Suspended - Part IV
“Suspended” is a fictional story about a New York family — husband, wife and college-aged son — who’ve become disconnected from one another and lost their sense of purpose until a beautiful young woman who claims she’s a hands-on-healer enters their lives and shakes everything up.
THIS IS PART 4 of a FIFTEEN-PART STORY
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15
Image: Joel Muniz
Marcia always took her poodle, Pierre, to the barn with her. There'd been complaints. Pierre was shrill and manic and scared some of the horses, darting suddenly into the arena, but Marcia ignored the problem. If things got really bad, she locked Pierre into her horse's stall, not caring that his yapping became intolerable. The other riders detested her, but Marcia didn't care about that either. "If I want to bring my dog, I'll bring my dog," she told one of them. "You bring your husband who's got that horrible Brooklyn accent and I never say anything.”
Today she arrived an hour ahead of time for her bi-weekly lesson, legs thick and sturdy in denim cut-offs. When she was ready to ride, she'd squeeze herself into a pair of tight-fitting black leather chaps. A woman in tall boots was murmuring to a big glossy chestnut cross-tied in the aisle. The chestnut snorted and laid back its ears when it saw Pierre. “Shhh, shhh, it’s okay,” the woman crooned, stroking the chestnut’s arched neck. Her name was Alice Walters and she was Marcia's age, fifty-five, but looked ten years younger with her muscled arms and ballet body. “Better put your dog away,” she snapped.
“He’s not bothering anyone,” Marcia replied coolly.
“Jester doesn’t like him.”
“Too bad for Jester,” Marcia said, irked because Alice never troubled to lock up her own dog, an Airedale that picked fights with Pierre and peed all over the hay.
The chestnut pawed the ground. Alice quieted him and lifted a jumping saddle to his back. Marcia led her own horse, a placid gelding named Herbie, out of his stall and attached him to a cross-tie. She began to pick out his feet. After the first hoof, she was dripping sweat.
Alice slipped a helmet over her blond hair, which was knotted prettily at the nape of her neck. “You take an awful lot of lessons, but all you ever do is trot,” she said.
“Yeah, so?”
“I’ve never seen you canter.”
Marcia dropped Herbie’s hoof with a thud. She wiped her hands off on her cut-offs. “I like trotting,” she said.
Alice’s horse started to prance in place. With a practiced movement, she grabbed his head, drew it to her chest and slipped the bit in his mouth. “Seems like a colossal waste of money to me.”
Cover Image: Kenny Webster