As if on cue with the thoughts in my mind, Mary Beth appeared in the aisle. I wondered if Roger knew her.
“Mary Beth,” Roger said in his funny accent.
She threw her arms around him and kissed one cheek and then the other. She even knew the European customs. “Roger, so good to see you.” She didn’t say his name like I had been saying it in my head, plain old Roger. She said it the right way, Ro-ger, with a long ‘o’ and a soft ‘g’.
“You as well, mon trésor. You are going to win this week?”
“I hope so.”
“You and Christopher. First and second, that is how I like it. I’d also like to see both of you in Europe this summer.”
“You and me both,” Mary Beth concurred. She blew Roger a jaunty kiss and headed off down the aisle.
When Chris came back, he and Roger conferred for a few minutes. Roger did a lot of gesturing and shoulder clapping. All I could think about was how Roger thought I was Chris’s groom. Should Chris have corrected Roger and told him I was his girlfriend? Should Chris officially introduce me to him?
Roger told Chris how he really had to show in Europe this summer. Since he wasn’t an American, I wasn’t sure why Roger cared so much. Maybe just because he liked Chris and thought he was a good rider. But that seemed rather uncomplicated in terms of a motivation, which did not aptly describe most things in the horse show world. Chris told him he was working on getting another horse.
“He’s a fan of yours,” I said after Roger had demonstrated another healthy shoulder clap and left.
Chris looked nearly forlorn—not the response I expected.
“It’s nice to have people on your side. Rooting for you. Could you really go to Europe this summer?” The thought terrified me.
Chris shook his head sadly. “I wish, but the way it’s looking getting a legit 5-star horse and having it ready for Europe this summer isn’t going to happen.”
I tried to disguise my relief. Chris would be around this summer.
Chapter 24
Dad and Ryan arrived on Friday afternoon. I offered to find a way to come collect them at the airport but Dad said his assistant had arranged a car for them. It was a good thing actually because the junior hunters went throughout the afternoon and I wouldn’t have been able to cut out easily. Dakota was also trying more jumpers to replace Tizz, which meant a lot of running around to different rings to watch different horses go and then setting up going to various farms off the show grounds to try them. The only place you could try horses on the show grounds was the $20 ring and that place was crazy with horses going every which way. It was not where you wanted to try a horse, especially a high-priced animal like Dakota was trying. Linda had told me about a girl who tried a fancy hunter in the $20 ring and ended up colliding with a children’s jumper. The fancy hunter got hurt, and the owners attempted to sue the family who had tried the horse. Whether that whole story was true was up for debate. WEF swirled with stories and rumors. It wasn’t that Linda was malicious in telling me the story. She didn’t promise it was one hundred percent true. She just said she’d heard it happened. I had learned, starting in Vermont, and even more so here in Wellington, to take every story I heard with a grain of salt. Usually there was always a part of the story that was true but maybe not all of it. Like maybe the girl had crashed the fancy hunter and the owners were pissed but they hadn’t actually gone so far as to seek damages.
A lot of the rumors that swirled around WEF had to do with price tags of horses since the winter circuit was all about sales for many barns and professionals. We were constantly hearing numbers tossed about. This hunter going for 500K. This pony sold for 250K. So-and-so was asking one million for their jumper—could you believe paying that much for a junior jumper? I’d heard my mom say once that rich people thought that it was crass to talk about money but it seemed like just the opposite here. At every possible opportunity, they bandied about how much a horse, or a VIP table, or even lunch, cost.
Dad and Ryan arrived at the barn after we were done for the day. I could tell they were both immediately impressed with the Pearces’ farm, even coming from gorgeous Palo Alto. And who wouldn’t be?
“This is really something,” Dad said, giving me a hug. He held me close to him, despite the fact that I was dirty, and didn’t let go for a few moments and I soaked up the knowledge that even though my dad could be a total pain in the ass the guy really loved me.
“A little crazy, though,” Ryan said, giving me a hug too. “It’s like horse farm after horse farm. Couldn’t some of them share barns or at least rings?”
“Share? Never. You haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait till you see the show grounds,” I told them.
I showed them around the barn and introduced them to Linda. Dakota had gone into the house. I could tell Linda thought Ryan was attractive, even though he was too young for her. He was medium height and had a thin build. Nothing that made him stand out so much. But his face was incredibly charming. He had dark hair and really blue eyes and a fantastic smile. I think he mainly got girls because of his smile. He also had a slightly stand-off-ish quality about him, especially when you first met him, which counter intuitively seemed to draw people to him. They wanted to figure out what he was thinking about. They wanted to get him to like them.
“So when do we get to meet Chris?” Ryan asked after the tour.
“Well, I thought we’d all get dinner together.”
“Sounds good.”
I should have been more nervous about my dad and Ryan meeting Chris but I just knew they would love him. What was not to love? A serious, motivated, centered athlete who was going about building his own business.
