He checked Titan back and then rode the combination clear, stopping the clock at 74.39 seconds.
“That’s a clean round for Chris Kern and Titan,” the announcer said. “They go on the good-list and will return at the end of the class for the jump-off.”
Seven riders made it into the jump-off of the twenty-five on the start list. Dermott wasn’t one of them. Zoe and Jed hadn’t returned and I watched the class alone.
Chris rode the jump-off conservatively, or at least that’s what it looked like to me. His time was slow, but he was clear and he ended up in fourth place. After the class was over, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. Chris had asked me to watch him. But was I supposed to stay around and see him afterward, or would that be me acting totally dorky? I felt a little more like Zoe with Dermott than I wanted to right then, although I reminded myself I hadn’t done anything crazy. All I’d done was say I’d stay and watch him ride.
I glanced over to the in-gate. He was on Titan, walking a circle around Dale. They were talking about how Titan had gone. I got the feeling from the way they worked together, Dale was more like a friend and almost a co-trainer for Chris.
Chris halted Titan and hopped off. He patted Titan’s neck. Dale took the reins from Chris and threw a flysheet over Titan. Then he started back to the barn. I quickly looked back to the ring, pretending to be engrossed in the jump crew taking down the course. I didn’t want him to see me staring at him. One of the crew was carrying a pole on his shoulder, like it weighed nothing.
I glanced over again at Chris and it looked like he was walking over to me. My stomach muscles seized up and I told myself to try to remain calm.
“How’d I do?” he asked when he reached me.
“It looked great, but what do I know about jump-offs? It’s not like I ever make it past the first round.”
“You’ll get there,” Chris promised. “We’ve got a bunch more weeks to get you into the jump-offs.”
A tractor pulling a trailer came into the ring to swap out some of the jumps.
“If you can do that it’ll be a miracle,” I said.
“Stop,” Chris said. “Don’t keep putting yourself down.”
I swallowed. “Okay.”
Chris looked at me—making sure I understood how serious he was. Someone believed in me. Someone saw potential in me. And it felt great.
Chapter 14
I found out from Jed that Dermott had given Zoe the total brush off, acting like nothing had happened between them. I guess having sex didn’t count for anything in his book. Zoe was devastated and moped around for the rest of the weekend. The only thing that cheered her up a little was the idea of getting me and Nick together Sunday night at Backcountry.
Of course, the only person I cared about seeing that night was Chris. He wasn’t there when we arrived and I kept checking the door for him.
Zoe was right. Nick was a nice guy. He had a black lab beagle mix that he’d rescued; he was a huge Minnesota Twins fan; and he wasn’t only an announcer—he actually had a good singing voice and had even tried out for American Idol, making it through the first round. He wrote songs in his spare time and used to play in a bluegrass band. He was even kind of cute and I was pretty sure he thought I was pretty, but he was polite and didn’t press things. He had a few beers and one time he put his hand on my back, but that was it. Maybe if I’d never crashed into Chris and had met Nick I’d be totally into him and it would have worked out between us. But I guess love, or romance to be dorky about it, was all about timing. The fact was, I had met Chris first and that had changed everything.
The later it got, the more I wanted to go home. It was pretty clear Chris wasn’t coming. The sooner I got to sleep, the sooner the morning would come and I’d see Chris again. Being at the bar without Chris was dull, like watching a big class when you didn’t care who won. I kept telling Zoe I was tired and wanted to leave. She kept glancing over at Dermott and begging me to stay a little longer.
The night would have been really boring if Jed hadn’t kept us entertained with his dead-on impressions of Jamie. He acted out the different stances she had at the in-gate depending on how you’d done in the ring. There was the WTF stance for when you’d made a huge mistake where she spread her legs like a cowboy. There was the I-Train-Her stance for when people like Zoe laid it down where Jamie stood extra tall and sort of raised her chin up to the sky.
