The Horsewoman(23)

My class was scheduled to start at one o’clock. I had been awake since five in the morning, the hour I’d sometimes get in after a party night. Now I was wide awake. Tried to go back to sleep. Couldn’t. Daniel and I would head over to the show about eleven and since I was going thirtieth in the order, I wouldn’t be in the International Ring with Coronado until after two.

He was probably still sleeping.

My brain was running hot.

Trying to step lightly so as not to wake Mom or Grandmother, I got out of bed, walked to the window that looked down at the barn. The wall was hung on both sides with ribbons I’d won on Sky, a handful of times beating out Mom and some of the other top riders.

I’d trade every single ribbon on this wall, I thought, to win just one today.

What had Mom always said?

One chance to make a good first impression.

I snuck downstairs now and made myself my first cup of coffee, brought it back upstairs. Waited for the sun to come up.

I knew when it finally did the day would move like that television commercial. Life would come at me fast.

Just not yet.

I looked at the clock on the nightstand.

Still just five fifteen.

Only my heart was going fast. Running as hot as my brain. How was I going to handle these feelings when they maxed out in the ring? When it was showtime?

Get a grip, bitch.

Yeah, right.

I put on jeans and a T-shirt, went downstairs, fixed myself another cup of coffee, silently let myself out the back door. I walked down the hill to the barn, only to be near the horses. Let them sleep, even if I couldn’t.

I stood at the fence near the in-gate, placed my cup on top of one of the posts, and thought back to when I was six years old, getting up on Frenchy for my first ride around the ring. Loved my first pony then the way I loved Sky now.

I’d only walked Frenchy before that day.

But that day I was going to ride her. Really ride her. Mom hadn’t thought I was ready. Grandmother had insisted that I was. I’d screwed up my six-year-old courage and got around on jumps as low as Grandmother and Mom could make them.

I had been as scared then as I was now.

You’re not a little girl anymore.

I stayed long enough down at the barn to watch the sunrise. Then I walked back up to the house. Longest morning of my life still stretching out ahead of me.





TWENTY-THREE



DANIEL AND I were walking the course with the rest of the riders and trainers, pacing off the distances between jumps.

Half hour until the round started. It felt by now as if I’d been awake for about a month.

“Well,” I said, “this shit is about to get real.”

He grinned.

“Were you always this much of a poet?” he said.

“Goddamn right,” I said.

“Relax,” he said.

“I am relaxed.”

“You are about as good a liar as you are a poet,” Daniel said.

We reached the middle of the course then, staring down the double combination before the last jump. What Daniel called the main event. Six strides leading into the first jump, then room enough for just one stride before the second one. In that moment flying and landing in a small space, then flying again. After that it was something right out of the movies. Fast and furious to the finish.

I knew I didn’t need to win today. But I couldn’t look like a total loser, either. I wanted to get around clean and pick up some points on what was known as the Average Ranking List, which was about results, but consistency, too. By the time summer rolled around, the top three American riders on that list would be chosen to represent the US in Paris.

Fifty horses entered, almost all of the top riders, men and women, riders as old as sixty and as young as sixteen. I really did love this distinctive quality that separated our sport from all others. Men against women. Teenagers against grandparents. All that mattered was being good enough, having enough horse underneath you.

I, along with all the other riders, was using this event as a warm-up for the Grand Prix happening in two weeks, in this same big-ass arena.

Matthew Killeen, number one in Ireland, just ahead of his best friend, Eric Glynn, was walking with his trainer about two jumps ahead of us. He wasn’t just a great rider. He was a good guy. At one point he’d turned around and yelled at me, “Slow down, McCabe, you’re already making me nervous.”

I’d grinned and given him the finger.

“Always the lady,” he said.

“My way of saying you’re number one, Killeen,” I yelled back.

Matthew was good-looking, too, if a little old for me at thirty-five. It hadn’t stopped me from having a major teenage crush on him when he’d started competing more regularly at WEF.

Behind us was Tyler Cullen, always near the top of the American rankings, but currently number two behind Tess McGill, whose father was lead singer for the rock group Snap. I’d waved at Tyler when I’d first gotten on the course. He ignored me, even though I knew he’d seen me. Daniel saw what I saw, and just shook his head.

“If Mr. Steve Gorton were a rider,” Daniel had said to me, “he’d be Tyler Cullen.”

“Oh, hell, no,” I said. “Even Gorton isn’t that much of a prick.”

When we finished the course, we stopped briefly at the in-gate, where we made out like high school kids. Amazing how sometimes everything could still feel like high school. Daniel hadn’t mentioned the kiss since that night. I hadn’t, either. Maybe next week I could pass him a note after chem class.