Pas de deux

by E. J. Noyes

  And I felt like such a horrible person for even thinking about all of this when Dew was unwell. But the thoughts niggled and niggled and I couldn’t get rid of them. Simone was quiet, speaking only when addressed. I had no idea how she felt about the whole thing. If it were me, I’d feel simultaneously like shit that something had happened to one of the horses and elated that I might have a chance to ride.

  Mary wrapped up the meeting. “We’ll keep an eye on the situation with Dewey, how he recovers and trains over the next four days, then make a decision on Tuesday.” She eyed Simone. “Keep training as if you’re competing Thursday.”

  My stomach fell to my boots and I fought to look normal instead of like I wanted to fall to the floor and bawl. I knew exactly what Mary wasn’t saying. Even if Dew recovered and I was riding him, if it didn’t look like he could be competitive then the reserve would take our place. Mary continued, still talking to Simone, “You’ve been allocated main arena familiarization with Freddo this afternoon.”

  That was supposed to be the slot for me and Dewey. I spoke up. “But what about arena familiarization for Dew?”

  Mary’s face gave nothing away, nor did her voice. “We’ll figure that out when we’re more certain and he feels better.” She picked up her phone and stood. “That’s all for now. Stay in contact.”

  I rushed out of that room and away from the sour taste of disappointment as fast as I could. A few minutes later I found myself outside the equine hospital and in front of the same security guy who’d told me a few hours earlier that I wasn’t allowed inside. I showed him my competitor’s ID and asked if I could please talk to the American veterinarian. After a quick nod he picked up his radio and called for Addie, who appeared at the door ten feet away.

  She gestured for me to come over. “Hey. I just had a call from Mary. How’re you?”

  “I’m not sure.” I tried to see around her into the hospital, hoping to catch a glimpse of Dew. “How’s Dewey?”

  “He’s been trying to get hold of my shirt so I’d say he’s feeling better. He’s moving his neck grudgingly to get feed, but I’d be happier if he’d move it more freely.” After a pause she added, “His vitals are normal. Now we just wait.” She opened the door wider and pointed at the stall in the corner.

  I could just see him, facing the door but still standing with his head low. My stomach lurched and I fought to keep my voice steady when I called, “Dewbles!”

  He raised his head a little, eyes brightening as he spotted me. He nickered, far louder than the one he’d offered this morning. I stepped closer. “Can I come in?” I knew the answer but I had to ask anyway.

  “I’m afraid not.” She offered me an apologetic smile. “I promise I’ll keep in touch, let you know every time he eats or takes a shit or goes down for a nap.”

  It took everything I had to not burst into tears and my response was a brusque, “Right. I guess I’ll just leave you alone then.”

  “Caitlyn—”

  I stepped away and Addie rushed to intercept me. She took my unresisting arm and led me along the side of the hospital to an area around the back away from eyes and ears. After a quick glance around, she took my hands in hers. They felt as strong, warm and dry as mine felt clammy and weak. Her eyebrows came together and after a few seconds she quietly asked, “What’s goin’ on? Can we just talk? Like adults?”

  I didn’t know if I could, as much as I wanted to. After an eternity trying to collect my thoughts I blurted, “I just don’t know how to feel about this. I feel sick worrying about him, and then there’s all the other stuff that I have to think about too.”

  “I know,” she murmured. “And like I said, I’m going to do everything I can to get both of you into that arena, happy and healthy.” She offered a fleeting smile. “Well, Dewey at least. I don’t know the first thing about human health.”

  The tears I’d been trying to hold back made a valiant effort and broke free. “It’s just…I’ve worked my whole life to get here, and over a decade with him. I know I sound like such a horrible person. And of course his health is the most important thing here. Of course it is.” I swiped under both eyes. “It’s just, I mean, I may never get the chance again. Maybe not with Dew. It’s dumb, because I know I’ll have horses who could easily be competitive at this level in a few years, but he’s special. I just want the chance to get out there and do something great and if I miss it now who knows what’s going to happen in the next four years. Maybe he’ll break down, maybe something else will happen and then that’s it—no more Olympic dream for us.”

