Summer Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 1)

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  Jed had never shown up. Maybe he had texted Zoe but she wasn’t exactly checking her phone. I had spent the night watching Chris and I was pretty sure I was completely in love with him. He seemed so confident, the total opposite of me, of course. He talked to people when he wanted to, roamed around the bar, just doing whatever he felt like and he didn’t seem to be worrying about what he looked like or what people thought of him. He also did this thing that I loved. When he was talking to someone and they said something funny he kind of tossed his head back quickly. Whenever he did that, I felt it in my stomach. And maybe somewhere else too.

  I was against the wall opposite the bar thinking of how pathetic I must look, standing alone, when Chris, who according to my count had drunk three beers, won two games of pool and lost one, and had talked to two girls, walked by. He went in the bathroom and passed me again on his way back. This time, he slowed down, glanced at me and then stopped.

  “Hannah, right?”

  I nodded. “Hi.”

  Chris wagged his finger at me. “I swear I know you from somewhere.”

  My back stiffened against the wall behind me.

  “Wait a second. You’re the one . . . you crashed into me on warm-up day, didn’t you?”

  I tried to smile, hoping we could laugh it off. It could become one of those funny remember-when moments.

  He did the thing where he tossed his head back and I felt my knees weaken.

  “It was you, wasn’t it? I didn’t recognize you without your helmet.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  Chris leaned toward me and I could smell the beer on his breath. It smelled sweet and earthy, almost like when you press your nose to a flake of hay, which I hadn’t ever done until a few days ago. I hadn’t really smelled beer breath before, either. So many new things. “Do you always go crashing into people like that?”

  “Not regularly, no.”

  “What happened? Forget your left from your right?”

  “It’s my horse, he’s kind of psycho.”

  “There you go, blame your horse. Oldest trick in the book.”

  “No, seriously, he is.”

  “There’s no such thing as a crazy horse only a crazy person for buying him.”

  “Well, I didn’t buy him. I got him as a present so does that still make me crazy?”

  “No, I guess it makes the person who gave him to you crazy.”

  I laughed. “That sounds about right. It was my dad.”

  “Where’d he get him from? Didn’t Jamie pick him out?”

  I shook my head. “It’s kind of a long story, but he bought him sight unseen. Kind of on a whim, I guess you’d say.” I paused and then added, “Seventeenth-birthday-guilt gift.”

  Chris stepped back. “You’re seventeen?”

  “No, I’m eighteen. But I got him when I was seventeen.”

  This seemed to make Chris relax although I didn’t know why he cared about my age. It was hard to believe he’d consider liking me and, even if he did, I had learned from Zoe that most of the horse show guys didn’t care how young the girls were they messed around with. She’d once told me her first time was when she was fourteen with T.J. Jones, a grand prix rider who was at least ten years older than she was. Chris was only twenty-three. But maybe Chris was different from other over-sexed morally-bankrupt riders. It seemed like the lopsided ratio of women to men boosted horse show guys’ testosterone, turning many into instant womanizers. Could Chris be different and actually have a conscience?

  “What was he feeling guilty about?” Chris asked.

  “Not being around much. My parents divorced when I was pretty young and except for vacations and a few weeks in the summer I’ve spent most of my time with my mom.”

  I started to worry that I was saying too much. I didn’t even know this guy and I was telling him my life story?

  “My parents are divorced too. It sucks, doesn’t it?”

  “Definitely.” I was surprised to hear him say it sucked. Somehow I thought when you got older it didn’t suck as much.

  “I envy people who have parents that are happily married, or amicably divorced, at least. My parents can’t come to the same horse show. When I rode in the World Cup Final they took turns coming on alternate days. I mean we’re in Sweden and it’s the World Cup and you can’t even be in a stadium with thousands of people together? No one says you have to sit together, or even see each other. My brother was the only one from my family that could be there each day. I can’t imagine what they’ll do if I make the Olympics.”

