain on the glass, everyone will be wet and bedraggled before long anyway.

  Somehow I choke down a bowl of cereal even though I feel sick. It’s stale or from the health food store, I don’t know which because Maman always dumps it out of the box and puts it in a fancy canister on the counter. She says cereal boxes look tacky, which they do, but I guess they help you know what you’re actually eating.

  I cram my big old bloated self into my clothes. It’s almost unbearable. I feel totally like a sausage bursting from my own skin. Puffy and gross. Everything feels like work today, like it’s all nearly too much trouble. I know I need to snap out of it, but I can’t seem to. I turn the radio up, but the song sucks, so I snap it off.

  Down at the barn, Axel is working sloppily, too quickly. He’s spilled a bunch of feed on the ground and, instead of sweeping it up, he’s kicking at it like a little kid. He’s upset, I can tell. Well, obviously. I can tell everything about him. But what he’s upset about I can’t quite get a bead on, I don’t know why not. It’s something about Detritus that I can’t make out. That, plus he’s mad at me for sleeping late. I feel bad, but I also can’t bring myself to apologize. I don’t know why not. I mean, I should. It’s not his fault. Somehow I want to blame Gigi for the whole thing even though that makes no sense.

  What’s up? I ask when I catch up to him.

  Nothing, he says. Detritus, he adds. His right foot is just a little swollen. Like I said, I’m not risking riding today.

  He kind of looks fine to me, I say. What are you talking about?

  Just at that exact moment, Det lets out a loud whinny in his stall. Kicks at his bucket. I go look over the door at him. His ankles are totally fine, believe me.

  He’s got a swollen ankle, he shouts. His ankle is swollen!

  Oh fine, I say. Shout at me, like it’s my fault.

  Then I see it, like a banner unfurling: pf course, there’s nothing wrong with Det. He’s lying. He’s just saying it because he doesn’t want to do the event. He’s saying it so that no one teases him about wimping out on the cross-country. He’s making it up so no one asks.

  Jerk.

  So now I’m stuck riding in an event that I only signed up for because he said he’d do it for this charity thing. I guess that’s not fair. I mean, fine. I happen to like cross-country. A lot. Okay, I love it.

  But he’s the one who said we needed to do every event this summer. He’s the one th
at it matters to the most.

  I stroke Detritus’s big old nose. He’s a giant black horse marked on the face by a crooked white blaze. I sing him a few bars of the song that I’m writing called “Absolutely.” He calms right down and gets busy with looking innocent, like he’s complicit in the lie and he’s smug about it, as much as a horse can look smug. I stop singing and take a big breath of horsey air and blow it out at him. He flattens his ears, shakes his head, like I’m a fly. I leave him alone.

  It’s just a bad morning, I tell myself. Everything is off, seems off somehow. Like when you’re watching a movie and the sound is off by a single frame so no one’s mouths are moving fast enough to catch up with their own syllables, and watching it somehow makes you edgy and anxious until someone notices and fixes the mismatch.

  Even the humidity in the air is oppressive. It feels thick and wet. My skin is sticky. And we’re running late.

  Cake is acting strange, too. The big freak. I mean, I love him, but he is “quirky,” to put it nicely. If he were a person, he’d totally be a hypochondriac, I’ll bet. He never likes to travel, but today he seems particularly ornery. He won’t get into the trailer and I can’t lure him in myself, no matter how much I cajole or sing or stroke his neck or pull his lead. I need help and asking Axel is like asking him to donate a kidney or something, the way he reacts, with a huge sigh like the sacrifice is so great he can barely bring himself to do it. Okay, okay, I slept in. It’s not the worst thing in the world. He’s done it before, too, and I haven’t been a bitch to him about it. Sleeping in is not a crime! Does it give him the right to keep punishing me for it all day?

  Besides, if he didn’t want to do the event at all, he could have told me yesterday and I would have just kept sleeping, skipped the whole debacle.