  Addie kept quiet, as if sensing there was nothing she could say that would help me work through my mental gymnastics, or help me feel better with the guilt. I knew it wasn’t my fault that he’d been stung. But I’d been late that morning because of being with Addie the night before. And a niggling thought persisted that maybe if I’d gotten there earlier, beat Wren even, and taken him out of his stall for a walk then it wouldn’t have happened. I inhaled shakily. “And there’s also everyone else I’m letting down. My coach, my sponsors, everyone who donated money or bought raffle tickets or a Dewey autograph and all that to help us get here.” I gulped in air. “My family. And it may not even happen.”

  She cupped my cheeks in her hands, forcing me to look at her. “You’re not letting anyone down, sweetheart. Equestrian sport can be fickle, everyone involved with it knows that.”

  After a sniff, I whispered, “I know. And I know how selfish and callous I must seem. Like my horse is sick and I’m here thinking about the fact that it might mean I don’t get to ride in the Olympics and boo-hoo, woe is me. And we have a reserve combination so the team is fine, but it’s not me and Dewey.”

  “It’s not selfish or callous to have a dream and want to reach that.” Her thumbs wiped gently at my cheeks. “I just need you to trust me, and that I’m doing all I can to help you reach it too.”

  I tried desperately to be neutral but couldn’t find the ground. “Even with everything that’s happened between us?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What d’you mean?”

  “How can you possibly be objective about Dewey with everything you and I have done?”

  Addie carefully withdrew her hands from where they’d been lovingly cupping my face and folded her arms over her breasts. “I can be objective because that’s my job, Caitlyn. And I am very good at it, regardless of what’s happening in my personal life.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she said flatly.

  I stumbled over my response, trying to frame what was in my head the right way, and totally failing. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk to each other unless it’s absolutely necessary and about Dew.”

  Her mouth fell open and when she closed it again to speak, she spluttered for a few seconds. “Are you kidding me right now? Do you really think— Actually, you know what? I don’t even know what to say to that, Caitlyn, except to ask you why? Why do you think that’s a good idea?”

  I had no idea how to tell her it was me, that I didn’t know how to do this, how to set aside me and her when all of my emotional energy was being directed at Dewey. I didn’t have the strength to compartmentalize my life right now. Knowing she had so much responsibility made me feel utterly powerless, and knowing the professional decision she had to make with the personal us in the way felt awful. So I’d step back and let her do her job without thinking about us. This had to be about Dewey and nothing else. I offered an ineffectual and evasive, “I just do.”

  “Right. Well the last thing I want is to get in the way.” Her expression was admirably neutral. Her voice was anything but. “So, sure, whatever you think.”

  I swallowed the hard lump taking up most of the room in my throat. “I have to go watch Simone and Freddo and show my support, you know, in case they’re competing instead of me and Dewey on Thursday.” As soon as I’d said it, I wanted to pull the words back.

  I knew Addie was doing everything she could to get Dew fit, and if the way sh
e looked was any indication—it was taking its toll. Apparently it’d taken a bigger toll on me than I’d realized and my brain had lost its ability to control my emotions. But of all the bad timing, now really had to be the worst. She had done absolutely nothing to deserve me treating her like that, and even as my mouth had been saying the words my brain had been wondering what the hell I was doing.

  Her jaw tightened. And that was the only response I got. To my face at least. As I walked off I heard her mutter, “Fuck my life.”

  Wandering numbly through the grounds I tried not to think about her anguished look. Tried not to think about the stupid things I’d said. And tried not to imagine how badly I might have just screwed up any possible future we could have once this was all over.

  I dawdled on my way to the main stadium, stopping to grab a bottle of water and an ice cream from the Team USA cabin. Wren and Addie were deep in conversation in the stands beside the arena entrance and as I walked past each gave me a smile of varying friendliness. Okay then, probably not where I should sit. I moved to stand on the wide path by the entrance gate.