  That was the first time I’d ever heard anyone talk seriously, yet casually, about making the Olympics. It was pretty cool.

  “Does your brother ride too?”

  “Nope. I’m the only one in the family who rides. How about you?”

  “Yeah, same, just me.”

  “What about your parents?” Chris asked. “Do they get along?”

  I held my hand up in the universal sign for so-so. “They live on separate coasts so they don’t have to see each other much, but they usually pull it together for big events like graduations or birthdays. How did you do at the World Cup, anyway?” I felt like I should know—most people at the show probably did.

  “Good. I was fifth.”

  “Zoe said something about a horse you had that was hurt?” Again, I felt dumb for not knowing what was probably common knowledge, but Chris didn’t seem annoyed.

  “Yeah, my World Cup horse, actually. He got hurt at Devon. That’s why I didn’t go on the Tour this summer and that’s why I came here instead of going to Spruce.” He hesitated like he understood I might not even know what the Tour or Spruce was. After all, I hadn’t known about the grand prix being on Saturday. I did actually know about the tours to Europe arranged by the United States Equestrian Team and I knew about Spruce Meadows in Canada. Chris continued, “This is a nice circuit for young grand prix horses. Jumps aren’t huge, courses are nice. Hey, did you drive here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Would you give me a ride home?”

  “Okay, I’m just not sure when I’m leaving. I mean I drove Zoe.”

  “Look—” I had briefly lost track of Zoe and he put one hand on my shoulder and pointed with the other to the corner of room by the darts where Zoe was intertwined with Dermott. “I don’t think you need to worry about driving her home.”

  “I guess you’re right.” It was what Zoe had wanted—to hook up with Dermott. But I kind of felt sad about the way it was happening. I kept thinking about her at age fourteen and whether that had set things up for her in a bad way.

  “You didn’t drive here?” I asked him.

  “No. I wanted to get really drunk, but I didn’t follow through with it, and now I just kind of want to get out of here. I’m ready to leave whenever you are.”

  I looked over the clusters of people. “I still think I should tell Zoe I’m leaving. Just in case she wants to go home.”

  “Okay.” Chris removed his hand. I wanted it back. I really wanted it back.

  I made my way across the room to Zoe. Dermott had his hands on her butt and I tried to look blasé about it as I tapped Zoe on the shoulder.

  She barely pulled away. “Zoe, sorry but I was thinking of leaving. Do you need a ride?”

  Zoe looked at Dermott, kissed him once more and then said, “Nah, sweetie, go ahead.”

  “Okay, actually Chris asked me to give him a ride home, can you believe that?”

  Zoe made suggestive eyes at me. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

  I turned to head across the room to Chris. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do? Chris just wanted a ride home, right? I wasn’t missing signals or something? He didn’t actually want to hook up with me?

  I told Chris we were all set to leave.

  “What did I tell you,” he said. “Luck of the Irish. These European guys . . .” Chris trailed off. I wondered if he was thinking about Mary Beth in Europe. Maybe that was why he wanted to get drunk?
>
  The lot was packed with SUVs and trucks angled onto the grass in places. It was Sunday night, after all. Music was blaring from inside. The license plates were from all different states—Northeastern states, but also plates from as far away as Florida, South Carolina, and Kentucky.

  When we were pulling out, I said, “Zoe, I guess she does that sort of thing a lot?”

  “What sort of thing?” Chris said.

  “Well, I don’t know. I mean I kind of can’t believe her, with Dermott.”

  “Oh, that.” Chris shrugged. “I don’t exactly keep track. A lot of wild stuff happens up here.”

