“Hey, Lana, what’s up?” She forced her voice to be light, but inside she was always afraid when Lana called, in case she’d done something her editor didn’t like. How quickly times had changed. It used to be that when Lana called, it meant there was going to be a free meal, and maybe some quality shopping or an invitation to a party Jenny wasn’t cool enough to get into on her own. Jenny briefly remembered parties, the anxiety at the door, the simple pleasure of being Lana’s sidekick, the champagne in paper cups. She looked into her coffee mug and found it empty.
“Hey! Bad news, I can’t come up this weekend.” Lana’s voice was breathless, as if she had been chasing a cab or running down a purse-snatcher. “You’re going to have to manage without me.”
“Oh, no! What’s going on?” Jenny felt a strange blend of relief and disappointment.
“Minor crisis at Casa Farnsworth,” Lana said. “Ryan got the flu and his working student got it next and now I’m trying not to get it next while I chase horses all over the damn farm. You hear me panting? One of the ponies got out and I am finding out how out of shape I am right now. The answer? It’s not good.”
“Grain,” Jenny said automatically, her mind racing over the prospect of a full weekend alone with Aidan. They hadn’t planned on running backside posts on the weekends, just afternoon recaps from big races. There wouldn’t be that much work to occupy them. What would they do with themselves? “Shake a grain bucket.”
“Girl, I am going to do that in a second. I don’t know why I thought he’d let me catch him without it.” Lana heaved a dramatic sigh. “Ponies! Why do we even own these monsters? Anyway, you guys are doing great up there. Dad and I will be up next weekend, promise.”
“Okay,” Jenny said weakly. “Good luck with the farm. I hope Ryan feels better.”
“I have him on a triple dose of Tamiflu,” Lana snorted. “I need him fixed by Sunday night or I’m going to be working out of my old bedroom. And girl, it is too pink. Must redecorate.” She hung up without saying goodbye.
Jenny put down her phone and looked at it for a long moment.
“What’s up?” Aidan asked. He was finally finishing up his sandwich after two hours of taking tiny bites in between photo edits. “Lana’s stuck at the farm?”
“How did you know?”
“You just said you hope Ryan feels better. He’s the only Ryan we all know, right?”
“That’s right,” Jenny realized. “He is.”
“Which is weird,” Aidan considered, “because it’s a common name.”
He wasn’t thinking about them spending the weekend alone, Jenny thought. He was just eating his sandwich and considering all of the potential Ryans out there that they didn’t know.
It must be so simple to be Aidan, she thought.
They had a charity dinner to cover that night, a big affair at Rafferty’s, this year’s up-and-coming Broadway newcomer. The restaurant was owned by a chef who moonlighted as a racehorse owner—this was the best way to be a social success in Saratoga. No one in the community was afraid of welcoming in new money, and the soiree’s attendee list, who were donating scholarship money for the children of backstretch workers, boasted horse racing’s A-list—including some actual celebrities.
Reporting on a social function was a little like being part of the restaurant staff; Jenny found herself ducking through the crowds on the restaurant’s wraparound porch picking up little shreds of conversations she would have loved to piece together, but couldn’t pursue without getting permission from the speaker. With a champagne glass in one hand and her iPhone in the other, primed to record sparkling, quotable quotes from owners and trainers with tongues loosened by the endless bottles of booze, she knew she looked like the odd woman out in a sea of middle-aged and elderly couples.
Aidan had it luckier: he was positioned at the front doors, snapping red-carpet shots of the sparkling, sequin-spangled groups as they exhausted the porch’s open bar and started heading inside to find their tables. Everyone wanted to pose for Aidan—even if he hadn’t been quickly making a name for himself as one of Saratoga’s best photographers, they couldn’t resist the opportunity to feel like celebrities, and the restaurant had set up a white movie premier backdrop, the charity and the restaurant name emblazoned across it, for just that purpose.
She eyed him from across the porch as the crowds dwindled, the guests slowly flowing towards his camera lens and expert eye. He gestured to the men and playfully tugged at the women, positioning them at just the right angles to show off their gowns and tuxes, their scarves and bowties. At school, Aidan had excelled at portraiture, and his professor had despaired when Aidan insisted he wanted to photograph horses for a living, not people. Now, though, all of that training and instinct was coming in handy, as he easily flattered the owners of those same horses.