  Freddo seemed to have taken serious offense to the arena setup, performing rodeo-bronc acrobatics and generally making his displeasure known. I leaned against the waist-high metal fencing and ate my ice cream. After a while Simone managed to settle Freddo and they did some solid work but by then, her timeslot was done. She brought him back to a walk and turned toward the exit where I stood.

  She’d just left the stadium when a burst of extra-loud gunfire from the military echoed through the complex. Freddo spooked and shied violently sideways away from the sound. Simone brought him under control before he tangled himself in the fencing but he was piaffing, dancing around and doing small rears, then lunging forward, coming closer and closer to me. I slowly started backing away as Simone’s exasperated, “Hey hey hey, cut it out!” was quickly followed by a wry smile and a look in my direction that clearly said Horses. I knew exactly what she meant and smiled back up at her.

  Freddo abruptly stopped his piaffe, mini-rear and lunge routine and planted his feet. Simone was trying everything just to get him to move forward, and Freddo was trying his damnedest to ignore it. Eventually he did the most basic evasion to going forward. He reared. I pressed myself against the fence, not wanting to move quickly and startle him. The moment his front hooves landed again, Simone softened her hands and used a leg aid to move him forward. He ignored her. After a few seconds of asking nicely, she gave him a firm tap behind her leg with the whip.

  Freddo reared again and this time, he was serious about it. He went almost vertical and Simone threw herself forward until her front pressed against his neck in a desperate attempt to not overbalance him. It didn’t help. Freddo’s rear hooves slipped on the thin surface of the path and the moment he started to go over backward Simone kicked out of the stirrups and bailed. It was almost six feet to the ground but jumping was always preferable to being crushed if the horse went over.

  Simone cried out as she landed and lost her grip on the reins, leaving them flapping around Freddo’s neck. I made a split-second decision to grab them to stop him from getting away. Him bolting around the complex would either cause serious damage to himself or start a riot which would have other horses doing serious damage to themselves.

  I’d just managed to grab one rein when Freddo flipped fully over onto his back and wrenched the leather from my hand. He hit the ground with a loud crack. Having already thrown myself off balance to grab him, I tumbled forward and only just missed colliding with the fence and Freddo. I didn’t miss hitting the back of my head on something and I scrambled onto my hands and knees to get away from the panicking horse. By the time I’d stood up, Freddo was flailing with all four legs in a desperate attempt to roll over and get up.

  I looked at Simone, who had moved into a sitting position, and asked breathlessly, “You okay?”

  “Think so.” She went to stand then crumpled to the ground again. “My fucking ankle.” When I went to go to her she gasped, “I’ll be fine, hold him. Please.”

  My ears rang with shouting stewards and team staff as a crowd rushed in. I pulled both sets of reins over Freddo’s head to keep him from tangling himself. The first person to reach us was a breathless Addie. She took me by both shoulders, her frantic gaze sweeping the length of me. “Are you all right?” she rasped out. Her face was a study in pure, raw panic.

  “Yeah. But he’s…I don’t know what he is. I heard something go crack when he landed.”

  Addie glanced at Simone—who was muttering tearfully about her ankle while unzipping her boot—then let me go to attend to Freddo. I backed away, having been replaced by Freddo’s groom who’d appeared from nowhere. She leaned over Freddo’s back to avoid his still-flailing legs and fumbled to unfasten the girth. The moment she pulled the saddle off I realized the seat had broken in two, leather creasing over the break. “The saddle tree is broken. That could have been the sound I heard?”

  Addie spared me a glance. “I sure fucking hope so.”

  Simone’s sharp yell cut through the noise and when everyone looked at her she offered us all a wonky smile and held her boot up. “Twenty-two-hundred-dollar handmade boots. My favorites. No way am I letting doctors cut them off.” She exhaled. “Is he—?”