  My high school had been exactly the same, with people getting drunk at parties and hooking up. But I stayed away from that crowd. I hadn’t been to one party, not even the annual graduation party at the beach that I promised myself I’d go to. Ryan, my older brother, had been one of the most popular kids in our high school. I’d never been able to keep up with his popularity so I’d stopped trying, instead falling into the role of the studious sibling. Before he left for college, Ryan always invited me to hang out with his friends. He was nice that way—always trying to include me. One time I’d messed around with one of his friends. He went up my shirt and down my pants and that was okay, if not extremely pleasurable, but when he undid his own zipper and started to pull himself out, I’d gotten nervous and shut him down. That was the extent of my sexual history. Sometimes I regretted stopping him. Maybe it would have been better to have gone all the way with him, even if it didn’t exactly feel right or like I imagined it would be. After Ryan graduated and wasn’t there to include me in things, it was easy enough to slip into the background. I had a few friends, but like me, they cared more about their grades than partying and hooking up.

  Now, I wondered, did Chris want to have sex with me? If he wanted to, would I? I was certainly really attracted to him. Could I be like Zoe and just go for it? Is that why Chris had wanted to get really drunk—to screw someone and forget all about his ex, Mary Beth? Had she found someone else in Europe?

  “So you’re up here for the whole circuit?” Chris asked.

  “Yup, it’s going to be a long one judging from week one.”

  “You mean what your horse does in the ring, or the way Jamie yells at you?”

  I glanced quickly at Chris and then looked back at the road. “Where are you staying?”

  “Off Route 12. Know where it is?”

  I nodded. I was off Route 12 too.

  “So you don’t want to talk about it now, your horse being a total shit like that?” Chris said.

  “No, I just can’t believe you noticed.”

  “I happened to be standing nearby.”

  I pulled onto Route 12 and started winding up the mountain. We passed signs for ski parking and deer crossing.

  “Next right,” Chris said. “The first house on the left.”

  I pulled onto the road and then into the driveway and put the car in park. His house was an A-frame ski-lodge type made of dark timbers. “So you knew who I was? I mean, when Zoe and I came up to you at the bar? Did you know that was me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh,” I said, still unsure what it all meant.

  “You pretended you didn’t know who I was too,” Chris pointed out.

  “I was mortified.”

  Chris tossed his head back, not fully but just a little. I couldn’t figure out where this was going. Was he going to ask me to come in? Or did he actually like me, and want more than just sex?

  “I’ll help you with him if you want,” Chris said.

  “What?”

  “I’ll help you with your psycho horse.”

  Out of all the things to come out of Chris’s mouth this was the one I least expected. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “I don’t know. I just will.”

  “But how? What about Jamie?” None of this made any sense. My head was spinning. Grand prix riders didn’t just randomly offer to help riders who already had a trainer, especially not ones as accomplished as Chris Kern.

  “Tomorrow morning. Six o’clock, in the hunter warm-up. It’s Monday—she won’t find out.”

  “Really?” Here I had been weighing whether I’d have sex with him and all he was offering was to give me a lesson. I didn’t know what to think.

  Chris got out of the car. He leaned back in and said, “Get some sleep and I’ll see you bright and early.”

  The whole world seemed hooded and eerily quiet as I drove back onto Route 12, up the mountain a minute more, and to my condo. None of what had just happened seemed real.

  Still, I got into bed and set my alarm for 4:45. It was only a few short hours away, but I knew I wouldn’t have any trouble getting up when the alarm went off.

  As I fell asleep I thought about Zoe and Dermott. I imagined myself in the bar like Zoe had been only it wasn’t Dermott who had his hands all over me. It was Chris.

  Chapter 10

  It was still dark when I led Logan from his stall. I used the stepladder to mount and walked across the desolate show grounds to the back ring. The sun was just edging out from behind the mountains that surrounded the grounds, casting a dim light over everything. I could see Logan’s breath coming out of his nostrils.

  Logan hadn’t even had time to eat and I hadn’t either. The only person who was in the tent when I’d gotten there was the nearly sleepwalking horse watch guy doing his last check of the night. The whole time as I was driving to the show and getting Logan tacked up, I was wondering if Chris would show up, or if he’d only been messing with me.