Jed knew all Jamie’s trademark phrases too like when you walked a course and she told you what number of strides to do in a line. Jed pretended to stride off the distance and then declared, “Seven strides. Or it could be eight. The seven is a definite maybe.”
Zoe, Nick, and I burst out laughing.
Jed said, “A definite maybe? What the fuck does that mean?”
Nick added, “At the in-gate she’ll come up and say she’s got two and she wants to go tenth and eleventh in the order unless something happens and we’ll have to readjust. She always says that last part: we’ll have to readjust.”
“Next time just tell her it’s a definite maybe,” Zoe said.
“Oh my God, yes!” Jed said. “You have to use that on her and see if she notices. That would be hysterical.”
“I’m laughing so hard I’m going to pee my pants,” Zoe said. She grabbed my hand. “Come with me to the bog.”
“The bog?” I said.
“That’s what you-know-who calls it.”
You-know-who was at the other end of the bar talking with Heather Daly and Amelia Britton. Zoe had kept an eye on the three of them all night. I had a feeling she’d been laughing even louder at Jed’s jokes, hoping Dermott would notice and be jealous of what a good time she was having.
At the mirror, Zoe retouched her make-up. Her cheeks were flushed from rum-and-cokes.
“I wonder where Chris is tonight,” I said, trying to be ever so casual about it, like it was something that just flitted randomly across my mind, not something I was constantly wondering.
“Let’s text him.” Zoe pulled out her phone.
“Really? Do you think we should? I mean it’s late and do you even have his number?”
Zoe was typing quickly and then made one final flourish of pressing send. “There, sent!”
“Wait, what did you say?”
“Where are you? Hannah wants to blow you.” Zoe leaned toward the mirror to inspect her lipstick.
“What? Zoe!” I grabbed her phone from where she’d put it on the counter. I found her text. All it said was, where are you? Why aren’t you here?
“I totally got you!” Zoe was laughing moronically.
“That was so not funny.”
“You should have seen your face. Seriously though, why don’t you send him a naked pic?”
“Oh my God, no. Come on.” I wanted out of there before Zoe did anything crazy. Maybe keeping an eye on Dermott all night wasn’t such a bad thing because at least it kept her occupied.
Back in the bar, I gave the room another once-over. Still no Chris. We rejoined Jed and Nick. Jed looked tired and I even got the sense that Nick wanted to go home, but was probably just staying because of me. Finally I said, “I really think I’m going to call it a night.”
“Me too,” Nick said. “I gotta let Zeke out.”
“You guys are so lame,” Zoe pouted.
We headed to the door. Zoe came along, looking nearly dejected. She would have stayed till closing if Dermott stayed. I was going to try to say something to cheer her up, when someone came up behind us and said, “Boo!”
We all turned. It was Dermott.
“Where are you off to? Night is still young, no?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell them!” Zoe said, brightening.
“Stay,” Dermott said, throwing an arm around her.
“I really want to go,” I told Zoe.
“Need a lift home?” Dermott asked Zoe. “I’ll take care of you.”
“Great,” Zoe said. To us: “See you losers tomorrow.” She blew us a k
iss and headed back into the bar with Dermott.
“Should we let that happen?” I asked Jed.
He raised exasperated shoulders. “What choice do we have?”
“I guess,” I said. We couldn’t exactly take her home by force and there would be no convincing her that staying with Dermott wasn’t in her best interest. I couldn’t believe she would forgive him so quickly.
Jed’s car was closest to the door. Nick was waiting, hovering around me, making me kind of nervous about what he thought was going to happen.
Jed winked at me when Nick wasn’t looking and got in his car. Nick walked me to my car, being very chivalrous. It was really dark in the parking lot. I talked a lot, hoping that would keep anything else from happening.
“I hope Zoe’s okay. Dermott ignores her all night and then boom, out of nowhere, he pounces on her. He must have struck out with Heather and Amelia. Maybe I should go back and check on her—make sure she’s okay. She was pretty drunk.”
