Training Harry

by Meghan Namaste

I saw Erica on her way over and I stopped Twinkle. “Great job, Maggie,” she said. She was grinning just like I was. “How did that feel?”

  “So fun,” I said. “I’m so happy I can do that now! Before I couldn‘t get him to do hardly anything.”

  She looked really happy. “You just needed to work on some things. Riding is never easy, but if you put in the work you can have moments like that.”

  I looked down at Twinkle’s soft white mane. “I hated you at first,” I said without thinking.

  Erica snorted. “I know. I kind of hated you right back.”

  I laughed at that. “It’s cool how you always say the truth. People never tell the truth, especially to kids.”

  “I think it’s important to say the truth,” Erica said. “It’s important to me, at least.” She was kind of looking off into the distance. “People lie all the time, and they get so they don’t want to hear the truth unless it’s convenient for them. I don’t know how to be that way. I know I’ve lost clients because of that.”

  I thought about what she was saying. “Well, you did gain one client because of it,” I said.

  Erica

  Harry was bouncing along, ears pricked. His head was lowered and he met the soft contact I held in my hands, met it agreeably. I was getting a feeling from him that was long-awaited and startlingly different. He seemed at peace, mentally focused, relaxed. But there was something else there. A spark, maybe, a current of energy that flowed through all his limbs. He grew, expanded with every stride. There was a lot of horse there, and I respected the power even as it thrilled me.

  Like Assault, Harry was not an amateur ride. I realized in that instant that Harry and his considerable resistance had prepared me to take on Assault. That alone was worth my considerable investment in the gelding. I smiled down at Harry’s churning black shoulders.

  I cut across the arena, leaving the rail, testing Harry’s straightness. I kept my eyes up for Harry to follow, and saw Lawrence squarely in my line of vision. When I reached the rail I asked Harry to halt. He tossed his head a little but complied. I patted him and let the reins out a few inches. Then I turned my head toward Lawrence. He looked a little anxious, but I couldn’t imagine why that would be.

  “Wow.” I sat there a second. “I don’t even know what to say.” A grin broke out on my face.

  “Harry is…doing well,” Lawrence agreed slowly.

  “Harry’s done a complete 180.” I shook my head in wonder. “There’s so much confidence there.” I looked back at Lawrence. “So. What are you doing differently?”

  He was slow to answer. “I’ve just been doing what we’ve been doing. And he’s getting better.”

  “Well, that’s excellent.” Harry was clearly getting bored, so I asked him to walk on. “I thought we had a good plan, but I never thought he would make this much progress so quickly.”

  Lawrence stood still at the rail, holding onto the uppermost board with his hands.

  “Harry is precocious, though,” I thought out loud. “His breakthroughs, when he lets go of the tension, are always quite remarkable.”

  I asked Harry to canter, and he answered my “whispering” aid with an agreeing shout. I asked him to collect his stride and turned him onto a ten meter circle. He balanced easily, even as I spiraled him in further, testing his capabilities. “Harry is not normal,” I said over the light tapping of his hooves. “Never has been, and he never will be.” I halted him, ruffled the hair on his neck and reluctantly stepped off.

  I walked Harry for a minute even though he wasn’t really hot and his breathing was fine. Lawrence climbed over the rail and came to walk beside me. He smiled and we fell easily into silence with Harry following close behind, linking us.

  After I turned Harry out I walked slowly through Lawrence’s yard. Amber had emerged from the house and was struggling to open her hood. I could hear the groan of rusted metal intermingled with muttered obscenities.

  Lawrence clearly heard it too, and he ambled over. “Need a hand?”

  “No. I got it.” Amber gave the recalcitrant piece of metal another yank.

  “Here. Let me see what I can do.” Lawrence stepped in.

  Amber’s hands slipped off the hood. She turned to face him. “I said I got it. That means I fucking have it, okay?” She took hold again with a vengeance, and in a few seconds the hood popped open with a crunching sound. Amber propped it up and turned back to Lawrence. “I got it.”

  “I see that,” he said. He left Amber and started over to where I stood.

