Summer Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 1)

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  Jed looked like he was going to be tight to an oxer midway through what had been a super good trip and Zoe leaned back like she was trying to ride the jump herself and fit in the stride. Jed’s horse covered up the tight distance pretty well and Jed finished the rest of the course perfectly. He had pretty good equitation. We had to wait until he had completely left the ring before we could talk. Zoe let out a gust of air, like she’d been holding her breath, not just being silent.

  “Oh my God, I thought he was totally going to chip, but it didn’t look bad,” she said.

  “The rest was really good.”

  “That always happens to Jed. One-jump Jed. That’s what Jamie calls him, because he always has one bad jump. But don’t say it to him—he hates being called that.”

  The rest of the rounds were pretty weak, since it was late in the season and most of the top riders were qualified. Zoe was confident Jed would get called back for the test. She could pin a class just by watching from the in-gate and most of the time she got it right.

  “You also have to consider who’s judging,” Zoe said.

  I looked across the ring to the judges’ booth. Zoe knew all the judges and they knew her too. I didn’t know why I was even looking—besides George Morris, I didn’t know one single judge.

  “Who is it?”

  “Adam Evans.”

  “And he likes Jed?”

  “He likes all teenage boys,” Zoe said. “If you Google him, you’ll find out he likes them a little too much.”

  “What?”

  “Exposing himself to a class from a boys’ school on a field trip . . .”

  “Seriously?” Sometimes the horse show world blew my mind. “How can he still be judging?”

  “He had a good lawyer,” Zoe said.

  There were still fifteen riders left to go so Jed came over to talk to us.

  “I came around the corner to that oxer and saw nothing,” Jed said.

  “It didn’t look bad,” Zoe reassured him. “It worked out. You’ll test.”

  Jed held up his crossed fingers. “I just want to get this over with so I can relax and enjoy the rest of the circuit.”

  We watched a few rounds before Jed went back to get on early for the test. The judge wouldn’t announce the test till everyone had ridden, but Jamie would have Jed practice the common tests, like trotting a jump, in the schooling area. His number was added to the standby list and Zoe guessed that he was in second place going into the test. He needed to be first or second to be qualified, although third or fourth would get him a few more points too.

  “I’m having one of my brilliant thoughts,” Zoe said as we watched the few remaining riders.

  “About Jed?”

  “No, you. About the absolute perfect guy to guide you through your virginal deflowering.”

  I shuddered. “That makes it sounds awful, like a medical procedure.”

  “Sorry. It’s not awful. I mean it’s not amazing sex the first time, but it’s not bad.”

  “Painful?” I was definitely curious, not that I believed it was going to happen this summer.

  “A little. A few drinks can help with that.”

  “I think I want to be sober.”

  Zoe shrugged. “It’s your virginity.” She pointed subtly to the tent near the in-gate. “Nick. Used to be a gate guy. Now he’s doing some announcing. Unattached, nice, cute. Perfect for the job.”

  I squinted to the tent where was sitting at a table on a folding chair. I couldn’t really see him from where we were but no matter what he looked like I was sure he wouldn’t compare to Chris. Losing my virginity before college did seem like a good idea, sort of like stocking up on essential items at Ikea so you didn’t feel out of place or unprepared. But I wanted to lose it to Chris, not anyone else.

  “This is good,” Zoe said. “Come on.”

  She pulled me over to the tent where Nick was working. He wore a straw hat and was a little short, but technically he was cute. Yet, it didn’t matter because all I cared about was Chris. One of the Hemsworth brothers could have been sitting under that tent and I’d still be uninterested.

  “Nick, this is my friend, Hannah, she rides with Jamie too.”

  “Hey,” Nick said, tipping his hat slightly up on his forehead.

  The judge from the other hunter ring called in with results over Nick’s walkie-talkie and he had to scribble them down. When he was done writing, he looked at me again and smiled. “I better announce these.”