I didn’t want to go back in, but I figured it might be good to check on her and that way I could ditch Nick, avoid any awkward moments between us, and go home.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, you don’t have to.”
“I don’t mind.”
“You’re kind, but no.” He was kind. He was a nice guy, which made this even worse.
“I guess she’ll be okay,” I said.
We arrived at my car. Nick put a hand on the car, effectively boxing me in with nowhere to go. It was the boldest thing he’d done so far.
“This was fun,” he said.
“Yeah, totally,” I said.
I needed to end this politely. But it was harder than I imagined. Why had Zoe gotten me into this mess? Before I could figure out what to do or say, Nick leaned in and kissed me. I didn’t really kiss him back, but I didn’t stop him either. I’m not sure what he thought. Our kiss had no passion and maybe he sensed that meant I wasn’t into him.
When it ended he said, “Well, see you.”
I guess if I liked him that was when I would have kissed him again or said something encouraging, but all I said was, “Yeah, see you.”
Chapter 15
I was soon learning that Mondays were a day of sleeping off hangovers, regretting mistakes, and gossiping about said mistakes of others. It was also about trips to Rite Aide, Stop and Shop, and getting your nails done. Of course I didn’t sleep in. But I didn’t care. I had my lesson with Chris. And after I had Logan to take care of. On Mondays, it was just me and the grooms at the show, but I didn’t mind. It was kind of nice without the drone of the announcer or the trainers and riders rushing every which way. I had rented time in the temporary paddocks and I sat outside the metal fence and watched as Logan happily rolled, walked around, and then grazed on what little grass was there.
Zoe texted me asking if I wanted to go to the nail place with her. I said sure and I met her at the salon after I was done with Logan. There were three other riders already there. Zoe picked out a color called COME-TO-BED-RED and when she saw me looking at PINKY-PIE she shook her head.
We sat down in the chairs. The women started working on our cuticles. My nails were short but at least there was something there. Zoe said in a quiet voice, “So did you get lucky with Nick? Are you still pure?”
“Yes, I’m still pure.”
“Nothing happened?”
“He kissed me.”
When I had seen Chris for our lesson that morning, I had felt strangely guilty for having let Nick kiss me. What if Chris found out? Then there was Nick, whom I hadn’t seen yet, but would have to see sooner or later. I’d also been dying to ask Chris why he hadn’t gone out Sunday night, but I’d never found the right time.
“That’s it? All you did was kiss?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess it’s a start,” Zoe said.
I tried to explain that while Nick was nice I wasn’t really into him, but she tried to convince me that I didn’t need to be madly in love with him to have a pleasant virginity-ridding experience.
“Let’s be honest. You probably won’t see him again after Circuit. You’re going off to be Smart College Girl and he’s going to keep going show-to-show announcing. You’ll text for a while and then it’ll just fade away.”
“Wow, you make it sound so romantic.”
Zoe snorted. “Romance is really overrated.”
“Are you saying that because of last night? What happened with you and Dermott?”
“No, it was good,” Zoe said. “I mean he’s really good in bed.”
“Wow,” I said. I wasn’t even sure what “good in bed” meant. Did it mean he was self-assured or good at giving her pleasure? Zoe seemed so much more mature in those ways, but I wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
“European men are different,” she proclaimed. I wondered if Dermott was her first European man. Probably not.
“How?”
“They know women better.”
It all sounded mysterious to me. Zoe might as well have been talking about studying ancient languages.
After our polish dried, we went to lunch at the bagel place and then roamed around the outlet stores. Zoe had expensive taste. I wanted to go to J. Crew, but she wrinkled her nose and took me to Michael Kors, Kate Spade, and Coach. The purses at Kate Spade were so gorgeous and they were more than half-off. We tried them and I fell in love with a blue Hobo style.