“He’s very charming, isn’t he,” a voice at her elbow murmured. Jenny started, nearly dropping her glass.
“I’m sorry,” Caitlin said, but she was smiling knowingly. “I didn’t realize you were so engrossed.”
“I’m just amazed at his success tonight, when I’m having a pretty rough time.” Jenny shrugged, trying to play off her absorption in Aidan. But Caitlin’s expression was astute. So she knew, too. Soon everyone but Aidan would know that Jenny Wolfe was pining away for him. The very thought brought a blush to her cheeks, shining through the powder and foundation she’d patted on in an attempt to look semi-glamorous for the occasion. She looked away, frustrated that her own body would give her away so wantonly.
Caitlin leaned back against the fluted rails of the porch, tipping her head back to catch the cool night breeze flitting up Broadway. Her long blonde hair was coiled in an impressive up-do atop her head, and her neck was an elegant curve, slim and delicate above her sleeveless black dress. Only the muscles of her shoulders and upper arms, and the pale suggestion of a tan-line, gave away the hardworking reality of her life. From the neck up, Caitlin could have been one of the movie stars in attendance tonight, thirty years younger, with the slim-hipped, boyish beauty that Aidan seemed to prefer.
Jenny harbored no such illusions about her own looks. She knew she was sturdy, not delicate, and her hair was pulled back into a heavy twist of dark brown which she couldn’t have spun into a sexy coil if she’d had the help of Rumpelstiltskin himself. Her flowered dress wasn’t formal enough for the evening, either, but their budget didn’t yet stretch far enough to cover gowns for galas.
“You should tell him,” Caitlin said, still looking up at the sky. There was a faint light still glowing on the underside of fleecy cumulus clouds, the afterglow of another perfect, sunny Saratoga day. “Just get it out there and then you can get over it, if you have to.”
“I can’t,” Jenny said. “If it goes wrong, we wreck the site. It’s just us, and Lana. And she already told me not to risk our working relationship. I have to just… I have to just get over it.” As soon as she said the words, she knew they were ridiculous. She had been in love with Aidan for three years. She wasn’t going to get over it through some sort of willpower situation. This was the kind of love which could only end with tears.
“You were always the sensitive type.” Caitlin swung forward again, her gaze finding Jenny’s. “I remember that about you. You cried when that osprey flew into the cafeteria window and broke its neck.”
“That was sad,” Jenny fired back, stung. The massive bird had slammed into the plate-glass window with a boom; one of the teachers had thought it was a car crash and called the police before someone told her otherwise. Sprawled on the ground, a spray of black and white feathers scattered on the pavement, the osprey’s broken body had shocked Jenny to tears. She hadn’t been alone, either. “Why are you bringing this up, anyway? It’s time to go in. They’re going to start without us.”
Caitlin looked around at the empty porch with interest. She was not a woman who was easily embarrassed, Jenny realized. She moved through the world with confidence, expecting the crowds to part fo
r her. This was just one more reason why Caitlin would succeed as a trainer in a sport dominated by men. “You’re right,” she decided. “See you in there.”
She strutted over to Aidan and gave him a few quick instructions before she took her place on the red carpet. Jenny watched, fascinated, as Aidan straightened up, his gaze locked on Caitlin although the camera was hanging limply in his hand. Whatever she had said to him, it was enough to rattle his cool confidence, just minutes after he’d photographed the toast of Saratoga’s racing elite. When Caitlin finally stood still for her photo, the smile on her face was more of a smirk, one eyebrow arched dangerously.
“Thank you,” she trilled after the flash had blinded them all one more time, and then she went into the restaurant with a decided sway to her hips. A few steps inside, she paused and looked over her shoulder. “Take Jenny’s photo,” she told Aidan.
Aidan looked across the porch at Jenny, and for once, she couldn’t read his expression. He gestured at the white backdrop with his camera.