  “Yeah, we just wanted to say a quick hi before we go watch the test,” Zoe said. “Are you going out Sunday night?”

  “Yeah.” He glanced at me again, this time with more interest. “See you guys at Backcountry?”

  “We’ll be there,” Zoe said.

  We walked back to watch the test. “See?” Zoe said. “Perfect, right?”

  The first rider entered the ring for the callback. The test was simple—what Zoe called a don’t-lose-my-winner test. She said Adam didn’t want to risk the riders making any huge mess-ups. She told me about a confusing medal test where all four riders went off course and the embarrassed judge had to re-test. This test had a trot jump, a few single fences, and asked riders to sit trot back to line.

  Zoe kept half an eye on the ring. “Do you like Nick?”

  “I just met him.”

  “Yeah, but could you imagine doing it with him? I meet a guy and I immediately put him in one of three categories: hell-yeah, maybe, or no way, not even stranded on a desert island.”

  I glanced at Jed, waiting in line for the test. “I guess ‘maybe.’”

  The rider went back to line and it was Jed’s turn. His test was good except for the trot jump, which was a little weak. I guess the nickname one-jump Jed was right.

  Zoe clapped for Jed. “‘Maybe’ is a good start.”

  Chapter 13

  My mom texted and called me a lot more often than my dad. She called every other day to check in. Usually I’d just tell her everything was fine. She never called Logan by his name. She called him “the horse.” As in, “How’s the horse?”

  My mom wasn’t like other horse show moms, who really got into their kids’ riding. She didn’t like to sit and watch my lessons. She didn’t like coming to the shows and she didn’t want to live vicariously through me. She didn’t constantly ask Jamie why I wasn’t winning or how I could do better. I guess all those things would be not half bad, a welcome departure from some of the crazy horse show mothers, if the reason behind it wasn’t that she suffered from serious anxiety. Like such bad anxiety that she spent most of her days at home, binoculars around her neck, filling her bird-feeders and keeping up with her bird-themed blog, Feathered Friends. She took a whole slew of anti-anxiety meds and even so, she had panic attacks at places like the grocery store or the mall.

  “Are you having fun?” Mom asked, when she called in the middle of the day on Saturday.

  I sat down on my tack trunk, wiping the sweat off my forehead. It was going to be a hot one today and doing Logan’s stall in the airless tent had felt like twenty minutes on the elliptical.

  “Definitely.”

  “Have you gotten any ribbons?”

  “Um, no, but I’ve gotten around some courses.”

  My mom blew out a hostile breath. “That horse.”

  Logan often felt like a stand-in for Dad and Mom liked to direct her hostility toward him. It was hard because honestly I couldn’t blame my dad for divorcing my mom. I mean who would want to be married to a woman who couldn’t go out to dinner, or never wanted to go on trips? They had met in their early thirties, during one of Mom’s good phases when she was working as the manager of a stationary store. My dad came in after his father’s death, looking for help picking out cards for his mother to send to people who sent her condolence cards. My mom helped him out and I guess it was kind of a hard time for him and he fell for her. It was a whirlwind romance with her getting pregnant after three months of dating, them getting married, and then my brother
coming along soon after. I often wondered how soon my dad realized my mom was wrong for him and he’d made a really bad mistake. Was it before I was born, or after? Was it after Ryan was born?

  “Mom, relax, okay, because it gets better. There’s this guy, well, not just any guy but this rider, this amazing grand prix rider, Chris Kern, he’s practically the best rider at the show and he offered to help me with Logan.” I stopped, making sure no one could hear me. What was I doing anyway? Why was I telling my mother? At least I hadn’t said I was already having him help me. I’d made it sound like I was thinking about it and checking with her.

  “I don’t know about that,” Mom said.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, what about Jamie, and the fact that I don’t even know this Chris, and neither do you. Is this your father’s idea?”

  “No, he doesn’t know anything about it.”

