She pulled out her suitcase from its hiding spot next to the antique bureau and threw it on the bed.
“You’re not leaving,” he said, alarmed.
“I’m done here,” Jenny said, shrugging. It all made sense now. She’d go back to Florida, help run Mister, get him back up to Belmont for the Breeders’ Cup. Then she’d spend the winter at Tampa Bay Downs as her parents’ assistant trainer. She’d get her license. She’d go professional. She’d run the farm someday. Her life unfolded before her in one long, logical spool of film. Why had she ever fought against it?
“I’ll go back to the city with you,” Aidan said, his voice desperate. She resisted the urge to look at him, to gaze into his eyes, to give him the kiss she’d withheld. Too. Late. “We’ll talk to Lana and Mr. Farnsworth. We’ll work this out for the fall meet, or you can do more retiree stories for a while—there’s an answer here, Jenny, and it’s not running away.”
Jenny emptied her bureau drawers into the suitcase. “I’m not running away,” she said simply. “I’m starting over.”
She left the keys to the rental car at the counter; it had been easy to deflect Aidan’s demands that he at least be able to drive her to the airport in Albany. Her car had come from the airport, and to the airport it must return; how exactly would he get it there when he had his own rental to turn in, come the end of August? There was one flight a day to Orlando, and it was full, but there were four flights to Atlanta, and she booked herself a seat on the first one out with her corporate credit card, then went online and booked the connecting flight as well, before Mr. Farnsworth could cancel the account number. She figured the least the company could do was pay for her to get home from the assignment they’d sent her on. Full Stride had been blowing money like crazy ever since they’d gotten to Saratoga—that ridiculous house, the two rental cars, their food stipend, the fancy parties they were paying to get into so that they could mingle with the racing luminaries—talk about a pay-to-play sport, let alone a livelihood! Everything she’d been doing here had been the exact opposite of what she had planned. She’d showcased absolutely nothing real, created no connections between “everyday” equestrians and their racing counterparts—the only normal person she’d been able to interact with was Caitlin. And now she couldn’t even talk to Caitlin without risking tainting the young trainer with the same poison she’d inflicted on herself, siding so decidedly against the untouchable trainers.
Just as they had said she would. She’d done everything they’d feared when she’d showed up in their shed-rows asking about their morning routines and their star horses’ favorite treats and their best horsemanship tips. She’d exposed them for who they really were, and not a single person on the backside had been surprised.
She wondered if her parents would even let her train for them, or if they’d keep her hidden back at the farm, a pariah, unlucky company until all of this had blown over.
Then she shrugged, sat down by the gate to wait for her flight, and downloaded a game to play on her phone. Social media to pass the time? That was out of the question. She’d be flying under the radar from here on out.
Well, after her flight landed in Orlando, anyway. Her plane was going to need radar.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Thunder rumbled outside the house, shaking the floorboards beneath her feet. Jenny flicked back the curtains on her window, looked out at the pouring rain hammering the grass outside. A tree frog peered back in at her, his black eyes and fat green toes all made of perfectly round circles. She tapped the glass, and he sprang away, disappearing with super-hero speed. There was a sharp flash of lightning, followed by another crack of thunder close enough to rattle the window, and she dropped the curtain again, unimpressed. Just another summer afternoon in Florida. Just another thunderstorm.
Downstairs, she knew, her mother would be napping on the couch, head tilted back on the armrest, unwilling to make herself comfortable in her bed for this daily ritual, lest it become known that Andrea Wolfe took afternoon siestas as a matter of course. Her father, less worried about public discourse, might have gone to bed for an hour, but instead he often sat at the kitchen table, flipping the pages of catalogs for upcoming sales or the fine print of condition books for racing meets, until he’d squandered the rainy interlude which could have let him hit pause on his day, and the sun was emerging and the birds began singing and everyone knew they had to get back outside and get back to work.
Jenny looked around her room, the little-girl-ruffles on the bedskirt and the two fat, decorative pillows propped against the wall; the old cherry dresser topped with a pink jewelry box, the interior filled with costume pieces from middle school and stubs from concerts and movies she’d seen with friends in Ocala and Gainesville. The Breyer horse models cantering atop a shelf over her bed, and the bookshelf with broken-spined paperbacks from every horse series ever written for young girls. It all contrasted glaringly with the shining silver MacBook which sat closed on her desk, the sole evidence in the room of her New York life, of her prestigious degree, of the work she had passionately embraced and then quickly abandoned. She had been home for four days, and had barely opened the laptop. Every time she did, she got as far as opening the browser window before she panicked and closed it again. She didn’t read her email, she didn’t open her Facebook, she never checked the news, she couldn’t click the shortcut to Full Stride. She wanted to believe it had all never happened.
If she could forget it had happened, she wouldn’t feel such a profound sense of failure.
Thunder rumbled again, but it was farther away now; the storm was passing. The afternoon was still young; only two o’clock, giving the sun plenty of time to rev back up to full strength and turn the paddocks and stables into a steam bath. Jenny reached for a clean sports bra and pulled it over her head. She’d been hiding from barn work for the past few days, and her mother hadn’t pushed her. But she was done holing up in this little-girl room feeling sorry for herself. She would go out and clean some stalls, maybe soap some tack, and then she’d feel better.