  “Oh, hey,” Amber said brightly, jarringly switching gears. “Did you tell Erica about the clinic?”

  My ears pricked at that. “What clinic?”

  “Tell her,” Amber said to Lawrence’s back. Then leaned over and her head descended into the rusty innards of her truck.

  I looked at Lawrence expectantly. “I’m a clinic junkie. You can’t leave me hanging.”

  He smiled slightly, his eyes low. “Um. I’m kind of, ah, having one. It’s for all disciplines, I’m just kind of bringing my experience to the table. It’s just something I’m trying out, that’s all.”

  “How much?” I asked. I could never resist a clinic, and this one, I had to attend.

  He looked up at me. “For you? No charge.”

  I smiled in surprise. There was a spreading warmth in my chest. “That’s so nice. Thanks so much.”

  “It means a lot to me that you’ll be there,” Lawrence said quietly.

  After that I said goodbye and jogged to my truck, buzzing inside with a that kind of hyper, sugar-buzz kind of energy that makes you jump around and talk really fast. I had a clinic on the horizon, and not just any clinic. A Lawrence Cavanaugh clinic. Free. Of. Charge. This is gonna be awesome. I started my truck, bouncing on the seat. Plans were flying around in my head. I drove home quickly. I’m so ready to start getting ready!

  Lawrence

  I came in from the barn after finishing up the morning chores. Amber was flat on the couch with her cell phone resting in between her head and the cushion. I could hear her speaking flatly into it. She was on the phone a lot these days.

  “Thank you very much, I will see you then, goodbye.” Amber spoke the words as one clipped sentence and ground her chin into the “End” button. I heard a slight beep, and then she lay there without removing the phone from the side of her face.

  “Rough morning?” I asked her.

  “I’ve signed three chicks up already today. And last night, oh God, I spent for-fucking-ever on the phone with some officious bitch who asked like eighteen zillion questions. Apparently her horse is some special athlete, or she thinks he is anyway. After all that, she did get on board, but all I can say is, this horse better be the shit.” Amber’s eyes closed and she stopped talking.

  I stood there a second. “Wait. People are actually into this thing?”

  “The chicks dig it,” Amber said without opening her eyes.

  I wandered away, into the kitchen. Huh. It looked like there would actually be a clinic. I’m gonna need to figure out what I’m doing. I quickly moved away from that thought. I still had time for avoidance. Soon I wouldn’t, but right now I did.

  My eyes fell on the calendar, the little Purina one from the feed store. I saw what day it was, and I realized what day it was. The light streaming in through the windows seemed to dim after that.

  I made a move for the door, and then I turned myself back. I sat down in the kitchen and didn’t move for a while. All the life was out of me, all of a sudden. I knew I should get up and live. Do something. But I was hiding from too many things, and it was so easy to succumb to the hurt in my head.

  The air was still in the house. I heard no sound for a while, and then I heard the flutter of Amber’s snoring. It was actually somewhat comforting. Over it I heard another flutter, louder but not by much. It stopped, and then there was a creak and a sharp thud. I was instantly awake. I got out of my chair and looked outside. Wilson stood at the hood of his Chevy.
For a moment, he didn’t move. I saw his reluctance, and I understood it. He got past it, and he walked over and stepped onto the porch.

  I went to the door and opened it before he had to knock. Wilson gave a little twitch of surprise. Neither of us said anything right away.

  I couldn’t stand it anymore. “I’m surprised to see you here,” I said.

  Wilson looked at me straight on. “I knew I wouldn’t see you unless I tracked you down.”

  I looked away. I knew I should apologize, or something. But I figured it was probably better for both of us if I didn’t bring up the last time we saw each other. I had been in a bad place then, and it hadn’t gotten better.

  “The place looks real good,” Wilson said.

  I found I could look at him then. “Do you want to see it?”

  I walked him around the yard, through the barn and out into the paddocks. I watched Wilson take everything in. When he’d seen it all, he nodded once. “It’s a nice place, Cavanaugh.” His eyes drifted to the polo ponies out front. Vegas, Harry and Eloise. Harry was one now, I realized. Vegas, there had never been any question. I had to stop thinking about Elle as one. It was just hard. It was damn hard to make the cut, slice away that part of our history and just leave it alone.

