Summer Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 1)

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  “Are you having sex with him?” Zoe stopped and looked at me, her eyes accusatory. “You did. You lost your virginity to him.” Somehow just by looking at me, she could tell.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you . . . don’t you think he was a good choice?”

  She shrugged. “Sure, why not. I mean, it’ll be over when Circuit ends anyway. There’s no way Chris would be serious about you, but that’s what you planned all along.”

  “Yeah,” I said, my heart sinking. “Right.”

  Zoe motioned to the schooling ring where Jamie was getting a rider ready. “I really better go.”

  I watched Zoe walk away, her stride purposeful. Why did it have to be over when Circuit ended? It had only just begun. Zoe’s words had brought up everything I had tried not to think about. Was this just a summer thing with Chris? Was that what he thought it was? And even if it could be something more, how would that ever work with him on the show circuit and me in college?

  Chapter 29

  The summer so far had been full of surprises. One of the biggest surprises was that I came to take unexpected pleasure in barn work. The details mattered to me. I found I actually liked cleaning my tack, and I was obsessive about getting it squeaky clean, the leather glowing and supple, and the bit and stirrup irons gleaming. I loved crossing the throatlatch and securing the noseband so the bridle looked impeccably neat when hung up.

  I became just as enamored with cleaning Logan’s stall. I loved the way it looked with the fresh shavings perfectly banked. Anytime he’d manure, I’d be in there quickly picking it out. Besides organizing the feed, supplements, and grooming box, my other obsession became raking the aisle. There was nothing better than when it was just raked. The grass that had been there when we’d first arrived had long disappeared, leaving a layer of sandy dirt. I learned from watching Mike that I should spray the aisle with a little water first and then rake. I always raked right to left, creating artistic fan designs worthy of any Japanese rock garden.

  I learned to take care of Logan with the same attention to detail. I dedicated myself to having him clean and I was proud of how perfect he looked when we went out for a hack. I’d learned from Mike about supplements and grain and I learned from watching the farrier about hoof care. I had learned about all sorts of tack now and was even adept at putting much of it on. I never flatted Logan now without a belly band or ear bonnet. I felt like everywhere I went at the show I could pick up tidbits about horse care if I just paid attention and was willing to ask questions. I could never have predicted I’d care about any of the parts of horse care. I thought I’d do the bare minimum to survive, but I relished doing it all to perfection and I took great satisfaction in the fact that I had become a fanatical and fantastic groom. Smells non-horse people would have hated, I now loved. Fly spray and Show Sheen and Logan when he was sweaty. Even manure didn’t smell bad to me, if I was being completely honest. I could have worn fly spray as perfume I loved the smell so much.

  For the first time, I could really understand why people like Mike or Dale enjoyed their job so much. I used to wonder how anyone could enjoy taking care of a horse and never once riding it or showing it, but now it made perfect sense. I actually thought if I had to choose—riding or grooming—I’d choose grooming.

  At the end of the day on Sunday, Chris rode by my aisle on Arkos. “Wanna go for a hack?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “I just have to tack up.”

  “I’ll wait,” Chris said.

  Logan was already clean so all I had to do was throw on his bridle and saddle. I mounted up and Chris and I headed off side-by-side.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Just around the grounds,” he said. “I know where I’m going.”

  We passed the back tents and the guy who sold tacos and burritos out of his truck that the grooms loved. Music spilled out of the last tent, Mission by Low Flying Planes. Ever since we’d gone to the rodeo, I kept hearing that song again and again. It had became the unofficial song of the summer—played on both the country and pop stations. Just that morning, I’d heard it on the way to the show. Then I’d heard it coming out of the food truck when I went to get lunch, and Mike had been singing it as he led Hobbes up to the ring for Zoe for the junior hunters. I knew every word now—it was a highly sing-able song. When I heard it in the car, I would turn it up and sing along loudly. It was definitely overplayed and maybe some people even came to hate it that summer, but not me. I couldn’t get enough of it. I knew that the song would be forever linked with those weeks in Vermont, and with my time with Chris. I’d hear it when I was at Tufts in the middle of the winter, and I’d be right back in the mountains of Vermont, with the open sky and the constant sound of the horse show announcer, and Chris. The smell of Chris, what it felt like to lie next to him, what it felt like to know he was my boyfriend. Of course I thought, or hoped, that he would be my boyfriend in the coming months, and maybe we’d be together for the rest of my life. But no matter what would happen, or how old I was—twenty, thirty, forty even—that song would always take me back to those weeks and him.