  Again, she went right after Dad. As much as I couldn’t blame him for divorcing her, I guess I couldn’t blame her for hating him. It wasn’t fair that he got to live a normal, happy life and she was stuck figuring out ways to manage her anxiety, which often included way too many cocktails.

  “He’s like totally famous. Google him. You’ll see.” I had spent plenty of time myself reading everything I could find about Chris. He had a huge fan page on Facebook with the most gorgeous photographs of him competing at shows all over the world and lots of videos of him competing on YouTube. I learned that as a junior he’d won the Washington Equitation Finals, the USEF Talent Search, and had been second in the Medal Finals. The same year Mary Beth had won the Maclay Finals. I’d spent plenty of time reading about her too, something I wasn’t very proud of. She was really pretty, with a gorgeous, huge smile and what looked like big boobs from what I could tell from the photos of her.

  “Still, this worries me,” Mom said.

  What didn’t worry her? Her whole life was spent worrying.

  I detected silence on the other end. I checked my cell signal—sometimes it cut out in the mountains—but it was still at three bars. “Mom?”

  “Sorry, I thought I saw a Kestrel in one of my nest-boxes, but it couldn’t be.”

  I looked up at the ceiling of the tent and shook my head. My mom was obsessed with birds. It was the only thing that she found beyond drugs and booze that seemed to calm her. She had about ten bird feeders all over the yard, plus she grew specific plants and flowers that attracted particular birds. She had fountain birdbaths and birdhouses and roosting boxes. She was forever peering out windows and looking into binoculars. On her really good days, she went on bird walks at Audubon Sanctuaries and at the Mount Auburn Cemetery. She had a whole group of other “bird” friends online.

  “But it wasn’t. I saw one the other day, though. He flew in and sat on the oak and I swear it was like he was laughing at the world. Just sitting there laughing.”

  Usually I was desperate to get her to talk about anything besides birds, but right then I didn’t mind so much since it meant she wasn’t talking about Logan and what I’d said about Chris helping me.

  “How’s everything else? How’s Cheryl? Is the condo working out?”

  “It’s great,” I said, thinking of how Cheryl went to Backcountry several nights a week, not just Sundays, came home late, and was still asleep when I left for the barn every morning. Nearly each morning I’d find a bottle of wine in the recycling bin.

  “Good, good,” Mom said.

  We finished up our conversation. I told her everything would be fine and to go back to enjoying her birds. After we hung up, I stayed on the tack trunk and closed my eyes. I lay down, curling up in a fetal position. It wasn’t comfortable but I was tired enough that I dozed off. Only horse people could sleep on a tack trunk. I woke up, hot and sticky, when Zoe and Jed pulled up in the golf cart and Zoe said, “Grand Prix time!”

  Zoe waved for me to get in. “Come on—”

  I hopped on next to Jed. Zoe stepped on the gas, jolting us forward. We parked by the ring. Zoe was walking slowly now, acting all casual as if moments earlier she hadn’t been racing at top speed. The riders were walking the course. I located Chris right away. He had his hand on the back rail of an oxer with a liverpool underneath it, rolling the rail in the cups to see how easily it might come down.

  Zoe whispered, “There he is. By the double.”

  Dermott was striding off the double combination.

  The announcer’s voice came over the P.A. “A few more minutes and we’ll be set to go with our grand prix. Riders are finishing up their course walk.”

  Dermott looked back over the course one more time and then headed toward the in-gate.

  “He goes late in the class,” she told us. “I’m going to go talk to him.”

  Zoe shook out her hands like she was going on stage. I’d never seen her nervous before. When it came to going into a big class, she had ice in her veins. But a guy she liked turned her inside out.

  When she left, Jed said, “This is not good.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he totally doesn’t like her.”

  “How do you know?” I wasn’t sure if it was a guy thing, or if Jed had heard something.

  “For one thing, it’s obvious. But I’ve seen him flirting with about three other girls. He’s a total play-ah.” Jed exaggerated the word.