  Wilson kept watching the ponies for a minute. “They look real good, Cavanaugh,” he said.

  “Thanks.” We both stood there a while, hiding from our feelings in broad daylight. I wondered who would break first.

  I woke up and rolled over, nearly to the edge of my small cot. I hurt all over, more than yesterday. All my muscles had locked up overnight. I lay there a second, not wanting to move. I should have never gone to sleep.

  I got up stiffly, because the ponies needed to eat. Fuck. Maybe I’ll loosen up today. I sure as hell hope so. I’d fallen asleep in my clothes, so I just stepped right out into the barn aisle. Heads popped out over stall doors, and the ponies started talking. I started off for the feed room. On my way there I saw Wilson, and he drew my attention. He was standing there, out in the middle of the aisle. Just standing there.

  I rushed over to him. “Wilson, what happened?” I knew something had.

  Wilson looked up at me. There was grief in his eyes, but mostly it looked like he was fighting shock. “Solly Turner died,” he said, shaking his head a little. “I found him this morning. Just…dead.” He shook his head again. “It doesn’t seem right. It feels so weird to say, even though I saw it with my own eyes.” Wilson stopped for a second but quickly went on. “He was just so alive, Cavanaugh. Did you ever come across someone that alive? I mean, I know he was old, but that man lived. He wouldn’t stop. And now his heart stopped for him.” Wilson let out a wheezy sob and his arms closed tightly around me.

  I stood there for a moment. “I’ve got to feed the horses,” I said dully, and I stepped away from Wilson. It wasn’t that I didn’t care. I just needed something to do because otherwise I was going to lose it.

  I measured out all the feeds and tossed them into the plastic feeders on the stall walls. Wilson lingered, refusing to leave my side. He was unashamedly teary. Wilson was right there, expressing freely what I held in. I tried to tell myself that people experience grief differently, which I think I heard somewhere. I wanted to be able to deal with it more like him, and I also wanted to punch him in the face just to get him to leave me the hell alone.

  The day went slowly. I dealt with the ponies, and Wilson dealt with Solly’s body, because I was busy with the ponies and I just couldn’t go anywhere near it. Players started to come in, and I got their ponies ready and walked them after they rode them into a lather. When it looked like no one was coming for a while I brought Eloise in and started tacking her up. I needed to escape. I needed to control the line of the ball, to know I could at least control something.

  I was stretching Elle’s legs forward to smooth the skin lying under the girth when I looked up and saw Paul Miller leering over me. I let go of Elle’s foreleg, and she set her hoof down with a distinct tap. I straightened up to face Miller head on.

  He glanced around, unwilling to look at me. “I’m here,” he said with an exaggerated arm gesture. “I’m ready. So where the hell is my pony, Cavanaugh?”

  “It’s not my job to anticipate your every sudden move, Miller,” I said wearily and with considerable hatred. “You can’t just show up randomly and expect to have everything ready and waiting for you.”

  Paul’s eyebrows lowered. “I called ahead,” he said, like that really mattered. Like any of it really mattered.

  I sighed. “Today’s been rough, Paul. Everybody’s just trying to get through it. So if we’re not operating quite as well-oiled as usual, you could have the decency to understand.” He could, but he won’t, I thought.

  Paul rolled his eyes. “What happened? Somebody die?” He said sarcastically.

  Pain. Not like when I woke up. More painful than that. “Solly Turner,” I said.

  Paul brightened. He really fucking did. A smile split his face open. He looked the most genuinely happy I’d ever seen him. “Really? That crazy old coot finally bit the dust?”

  I stood there frozen for a long second. Idly, I wondered if a blood vessel had burst in my brain, because that’s what it felt like in my head. I didn’t feel any pain anymore, of any kind. If Paul was smart he would’ve run. But he was Paul, so he just stood there giggling.

  I took a step towards him. “Stay, Elle,” I said. She watched me knowingly, without moving a muscle.