  I wouldn’t have been upset to miss it at all. Not with these cramps. No sirree. Even though Dad already paid. In a way, it’s because Dad already paid that would make it okay. It’s like it’s the least he can do: pay for stuff we aren’t even doing in lieu of actually participating, you know? Riding is, after all, something we started for him. Not for us. It just happened that Axel has this gift for it. I love it, but it’s not the same thing at all. For him, it’s magic. He connects. I’m just along for the (ha ha) ride.

  And I love my horse. Poor Cake. It’s not his fault. It’s just the sport itself and the way it takes over everything. I’m starting to resent it and that’s what I’m so messed up about. I love riding. I do. I just don’t love the competition, the obsession, the ... points. All that kind of stuff leaves me cold. And I’m not sure I want it to take over, not any more than it already has. Maybe even less. Maybe even not at all.

  Let’s face it: I am sure I don’t want my life to be totally dictated by my standings and my rank, so why do I devote so much of my life to riding now? Shouldn’t I be getting a summer job at the mall like Sin and hanging out at the lake the rest of the time? But no, the horses fill up all my time, and it’s starting to feel like they’re taking away from other stuff.

  It’s complicated. I can’t just quit. As long as Axel loves it, I’ll still do it. I know that’s messed up.

  Dick, I mumble as I pass him in the tack room.

  Cow, he shoots back.

  I stick out my tongue. Mature? Us? No way.

  I love my stupid brother more than anyone so I guess that makes it okay that we fight all the time. I don’t know anyone who gets along better than us, or worse, if that makes sense. We get each other. We do.

  Like I get that the real reason he isn’t doing this event is because he’s phobic about riding in bad weather. (And spiders and chewed gum and all kinds of other superstitious stuff.) His phobias are escalating all the time. I’m not Dr. Phil or anything but it seems like the longer and longer Dad’s absences stretch, the more generally freaked out Axel is. Which makes no sense if you think about what a wad Dad was when he was around. He had this thing with gambling, spent a bunch of Maman’s money, and was pretty pissed off with all of us about it, like we’d made him do it. And when he was mad, he was a raging bull. Axel used to hide in closets and in the attic until Dad finally stormed out. Now he’s gone so much, it’s not so bad. But for Axel, I don’t know, it’s like he couldn’t stand to be around him then, but he can’t stand not to be around him now. He sort of worships Dad even though Dad is clearly a loser. Like he’s rewritten the past somehow to make all the awful things Dad did okay.

  He’s never actually said anything and I won’t bring it up until he does. Which, frankly, seems pretty weird. Like it’s just sort of incidental: our Dad is a recovering gambling addict who barely lives at home! But we never ever ever talk about him, not in any kind of serious way! It makes no sense. But I’m happy enough to not talk about him, so I guess it’s my fault as much as anyone’s. I just wonder if Axel’s more messed up by the whole situation than anyone knows.

  I think he needs some real help, not the self-help that he’s getting from all that wine. He drinks. A lot. Did I mention that? It changes him. It completely changes him. And I hate it, I really do. I don’t know what to do about it. I can’t stop him. How can I?

  Nothing I say could possibly be enough.

  Today, the fear that something could go wrong with Detritus and cost him his future has slatted over his eyes like blinds.

  I sigh and try to be nice. Well, I try not to be too mad, anyway. I try to distract myself with my new song, the one that I’m writing myself: the lyrics and the melody and everything. I sing it over and over again in my head to block him out. Singing somehow works for me: it’s like the mute button on Axel’s intrusive thoughts.

  He isn’t that interested in me or Cake or the event or any of it. He’s kind of like a black hole today, pulling me into a dark place I don’t want to go. Sometimes it’s like that, it’s like a magnet. That’s when the whole weird thing gets scary for me, when I’m not trying to see inside him but it shows itself to me in spite of that. Singing is the only thing that makes it stop, that dulls the pull.