By the time she was dressed, her hair in a pony-tail and under a cap, some sunblock slathered on her bare arms, and cheap sneakers on her feet, the rain had stopped falling and the sun was shining with all its might on the puddles in the driveway, busily turning the fallen water into fresh new clouds. She crept past her sleeping mother, heard her father turning the thin paper pages of a sales catalog in the kitchen, and closed the side door so quietly that neither of them could possibly have heard her. She didn’t want to be followed, or congratulated on leaving her room, or given a list of chores.
Both the training barn and the yearling barn had horses inside this time of day; only the broodmares were given free rein to march in and out from summer storms as they saw fit. She walked straight up the drive to the training barn, skipping the turn-off which led a short distance beneath a shadowy canopy of oak trees to the yearling barn, where the babies were kept inside during the day to protect their coats from sun damage. Soon, they’d be starting fall training or going off to sales, and they needed to look their best for investors and buyers. There would be grooms down there working on the babies’ ground manners, making sure that when they graduated to the next barn, be it the Wolfe’s training barn or someone else’s, they didn’t kill anybody with a lethal combination of youthful exuberance and a lack of respect for lead-ropes. She didn’t know any of the yearling grooms, though; it was a temporary job and the men and women who did it came and went every season. Jenny wasn’t in any mood for strangers, especially strangers who might question why she was in their barn. At the training barn, no one would be around this time of day. That was the kind of atmosphere she was looking for: straight-up solitude.
She ducked under the rail that was set across the shed-row entrance when training hours were over, in case any horses made an escape, and was greeted by a few quiet nickers from some of the youngsters poking their heads over their stall grates. There were more than a dozen horses i
n the training barn now, since just a few of their running horses lived full-time in south Florida, and Tampa was closed until the cooler months. Mister was one of the horses in south Florida, which had disappointed Jenny. She would have liked to spend some time with her bad colt. Maybe even start riding him again.
Still, there were plenty of personalities in the barn, and she started with a quick cuddle with Mastermind, who was in the closest stall, watching her with keen interest, his broad white blaze lighting up the dim background of his stall. At four, Mastermind was a veteran racehorse; Jenny had galloped him since he was two, and she thought she might like to get on him again, too. He was so steady and knowledgeable about his work, he might be the perfect horse for her to get her sea legs again.
Mastermind was lipping at her fingers when she heard footsteps in the soft sand of the shed-row. She looked up and her heart quickened when she saw Marco.
“What are you doing here this time of day?” she asked, a catch in her voice. She hadn’t seen much of Marco in the few days she’d been home. Seeing him now reminded her that she’d told him she was never coming back, and he’d told her she was making a mistake.
Marco’s black hair had grown long, chin-length; he pushed it behind his ears with a practiced gesture. The look was good for him; it accentuated his high cheekbones, his ascetic jowl, the stark corners of his jawline. Marco stayed thin to ride racehorses, but instead of looking scrawny, he just looked like a hero from a romance novel, one with plenty of castles and knights. “I heard you were back,” he replied. “I thought I’d hang around and see if you left your tower.”
Jenny flicked her eyes towards the low stucco house in the distance. “Hardly a tower,” she said. “I was just taking a few days off before I got started out here again. It’s been a long summer already.”
“For all of us.” Marco leaned against the wall next to her. Mastermind curved his neck curiously towards the rider, stretching his lips out to try and reach Marco’s shoulder. He put his fingers up and tickled the horse’s chin. “Your parents have been going crazy with that colt of yours. That’s why they left him in south Florida. You’re here, maybe they bring him back up, let you handle him. He was always better for you.”
She shook her head. “He’s just a hotheaded colt. Everyone makes him out to be worse because I left and they wanted a scapegoat.”
“Well,” Marco shrugged. “You did leave.”
“I’m not sure what you’re accusing me of, but I came back, so it doesn’t matter.”
“So, you don’t want to talk about it?” His voice was light, mocking.
“No.” Jenny moved off down the aisle. Marco was going to demand too much of her, she could tell already. Their relationship had always been too big for the rooms she had tried to shut it into. In practice, he’d always respected her wishes, but mentally, she knew, he was always pushing at her defenses, tugging her a little farther down the road towards the romance he wanted. When a guy at school broke her heart, Marco was there. When her favorite horse died after a breakdown, Marco was there. When she’d turned eighteen, Marco had most certainly been there, finished waiting, ready with those full lips and that husky voice.
She’d always made it clear that they were just a fling, though. She’d said the words to him: “I’m going away for college. This can only be a fling.”
“Sure,” Marco had agreed, his voice amused. “A fling for us.”
And the first summer she’d come home: “We’re just playing around, Marco. This isn’t serious.”
“I know,” Marco had smiled. “But you’re so fun to play around with.”
And the second summer she’d come home, after she’d truly fallen for Aidan: “We can’t do this anymore, Marco. I’m sorry.”
His lips had curled down, and then he’d said: “Whenever you’re ready for another fling, you know where I am.”
