The Horsewoman(20)

“Is that why you wanted us to have dinner tonight?” I said. “To make sure I understand all this? Because if that’s what you were looking for, mission accomplished. I get it.”

He hesitated then. I studied his face now the way he always seemed to be studying mine, and felt he was trying to make up his mind about something.

“No,” he said finally. “There is more.”

“Please don’t give me any more bad news,” I said. “Not sure I can handle any tonight, especially if we might be looking at more in the morning with Coronado.”

Neither one of us had eaten much. He’d only finished half his beer. I watched him now as he pushed tortilla chips around his plate, as if buying himself some time.

“Don’t make me order you a margarita to get you to talk,” I said. “What are you not telling me?”

“That neither one of us might make it to the Olympics with this horse, even if we find that his leg is sound,” Daniel said.

“What does that even mean?” I said.

“That I am afraid I might get deported before we ever get near Paris,” he said.





TWENTY

Daniel



FROM THE TIME they had arrived at the restaurant, every time he felt the words starting to form, he pulled them back. But then he had been doing that for weeks.

Becky had asked him once if he liked talking about anything other than horses and he had said, “What else is there?”

So much else.

There was so much about himself he kept from everyone, including those with whom he worked most closely, and cared about the most. Becky was the one to whom he felt closest of all even as he tried to hide that from her.

But Daniel had finally decided to share something with her he had not even shared with his parents, both of whom were back in Mexico now, working for the rich owner of the Hipódromo de las Américas, the thoroughbred track in Mexico City. Every time he spoke with them by phone, they made sure to tell him that whenever he wanted it there was a job waiting for him as a trainer.

“Ven aqui antes de que venga por ti alli,” his father had said just a couple of days before.

Come here before they come for you there.

“They are not coming for me,” Daniel had said.

“Liar,” his father had said.

He had not been lying to Becky, except perhaps through omission. But he had still decided to tell her the truth.

“Tell me everything,” she said now at La Fogata.

“Not here,” he said. “We need to talk in private.”

“Then let’s get the hell out of Dodge,” she said. “And right now.”

He called for the check, determined to beat Becky to it for once. When the waiter came with it, Becky tried to take it out of his hand, but Daniel was quicker and paid in cash.

Daniel gave the Uber driver the address of the small ranch house Mrs. Atwood had rented for him on Pierson Road, a short walk from the horse show. But as they were approaching the entrance, Daniel suddenly told the driver to stop.

“We can have all the privacy we want right here,” he said.

“You didn’t want to talk at the restaurant, or in front of the driver,” Becky said to him as they walked up the hill toward the main entrance. “I’ve waited long enough.”

He took in a deep breath and let it out. “I like to come here at night sometimes, walk the place like it’s a small, empty city.”

They passed the place called Hunter Island, where the youngest riders competed on lower jumps, judged for style and not speed, the grace of the horses sometimes more important than the skill of the riders.

“I believe they are watching me,” Daniel said now. “Me and all the other undocumenteds who work at this show.”

“Define ‘they,’” Becky said.

“The federales,” he said.

“They sound like bad guys in a movie,” she said.

“They are much worse,” he said, “and not just putting people in danger here, but at Deeridge, and at Global right across the street.”

Global was the annual dressage festival, an event that Daniel had always classified as horse dancing. Daniel had always preferred show jumping. Nothing was subjective. Clock and course. Get around fast, no rails down. He wished the world were as simple and as clear cut.

“I’m an idiot,” Becky said now, “but I thought Dreamers like you were safe.”

“So did we, once,” Daniel said. “But now it is as if the government keeps making up the laws as it goes along. And even though I have spent most of my life in America, I am still as undocumented as my parents were when they came here. We have to renew our DACA status every couple years, and mine is due. I just have to find the time.”

Becky had told him once that she had studied the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, known as DACA, in her political science class, and knew the bare bones of it, that it was intended to provide protections to people in the United States without immigration status, children brought to the country when they were young by undocumented immigrant parents.

“Gotta admit,” Becky said, “I don’t think I could pass a test on the policy now.”

“I’m not sure the politicians fighting about Dreamers could pass one, either,” Daniel said.