  In another stride I had Paul off his feet. We flew across the barn aisle, only one of us under our own power. I slammed him up against the wall, his terrified face inches away from mine. He was lucky the wall was solidly built. Otherwise he could’ve had some nasty splinters.

  “Solly Turner was a good man,” I said to him.

  It felt good to have Paul under control like this. It felt really fucking good. I never wanted to let him down, actually. I thought about maybe just keeping him up against this wall forever, pinned down like a fucking dead butterfly. His eyes bulged out a little, almost like he knew what I was thinking.

  “Solly Turner was a good man,” I repeated. “So maybe, just maybe, you should have some respect.” I slammed him into the wall on each of those last four words. Then I slammed him into it again, just to prove my point. After that I let him go, and he dropped straight to the floor, just crumpled at my feet. I looked at him, disgusted, and turned away.

  Eloise stood waiting for me. I tightened her girth and started for the door, using her reins as a lead. Miller had gotten up and was still standing by the wall. I shook my head at him. “Tack up your own goddamn pony, Miller.”

  He kept standing there. He looked down at the ground and shifted uneasily.

  “Oh, hell, you don’t even know how?” I rolled my eyes. “Stay, Elle.”

  I went and got his pony. Then I tacked it up in five minutes, turned right around and left with Eloise. By the time I got to the polo field the tears started flowing. Elle stood for a minute while I leaned against her. When I had gotten out what I needed to I mounted and started walking Elle. She walked three times around the field and then started pulling. I let her take off and we just galloped for a while, because I realized what I really needed was to really live.

  I realized the worst thing about this day, when it came, was not the feeling sad or the dark hue it cast over everything. It was the feeling of failure, because every time this day happened I spent it being all depressed, which Solly would’ve hated passionately. Solly was all about living, and whenever this day came up I pretty much wanted to curl up and die. It wasn’t right. It was totally fucked, that’s what it was.

  I turned to Wilson. “This is completely wrong. What we’re doing.”

  He looked at me in clear shock. “We’re not doing anything, Cavanaugh.”

  “Exactly.” I was energized, almost high. “We need to do something about that.”

  Fifteen minutes later we were out in the field. We were alive,
we had good horses, and we tore around, occasionally whacking a polo ball back and forth but mostly just letting them run in every direction possible. I could learn a lot from Solly, even now, and I told myself I wouldn’t hide from him anymore. I leaned forward, grinning and jostled from the reckless pace Harry was building to. Wilson breezed past me on Vegas. His face had loosened up. The tension was gone between us, and I knew I had done a good thing. I really hope I can keep this up, I thought. I swung my mallet, and the half-hidden ball shot out of the grass with an electrifying crack.

  Erica

  I parked my truck and stepped out onto the street, quickly moving over to the sidewalk. It was noon, and the downtown traffic was pretty intense. I was out running errands, and I needed to pick up my mother’s dry cleaning because she was home with a heel bruise. Stilettos were killing her feet, a little at a time. She was supposed to stay off her feet for a while, and she really needed her taffeta/silk/whatever dress back for some unknown reason. So I was being a good daughter and picking it up for her. And I was also giving in and getting a cake from Indulgence.

  I walked down the sidewalk, nearing the bakery. Smells burst forth already. I considered how I was going to hide an enormous cake from my mother so I wouldn’t have to hear about how fat I already was and how fat I was going to be after I ate the thing. Maybe I would just run it upstairs to my room. Hmm. A cake in my room sounds great in theory, but maybe not so much in reality. I’m sure it will get all over, and everything will be rendered sticky. Maybe the barn fridge, if it’ll fit. Maybe I’ll just eat the whole thing on the way home.

  I walked on, preoccupied with my impending cake situation. Eventually I heard someone calling my name, squealing it really, and I looked up. Jennifer was waving at me from further down the street. Her blonde hair shimmered and blew attractively in the wind. Not once did it flop across her face like mine used to. She jogged up to me. “Erica! Hey!”

  “Hey, Jenn.” I smiled.

  “Isn’t it so great that we were both walking down the same street?!” She exclaimed at ever increasing decibels.