Summer Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 1)

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  “She’s so good,” I said as she jumped the single oxer on the side of the ring.

  “Yeah, she’s got a talent. She’ll be a great pro if she can get her personal shit together,” Jed said. “That’s a big fucking if, of course.”

  She rode down the last line and finished to applause and whoops from the trainer. Jed and I clapped too.

  “Do you think she’s okay? I mean, I don’t know her very well. Is this normal for her? She seems kind of self-destructive or something.”

  “Of course she’s not okay. And what, do you see a shrink? Self-destructive?

  “I should see a shrink, but no, I’ve just kind of been exposed to a lot of shrink talk.”

  “I see a shrink,” Jed said.

  I admired Jed. He might be lying to his school, but underneath he wasn’t afraid to put it all out there and he seemed comfortable with who he was. I only wished my mom’s shrink was able to help her as much. And as for me, I was pretty sure I had no idea who I was. Why hadn’t I stopped Nick from kissing me? Did I want to keep a possible understudy for when I finally woke up and realized there was no way Chris and I were happening?

  “Yes, she’s self-destructive. You know she was sleeping with Harding, right?”

  There were certain horse show people that were always referred to only by their first name. If you didn’t know who they were, you were a loser. It was that simple. Whenever I found myself not sure who Tim or Jessica was, I played along like I did. Luckily the only Harding I knew was Harding Beckwith, who had been to the Olympics three times for Britain. To go to the Olympics three times you had to be really good. You also had to be pretty old. I didn’t know exactly how old Harding was, but he was old, old. Married-with-kids old. I looked at the in-gate where Zoe was getting ready to go back for her second round.

  “Harding? But he’s like—”

  “A dog?”

  “I was going to say really old.”

  “That too. But he’s totally hot. It isn’t like she was the first junior he’s ever bagged. Please. Hard-on?”

  I laughed. I’d never heard Harding called that before.

  Zoe entered the ring. She walked for a while before picking up a canter like she knew the judge would wait for her.

  “She’s at the end of a long line of distinguished and not-so-distinguished guests,” Jed continued. “But she was the last straw. Gilly knew about all of his sleeping around, but Zoe was the last straw. She found them together. He used to be more careful, had some respect, but he got really careless. She’s filing for divorce. He’s trying to get her back. And Gilly is totally making Zoe the villain. Making her out to be a calculated family-wrecker. Everyone knows she was one of many, but somehow that hasn’t stopped them from making her out to be awful. Some of the stuff people wrote about her online is just cruel.”

  I looked at Zoe, who had jumped the first line flawlessly. The horse went so well for her it took your breath away. “Oh my God, I had no idea.” I guess Zoe had been with other European men.

  “It’s been brutal for her. You’d think she might learn something from the whole experience and reform. Go the nun-route. But instead it’s like she’s out to prove them all right, and just live up to the slut rep.”

  Zoe finished her trip. I couldn’t quite reconcile the picture I was seeing of her riding the most flawless, beautiful rounds with what Jed had told me. On course she looked like she had it all together, but that so clearly wasn’t the case.

  She was one of the last few to go and Nick called the jogs. Just hearing his voice made me blush. He had texted me a few times and I’d texted back, but our texts were the equivalent of awkward small talk about nothing, which was how I wanted to keep it.

  Zoe was on top in both classes. I found myself staring hard at her as she jogged in and then took the blue ribbons. She was talented and she was pretty and she was smart when she wanted to let herself be. Why did she bring herself down by chasing all these worthless guys? And how could I help her see she was better than that?

  Back at the barn, I put Logan on the crossties and took out the clippers that were packed into my trunk by whoever had packed my trunk. Logan’s muzzle had grown a bit of stubble and his ears looked a little fuzzy. I had no idea how to clip them but I figured, how hard could it be?