“Get it,” Zoe said as I looked at myself carrying it in front of the mirror. She had one over her shoulder too. “I’m totally getting this one.”
I wondered how she could afford it. I checked the price tag on the one I wanted again, doing the discount math in my head.
“You can’t come to the horse show and not buy some nice stuff at the outlets,” she said.
My dad had given me a credit card to pay for my expenses and things Logan would need. He probably wouldn’t even notice if I bought a bag. I usually did most of my shopping online since Mom didn’t like crowded stores or malls. Sometimes when I was in California, Monica would take me shopping. It felt nice to be out shopping with Zoe, trying things on, getting each other’s opinions.
“Okay, I’m getting it!” I said.
“Good for you!”
We went into Polo and Vineyard Vines, and Zoe looked at a button-down shirt she thought would look fantastic on Dermott. I thought Chris would look good in it too. I wondered what he was doing today—did he ever go outlet shopping? I would have been lying if I said I hadn’t hoped we might run into him in town. I thought about buying my dad or Ryan a shirt, or possible getting my mom something. I’d probably do better to get her something bird-related at Orvis.
We ran into lots of riders in town. Everyone knew Zoe and I felt proud to be her chosen partner in crime. I was a celebrity by association. We went for frozen yogurt and then hugged good-bye when it was time for me to head back to the show to take care of Logan. “This was so much fun,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Thank you? For what?” Zoe made a face.
“I don’t know, for including me, I guess.”
“You are too funny sometimes,” Zoe said, waving me away with her hand. “See you tomorrow.”
Chapter 16
Zoe was such a good rider that she had been asked to ride a horse in the first years, which went on Wednesday and Thursday, against all the professionals. Jed and I went to watch her and he had me laughing as we waited for Zoe to come into the ring. It was stereotypical, the comic gay guy, but Jed was hysterically funny. I wondered whether he was funny at school, or more likely, it all came out here where he could be himself. At school he probably worked hard at being invisible.
Joyce Tripp was getting a girl ready for the schooling hunters, which were going in the other ring, and we could hear her voice all the way from where we were sitting.
“Close your eyes,” Jed said.
“Why?”
“Just do it. Trust me.” When I had them closed he added,
“Now listen.”
There was Joyce’s high-pitched voice. “Oh my God, yes, stay straight, yes, ride it, ride it!”
“Doesn’t it sound like she’s having sex?” Jed asked.
I giggled as Joyce continued. “Again, just like that. Did you feel that? Amazing!”
I opened my eyes, which were watering from laughing so hard.
“I like to call it the trainer orgasm,” Jed said. “Good for Joyce, because you know she’s not getting any in real life.” He was right, of course. Joyce looked more “country farmer” than ‘A’ circuit trainer. She wore a short-sleeve plaid shirt, high-waisted jeans, and a straw hat. Her frizzy hair was wild and she was missing a few teeth. Most of the horse show world was filled with beautiful people and then there were the few oddballs like Joyce.
I held up my hand. “Stop it—I’ll never be able to think about her again without thinking of her—”
“Having sex?”
“No!” I shuddered at the thought.
“Yeah, because that’s just repulsive.”
Zoe was finally at the in-gate, getting last minute words from the trainer who had asked her to ride the horse. Zoe nodded and entered the ring. Of all the classes she showed in, Zoe was the best at the hunters, which was why she had been asked to show in a professional division. Horses liked her and jumped well for her. She was a super soft rider and was good with sensitive horses. Given her crazy attitude about life, I would have thought she’d be best at the jumpers where sometimes it paid to go fast and take risks. But it was like the hunters brought out the Zen-side of Zoe. If she could be more like hunter-Zoe outside of the ring I thought she’d be a lot happier.
The horse she rode was a big bay with a beautiful head with a blaze. He had a gorgeous lopey canter and then jerked his knees up and rounded his back over the jumps. Zoe looked amazing on him and was laying down a super trip.
Summer Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 1) Page 7
