Show Barn Blues Read online

  I struggled for words. Was I defending something I didn’t believe anymore? I didn’t know. I needed time to think. In the meantime, though, Anna was glaring at me and I was on the hot-seat. “But that’s not the whole truth. You’ve seen what’s happened. We’ve had dangerous falls, we’ve had runaways, we’ve had the ambulance out here —”

  “You’re saying that they couldn’t learn?”

  “I’m saying it’s not the right use of their time.” I felt like I had said this a hundred times before, and somehow it kept falling on deaf ears.

  “I know that’s what you think,” Anna said. “But have you asked them about this?”

  I picked up Ivor’s reins again and started to lead him down the aisle, feeling weary to the core. This had been a mistake. Maybe, in another life, without a barn full of other people at all hours, I could have just made a random decision to take my horse out for a pleasure ride without getting into an argument or getting the third degree from someone who clearly just couldn’t mind their own business. No, that wasn’t my life. My life was the professional life, training horses and teaching students, and nothing about it was private. Nothing in the barn, anyway. “Anna, I’m not having this discussion,” I said simply, without bothering to turn my head and see her reaction.

  I heard her steps going back up the creaky stairs to her apartment above the tack room; I heard her door open and close gently. Anna would never slam a door, lest she spook a horse. I led Ivor into the wash-stall, slipped his bridle from his head and gave him a good shower, trying to pretend everything was as it had been when I was a kid, and a trail ride on your horse and a shower afterwards was nothing but another day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Instead of taking my own stern counsel, I simply went back to riding late at night, sneaking out under the cover of darkness, because of course that’s what all above-board barn owners do. I took out Ivor, I took out Bailey, I even took out Hope a few times, just to let him stretch his legs, although he was a spooky devil and really too silly to be ridden out alone. I considered asking Kennedy to come out with me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone else to know about my clandestine trail rides. Anna had kept her mouth shut, and I had rewarded her richly: extra riding lessons and riding time. Time she might previously have spent knocking down cobwebs in the stalls or polishing brass buckles on little-used show bridles, she spent working on jumping grids and dressage. It was all the bribery a horse-crazy girl needed.

  Our trail rides weren’t really about training anymore — Ivor had settled down, and so had Bailey, and while they both clearly enjoyed being allowed to move out on the sands without a fence telling them where to turn next, it seemed they’d gotten the worst case of the sillies out of their systems. I supposed the never-ending grind of it all had just gotten to them, the way it got to all of us from time to time, and once they’d had a taste of the freedom out there on the trails, they had wanted more. Now it was no longer a novelty, now it was just another ride. An easier, more fun ride, perhaps, but still — it was no laying sprawled out in the sunshine, fast asleep, or munching on a fresh flake of alfalfa in the tranquility of one’s own stall.

  Horses were easily lulled back into routines, and easily bored by them.

  I was the problem. It was me who couldn’t get enough of the total solitude and freedom out in the wilderness. My life was spent surrounded by a peanut gallery, gossiping and begging favors and complaining, from the arenas to the barn. Employees, students, boarders, horse-shoppers — there were always people around, and no one gets into the horse business because of how much they enjoy people. Granted, I had better people skills than the average trainer, to which I could attribute much of my success. For example, I never went into screaming fits of rage at horse shows when students didn’t follow my explicit instructions — behavior which was much more common than non-equestrians might believe.

  Still, I certainly wasn’t on par with, say, a society party hostess, or a motivational speaker, when it came to building people up and making them feel special. I wanted to feel special, and I got that feeling from riding. Students were just there to pay my bills along the way.

  Or rather, they had been, back in the mists of time when I had started this whole crazy game. Somewhere along the way, the training and the teaching and the coaching had come to be the paramount factors in life.

  The moonlit gallops reminded me of why I’d started riding in the first place. Or, if not why — there was no real explanation for why a young girl thought of nothing but horses, morning, noon, and night — then of how. Of sneaking away from the barn when my riding instructor was away at shows. Of riding my bike to the stable on moonlit nights just like these past few we’d had, clear skies and a brilliant moon gleaming down on shimmering white-sand roads, the palmettos casting jagged black shadows I avoided with giggling superstition. Sailor’s pricked ears, miniature versions of Ivor’s, gleaming in the night. Too expensive to be a toy, worth too much to take out on the trails, never meant for fun — Sailor was the pony equivalent of a collectible car, promising fun and power and excitement without boundaries, if only it wouldn’t spoil the resale value to take him out and really feel it.

  But tell a headstrong little girl she can’t take her pony for a gallop, and you’ll find a junior jockey in training, sneaking around the barn with the stealthy skill of a cat burglar.

  The moonlight and the white ears — that was what was going to be my undoing, I thought. I was sitting in my office on a windy afternoon, looking through show forms. It was the Thursday after Thanksgiving, another show this weekend, the prospect of moving horses to the Ocala show-grounds for weeks at a time on the horizon. I was aching for a ride with all the twitchiness of an addict, but the moon was waning, and there were clouds on the northwestern horizon, threatening rain.