  I did quite well with his muzzle and I was very proud of myself. I felt so accomplished as I ran the clippers lightly over his skin, listening to the rewarding sound of the spiny hairs being zipped off. I was probably feeling too cocky as I got out my step stool and climbed up by his head. I’m not sure I even reached for his ear—maybe I held the buzzing clipper up and he saw it. He thrashed his head hard only once, breaking the crossties. I had jumped off the step stool, standing back, not cocky anymore. Logan looked at me as I stood there like he was thinking hard for a moment. He seemed to be trying to figure out why I was just standing there stone still and not grabbing him. And why was I just standing there? Because I was dumb and inexperienced when it came to horses. Any other person would have been leaping to grab the horse. But not me. I watched Logan realize I wasn’t lunging for him and I watched as he took off out the barn aisle. I ran after him to the front of the aisle. He trotted out of the tent, his head and tail raised with excitement. Then he launched into a canter, getting further and further away from me.

  I wanted to scream, but the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. Instead I ran to find Mike. Luckily, he was wrapping a horse. “Mike, Logan got loose,” I panted.

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. I was clipping him and he broke the crossties. He took off toward the rings.”

  As I said the words I started panicking. What if he ran toward the road? Oh God, oh God. What if a car hit him?

  Mike called to another groom to put the horse he was wrapping away. He grabbed a lead rope and filled a bucket with grain. Then he took off running. I followed.

  As we got toward the jumper rings, I heard the announcer call, “Loose horse. Loose horse headed toward Hunter I.”

  So he was still on the show grounds. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be heading toward the road. The show grounds had no gate or fence around it. The road that ran alongside it wasn’t a highway by any means, but people did drive pretty fast on it.

  We tore toward the hunter rings. I looked ahead hoping to see a flash of dark bay. The grain in Mike’s bucket rattled as we ran. Mike was pretty fast when he wanted to be and I was so grateful to him for helping me. He helped me all the time, and it didn’t seem like it was because of Zoe anymore. He was just a really nice guy. Too bad Zoe couldn’t see that.

  When we reached the hunter rings, I spotted Logan. He had stopped by the schooling ring, his head held high, looking proud of himself, not panicked. A few of the riders in the schooling ring had come to a halt and one of the in-gate guys was heading toward him.

  Mike rattled the grain bucket. I swear Logan swung his head and looked at us. I swear he saw me. I felt like I could hear the thoughts in his head. Is this upping my game enough?

  I would have laughed if I wasn’t still worried his little game would end up with him as road kill. He broke into a trot again, going along the outside of the schooling ring. I bet in his head he was laughing at all of us.

  “Loose horse headed to the schooling area of Hunter III,” the announcer said.

  Logan cantered around the schooling ring and then, of all things, cantered through the in-gate of Hunter II. There wasn’t anyone in the ring—the rider about to go on course had held up.

  “Maybe he wants to be a hunter,” Mike said.

  Logan cantered down the middle of the ring, took a left and headed toward the edge of the ring. He beautifully hopped over the thigh-high fence that encircled the ring, cantered right up to Mike and me, and stopped.

  Mike held out the bucket. Logan took a bite of grain. Mike clipped the lead rope onto him. At the sound of the metal clipping shut, I felt my whole body sigh. Logan was safe. The way he had come back to us, g
oing through the ring first, made me feel like Logan had a really funny sense of humor. I’d never realized how much personality horses could have.

  “That was quite a performance,” Mike said.

  I wasn’t sure whether he was talking to me or Logan.

  “Do you want me to lead him back?” he asked me.

  “I’ll take him,” I said. I gave Logan a pat and he nudged me with his nose as if he was making sure I knew he now had bragging rights, that he had one-upped me big-time.

  Mike grinned. “Just hold on tight.”

  Chapter 17

  After twenty minutes of flatwork on Friday morning, Chris started adjusting the two jumps in the middle of the ring. I didn’t want to get too hopeful—maybe he was setting something up for a horse he was riding later. But then he pointed to the cross rail. “I’m going to place a ground rail on each side of the jump.”

  “We’re jumping? Really?”

