Free Borrowed Horses by Sian Griffiths Page B

would regret drinking these glasses of Budweiser—but not the margaritas, never the margaritas.
    I didn’t ask how Dave came to work for the man who so hated him—that story seemed to tell itself—and no one asked Dave if everyone was really as happy as Jenny claimed. I wondered if their marriage was an act of nineteen-year-old rebellion or a way for Dave to prove himself, to prove her daddy wrong at all costs. Or maybe Jenny was more powerful than I’d credited her, able to construct her own happiness.
    When I was four, I had my own moment of animal cruelty. We had a cat, a stray my mother had fed. We named him Rumpelstiltskin, but we called him Rump because, as my father always said, he was a pain in the rump, pissing and scratching and spraying. I decided one day that he needed a collar, something to show he was owned and loved. We’d never kept cats, though, and the puppy collars in the drawer were too big. I found instead a thin blue rubber band, slid it over his head, and forgot about it. A week later, Rump’s neck started oozing, the stinking green and blood-streaked goo of a festering wound. The vet washed her way through the pus-matted fur to find the band. It wasn’t until I saw it that I realized it was my fault, that I had almost killed Rump. Even then I didn’t understand; it had slid on so easily, so slender and stretchy, so innocuous. My mother and the vet were outraged, blaming the rubber band on the cruelty of local teenagers hopped up on AC/DC and God knew what else. I sat silent, turning over this new reality in my head: I had very nearly killed.
    It wasn’t regret exactly. Rump recovered and, over the years, fully paid me back for that rubber band with a series of dead birds on my pillow. I woke, over and over, to staring rubbery black eyes, stray feathers, and open yellow beaks. My arms were covered with parallel tracks of slender scabs written in claw, and at seven, I got cat scratch fever, making my armpits so sore I could not lift my arms. Infection for infection, quid pro quo.
    Dawn turned to Russ. “Your turn.”
    “Mine’s easy,” he said with the broad, class-clown grin so typical of him. “I regret not nailing Brittany Anderson back in high school.”
    The table erupted with shocked laughter except for Dawn who scowled. Everyone was starting to feel further away, even Dave, whom I could look at now through the visor of margarita armor. Jenny said, “If my cursing my dad doesn’t count, than that one doesn’t either.”
    “Clearly, you never saw the rack on Brittany Anderson.” Russ held his hands in front of his chest, pantomiming copious handfuls. “Back me up on this, Joan.”
    Russ had also gone to Moscow High, but he was two years ahead. For me, Brittany was little more than a blurred memory of black hair, dark eyes, and pouting, frosted lips, but the memory of her impact on the guys at school remained, even through alcohol’s fog. “She was pretty hot,” I said.
    “Pretty hot?” Russ rolled his eyes. “That girl was totally amazing.” He leaned across the table toward Dave and lowered his voice slightly, as if giving him a hot stock tip. “She was supposed to be totally easy, too.”
    “Hot, yes,” I said, “but honestly, when did you ever have a shot?”
    Now it was Dawn’s turn to laugh. “You better cough up a real regret.”
    “O.K., O.K.” Russ shot a pseudo-glare my way, then paused and grew somber. “I don’t regret Brittany Anderson, but I do regret Melanie Richards.”
    “Another hottie?” The word sounded funny coming from Jenny, but no one took notice.
    “No,” Russ’s voice was lower now. “No, no one ever called Melanie Richards hot. They called her many things, but never hot. We teased her relentlessly. Actually, teased is too weak a word. We tormented her.” His eyes pierced the fog, “You remember Rhonda, don’t you, Joannie?”
    I shrugged helplessly. “Doesn’t ring any bells.”
    Russ sighed. “I guess not a lot of folks