I was right that they hit it off. Dad and Ryan spent a lot of time asking about how the world of show jumping worked. They wanted to know how much the entry fees were and how much it cost to keep a horse and train it. Chris explained how the prize money in a class is divvied up percentage-wise among the top finishers. Ryan was surprised to learn that first place in a million dollar class didn’t mean the winner walked away with a million dollars, but only $350,000. Of course there was talk about the price of horses, too. What it cost to buy a proven winner versus a green horse. How it cost less to bring a horse along in Europe so American breeding programs lagged far behind European ones.
“What about Logan?” Dad asked. “What’s he worth today?”
Chris touched his napkin to his mouth and then repositioned it on his lap, probably just to give himself a moment to prepare his answer. “Logan’s a good horse. Do I think he’s a 1.45 or 1.50 meter caliber horse? No, I don’t. I think he’s a great 1.30 meter horse.”
“Which means? Layman terms?” Dad said.
“He’s not a grand prix horse. He’s not an Olympic horse. He’s a good junior or amateur jumper, or 25K-type grand prix horse.”
“And those cost?”
“Two-hundred and fifty-thousand to five-hundred thousand.”
Dad made a temple of his hands and rested them in front of his finished plate. “That’s a big range. Where is he in that?”
“He hasn’t won a lot. He doesn’t have a proven record so I’d say if I were to market him tomorrow I’d put him at 325.”
Dad let slip a satisfied smile. “Not bad.”
“How much did you buy him for?” Ryan asked Dad.
“Fifty.”
“Nice profit margins.”
“Logan’s a great success story,” Chris said. “But that’s pretty rare in this business. It’s hard to make a lot of money on these horses and you can end up losing some too.”
“I hope this isn’t part of your pitch to prospective investors,” Dad said.
I interjected, “Of course it isn’t.” I didn’t want Dad to think Chris was that unsophisticated. But I realized after I said it that it wasn’t my place to speak up and defend Chris.
“I’m being honest and open with you because you’re Hannah’s family,” Chris said. “But actually I do tell prospective
owners the truth because I don’t want the relationship to sour if things don’t all go swimmingly. Nothing ever goes like you thought it would, right? Nothing ever happens perfectly according to plan. I’m sure it’s the same in your business, isn’t it?”
“Yes, yes it is.” Dad put his hand over mine and patted it, catching my eye quickly.
I could tell what he was thinking. He was thinking, I like this guy, Hannah. You picked a winner. I let my heart swell with pride.
Dad had to make a bunch of calls the next morning but Ryan came and tagged along with me at the show. He rode in the golf cart as I put Dakota’s number in and went along to the coffee cart. Everywhere I went people knew me. They waved or said hi or asked how Dakota had done the day before. It felt great that Ryan was seeing me like this. In high school, he had been the one who walked the halls of our school with people constantly calling out to him. He was the one everyone knew and I faded into the background. But here at WEF, I had carved out my own place and identity. That identity might be tagged somewhat to Linda and Dakota and even Chris but still, people knew who I was and liked me and I could tell Ryan was noticing.
He was also noticing the pretty girls all around him. “Holy shit, this is like the seventy-two Virgins in Islamic afterlife,” he said to me after yet another skinny young woman in breeches with beautiful hair pulled back in a ponytail walked by us.
I turned the golf cart toward the Grand Hunter Ring, making sure I didn’t spin the wheel so hard as to make our coffee spill through its lids. “Okay, that’s not really funny, and let me tell you most of these girls you are seeing are so not virgins.”
“I don’t care if they’re virgins. They’re beautiful. Can you even be ugly and compete in this sport?”
“You can but for some reason most of them are beautiful people. I don’t quite know why. The ugly ones sort of stick out. So do the unwealthy ones.”
“So they’re gorgeous and wealthy. I think I’m gonna stay here for a few weeks.”
“A lot of them are crazy, though,” I said. “Comes with the territory.”
“Okay, good to know.”
Ryan wasn’t the only one doing the checking out during the time we spent at the ring together. Plenty of girls were checking him out. One even came up to me at the in-gate when Ryan was taking a call in the golf cart asking all about him—who was he, where was he from, was he straight, was he available? I guess there were so few straight, available men in the horse show world that a cute new guy showing up on the grounds sent out a ripple of excitement.
I had so much fun being at the ring with Ryan. He got to see me in action and I definitely got the feeling he was impressed by the overall scene, how big the stakes were for all the classes, how throbbing with energy the show grounds were.
We had a few good laughs too, like when we saw a goat sitting in a golf cart.
“I’m sorry, is that a goat?”
I had gotten so used to the odd things you’d see around the show. One trainer even had a wolf. A legitimate real-life domesticated wolf. But Ryan craned his head at the goat in the golf cart and another golf cart filled with dogs, five or six dogs. It was hard to tell who was even driving what with all the tails and legs.
Ryan wanted to see Zoe for himself so we went over to the Grand Hunter Ring to find her. She was still riding for Donnie. I’d been so busy lately I’d put what I’d read about her on the back-burner but now I looked at Donnie and her for clues of what might be going on between them. The first year classes were finishing up and we got to see Zoe ride one horse of Donnie’s. It was a spectacular mover and jumped very round, but a little drapey with its front legs. Still, Zoe gave it an amazingly accurate and nuanced ride. With any other rider, the horse wouldn’t have looked nearly as good. She made up for its drawbacks.