  “Shouldn’t we tell her?”

  “Zoe isn’t really good with people telling her things like that. When she was into Antonio and I told her he’d slept with Rachel, she didn’t talk to me for a month. Talk about shooting the messenger.”

  Zoe was near the in-gate now. Dermott clearly saw her. She smiled at him and Jed and I held our collective breath. I didn’t know which was worse—Dermott avoiding her, or talking to her and giving her false hope. He walked toward her and they started talking.

  I was so engrossed in watching them that I hadn’t noticed Chris had walked up to us. “What are you guys staring at?”

  I whipped my head around. “Oh, um-”

  Chris must have seen Zoe and Dermott. “Ah, I got you. What’s going on with that?”

  “Bad scene,” I said.

  “It’s not pretty,” Jed added.

  Dermott was now walking away from Zoe. Instead of heading toward us, she took off in the opposite direction.

  “Shit,” Jed said. To Chris and me, he said, “I’ve got this one,” and he jogged after her.

  Chris raised his eyebrows. “I think anyone could have predicted how that would end.”

  “Do you know him?” I asked.

  “Dermott? Not really. But I don’t think you have to know him to know what’s he about.” Chris gazed out over the ring. The course was cleared and the jump crew was making a last minute adjustment to one of the timers.

  “When do you go?” I asked.

  “Fifteenth.”

  “So you should probably be watching.”

  “You can watch with me,” he said.

  The jump crew finished with the timer and the announcer said, “Looks like we’re ready to go now with our $30,000 Grand Prix of the Mountains. This is a Table IIa class. For those of you in the stands that means our riders will jump our first course. They need to leave all the rails up and stay within the time-allowed. If they do that, they’ll be invited back for the jump-off, a shortened course against the clock.”

  My phone rang and I looked at the screen. My dad. Of course. There was no doubt my mom had emailed him to complain about what I’d said about Chris wanting to help me. I pressed the button to silence the ringer.

  “Who’s that?”

  “My dad.”

  “You’re not answering it?”

  “No. I’ll call him back later.”

  “Was that really your dad? Sure it wasn’t your boyfriend?”

  I laughed. “I don’t have a boyfriend.” The idea that Chris would think I had a boyfriend was ridiculous.

  “No?” He was watching the first rider on course, but it felt like he wanted to look a
t me.

  “No, no boyfriend.”

  He nodded, a small smile on his face.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” I asked, feeling strangely bold.

  “No. I’m unattached at the moment as well.”

  “At the moment?”

  Now he looked at me. It was a crazy feeling looking into his eyes.

  “I was dating someone for a while. But we broke up.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, even though I wasn’t the least bit sorry.

  Chris shrugged. “It was time. It’s for the best.” The rider on course had a rail at the double and Chris pointed to the red, white, and blue oxer, which had a pretty plank with star shapes cut out of it. “That’s going to come down a lot. That’s the trouble spot.”

  We watched three more riders before Chris said he better get on. “Are you going to stay and watch?”

  “I guess so.” I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to, but he smiled and said, “Good. You’ll bring me luck.”

  I alternated between watching the riders before him in the order, and sneaking glances at the schooling ring. I felt badly that I wasn’t finding out what happened with Dermott, but Jed said he was on it and he knew Zoe best.

  Chris was right about the out of the double. The oxer came down in about half of the rounds. The double was tight and most horses couldn’t get across the spread of the out without pulling a rail. One girl had torn down the entire jump. Only a few riders had gone clean.

  Chris was at the in-gate as his groom wiped Titan’s mouth. The rider on course finished up and Chris walked into the ring. Some riders trotted or cantered into the ring. I’d noticed Chris always walked his horses calmly into the ring. Then when the tone sounded, he’d depart into a canter. Titan was a big pure white gelding. He went in a running martingale—which I now knew not only how to identify but how to put on, thanks to Mike—and a gag. Chris made every jump look smooth and unhurried.