The Horsewoman(90)

Tess McGill had just rocked everybody on the grounds by announcing that her horse, Volage, had come up lame and couldn’t go in the jump-off. No one knew the extent of the injury, at least not yet, and what that would do to her Olympic chances. But I couldn’t worry about that right now, as much as I liked Tess. There was work to be done, first with Mom, who seemed to be grimacing slightly when we left the schooling ring. I asked if she was okay.

“Fine,” she said. “Just tweaked my knee a little.”

She moved ahead of me to the in-gate. One more time I felt almost as nervous for her as I did for myself.

But just almost.

Felt as if I were holding my breath the whole time she was out there, until she’d gone clean, with a time of 36.1. Flawless round. Maggie Atwood at her very best.

My turn.

Following Mom again, trying to get ahead of her at the same time.

We got this, I told myself as Sky flew around the first half of the course.

We got this.

But just like that, after she’d cleared the water jump with ease, no small feat for a small horse, I could feel her tiring. It happened sometimes, happened to all horses. One more thing they knew and couldn’t tell us. When she started to make a wide turn going into the rollback, I had no choice but to take her outside, knowing that the time it cost us would probably make all the difference. It did.

We came in at 36.7.

One rider left. Our dear friend Tyler. With as much on the line today as anybody. If he could beat Mom’s time and win, he would jump past both of us in the Olympic rankings. I liked to joke with Gus that I’d leave the numbers to him. The fact was, I knew all the numbers, down to decimal points, even knowing that sometimes the numbers weren’t the only determining factor with the ones on the Selection Committee, that they’d also apply an eye test in the run-up to the Summer Games, and decide who they thought the hottest riders were near the top of the list.

It turned out to be his day, simple as that. Not Mom’s. Not mine. By the time he finished he had blown both of us away, with a time of 35 flat. First place today. First place in the rankings. Just like that.

Tyler, waving to the crowd as if he’d already won an Olympic gold medal, was first to walk out to the center of the ring for the awards ceremony, right after telling Mom and me that Steve Gorton could come down here and kiss his skinny ass in front of everybody.

Mom watched him and said, “A charm school dropout until the end.”

She followed Tyler out after the PA announcer called her name. Then I followed her one last time. She sometimes limped slightly after her rounds, because of her knee surgery. It seemed more noticeable today.

“Hey, you sure you’re okay?” I said.

“Never better,” she said over her shoulder.





ONE HUNDRED FOURTEEN



I WAS HAVING BREAKFAST with Dad at TooJays, a Wellington deli he liked because it reminded him of New York. He wanted to bring me up to speed on Daniel. It had been a week since he’d gotten arrested.

“Finally, some good news,” he said. “Later today I’m going to get the assault charge tossed.”

“Shut up!” I said. “That fast?”

“I needed help from a decent assistant DA and an even more decent judge,” he said. “But yeah.”

“This is way cool,” I said.

He held up a hand.

“But I need to explain why it’s not all the news,” he said.

“Will this explaining make my head hurt?”

“Immigration law for dummies coming right up,” he said.

“Hey.”

He took me through it as quickly as he could, reviewing how Daniel’s late DACA renewal application had started him down an immigration rabbit hole even before he threw his punch at Steve Gorton and enabled ICE to slap what Dad called a “detainer” on Daniel and throw him into custody. But now with him confident the assault rap was about to go away, they could eventually restore Daniel’s DACA status and, with a little help from some friends, get the immigration case against him dropped, and get Daniel released.

“What kind of help?” I said. “And what kind of friends?”

“Working on that,” he said. “Lots of moving pieces still.”

“How long is all that going to take?” I said.

“That’s the bad news to go along with the good news,” he said. “It can take up to six months.”

“Shit!” I said, too loudly, getting the attention of the old people at the closest tables, and maybe those in line at the cash register. “Even if you get him off, he’s still screwed in terms of making it to Paris.”

“But getting him out of that hellhole is job one,” Dad said, “and two, and three. Then the line can really get moving. And as much as you want him to get to Paris, I just want to get him back to Wellington, Florida.”

“How are you vaporizing the assault charge?” I said.

He grinned.

“I persuaded Gorton to drop it,” he said.

“You must be joking,” I said.

“I joke about a lot of things,” he said. “But not about something as important as your boyfriend.”

“Told you before,” I said. “Not my boyfriend.”

“This is me you’re talking to,” Dad said. “I see the way you look when you talk about him. He looks the same way when he talks about you. I don’t need to be a lawyer to figure that one out. Just your father.”