  Freddo tried one last flail, managed to get his hindlegs underneath himself, stretched his forelegs out and with a groan, stood. As he stumbled to his feet he staggered sideways, almost knocking Addie over, and I grabbed the back of her shirt to pull her away. Freddo struggled for balance and after a few seconds stood firmly on three legs, not weightbearing on the fourth—his left hind. He held the hoof six inches from the ground, dropping that leg and snatching it up again until he finally rested his toe on the ground. His posture was like a cat who’d had a fright, hunched over and standing almost on tip-toes.

  Despite the crowd that had quickly gathered it was abundantly clear that Addie was in charge. With calm, quiet instructions she spoke into her radio, ordering the horse ambulance trailer brought around immediately and directing someone to notify the hospital that we were coming in with a horse that’d flipped over and landed hard. She did all of this while doing vitals and a physical assessment on Freddo and talking to those assembled about what was going to happen. Freddo had a quiet, unresisting shocked look to him.

  Wren’s first word when she arrived a minute later was a muttered, “Fuck.” She took me by the shoulders and gently turned me to face her. “You okay? What happened? I ducked out to pee and came back just as hell was breaking loose.”

  I wiped away the gravel and fine sand sticking to my sweaty arms. I’d grazed my elbow as I’d fallen and had bits stuck in the ooze. “Gunfire and Freddo lost his shit. He did a massive rear, Simone bailed and fell over and lost the reins. I went to grab him to try to stop him getting away but he went over backward.”

  She looked me up and down then bent to brush my knees off. “He didn’t land on you?”

  “I tripped.”

  Wren noted, “You’ve got sand in your hair so you hit your head. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

  “I’m fine, honestly. It wasn’t a hard head crack.” I glanced over at the horse who still stood in that same hunched position, and Simone who was hopping around him while leaning hard on Mary. The horse ambulance was making its way across the sand, and Addie was calmly directing the people around her and asking all nonessential people to leave.

  Wren’s arm closed around my shoulder. “Come on. There’s nothing we can do here. I’m taking you to get checked by a medic.”

  Nonessential. Couldn’t help Dewey. Couldn’t help here. It seemed there was nothing I could do anywhere. I let her guide me away and as we walked I felt more useless and adrift than I ever had.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Addie

  The mental and physical exhaustion of the past few days had left me feeling like a zombie, except even shambling and mumbling felt beyond my capabilities. After Freddo’s
accident the day before I’d been running on autopilot, antacids, and adrenaline. He had a non-displaced fracture of the iliac wing in his pelvis but was stable and comfortable and there was nothing to do except keep him quiet, restrict movement, administer pain relief and have the on-call Olympic PT work with him. Despite sounding serious, this injury was completely recoverable and with the right treatment and rehabilitation, he should be back in full work within twelve months.

  Dewey’s swelling had resolved, he had near-full range of neck movement and everything indicated he was feeling close to his usual self. With all that in mind, I would have to make a decision by tomorrow afternoon on his ability to compete. I hadn’t administered anything after the initial injections, and I’d also cleared him for a light workout on the lunge coupled with fifteen minutes of riding in the air-conditioned indoor arena that morning. He’d been comfortable and shown no distress, but the rigors of a top-level dressage competition were far beyond just exercising on the end of a long rope with no rider aboard and some basic walk-trot-canter under saddle.

  It was easy to pretend that the only consequences of my professional decisions would be professional. But I knew very well that they would have far-reaching implications for my personal life as well. Assuming there was even a personal life to look forward to after this, which seemed unlikely given Caitlyn’s cool behavior the last few days.

  I was trying very hard not to take it personally because I knew exactly how much stress she was under and that sometimes stressed people tended to react badly. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t been short in response, as much as I’d hated it. It was easy to say that Caitlyn would respect my decision and that it wouldn’t be personal. But it was personal, no matter how hard we tried to pretend otherwise.

  I found James Parker, a UK vet who was part of the volunteer vet team whose job was to act as roving veterinary care for the facility, in the clinic vets’ office. “Hey, James. You got a moment to go over my bee sting case?”