  We walked as far as we could, past the back ring with the sign that read LUNGEING ONLY. The tents became blocks of blue and white in the distance. It was nice to get away from the show and all the people and horses crowded into such a small space. When the show had first started, all the grass around the rings and in front of the tents had been green and lush. Now most were burnt out brown, if there was any grass left at all. It had become harder and harder to find a place to graze.

  A small river ran along the back of the show grounds and we followed it for a time. The water was low since it had been a dry month and big rocks poked out of the riverbed. We came to a point in the river where the riverbed was low and there weren’t many rocks and Chris suggested we take the horses in the river. I had never ridden a horse in water before and I certainly didn’t know if Logan would even go.

  Chris led. Arkos plunked into the water happily, stretching out his nose. Logan seemed surprised, stretching up in his neck. But he followed willingly. We stopped in the middle of the river, the water up to the horses’ knees.

  “He likes it,” I said, as Logan too sniffed the water. His breath disturbed the surface and he pulled back, surprised. Then he tried it again, this time dipping his lip and then his nose into the water. He moved his lips around, nudging the water. He flipped his head, spraying water back at Chris and me. “I guess he really likes it.”

  Arkos started pawing, splashing the water about. It was so cute to see the horses playing, having fun and being regular horses, not just show horses.

  “Do you ever get nervous?” I asked Chris. “I mean for the grand prix?”

  “Of course. But it’s part of the whole thing—you have to learn how to deal with the nerves and in a way they can help you ride better.”

  Chris told me about what he’d heard of how the U.S. Team had fared at Dublin that weekend. Mary Beth wasn’t on that squad—she had gone on the developing team that competed at smaller venues in Europe. I tried to imagine Chris in Europe, competing in famous shows like Aachen and Rotterdam against all the biggest names in show jumping.

  “So what’s your dream? To win the World Cup, or go to the Olympics?”

  “Yeah, I definitely want that. I also want my own farm and I want to own my own horses, but that’s probably not very realistic when a grand prix horse costs ten million dollars.”

  “Ten million?” I had heard people talking at the in-gate one day about Adele Bonderman’s horse that had sold for eight million to the Saudi team, but I’d thought that was just gossip.

  “Well, for an Olympic horse, yeah.”

  “What about Mary Beth? Who buys her horses?”

  “Her parents are independently wealthy.”

  “That helps.”

  “Yeah, it helps a lot.”

  Logan poked his nose in the water again. I wanted to ask Chris what would happe
n after Circuit, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment. Or maybe I didn’t want to hear the inevitable truth—that like the song on the radio, things between us wouldn’t last.

  Chapter 30

  Of course my dad couldn’t tell me in advance he was coming to visit. He had to text me from the airport in Burlington, VT.

  Had a break in my schedule. Just landed in Burlington. Be to the show in an hour.

  What? He would be here in an hour?

  I was showing later and I had felt fine about it. Things had been going so well for Logan and me. Last Sunday, I had only four faults in the children’s and I’d gone double clear in the 1.00 meter class. I’d texted my dad and I’d been so proud of how I was doing. I was not only surviving the horse show on my own, I was killing it.

  But now I was a bundle of nerves. My dad would be here to watch. He would stand at the ring, his eyes glued to me. Seeing was believing. He wanted to see for himself that I was really succeeding. Now I just had to show him.

