This is bad.
Jenny could feel all of her nerves reacting, all of her muscles twitching, and all of her digestive system certainly doing… something. But while her primitive brain was screaming that she had to do something—run away, presumably, because Jenny’s primitive brain had never embraced violence—her civilized brain had absolutely no idea what to do next.
Clearly, something bad was going to happen to the bay horse. A person didn’t joke about things like checking lip tattoos and chasing rich girls with guns. These were not laughing matters. That woman was connected to slaughter, somehow—whether she owned an auction house or had connections to the kill-buyers, who shipped horses out of the country to slaughterhouses.
She couldn’t let that horse go so cheerfully to such a gruesome fate, but she was at a total loss on how to save him.
And on another level, she was beyond frustrated. Why did this keep happening?
There were always trainers looking to get around the regulations that stopped them from shipping horses to slaughter. The horses didn’t go directly from racetrack to the slaughter-bound truck; they were funneled through cheap auctions or false retirement homes. When horses were caught on this route, the horses and the people who had put them in this position were front-page news—at least in the equestrian presses. These were the horse racing stories which sport horse people read. These were the stories which they believed. And these were the stories she’d been planning to fight with her own writing. Happening now, in front of her, in real-time, was the story she hated the most: the slaughterhouse story that was constantly held up as representative of the racing industry as a whole, and the one she had always been willing to swear was completely overblown.
But this wasn’t about reporting or public image right now. This was about the bay horse who had looked her way at Tampa months ago, and stolen her heart with his intelligent expression and athletic good looks. She wasn’t about to let him go to a feedlot or a cheap auction.
So, how was she going to stop this from happening? Her mind was desperately casting for ideas, but there weren’t many options. If she’d been able to reach her car in time, she might have run for it and then followed the trailer at a safe distance. But her car was at the other end of the stable area, and even if she ran, the truck was already starting up, the trailer hitch grinding as the driver started to accelerate. She would never get there in time.
The trailer lurched forward, and the gelding inside shifted his weight, his hooves clattering loudly on the bare wooden floor. Desperately, trusting every reporter-hero movie she’d ever seen, Jenny flipped on the video on her phone and zoomed in, capturing the license plate as the truck pulled out. She didn’t know what she’d do with the number… but at least the horse wasn’t vanishing without a trace.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Don’t touch it,” Lana said.
“It’s not for the website,” Jenny sighed. “This is the horse I wanted you to buy. If I can find where he’s at, you can buy him. He doesn’t go to a kill-buyer auction. Everyone wins.”
“I still don’t think you should go anywhere near it.” Lana wasn’t looking at her laptop’s camera. She was flipping through some files, tapping her pen on the desktop. Jenny was mostly looking at the top of her head, the tidy part in her hair.
“It’s not work-related. It’s entirely off the clock.”
“There’s no such thing.” Lana looked up at the camera and gave Jenny a stern gaze. “You work in racing journalism, you can’t go chasing illegal horse sales around the countryside and not cover it. It’s all related. As long as you’re a turf writer, anything you do with horses is potentially a story. And you’re not an investigative news reporter. This isn’t even your wheelhouse. You’re doing feel-good stories. Go find some more of those. Do you have a retirement story for this week?”
“Yes, I have a track pony, but—” Jenny bit back an impatient sigh as Lana cut her off again.
“Hey, where the hell is Aidan? You turned in a backside story this afternoon but with like, two iPhone pictures? It’s going to look different. It’s going to stand out—in a bad way. I don’t know if you should do these on your own. Is he sick or what?”
Jenny looked down. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed. The dining room had felt too big and empty without Aidan there, so after she’d dropped off her phone at a screen repair shop, she had picked up her laptop and gone upstairs to work next to her open window, birdsong blowing in on the summer breeze. It had all felt rather idyllic, and, as a bonus, she could pretend she wasn’t alone in the house. Lana’s words sent a reminder rushing over her.