He doesn’t want a fling, Jenny told herself now. He wants everything. She remembered the way he’d looked at her when she’d told him she was staying in New York, instead of on the farm. “What I would give to have a farm like this—” he’d said bitterly.
And now she’d come back, the daughter of the farm, with all her city dreams dashed and that far-off threat of Aidan apparently vanquished. There was no doubt he’d consider her ripe for the picking, poor sad Jenny who had tried and failed.
She’d better stay away from him.
As impossible as that was going to be.
“What happened to your New York boyfriend?” Marco asked now, his footsteps dogging hers as she made her way down the shed-row, glancing into the stalls at each of the horses. She went down to the end stall where the wheelbarrows were stored and pulled one out, throwing in a manure fork.
“This is your way of not talking about it?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light.
“We were talking about your colt before, not your love life,” Marco said. He smiled at her, but she pushed the wheelbarrow past him, forcing him out of the stall door. She dropped it in front of the next stall, pushing the little filly within back a few steps so that she could open the gate and slip in under the rubber stall guard. The filly lipped at the wheelbarrow, happy to find something new to chew on. Jenny started flicking shavings aside, pulling out manure piles. The work should have been calming, meditative, but with Marco hanging around, his expression dark and wounded, she was not having a very good time finding that zen place.
“I’m not going to talk about any of it,” she declared. “I need to decompress first.”
Marco leaned against the stall front and looked in at her. His expression was possessive. “I’m happy you are back,” he said. “This is your home. Not that city. You belong here, on the farm.”
Jenny sighed and dug under a pile of shavings, finding manure underneath. This filly liked to bury her messes. It was fine and dandy for a horse, who would never have to deal with the problem herself. But there was no one around to clean up after Jenny. Eventually, she’d have to deal with her mess… no matter how deep she tried to keep it buried for the time being.
Andrea Wolfe was sitting at the desk in the office off the kitchen when Jenny came in late one hot afternoon a week later, sticky-wet and more filthy than she’d been in months. She’d helped the grooms feed the broodmares, the yearlings, and the training barn horses, and there was hay wedged in crevices she had forgotten about. The only thing on her mind was a shower, so when her mother called her name as she kicked off her dirty sneakers in the mud room, she had to bite back a groan.
“What’s up, Mom? I’m a mess.”
“I have your marching orders,” her mother replied, looking up from her laptop. A pile of condition books, training logs, and tack shop catalogs teetered at her left elbow. At her right, a mug of what was probably cold tea, heavily sweetened with honey from the hives nestled in the old overgrown orange grove at the back of the farm. Andrea believed local honey could cure any allergy, and Florida sneezing season was year-round.
“My marching orders?” Jenny furrowed her brow. “I don’t get it.”
“Your schedule for the next few months. You’re not hiding out here forever, if that’s what you were thinking.” Andrea flourished a print-out. “This is Mister’s training schedule to get him to the Breeders’ Cup. You’re going to south Florida to handle it. Two races in September, one race in October. Then, New York in November. The Classic, Jenny. I’m sure of it, and so is your father.”
“A sure thing, huh,” Jenny joked, taking the paper. It was a weekly training schedule, outlining gallops, breezes, and rest days leading up to the four races. A guideline, Jenny knew, allowing for perfect conditions; the reality would be much messier, with thrown shoes, maybe a hoof abscess or two, rainy days, the occasional unfinished meal, and girth rubs shaking up the day-to-day schedule… as well as the potential for more serious issues. Still, they all looked like attainable goals. Her parents were experienced. They knew how to allow for trouble along the way, as well as rest periods, to bring a
young horse to his peak just in time for the biggest race of his career.
“So you’ll head down as soon as possible,” her mother said, leaning back in her chair. “The apartment is ready. I asked Rico to send his wife over and give it a good cleaning, turn down the AC, make sure the appliances are working. She runs a housecleaning business now.” Rico was their assistant trainer at the south Florida training center, the guy who managed their horses while the Wolfes were on the road or back in Ocala.
“I guess I’ll pack up again.” Jenny rattled the schedule in her hands. “Am I working for Rico or is he working for me?”
“He’s working for you, but you’re both working for your father and me. So don’t worry too much about giving orders. Your dad will be around a few days a week anyway. Me, too. You won’t be on your own very often.”
Jenny imagined life in the old Dade County apartment. The smell of mold from the kitchen, and cigarette smoke wafting in from the apartments downstairs. The battered blinds and the windows which didn’t close properly. The mosquitoes whining around her ears at night, and the occasional lizard or tree frog interrupting her as she brushed her teeth. It wasn’t that the place was a dump, it was just an aging building slowly sinking into the swamp. It was pink stucco slapped on top of cinder blocks, a decorative plaster dolphin fixed to the front, small rectangular windows which screeched in their aluminum frames, an air conditioner which sounded like a helicopter taking off from its pad. Thin drywall with her parents on the other side during their stays, drinking their coffee at the kitchen table, the condition book open between them. The four o’clock alarm every morning, so she could get in her car and drive the five miles to the training center for morning gallops.
The Hidden Horses of New York: A Novel Page 26