“I’m not sure I really believe she’s doing all these drugs if she’s still here showing and doing well,” I said quietly to Ryan.
“It’s amazing how some people can keep functioning,” he said. “Maybe not forever but for a long while.”
My mind turned to her skeletal chest, the bones nearly popping out of her skin. Of course now she was wearing her show clothes so you couldn’t tell as much how skinny she was.
We stayed around to watch the jog. Zoe jogged in first with another horse of Donnie’s that we hadn’t seen go. A groom jogged the drapey jumper in third. I wasn’t really paying attention enough to the jog—I had been looking more at Zoe than at the horse she was jogging but apparently the judge had seen something because he called for the riders to jog again. This time, he motioned to Zoe to leave the ring.
Zoe walked the horse out of the ring slowly and with her head down. Maybe I was projecting emotions onto her but it seemed like she was dreading coming out of the ring and facing Donnie.
He was standing at the in-gate, his jaw set. “I told you not to jog him that way. Did you hear a fucking word I said to you?” He grabbed the reins from her, pushing her out of the way, and snatching on the poor horse’s mouth at the same time. “You hold him up here.” He demonstrated holding the horse up by the bit. “He’s not lame. If you don’t hold up here he looks lame. I’ve told you that again and again. Are you just too fucking stupid to remember that?”
His swears—fucking stupid—hung in the air. I shivered and leaned closer to Ryan.
“What an asshole,” he said to me.
“Yeah,” I murmured.
“He can just do that? Say those things? He doesn’t get a red card or a technical foul?”
“I guess not,” I said.
The other trainers around the in-gate didn’t seem to take much notice of what was going on between Donnie and Zoe. I guess they were used to it, or didn’t know what they could do to intervene. The whole complicity of the scene struck me as incredibly sad.
The horses that had remained in the jog came out of the ring. The second jog was called and I braced myself for what would happen next. Zoe got the top call again and this time I studied the horse trotting in. She held the horse’s head tightly and Donnie clucked and shooed his arms from the in-gate. The horse looked a little funky behind to me but I was no expert in soundness.
The judge threw the horse out again. He pretty much had to, since he’d tossed him the first time. Donnie glowered at Zoe as she led the horse out of the ring but this time it was the judge that Donnie cursed from the in-gate. He tossed off a few expletives and finally stalked away.
“I don’t know what to do,” I told Ryan. “I don’t know if it’s even my place to do anything.”
I wished we’d never come to watch Zoe. It felt like it had ruined my happy mood. Then I felt selfish for even feeling that way. Who knew what Zoe would be facing back at the barn with Donnie?
“After what she did to you I’m not sure you owe her anything,” Ryan said.
“I know, but I can’t help feeling like someone needs to help her.”
Dad met us for a late lunch. We ate at the VIP tent and I could tell Dad was also pretty impressed looking down over the International Ring.
He spread his hands to encompass the whole show grounds. The riders waiting for their classes, the horses dutifully standing at the ready, the golf carts whizzing by, the trainers pointing and gesticulating, the vendors pushing for their next sale. “This is a huge operation the show management has got going on here.”
Being a daily part of it, I had dulled to it all. But with them, for a moment, I saw it the way I had when I’d first arrived, fresh off the plane. It was like nothing else in the world. The constant motion, the vibrant sounds, the whirl of hopes, ribbons, and reality.
Ryan asked about Chris’s routine before a big class. He seemed to understand that Chris really was a professional athlete. But unlike most professional athletes who made a living mainly from their own performance, Chris had to earn his money before he competed himself. I told Ryan that he would ride his horses at the farm in the morning and ride Arkos in the FEI schooling ring. He’d coach Lily, who was competi
ng in the High A/O Classic. Then he’d go home in the afternoon, shower and have a meal packed with protein because he wouldn’t feel like eating right before the class, except for maybe an energy bar or a piece of fruit.
He’d be back over for the course walk. The order had been posted and he went late in the class, thirty-fourth.
Dad said he had to make a few more calls and so I left him looking very much at home in the tent. Ryan came with me while I went through the afternoon chores at the show tent and back at Morada. He watched everything I did with the kind of curiosity that made him who he was. He even helped me untangle the mess of polo wraps from the dryer. I taught him how to roll them. Fernando showed him some of Rudi’s tricks. He held up a broom horizontal to the ground about waist high and whistled and Rudi jumped it from a standstill. Fernando raised the broom a few times. Ryan thought it was hysterical that the hunters wore fake tails and that part of my job was to wash them.
“You look happy here,” Ryan said as I poured baby shampoo into a large tub to wash the tails.
“Mostly I am—when I’m doing barn stuff.”
“But you and Chris?”
I shrugged. “It’s not been what I imagined it would be.”
“It never is,” Ryan said.
I gently washed the tails, then rinsed them under clean water, careful not to get them wet close to the top where the glue held them together. “That sure sounds jaded. Are you seeing anyone?”
“Not right now.”
“Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to get married and be happy after watching Mom and Dad. Do you think they didn’t stay together because they were like in two completely different worlds?”
Winter Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 2) Page 17