  And why should he show up? A top rider with his sights set on the Olympics stopping to help some nobody and her psycho horse? Get up early on his one off-day? It couldn’t be a way to get into my pants—he hadn’t even tried to kiss me the night before—and I knew nearly every girl at the show would want to sleep with Chris Kern.

  I entered the schooling ring. There was no sign of Chris. I would have to slink back to the barn after all. I looked at my watch—I would give him five minutes, ten at the most. I heard footsteps behind me. I turned quickly in the saddle to see Chris with a travel coffee mug in his hand.

  I guess my face looked surprised because he said, “Didn’t think I would come, huh?”

  “I wasn’t sure.”

  Chris looked at his watch. “Sorry, I’m late. Let’s get to work. Make a circle around me and get to the posting trot. Let me see this horse go.”

  I straightened my back at Chris’s words. He was all business, making the guy I’d talked to last night about divorce feel like a dream. Maybe he’d been more drunk than I’d realized.

  I squeezed Logan into a trot and started a large circle around him. Chris took a sip from his mug and then said, “Make your circle smaller.”

  I brought in my circle. I trotted four revolutions around Chris before he said, “Now, change your direction and trot the other way.”

  I reversed direction, keeping my head straight and my eyes focused in front of me. Every once in a while, though, I would glance over at Chris, hoping to see him without being seen. But Chris was staring straight back at me, watching Logan the whole time, studying us.

  Finally he said, “Now, let me see you canter.”

  After I had cantered in both directions, Chris motioned to me. “Okay, bring him down to a walk and come here for a second.” His voice turned thoughtful. “What this horse needs is consistency. His trot is erratic, always changing pace. Same with his canter. His frame is all over the place. No wonder when you get in the ring or try to jump he’s out of control. He’s at loose ends, all the time.”

  I nodded.

  “What kind of flatwork do you do with Jamie?”

  I shrugged. “Not much, just hacking mostly.”

  Chris shook his head. “Well, let’s get to it. Get back on the circle, posting trot.”

  I returned to the circle and picked up a posting trot, my heartbeat quickening to match Logan’s racing stride.

 
“Okay,” Chris said. “We’re going to start right there. Shorten up your reins about two inches so there’s no slack.”

  I shortened my reins and could immediately feel Logan’s neck muscles stiffen as he began mouthing the bit.

  “That’s fine for him to tense up like that. Now apply both leg and some pressure on the reins. This horse needs both leg and hand together to make him come together.”

  “That’s what he doesn’t like.”

  Chris chuckled. “Well, that’s too bad. He doesn’t like going over the jumps either but are you going to let him keep stopping on you?”

  I shook my head and concentrated on applying both leg and hand at the same time.

  “Always leg first and always more leg than hand,” Chris added.

  Logan threw his head up in the air and tried to race forward.

  “Don’t worry about that.” Chris took a sip of his coffee. “He’s trying to evade you there—to find a way out of having to work.”

  The sun was further up in the sky, casting a pretty glow on the show grounds. A few more trucks had pulled up to the tents, grooms reporting to work while all the trainers and riders slept.

  “It’s going to take time. But once we teach him the right aids, he’ll understand what you’re asking. Keep squeezing him forward like you’re doing, but instead of just pulling steadily on the reins, half-halt him.”

  I looked at Chris. “I don’t think I know what . . .”

  Chris let out a disgusted sigh, but I could tell his disappointment was at Jamie, not me. “A half-halt is when you take firmly on the reins and then release. You can half-halt every other stride if you need to. If you hang on the reins it’s just going to get him more upset and it won’t teach him anything.”

  I tried what he said. Why hadn’t Jamie bothered to teach me any of this? She had once been a good horsewoman and she still had a reputation for turning out winners, even though it was fading as new trainers came onto the scene. But why hadn’t Jamie tried harder with me? Was it because my dad went solo and bought a crazy horse, cheating her out of a hefty commission? Was it because I was clearly a bad rider, beyond help? Had she treated me better when I leased Dobby?