“He had to run back to the city for something,” she muttered. “He didn’t say what.”
“He did what?” Lana dropped her pen. “He didn’t say anything to me!”
“Well, it is his day off,” Jenny said, perversely wanting to defend him, even though he hadn’t been running out on work—he’d been running out on her.
“I sent you guys to Saratoga for six weeks. If that changes, I want to know about it first. This better be a serious emergency.”
“I really don’t know.” Jenny was struck anew by the forceful, bossy tone Lana had started using with her and probably, she supposed, with Aidan as well.
“I’ll call him,” Lana decided. “Let me get off here, I have a call with an advertiser in five minutes. You: take tomorrow off, don’t bother writing anything until Wednesday, and then Wednesday you’re covering the Lovely Lass Stakes, so try to talk to some of the trainers with entries for that on the morning of, yes? See what you can do. I assume Aidan will be there for photos.”
“He said he’d be back Wednesday afternoon.”
“Shit.” Lana shook her head and gazed at the ceiling. “I’m going to kill him. Look, I’ll try to get him back up there tomorrow afternoon. Enjoy your day off, okay? Go out to the state park and go swimming or something. Enjoy being out of the city in summer, like all the sensible people. I can’t wait to get up there over the weekend.”
Jenny imagined Lana and Mr. Farnsworth in the house she’d been rattling around in with Aidan, not to mention what would almost certainly be a new, more subdued relationship with Aidan, and the thought of spending the next five weeks like that was absolutely appalling. Even if Lana and her father were only there on the weekends, the level of awkward she and Aidan had just created for themselves was going to be off the charts.
“Sounds great,” Jenny said weakly. “Let me know what Aidan says.”
“You want to call him?” Lana was looking through her files again. “I’m so swamped.”
“No,” Jenny said. “It had better come from you.”
Congress Park sat at the heart of downtown Saratoga, a swath of rolling green, winding pathways, and elegant fountains where the mineral-rich water the town was famous for burbled from mossy spigots. On a racing afternoon, you could stroll through the park without much more company than the ducks and the rabbits, but on a dark day, there could be a long queue to taste the sulphur-scented waters.
Jenny bypassed the tourists, who were taking videos of each other choking on the foul-tasting water, and made her way down to a wooded glen at the far end of the park. There were still people wandering the pathways, but not too many here in the shadows, and she was able to find a bench where she could settle down, scuff her flats in the gravel, and try to think of what she was going to do next.
She had expected to be left alone for a while, not to have Caitlin plop down next to her, stretching her sandaled feet out to observe her freshly painted toenails. “They’re very purple,” Jenny said eventually, when it became clear from the silence that she was expected to make a comment.
“My silks were approved,” Caitlin replied happily. “And they’re purple with green and yellow polka dots. They are both garish and tasteful. It’s a modern art miracle. So I went out to get a pedicure to celebrate.”
“I didn’t realize you were getting your own silks.” Jenny was momentaril
y relieved to have something else to think about. “You have a horse running under your name?”
“Not yet. But if Buddy’s owner doesn’t pay his bill in the next week, you better believe I’m going to.”
“Ah, well that’s something, I guess.” Buddy was a nice-enough four-year-old gelding who had been training well but not winning anything. He probably wasn’t Saratoga material, Caitlin had confided to her, but since that’s where Caitlin was, that’s where he had to run, unless the owner moved him to another trainer. But the owner hadn’t paid his bills in so long, he’d apparently decided that Buddy was a problem best solved through neglect. It was a common strategy for casual racehorse owners when their horse didn’t prove to be a champion—just pretend the problem had never existed. “Well, mazel tov, I guess.”
“Lemons and lemonade. He’ll win something eventually. He’s very sound, and he’s nice, anyway. He could even be a track pony.” Caitlin peered at her. “But what’s going on with you? You look very down in the mouth. You going to colic on me?”