  “And so much the better,” I said to the empty office. “We need rain, and I need to stop this crazy habit.” I looked at the bookshelf, where the little framed picture of Sailor wobbled gently. The wind was slamming against the barn walls, and the second-floor office was rattling like a ship on rough seas.

  I got up and adjusted the picture so it was more secure, leaning against the equitation manuals behind it, and Sailor’s bright eyes glittered at me from the faded picture. The way he had jumped… I ran my fingers over the smudged glass, at his perfect knees, tight and close to his chin, which was set in tense concentration. He had loved to jump as much as I had, and he had done it with far more style. I barely glanced at myself, my garters-and-pigtails self, with my hands too high and my back too arched and my toes turned too far out. It had always been Sailor winning those ribbons.

  Which was why I’d turned out to be a jumper rider, anyway. I smiled and turned away, leaving him leaping there as he had done ever since I’d moved my things into this office, my little shaman pony, overseeing everything I did.

  Right or wrong.

  I went back to my show entries, making a schedule for each day, assigning grooms to horses, marking out what ring I needed to be in, and when, for each rider’s warm-up and classes. I thought about drumming hooves on packed sand. I sighed.

  The door rattled and Kennedy came bursting in, full of all that life and energy I barely knew how to deal with most days. Quitting her office job had been like a tonic — now her face was bright and animated and her limbs seemed to fly around the room in a permanent Muppet flail. I found her equal parts exhilarating and exhausting. “Hi Kennedy.” I put down my pen. “What news from the pony front?”

  “Only good news, only awesome news,” she trilled, flinging herself into the extra chair so hard that it rocked on its back legs.

  “Please be careful,” I suggested in a motherly tone. “That chair was very, very cheap.”

  “I rode all three of them,” Kennedy continued in the same exuberant tone. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, as if to try and contain some of her energy, but it was flying around the room anyway, irritating me. Outside, the rushing wind smacked int
o the wall and the joists creaked in response. “In the round pen? All three, one after another. Bing bang boom. They’re super-easy. Magic, the oldest one, he’s the toughest obviously. Bucked a couple of times. I gave him a couple whacks and settled him right down. Wonder, she’s a piece of cake. I think all Wonder wants is a little girl to kiss her on the nose every night. She’s like a unicorn in disguise.”

  I could barely respond with all the glitter and rainbows in the room. “And Dream? By the way, I hate these ponies’ names.”

  “They’re perfect pony names! What little girl wouldn’t want a pony named Magic, or Dream, or Wonder? These Kinsale people were geniuses.”

  “Geniuses who couldn’t stay in business long enough to get their ponies broke.”

  “It happens.” Kennedy sat back and slapped her thigh as if she’d just remembered what we were talking about. “I think Dream is broke already. I even free-jumped her and she has knees up to here.” A hand, hovering near her nose, to illustrate Dream’s jumping prowess. “Pony jumpers much? She turns on a dime, too.”

  I rolled my neck on my shoulders. Pony jumpers, that was a whole other thing we hadn’t even talked about. “Teach her to be a hunter first. It’s quicker and it’s where our first students will be aiming, anyway.”

  “Will do.” Kennedy nodded sharply, like a private taking orders. “I have a lesson in about an hour and I think it’s going to rain later, so I’m going to ride out on Sailor real quick. You wanna come?”

  I bit my lip, just for a moment. “On the trails?”

  “Yeah.” Kennedy grinned. “Come on. Bring that big silly stallion of yours, I bet he’d love it.”

  I thought about it. I thought about the cool wind roaring through the pine trees, and the exciting rumbles of thunder as the storm slowly approached. I thought about the fresh air in our faces and the excitement in our fresh horses, dancing down the path as the sky above turned black. I thought about the gallop back to the barn, shrieking with laughter as we dodged the raindrops and tried to beat the first bolts of lightning. It all reminded me of being a kid again, of wild days in a wild Florida I thought had disappeared.

  Then I thought it probably really had disappeared, and anyway what that would look like? We couldn’t go galloping off into the woods as a storm front rolled in. The most irresponsible people at the barn were the ones in charge, that’s what the boarders would mutter. Besides… I looked at the mound of papers on my desk. “I don’t really have time. Plus, it’s definitely going to storm sooner rather than later. I can’t go. And I’d rather you didn’t go out in the woods with the weather like this.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. I bet it doesn’t rain before midnight.”

  “Trust me on this one. I’ve lived here a long, long time.”

  “You just don’t want me on the trails.” Kennedy’s chin jutted out. I was reminded of the way we’d butted heads just a few weeks ago, when she’d first come to the farm.

  “You’re right,” I said lightly. “I don’t want you on the trails, getting hurt, when we have a new business venture and I need you sound, whole, and healthy to make it happen. I especially don’t want you on trails with a cold front pushing in. Anything could happen — a tree branch could snap and hit you, or spook your horse—”

  “Are you always such a worrier?”

  I considered this. On the one hand, I was engaging in insanely dangerous rides several nights a week. On the other… “Most of the time,” I answered finally. “About other people and their horses? Yes, definitely.”

  Kennedy slouched in her chair, excess positive energy gone. “Why don’t you just come out with me and see? We could make it quick. You’ll get a break from all this paperwork. And if Sailor spooks at a flying tree branch, you can rescue me. See? We both win.”

