On Saturday Mom dropped me off at Sam’s house so that I could help her practice for the horse show. Sam climbed onto Penny’s back, and I handed her a hard-boiled egg and a spoon. Once Sam started riding around the ring, I climbed to the top fence rail and sat down to watch. “Reverse direction and trot,” I called.
Sam and Penny did as I instructed. “Lope,” I yelled. They picked up speed. “And stop.” The egg rolled off the spoon and plopped into the dirt.
Sam reined Penny in beside me. “How long?”
“Five minutes.”
Sam shook her head. “Not good enough. I need to double that time if I’m gonna win.”
I handed Sam another egg from the bucket, and she tried again. About an hour later, Sam led Penny over to me. “Want to ride her?”
“You mean right now?”
Sam nodded.
I jumped down from the fence and took a deep breath. “She looks so big.”
“Nothing to be afraid of,” Sam said.
Penny stood swatting flies with her tail while I listened to Sam’s instructions. I placed the reins in my left hand and turned the stirrup toward me with my right one. I’d watched Sam a bunch of times, so I knew exactly what to do. The problem was getting my nerve up. I counted to myself, One, two, three, then stepped into the stirrup and swung my right leg over Penny’s back.
“Good job,” Sam said. “Remember how to use the reins to show Penny where you want her to go?”
“Yeah, I remember.” My voice sounded scratchy.
“Ribbit, ribbit,” Sam said.
I turned Penny to the right, and she walked around the ring. Even with a cool breeze, my palms were sweaty, and my underarms too. I tugged on the reins and reversed direction. Using my legs, I applied a little more pressure and lightly tapped Penny’s belly with my heels. She went from a walk to a trot. My bottom bounced in the saddle.
Sam walked around the middle of the riding ring offering suggestions. “A little easier on the reins. You don’t want to make her mouth sore. Not too fast, Allie. It’s your first time.”
Someday I wanted to leave the ring behind and gallop Penny across the pasture. It would be like flying. I just knew it.
When Sam called for a lunch break, I rode Penny toward the barn. Sam helped me unsaddle her and brush her coat. “I’m proud of you, Allie. You were great out there.”
I was changing in all sorts of ways. The girl who had moved to North Carolina six weeks earlier would have never climbed on a horse’s back. That girl would have been too afraid. I felt like Wonder Woman’s kid sister!
I leaned against the fence while Sam turned Penny out to pasture. I watched while she closed the gate and walked toward me. Somehow in that moment I understood why I was jealous of Phoebe and irritated by poor Webb. I knew why I raced to answer the phone, and why I could hardly wait to see Sam each day. I liked her. I had a crush on her. It was, to borrow a word from Webb … stupendous!
“Why do you look so serious?” Sam asked.
I reached in my pocket and handed her the gold yarn friendship bracelet. “I made it out of school colors for you. Phoebe showed me how.”
Sam slipped it onto her wrist. “See? A perfect fit.”
I reached out and touched her arm just above the bracelet. “Do you like Phoebe more than me?”
“I like all my friends.”
But that wasn’t what I was asking.
Sam turned and stared directly into my eyes. “I don’t like anybody as much as you.”
My heart hammered so hard I could barely breathe.
Sam took my hand and put it over her heart. Hers was beating just as fast as mine.
The sky outside the barn door seemed bluer than blue. My hands were tingling, and I wanted to hug her, but I was afraid to.
“I’ve always liked girls,” Sam said. “I’ve known since second grade when I had a crush on Kelly Hutton.”
I had never had a crush on another girl, or on a boy either, but I’d always felt different. I just hadn’t known why.
Sam squeezed my hand, and her palm felt rougher than mine from farm chores and handling a basketball. “This has to be a secret,” she said. “Nobody would understand.”
My eyes filled like puddles in a rainstorm. The other kids would think we were freaks.
Sam reached up and brushed a tear from my cheek. “Don’t cry, Allie.”
“I don’t care what the other kids think.”
“Yeah you do,” Sam said, “and I do too, but the biggest problem is my mom. She’d put us on the prayer list at One True Way and start quoting scripture.”
“You think she’d actually embarrass us like that?”
Sam nodded.
“I don’t think my parents would mind. My dad has a brother who’s gay, and Mom is friends with Coach and Miss Holt.”
“Maybe you’re right, Allie, but my mom would try and keep us apart.”
I leaned in closer to Sam so that our shoulders touched. I didn’t believe like the people at One True Way, but I wondered what my own church had to say about kids like us. I needed to find out.
Sam and I had lunch in the kitchen. Over bowls of her mom’s homemade chicken noodle soup, we snuck glances at each other. We smiled shy, sweet smiles, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what other people would say if they knew.
When Mom came to pick me up, Mrs. Johnson invited her to stay for lunch. They had a friendly argument, with Mom insisting she couldn’t impose, and Mrs. Johnson assuring her it would be a pleasure. Finally, the smell of homemade chicken soup was more than Mom could resist.
She sat down beside me and said, “I have a surprise for you girls. Murph and Franny have invited us to dinner tonight.”
Mrs. Johnson clanged the metal soup pot with her ladle. “Didn’t mean to make such a racket, but the girls shouldn’t be spending time around women who live in sin. It’s like that Anita Bryant says, ‘Homosexuals cannot reproduce, so they must recruit.’ ”
Mom picked up her napkin and wiped her mouth a lot longer than necessary. “Franny and Murph would never behave in that manner. I’m going to be there, and Reverend Walker too. Surely you don’t object to the girls enjoying a meal with neighbors.”
Mrs. Johnson’s lips puckered like a prune. “Samantha has to be up early for church. Maybe Allie should spend the night here and attend One True Way in the morning. A good sermon would help them more than anything.”
“That’s up to Allie,” Mom said.
My eyes were drawn to Sam’s like a magnet. Her jaw was clenched. I couldn’t leave her alone with Mrs. Johnson—at least not today. “I want to stay here, Mom. Apologize to Murph and Miss Holt for me.”
As soon as we finished our soup, Sam and I escaped to her bedroom. She paced around the room shaking her fist. “I told you. I told you how Mom is.”
“She’s wrong.”
“How do you know?” Sam asked. She opened one of her dresser drawers and pulled out a Bible. “Have you ever read Leviticus 18:22 or Romans 1:26?”
It took me a couple of minutes to find the book of Leviticus. It said people like Sam and me were abominations. That means hateful and disgusting. Sam was the opposite of that. She liked everybody. She was kinder to her horse than most people were to each other. She gave piggyback rides to her brother, and every week she went to see a little girl dying of cancer. I closed the Bible. “I don’t understand.”
Sam’s hands were still clenched. “Me either. When I was ten, I told our youth director how I felt about other girls. She said if I wanted to be saved and see the kingdom of heaven, I’d have to change.”
“She meant well.” That sounded like something my mom would say, but it was probably true.
“Whatever she meant, it didn’t help.”
I found out when Eric died that sometimes people say stupid things, like the people who say everything happens for a reason. I mean, c’mon, what good reason could God have for the death of a kid? “If Melissa would let me borrow her bike, we could ride into town and talk to Reverend Walker. She’d understand.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Sam said.
But she followed me anyway.