  Chris continued, “You won’t have to look for a distance to take off from. You don’t even need to concentrate on the jump at all, only on the rail on the ground. Remember how we trotted and cantered rails yesterday? Just pretend we’re doing that. Ride to the rail, not the jump, okay?”

  Chris laid the two rails on either side of the jump, measuring out the distance. “Let’s try it.”

  I urged Logan into a trot.

  “Shorten up your reins about an inch, good. Ride the rail, not the jump.”

  I turned to the jump. Chris kept talking and it was soothing to hear his voice, like a guide showing me the way.

  “Stay straight, stay in your heels, right there, eyes up, not down, thinking about the rail. Let Logan worry about the jump.”

  The rail, I thought to myself. Just think about the rail. Logan looked down at the pole on the ground. At first I thought that would be it, he would look down and then stop, possibly hurtling me over his head. But as he looked down, Chris clucked and said, “leg.” I squeezed and he continued over the rail, up over the jump, and across the rail on the other side.

  “Very good,” Chris said. “He looked at the rail and it took his mind off the jump. Did you feel that?”

  I nodded. It had felt nearly civilized.

  “Come to it again.”

  I braced myself for trouble this time, for the first time to have been dumb luck, but Logan was good again.

  Chris raised the cross-rail to a small vertical and told me to ride it just the same. Everything felt slow and in control, not raced and imbalanced like usual.

  “Let him walk and give him a pat.”

  I rubbed Logan’s neck and scratched along his mane.

  “That was really good. How did it feel to you?”

  “So much better.”

  Chris nodded. “We’re working on details. On making both you and Logan pay attention to the basics, the fundamentals. No one seems to have done that with either of you. You’re like a kid that gets to high school, but can hardly read.”

  “I can read,” I said.

  Chris gave me a look like being cheeky was okay, but this wasn’t exactly the place for it. “We’re getting somewhere,” he said.

  “I know,” I agreed.

  “It’ll pay off in the ring soon too.”

  “I wish you could help me instead of Jamie . . .” I said. “Why don’t you teach? You’re good at it.”

  Chris put the vertical up another hole. “Harris doesn’t want me taking on clients. I need to focus on his horses.”

  “Harris is . . . ?”

  “My sponsor. He owns all my horses.”

  “You could probably do both, right?”

  “Probably. But when you have someone buying you grand prix horses you kind of need to do what they want you to.”

  We jumped the exercise a few more times. Then Chris checked his phone. Every morning at the end of our lesson he checked his phone. And every morning it became more and more awkward for him to leave. For both of us to go on with our days. It was a good sort of awkward. A feeling of things left unsaid, of moments still to develop.

  Today I finally got up the nerve and said, “I didn’t see you Sunday night.”

  “Nah, the last time I went with the plan to get drunk and forget everything and then I didn’t even go through with it, so I figured what’s the point? I’d just stay home.”

  What was the point? Well, apparently not seeing me. That didn’t seem to matter to him. Every time I hoped there was something between us, then something else happened to slap me in the face and tell me to stop dreaming.

  “You went out?” Chris asked.

  “Yeah, me, Zoe, and Jed.” I decided to leave out the part about Nick.

  “Was it fun?”

  “Oh, yeah. It was so much fun. Except for the part where Dermott spent the whole night acting like Zoe didn’t exist and then at the last minute decided he wanted to, well, you know . . .” Why did I start talking about something to do with sex, only to realize I had no idea how to say it and end up just sounding totally lame?

  “Did she go home with him?”

  I nodded.

  Chris shook his head in a brotherly kind of way.

  I circled Logan around him. “Why did you want to get drunk? I mean, what do you need to forget?”

  Chris took a moment like he was deciding whether he should open up to me. What he said next surprised me. I expected him to talk about Mary Beth or something to do with his personal life.