“No,” she demurred, her cheeks hot. She couldn’t pose for him, not after that display of confidence from the new, glamorous version of Caitlin. How could she ever compare? Frumpy in her sundress, with a frizzy knot of hair sticking out of the back of her head like a lump. She shook her head at him. “I shouldn’t.”
“Come on,” he urged. “Real quick, before we go inside. They’re going to be calling for us in a minute.”
“No,” she said. “It’s fine. We should get back to work.”
She knew why she said it; she knew why she didn’t go pose for him, and it wasn’t because she was wearing a dowdy dress and boring shoes and lacked a come-hither look. It was because she was afraid, that was all—afraid he’d never look at her the way he’d looked at Caitlin, with admiration and respect and maybe just a little lust. She was Jenny, she was his best friend, she was his pal. She’d never be more than that.
Aidan shrugged, disappointed, but didn’t let it slow him from packing up his camera and slouching inside, ready to take photos of the night’s speakers, the big check, the sporting elite celebrating their own generosity over their expensive dinners.
Jenny went into the restaurant alone, dropping into her seat at the back of the room, and accepted a glass of wine from the older man seated next to her. He didn’t even blink when she downed it all in one desperate gulp.
Chapter Nineteen
A clock somewhere in the depths of the house was chiming two a.m. when Jenny stumbled on the porch steps.
She went to her knees on the wooden steps, and her purse spilled from her hand, scattering lipstick and tissues and battery chargers and loose change across the sidewalk and close-clipped lawn. She stayed still for a moment, feeling the rough old wood press into her skin, and closed her eyes tightly. The earth swayed gently around her. Jenny hadn’t gotten drunk in months, and she’d forgotten how much she hated it. The sensation of losing control, the way time sped up and slowed down, the way her vision couldn’t quite keep up with the turns of her head: none of it was appealing to her. So why was she drunk now? Why hadn’t she been more careful?
The problem had been the wine, she decided. The wine, and Clarence Tobin from the local newspaper, who had been sat next to her at the media’s table and who had been happy to keep her glass full throughout the whole wretched dinner, and the entertainment (which included a cabaret of singing jockeys), and the dessert, and the after-dessert drinks… oh, why had she let him fill her glass over and over like that? And had he touched her leg? Had he squeezed her thigh? She pressed her eyelids with the heels of her hands, remembering. He had. Ugh, Jenny. Why?
“Are you all right, Jenny? Did you fall?”
That was Why. Here came Why, hustling up the sidewalk, his vintage oxfords clicking on the pavement. Jenny kept her eyes closed, clenched her fists at her sides, and stayed on her knees. It was the safest place for her, she’d decided. She would stay right here on the porch steps until Aidan went inside and the swimming feeling in her brain had faded away, and then she would calmly, cooly, Caitlin-like, collect her things and sashay up the stairs to her bedroom.
Aidan was crouching next to her, his body warm. Jenny hadn’t even realized she was cold, but now she was aware of goosebumps raising on her calves, her thighs, her arms, everywhere. “I was calling you from the street,” he was saying urgently. “Didn’t you hear me? You were walking so quickly.”
Was she? That didn’t sound right. Had she walked home, at two o’clock in the morning, in heels she’d only worn twice? She wiggled her toes. Well, the heels were gone.
“Jenny, open your eyes.”
She obeyed immediately, then bit her lip in frustration, because he was just inches away, and even in the moonlight she could see the emerald chips in his eyes, and she didn’t want to be reminded.
“Where are your shoes, girl?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled, dropping her gaze. She was so drunk she’d lost her shoes. This was the most embarrassing night of her life. This was so much worse than crying over an osprey. Caitlin was wrong. She wasn’t sensitive. She was just an idiot. Her knees began to throb, her bare skin digging into the grain of the stair step.
“Come on,” Aidan sighed, taking hold of her wrists. “I’m going to help you inside, silly girl.”
She let herself be lifted, felt her empty purse fall from her wrist, and heard a crack from somewhere behind her. That sounded like glass, she thought.
“Oh, no,” Aidan said. “That was your phone.”
Jenny imagined her phone, its smooth curves, its woodgrain case with a black silhouette of a galloping horse racing across it, and she started to cry.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Aidan whispered, his voice soft enough to gentle a spooking horse. “It’s okay, it’s just the screen, we can have it fixed tomorrow. Come on now, let’s go in.”