  He doesn’t want to help me with Cake, doesn’t care that I feel like crap, and his not caring hurts. Maybe that’s why I’m biting my lip. Maybe that’s why I feel like crying.

  Or maybe it’s just stupid hormones.

  Can you please help? I ask. I can’t do this by myself, you know I can’t.

  He grunts.

  Well, thanks a lot, I say. Don’t go overboard.

  Hey, he says. I did all your stupid chores this morning already. I think I’m being pretty nice considering how grouchy you are.

  I shrug. I guess, I say. Thanks for doing them.

  No problem, he says. You’ve done mine before.

  I know, I say. I’m sorry. I’ve just got these dumb cramps.

  Oh, he says. That sucks.

  Yeah, I say. Totally.

  We both look up when a car pulls slowly up the long driveway. Yellow VW. It’s Gigi.

  Your girlfriend’s here, I say. To brighten all of our days.

  Oh, he says. For a second, he doesn’t look very happy. His jaw works a bit, like he’s chewing on something invisible.

  Bear! I shout.

  He laughs. Okay, he says. Okay. But lay off Gigi, okay?

  Gigi gets out of her car and tiptoes over the rutted mud like it might break. She’s wearing sandals with heels. Low heels, but still heels. Honestly, she’s so vapid. I don’t know what he sees in her. Who wears heels to a cross-country event? It’s in the forest! The start will be a mud pit! She’s crazy. They’ll get even more wrecked than they already are. Besides, she’s walking like they’re killing her feet. And they aren’t even nice. They have dots on them that make them look like they belong on a cartoon mouse. Or maybe that’s raindrops, ruining the suede.

  Hey, he says.

  I study him for thoughts but his reaction is pretty blank. I guess I’m secretly hoping to see something dark, something that suggests he isn’t happy to see her; that he wants to dump her. She’s just like ... I don’t know. Kind of a
blank form, like a mannequin. An evil mannequin, at that. Like one that comes alive at night and does ... something horrible. I don’t know. Slaughters teenagers or something.

  I see a kind of white noise, like static humming around Axel. His ambivalence is more depressing than anything. Honestly, he’s so stodgy. He’s so ... stuck. Like he’ll stay with her forever because there’s no reason not to or something. Like he doesn’t expect to feel something more. Like his expectations are so low, they barely exist.

  Hey, I say to Gigi as she gets closer. She’s so ridiculous. She’s practically panting at the sight of Axel.

  Nice to see you, she says bitchily, though Axel doesn’t pick up on it at all. She smiles at me with her pointy little teeth.

  Nice to see you, too, I say, copying her stupid fake British accent. I can’t help it. When people have accents, I automatically mimic them. Her accent doesn’t even make sense — I happen to know that she was born here.

  Axel’s barely paying attention to her anyway, which is maybe a good thing. Maybe she’ll just get sick of him and be on her way. He’s worrying about the lie, worrying that the lie will become true as some kind of punishment. (Worry is always a yellowish colour. It’s like mucus in the air.) Well, he should be worried.

  Cake whinnies and kicks in the trailer and Gigi jumps. She’s so twitchy.

  We should get going, I say. Let’s get Maman.

  Wait here, Axel says to Gigi. We’ll be back.

  Sure, says Gigi. Like there’s nothing she’d rather do in the whole world than stand in the mud in her dumb dotty sandals and wait for us.

  I didn’t know she was coming, I say to Axel as we head toward the house to get Maman and load her and her stuff into the car.

  Yeah, well, I don’t tell you everything, he says.

  You don’t have to, I think, but I don’t say it. I know, I say instead. I just don’t know why she’d want to.

  He shrugs. She wants to take pictures, he says. She’s a really great photographer.

  She is? I ask incredulously. She doesn’t even have a camera with her!

  Yeah, he says. She wants to watch first to get the feel for it or something. Then next time ...