  “I convinced Harris to buy this horse in Europe last winter. Harris only wanted to buy one horse but I found Titan, and then this second, younger horse that I saw something in. Something others apparently weren’t seeing. I thought maybe he was special. Harris finally agreed and bought him and now he keeps having rail after rail. I feel like maybe he’s not what I thought he was—maybe I was wrong. He keeps having rails. I can’t figure out what’s going wrong and Harris is none too happy. Now that Nova’s hurt, we could have used the money we spent on that horse to put toward another grand prix horse, so it really looks like a stupid decision on my part.”

  “Maybe the horse needs more time to develop?” I said, even though I didn’t know the first thing about grand prix horses or training. I had no idea what I was talking about, but if Chris saw something in the horse it was hard to believe it wasn’t talented.

  Chris shrugged. “Harris is coming in two weekends. We’re going to talk about whether we should go back to Jürgen and try to trade him back in and take the loss. I think if I had more time with him I might be able to figure out what’s not working, but Harris wants things to happen right away. He’s not one for patience. I swear that’s why Nova got hurt in the first place, but that’s a whole other story.”

  I wanted to hear that whole other story. I wanted to hear anything Chris was willing to tell me. He could tell me how he folded his laundry and it would be amazing. But he said, “Well, enough complaining. I have to go ride.”

  I knew Chris often rode his horses twice a day for fitness. Horses of that caliber were like professional athletes themselves, everything about their health was expertly planned out and managed.

  “It’s not complaining,” I said.

  “You’re right. I just don’t get to unload much—thanks for listening.”

  Walking back through the grounds usually took five minutes. Lately I had begun to let Logan amble on a loose rein. His need to race-walk had decreased and he actually walked halfway normally and I felt I could give him his head. Sometimes I took the long route, passing by the rings and the vendors, including Alison, the woman who sold the gorgeous horse-themed jewelry, the show photographer, and the videographer. Most of the vendors’ booths were still closed up but there was always the chance someone would be getting ready for the day. Maybe I wanted someone to find out about the lessons. Then it would be real. But it would also be trouble for me if Jamie found out, and probably for Chris too with Harris.

  I put Logan away in his stall and threw him his morning grain. He gobbled it up and started in on his ha
y.

  It was only a little after seven o’clock, but it felt more like nine or ten. I cleaned Logan’s stall and then went up to the food truck to get something to eat. I ended up running into Jed, who was going to watch Zoe show a new ride in the jumpers. I went with him and didn’t get back to the stalls until an hour later. Logan gave me a heart attack because at first I didn’t see him in his stall and I thought he’d escaped and was running around the horse show again. But he was just lying down.

  “I know how you feel,” I told him as I peered in on him. I would have liked to go back to the condo and climb into bed.

  I looked at Logan a moment longer. Somehow he didn’t look totally relaxed. His eyes were worried and he was blowing hard through his nose.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him.

  He made a funny kind of groan that I’d never heard from him before. Something didn’t seem right. I opened the door and he didn’t even try to get up. Then he curled his neck to bite at his stomach. Was he colicking? I’d heard about horses colicking and even having colic surgery, but I’d never actually seen a horse colicking. If I’d spent more time in the barn, I would have but I’d only ever been in the barn a few minutes while a groom was getting my horse ready.

  I felt all panicky looking at Logan. He looked miserable and it was awful to see him in pain. What if he was really in bad shape? How had it happened so fast? I thought back to my lesson. He’d seemed fine then, and fine when I’d brought him back. I checked his water buckets. There was water in them. I hadn’t forgotten to fill them. So what the hell had I done wrong?

  I ran over to Jamie’s stalls and found Mike organizing the tack room. “Can you come over and look at Logan? I think he’s sick.”

  Mike hustled over with me. He made Logan stand up and put his ear against his side. “I hear some gut sounds, not tons but some, so that’s good.”

  He snapped a lead rope on him and led him out of the stall. “We need to get him walking. We don’t want him to twist up.”

  I nodded like I knew what he was saying. Twist up? In fact, I didn’t know what it meant, but it didn’t take an expert in horse care to know it was bad.