But Jenny couldn’t give up the idea of her shattered phone, a broken friend, a fallen comrade, and now nothing could make her stop sobbing. She stumbled up the steps with Aidan’s arms around her shoulders, still heaving with sorrow. Her poor phone!
He settled her on the antique chaise which decorated the house’s elegant front lounge, tugging her skirt down to cover her legs and sweeping a soft woven blanket from the chair back to snug over her shoulders. “You’re so cold, poor thing,” he whispered. “Now calm yourself down while I get your phone and your purse. I promise it will be okay. We’ll get it fixed tomorrow, it’s fixable, it’s fine.”
Jenny stopped thinking about her phone and instead found her mind filled with all of the things that weren’t fixable: mainly, her heart and its obsession with Aidan. She cried harder, remembering the way Caitlin had stood in front of him with her chin held defiantly and her hip cocked. What had she said to him? Had she decided that if Jenny wasn’t going to go for it, then she would? And what about Lily? Jenny couldn’t stand Lily on principle, but now she added Aidan’s waif of a girlfriend to her list of things which needed sobbing about immediately.
“Tea,” Aidan announced, placing her rescued purse on the hall table where they kept their keys. “I’ll be right back. It’s fine, Jenny.”
While he was gone, she gave herself permission to calm down. Suddenly, she was done crying, her tears completely dried up, as if the well had been exhausted in an instant. She rubbed at her eyes with the blanket and sniffled, getting hold of herself. She was fine, she told herself. Possibly even a bit more sober. When she twisted her neck to look around the dark lounge, her eyes were able to keep up with her head’s motion. Well, that was a relief.
By the time Aidan had returned bearing mugs of ridiculously hot tea, gasping a little from the steam escaping the brims, Jenny had pulled herself together enough to realize she’d had a full-on breakdown about a cracked phone screen, which was not ideal. She moved to the side of the chaise, giving Aidan room to sit down beside her. “I’m really sorry,” she said, surprised at how quavery her voice still sounded. “That was an over-reaction.”
/> “Hey,” Aidan chided gently, “you’ve had a really long day. A really long week. You’re just worn out. They say Saratoga can do that to a person.” He put the mugs of tea on the nearby end-table, a wondrous piece of work some nineteenth-century artisan had labored over so that a century and a half later they’d have a place to throw their discarded mail and set down their hot cups. “You need a few days off, and that’s just what we have coming to us.”
Jenny closed her eyes as his voice lingered on the word us. She wanted to imagine that he was looking forward to two days of free time spent with her. Their lives had shifted so quickly from friends who met to study and get drinks to friends who worked side-by-side, nonstop, forever chasing deadlines. She wanted to talk to Aidan about anything but horses. She wanted to play with Aidan anywhere but at the races. Unbidden, the tears she had thought were all sopped up began to spill through her eyelashes again. Overtired, she told herself. You’re just overtired.
Aidan spotted the tears. “Hey,” he said again, wrapping his arm around her. Then, softer: “hey.” He pushed his cheek against hers. “Hey, Jenny,” he whispered, and then his lips were pressed gently against her forehead.
It was a soft kiss, the safest of touches, and it could have been nothing more than friendly fire, but it turned Jenny’s tears to white-hot desire. She lifted her face, saw his lips so close to hers, and summoned from somewhere deep within her best come-hither look.
She watched Aidan’s eyes widen, then narrow, as he gauged the situation, considered a prudent response, and then discarded it. His face grew nearer, his lips sought hers out. Gently at first, and then with a quickly-surging urgency.
Jenny leaned into the kiss instantly, feeling as if she’d been waiting for it all night, all her life, perhaps. Her hands came up to cup his cheeks as she twisted nearer to him in the chaise lounge, her fingers crept up to bury themselves in his shaggy brown locks. He tasted of vodka and mint. She felt like she was falling into him, like they were both tipping over, and in any instant he’d go heels over head and she’d be pulled with him, rolling and tumbling into space.
The Hidden Horses of New York: A Novel Page 19