  I was waiting for my turn to go. I scanned the sides of the ring. Chris had started watching me that very first day, the day I didn’t even get around the course, and since the secret lessons he had always been at the ring when I rode. I checked his usual spots, by the spectator tent and in the stands, but he wasn’t in either place and he also hadn’t responded to my texts. I looked down at Logan’s neck and laced my fingers through his mane. So the day my dad comes, Chris decides to disappear. Was it because he didn’t want to meet my dad? He hadn’t said anything about it. We’d spent all of Monday and Tuesday together, hanging out, having sex sometimes two times a day, and watching episodes of House of Cards when Chris wasn’t looking at horses online. Things had seemingly been so perfect between us.

  Dad was standing a few feet from the in-gate. He didn’t do casual clothes well and today’s outfit was no exception—a dark colored running shirt made out of some tech-fabric paired with long boarder shorts that I could imagine a store clerk telling him looked good on him. Why didn’t Monica help him buy his clothes? Because she was too busy working till all hours, which was also why she hadn’t accompanied him on this trip. Despite his clothes, my dad was good-looking. He was thin and fit and he had that air of confidence of men who’ve made their own fortune. Perhaps men who have family money have an air about them too, but my dad had a certain way of looking at the world—an I-made-it-without-you attitude. Right now he also looked impatient. The whole horse show thing didn’t make sense to him. A race where dozens of horses started off at the same time and you could tell who was winning made sense. But a whole ring full of jumps saved for one rider at a time defied his sense of practicality and expediency. All the waiting around at horse shows went against his very DNA of Getting Things Done As Quickly and Efficiently as Possible.

  “Hannah’s on deck,” Tucker said.

  I tried to think of the course, but the only thoughts that raced through my mind were unrelated to the jumps ahead. Why wasn’t Chris watching? Why hadn’t I seen him since my lesson that morning? Why hadn’t he returned any of my texts? Had I done something wrong?

  “You know where you’re going out there?” Jamie asked as the in-gate guy, Philip said, “Hannah, you’re in.”

  Ever since I’d started hanging out with Zoe and Jed and Chris I’d become one of the in-crowd at the horse show. One of the people Philip knew by name. It felt good to be one of the insiders, but fragile in a way too. Would Philip remember me after the summer? How many people were in the in-crowd for a summer or a year, and then just dropped out of the horse show world altogether?

  “Show me what you can do out there,” Dad said. “I’m watching.”

  As if there was any confusion over that last part.

  I waited for the tone and then picked up a trot. I headed down the long side of the ring, surprised at how stiff I felt. It was like my arms were frozen and my knees bolted to the saddle.

  It was only twenty seconds before I was at the first jump but in that short time so many thoughts went through my head. First, I tried to pretend he wasn’t watching, that he hadn’t just said what he had said, but it was impossible. Then I started thinking about Chris, and where the hell was he when I needed him? Zoe wasn’t here to support me either but she had been acting funny ever since she’d seen Chris and me kissing. She’d been acting like she was too busy to do anything but be Jamie’s right hand girl.

  I thought of my mom and her birds. No wonder my dad had picked up and left. Who wanted to be married to the bird-woman? It was so unfair that he could come watch me when her anxiety kept her a prisoner at home.

  I didn’t pick up the canter until I was almost around the corner to the first jump. I was sure I could hear Jamie and maybe my dad too saying, “What the hell is she waiting for?” I didn’t really know what I was waiting for. Maybe for things to settle down in my head or maybe for Chris to show up. The only good thing about having picked up the canter so late was that there wasn’t much time before the first jump. I was there before I knew what had happened and somehow I was all right when I landed on the other side even though I had absolutely no recollection of how I had made it over.