  I went over to the door and peeked out. The dark clouds were definitely closer. “No way. No one goes on a trail ride. I’m calling the trails off-limits today.”

  “Off-limits!” I heard the chair squeak as Kennedy jumped up. Her voice was fierce. “You’re forbidding me? Come on, Grace. Maybe you don’t want to go but you can’t tell me I’m not allowed. I’m not a child. I’m not even one of your rich students that you have to baby all the time.”

  I turned around and fixed her with a disapproving frown. Oh no you don’t! “First, how dare you refer to my students that way? Completely inappropriate, coming from an employee of this facility. Second, I absolutely can tell you you’re not allowed to use the trail. The facilities of this stable are used at my discretion. Because, in case you forgot… they’re mine.”

  Kennedy glared right back at me, but I had her. I rarely put down my foot quite like this, but if she seriously thought she was going to go out there, in front of boarders, and take her horse out into the woods with a storm coming on, she had another think coming. She had to set an example now. She was an instructor, an employee, a person whose lead boarders and students were going to follow. “You have to weigh everything you do by the influence you have on other, less experienced people, Kennedy,” I said in a gentler tone. “And going into the woods with the winds howling and dark clouds rolling in is not a message of safety and common sense. It’s a message of risk and self-indulgence. That’s something you can’t do anymore.”

  Kennedy sat back down, looking deflated. “What else can’t I do, now that I’m influencing the little people?”

  “Anything that could be remotely dangerous. Leading a horse without a lead-rope. Riding without a hard hat. Walking around the barn in flip flops. The kind of thing you might do without thinking, because you know the risks and know it’s pretty unlikely you’ll get hurt, but that a boarder could see and think was safe for them to do, despite having less experience.” We all had to give this stuff up at some point. The short-cuts, like leading two or three horses out to a paddock at once — when you had impressionable clients, you had to do everything the long, hard, Pony Club-approved way.

  Or else do it your way under the cover of darkness, once everyone had gone home for the night.

  “So that’s it,” Kennedy said morosely. “I’m a professional again, and all of a sudden, all the fun is sucked out of life.”

  I threw her a sarcastic grin. “That’s it, I’m afraid. You’ll learn to live with it.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “There’s always your old cubicle!”

  Kennedy grinned suddenly, then hopped up and headed for the door. “You know, a nice quiet ride in the covered arena sounds like just the ticket right now.”

  “Good girl,” I said. “Don’t forget your hard hat.”

  I settled back down to my paperwork, fingers itching to wrap around a pair of reins instead of pen and paper. The wild winds of the storm would have to blow through some other horse’s mane. This was professional life, all right.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  December went rushing by in a series of horse shows and cold fronts. There were hot days, heavy storms, and a few icy-cold days, then the cycle started all over again. Each Friday we loaded the trailer, drove to some far-flung corner of the peninsula, and set up shop in our temporary stabling, living out of tack trunks and the trailer dressing room, driving miles and miles each morning and night from Hampton Inns and Best Westerns along the interstates. Once, the horses got actual wooden barns, but mostly they stayed in white tents with collapsible stalls, the bars between each one allowing for plenty of stall-to-stall communication. In these cases I had to rent extra stalls to keep Ivor from getting too close to any mares, or perhaps geldings who had puffed-up ideas about themselves. Having a stallion as a show horse led to all sorts of additional expenses.

  I thought the extra precautions would be worth it in the end. He was jumping absolutely brilliantly this fall, and at the last show before the Ocala circuit began, he won a five-thousand-dollar grand prix and made me a very happy woman.

  The Winter Equestrian Festival was looking more and more lucrative with every weekend that passed. Lock down a few g
rand prix placings in international competition, and Ivor would have some semen worth bottling.

  “Every woman’s dream, of course,” Kennedy laughed when I told her my big plans.

  “A freezer full of horse semen,” I agreed, laughing along, but I was still serious about every word. I sprayed water on Ivor’s legs and considered icing them down. He’d just worked hard in the covered arena, and the ground was kind of hard these days. I needed to order a load of clay, an expense I was putting off in hopes of winning another big purse next weekend. “Every straw worth a thousand dollars.”

  “That’s one nice freezer,” Kennedy chuckled. “Most people only aspire to having an extra fridge in the garage for their beer keg. You want a million-dollar freezer of sperm.”

  “Stop making fun!” I aimed the hose at her and she squealed and ducked behind the wall of the next wash-stall. “You could only wish for a freezer full of my horse’s sperm.”

  Anna walked by with a tacked horse. Douglas, the beginner horse. I froze. Kennedy popped her head up from behind the wall and her mouth dropped. Anna stopped Douglas and looked at us. “Yes,” she said. “You’re absolutely right. You do need to stop shouting about horse sperm. Your three o’clock is going to be here any minute. And she’s eight.”

  Anna walked on, the sane and sober one in the barn for once. I turned to Kennedy and burst out in horrified guffaws. She did the same thing, face red, while Ivor stood and patiently awaited the rest of his bath, apparently unaware we were discussing his value in terms of fences jumped and semen stored away in freezers.