Jenny shrugged. “It’s nothing.” Anything to avoid talking about it. About all of it. About Aidan, about the bay horse—what was she supposed to do with these problems? She couldn’t talk to Caitlin about her fears that Lawson was working with an agent for a kill-buyer; their professional relationship was already collapsing into a personal one as it was. And as for Aidan?
As the day progressed, the reality that she’d gotten drunk and slept with her best friend-slash-colleague was looking more and more idiotic and trashy. She certainly didn’t need the news spreading around the backside, and lord knew horse people loved them some good gossip about who was sleeping with who. It would be all anyone could think about anytime she walked into a shed-row, especially with Aidan at her side!
Her toes curled inside her shoes at the thought of going back to work with Aidan. That was the other thing that was feeling more and more cataclysmic with every passing hour. Now that he was gone, his return was going to make everything a hundred times worse.
The best course, Jenny reflected, would be to simply drive to the Albany airport and get on the first flight to Florida and never, ever speak of her first summer out of college again.
A family wandered past, the kids throwing paper cups from the closest fountain at each other’s heads. The parents, deeply absorbed in their phones, were unconcerned with their offspring’s screaming. “We should really think about dinner,” the wife said to the husband, and he nodded absently.
Caitlin watched them loop down towards the next spring. “Married life looks thrilling, doesn’t it?”
Jenny shrugged again. “My parents don’t live like that.”
“Your parents are the exception. But yeah, two horse trainers living together, that’s hardly humdrum. So listen, are you going to tell me what happened or should I just go make sure everyone at the barn cleaned up their dinners? I gotta prioritize here.” Caitlin was grinning, but Jenny knew she was serious. There were only so many free minutes in a day before the horses had to be attended to once again.
“I’m not going to tell you,” Jenny said. Her heart was sore, but her mind was clear. There could be no good outcome here.
Too bad she hadn’t realized that eighteen hours ago.
“Is it about Aidan?”
Jenny guiltily met Caitlin’s eyes.
“Come on, Jenny. I’m here to be your friend. What happened? Why wasn’t he with you today? I thought you were taking the day off, but then I saw you making the rounds alone.”
“He went back to the city this morning,” Jenny said desperately, hoping that would be enough. “He had to get something. Or do something. I don’t really know which. I was half-asleep when he told me.” She really couldn’t remember, but it wasn’t because of sleepiness. It was because her mind was so frazzled that she hadn’t been able to fully compute what he was saying. All she really knew was that he’d gone.
“It’s more than that. Something happened. Did you sleep with him?” Caitlin narrowed her eyes, her mood suddenly shifting. “Was it consensual? Because if it wasn’t—”
“It was my idea,” Jenny sighed, feeling a perverse sense of relief now that the secret was out. “I will admit I was drunk, but it was definitely consensual.”
“And then he left? Oh, Jen. Get in here.” Caitlin held out her open arms, and Jenny sank onto her shoulder gratefully. She didn’t realize until Caitlin’s strong arms closed around her how desperately she needed comfort, and how no one in her tiny circle would have offered it to her. Lana would only scold; her mother would snort and shake her head before changing the subject; and who else was she close enough to share the story with? Her social life had shrunk with the ending of college; there was only work, now.
After a while they sat up again, and blinked at the Saratoga evening. Golden light was slanting through the full green trees, and the shadows around the little pond in front of them were deepening. Jenny noticed some movement in the brush on the wooded hill opposite, and slowly stood up. “We should go back to the more populated part of the park,” she suggested. “I’ve seen some little camps in the woods.”
They walked up the gravel pathways towards town, passing the now-deserted fountains, still sprinkling their egg-scented waters into moldy stone bowls. “Ever taste any of them?” Caitlin asked, pausing alongside one elaborate Greek installation. She plucked a paper cup from the dispenser and held it under the moss-covered pipe. “This one’s my favorite.”
“No thank you,” Jenny said, managing a smile. “The water in Ocala comes out of the hose ready to bottle. You can keep your upstate hell-water.”
