Free What Love Sees by Susan Vreeland

drills and formations just as they had seen at Madison Square Garden. Herr Frederich would call out commands and Jean had to memorize how many strides for each command in order to know where she was.
    On a horse, away from the security of the earth and in an open ring with no walls to bounce back sound, all sense of space and dimension vanished. On the ground her own legs and the length of her stride told her how far she had gone. Now she didn’t have that guide. She could only guess about the stride of the horse. At one point in the routine her position was on the outside of a pinwheel. She had to sense her distance to the horse next to her on the inside so she wouldn’t stray off, away from the line. Sometimes Dody had to tell her, “Move in a few feet, Jean.” Worse than that, sometimes she got confused and had to ask where she was. She had to stay alert to move in rhythm and still perceive constantly changing spatial relationships. After every practice her shoulders ached from tenseness, but that didn’t matter. The ring, even more than the classroom, was a new arena for learning. Of course, she could do it. Miss Weaver had said so.
    Though learning to ride was exciting, the closeness it brought with the other girls was far more satisfying. She sensed they thought her more self-sufficient than before so they pampered her less. It made her relax. She was aware of their move from pity to friendship but doubted if they were conscious of it.
    Jean felt even more accepted when Sally Anne showed her how to pin up her hair. One Saturday before an opera trip, Jean sat on her bed with a dish of bobby pins and a half cup of water. She was in a hurry and every curl was a battle. Sally Anne saw her struggling and deftly took over without a word. “There now, I’m finished,” she said. “But I didn’t tell you. I spit on every curl. Ran out of water.”
    At last Jean felt she wasn’t being crushed by kindness.
    The events of one night made her feel drawn into their circle permanently. Late in the evening the girls on her floor were noisier than usual. When Jean pulled back the covers and climbed into bed, her foot jabbed at a fold in the sheet and she couldn’t get in. “What’s the ma—Who short-sheeted my bed? Dody, did you?” she called out into the hallway where she heard laughter.
    “Who, me?”
    “Sally Anne, you did!” Jean lunged toward Sally Anne’s giggle.
    “Not I,” Sally Anne said innocently, turning Jean around.
    “Said the little red hen,” Elsa mimicked.
    Sally Anne gave Jean a gentle push in Elsa’s direction.
    “You did, Elsa! Then I’m just going to sleep in your bed!” Jean scrambled toward Elsa’s bed and heard a funny kazoo noise.
    “What’s that?’ Jean asked, climbing in.
    “Just some toilet paper on a comb. Try it.” Elsa handed it to her and got another. Sitting up in bed together, the two girls went through a child’s repertoire, from “Yankee Doodle” to “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”
    “We’re not kids, Elsa. We’ve got to do something more cultured. What about that “ du du ” German song?”
    “ Du, du liegst mir im Herzen ,” Elsa sang, and they started in industriously on their combs.
    Miss Weaver’s clompy shoes echoed at the base of the stairs. “Girls, lights out.”
    “But we’re playing in German,” Jean protested, eliciting giggles from the open doorways down the hall.
    “ Geht ins Bett !”
    “Yes, Miss Weaver,” Elsa said in a singsongy voice.
    “ Seid ruhig !”
    “Good night, Fraulein Weaver,” Jean chorused, placating her and generating more titters down the hall.
    Willingly she made her way over to her own bed and snickered as she wrestled to remake it. At last she was one of them, chastised in front of the group. She knew that even though the others thought she was a goody-goody, they valued her loyalty. There was an unspoken arrangement, sacred as any ancient rite. The girls on her floor wouldn’t tell LCW that she read