  The second jump was fine too. I glided to it, not even knowing that I had turned the corner and steered to the line. My arms still felt frozen and my legs weak, but somehow I was on and still riding. I made it almost all the way around the course like that—feeling like things were going slowly and quickly at the same time. The second to last jump was a long approach to a triple bar, with three separate rails on three sets of standards, each a few inches higher than the other. At first I saw the triple bar as it was, like the slant of a ladder, but then the rails started to blur together. I glanced away from the jump for a split second and then back to it again, but it still looked fuzzy. I wondered if I had time to look at my dad at the side of the ring or to check for Chris again and then I realized that the blur was getting closer. I would have to jump it, even if I couldn’t quite see it. There were only a few more strides left to go.

  At the last stride, Logan veered to the right, flinging me to the left and onto the ground, just missing the rails of the jump. I landed with a thud that somehow seemed to snap me out of my dream-like paralysis. At first I felt almost relieved—I had ridden exactly like my father expected I would. Terribly. But then I felt a wave of anger pass through me. I held my hand up to my mouth and closed my eyes. I had failed. I had failed myself again. I could have done it—I knew I could have conquered that course just like I had the past few times in the ring. But instead I had let it get to me, let him get to me, let myself get to me, and I had fallen apart.

  I rose slowly. Logan was cantering around the ring with his reins drooping dangerously low on one side and Jamie was walking toward me. If my dad weren’t there, she wouldn’t have bothered.

  “You all right?” she said.

  I nodded. I was fine actually, which was nearly annoying. Suddenly I wished I was in horrible pain or had broken something semi-serious. If I couldn’t impress him I could at least spark his sympathy. Logan came to a stop on the far side of the ring. He let Jamie approach him, take the reins over his head, and walk him out of the ring. When we were outside and away from the in-gate, Jamie handed me the reins.

  “What were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. “What were you doing out there, kiddo?” My father glanced to Jamie. “Am I wrong, or wasn’t the distance right there?”

  I stiffened under his touch. This from the man who had only sat on a horse once in his life at a dude ranch he took me and Ryan to out west. And I distinctly remember his horse kept lunging for grass and pulling the reins out of his hands, which drove him crazy. He hated that there were no buttons to press, no code to learn. Yet he had seen the distance I should have seen.

  “You looked like you were just sitting up there waiting for it all to work out for you,” Jamie said. “You have to ride each jump.”

  “Did she really get
a ribbon last week?” my dad asked her.

  “I should get him back to the barn,” I said, motioning to Logan. “I don’t have a groom anymore, you know.”

  “Right. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  I led Logan toward the barn. He sighed once like he understood what a disappointment the whole thing was. Like he knew we should have done better. I patted his neck—it was my fault, not his. Logan and I had become a pair. We were on the same side now. He had even reduced his water bucket pooping to only once a week, at most.

  Back at the barn, still no Chris. Still no Zoe. She was clearly avoiding me since Jamie had been helping me, but Zoe wasn’t there when Zoe was always by her side these days. I stripped the tack off Logan and went about putting him away. It was nice to lose myself in the physical part of taking care of him. I had hated that part so much in the beginning, but now there was comfort in brushing him and doing up his legs, especially when it kept my mind from thinking about what my dad was talking to Jamie about at the ring.

  My dad still hadn’t reappeared by the time I had Logan all brushed down and his legs wrapped. The tears I was trying to hold back started running down my cheeks. I put Logan in his stall and sat down on my trunk. I took a towel and wiped my face. The only thing worse than crying was crying when you felt embarrassed to be crying in the first place. I was being such a baby. It was like my dad brought out the worst in me. I wanted to show him what I had become here in Vermont, but suddenly I was the old-me again.

  Before I even knew where I was going, I was jogging out of the tent over to Chris’s stalls.

  Chris was sitting in one of the director’s chairs, with his feet on the coffee table and his head tilted back. A very un-Chris pose. He looked defeated, overwhelmed. Eduardo, one of his grooms, Dale, and Jasper were with him. As I came closer, Dale elbowed Chris. Chris sat up and put his hands on his knees.