“Infidel,” Caitlin said, puckering up her mouth as she took a dainty sip. “Everyone knows New York water is the best water.”
“I’ll never live up here long enough to believe that.”
“And yet you’ll eat our pizza and our bagels and recognize their superiority. You know that’s because of the water, right?”
“I’m not having this argument with you.” Jenny continued up the path. “But now that you’ve said the word ‘bagel,’ I’m afraid I have no choice but to go and get one.”
“Same. Let’s go together. I’ll just call my night watchman and ask him if everyone is good for the night, and then we can get some coffees and bagels.”
“Both made with local water? Sounds questionable, but I’ll allow it.”
They walked up Broadway, the main drag of old Saratoga Springs. Weaving through the sidewalk cafes and the racks of Saratoga t-shirts and sundresses which spilled from the boutiques and storefronts, Jenny was reminded anew of the singular charm of a town themed to racehorses. Like any tourist town, you could buy anything you didn’t need here, but all of it came with a horse on it.
There were flags painted with racehorses and the word “welcome,” as if a field of thundering thoroughbreds would be ecstatic to see visitors at your front door; fluttering windmills and dangling wind chimes made of tiny horses and dogs; plush ponies wearing t-shirts reading “I LOVE SARATOGA”; paintings of the grandstand and of the Oklahoma training track at the chaotic hour of dawn, horses scattered everywhere; souvenir glasses with laser-etchings of horses strenuously performing everything from reining to dressage; racks and racks and racks of postcard-sized watercolors rhapsodically portraying the art of hot walking, of horse-bathing, of blacksmithing, of sitting on a horse gazing into the distance; five-hundred-dollar dresses in luridly colored paisley patterns, presumably for wearing to the races to show off your preppy credentials. Wading through it all was a fantastically disparate group of female pedestrians accompanied by absent-looking men: grandmothers buying the plush ponies and the welcome flags, perpetually dieting society women fingering the dresses and the beaded necklaces, enthusiastic young horsewomen picking up the glasses and the watercolors, poised to decorate their apartments exactly the way their mothers had feared they would.
Jenny and Caitlin wound through it all and eventually made it to Uncommon Grounds, the c
offee shop in the center of town where the baristas understood just how serious the request for decaf, please, actually was at seven p.m. Both women had been up since sunrise, and both were starting to wind down, but the prospect of coffee and a fat bagel for dinner was too alluring to turn down. The cakes were even more enticing. They settled into a table in the back corner of the cafe and regarded their choices, foamy and dolled up with whipped cream, with enthusiasm.
“Imagine if you were a jockey and couldn’t eat like this,” Caitlin said seriously, lifting her vast mug to her lips and licking some of the whipped cream. “Being a trainer is where it’s at.”
“I don’t usually eat cake for dinner,” Jenny said wryly, dipping her fork into the massive hunk of carrot cake before her, “but tonight it feels right.”
“You have to follow your heart,” Caitlin advised. Her own heart had evidently told her to eat chocolate, because the cake on her plate featured at least three different shades of dark brown, plus a scattering of loose chocolate chips. She bit into her bagel first, though. “Follow your heart to carbs,” she said around a mouthful.
“Following my heart to carbs makes a lot more sense than following it to Aidan.” Jenny grimaced as soon as the words left her mouth. Why would she say something like that out loud? And to Caitlin, the source of so much of her backside column? She really had to remember to think of Caitlin as a source, not a friend. But she suspected that ship had already sailed. She rolled a dollop of cream cheese icing around on her tongue for a moment, savoring the tangy, sugary goodness. She often found that dessert solved none of her problems but did made them easier to talk about. “Caitlin, I don’t know how to fix this.”
“I guess it depends on how serious your feelings are.” Caitlin lowered her face into her mug and drank luxuriously. When she lifted her gaze again, there was whipped cream on her nose. “I mean, are you in love with him?”
The Hidden Horses of New York: A Novel Page 21
