Summer Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 1)

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  On the way up to the ring, I rehearsed in my head what I would say to Jamie. Chris and I were working on getting him to listen . . . I think it would be best to school him over a lot of low fences to get his attention . . . what I think we should do . . .

  None of it seemed right. I didn’t see how I could even pretend to handle the situation delicately or maturely. I kept thinking about what all the people at the show might be saying about me. But I had to try to put that out of my mind. When I saw Jamie, and Zoe next to her, my mouth went dry. Jamie turned from the in-gate to face me. I noticed lines in her face I’d never seen before, deep creases in sun-browned flesh.

  “Good morning,” Jamie said in a monotone.

  My stomach tightened. “Good morning.”

  “The course is pretty straight forward. I’ll go check where you are in the order and let Zoe go over it with you.”

  I tried to swallow but my throat felt like pebbles. I wished I could say something, anything, to keep Jamie from walking away, from leaving me alone with Zoe. Did Jamie know about everything with Zoe and was she doing this to make me suffer more?

  “The course is as follows—” Zoe flipped her hair back with her good arm.

  “The gate on the far side, the line through the diagonal, the oxer in the corner . . .”

  I listened as Zoe droned on in her white shorts and baby blue polo, her arm still in its sling. Only a few weeks before I had thought Zoe was my friend. A friend like I’d never had in high school. A friend I’d talk about to people I met at college. Like, oh once my friend Zoe said . . . or once Zoe and I . . .

  It wasn’t that we’d ever had that much in common. We lived such different lives, but it hadn’t seemed to matter. But now that was all gone.

  I couldn’t just sit there and listen to Zoe without saying anything about what she’d done. “Just stop,” I told her. “I know what you did.”

  Just then, Jamie returned, “Let’s go, you’re in ten. Got the course down?”

  Out in the schooling ring, Jamie didn’t say much. I tried to remember if Jamie had ever said a lot to me. I decided that she hadn’t, but that somehow her lack of words before had seemed very different. Like she didn’t know where to start, so much was wrong. Now it seemed like her silence was calculated, taking revenge on me.

  I tried to work by myself inside the silence. I had discussed with Chris how to handle Logan after the rain. How to demand his attention slowly, starting by asking him to go forward and then shorten. Then to progress to bending him around the corners, and then to practice transitions from the trot to the canter to the trot, all the time half-halting. I tried to immerse myself within my ride, concentrating solely on Logan’s responses to my aids.

  When I was at the in-gate waiting to go, I watched the rider before me and made sure I knew the course. Jamie was standing next to me, and Zoe on the other side of Jamie. I spotted Chris across the ring, filming me on his iPhone. I had asked him to, so if Logan went well we could send the video to my dad as evidence of why I should move to Chris’s barn. When Philip said, “Hannah, you’re in,” I took a deep breath and squeezed Logan forward.

  Instead of hesitating upon entering, I departed directly into a canter. I cantered down the long side of ring, brought Logan back to a walk (test that he’s listening to you, Chris had said), waited for the tone and then departed into a canter again. As I approached the first fence, I felt more secure in my position than ever. Instead of the days of not riding and Jamie’s and Zoe’s glare making me looser, I felt tight and in control. Maybe it was the extra sticky spray I’d used or maybe I was getting stronger like Chris had said I would. Either way, I would show them how good I could be.

  “Ride every point of the course,” Chris had said. “Ride the corners, that’s your chance to check Logan, to make sure he’s listening to you.”

  I flowed around the course. Not effortlessly, although it may have looked rather smooth. Instead, each stride was an exact movement that I measured with my muscles. We had no rails down and finished within the time-allowed. The jump-off was straightforward, with the only time to cut seconds a long approach to a single vertical. What would Chris have me do? Gallop it full force? Play it safe and not worry about my time?

  I didn’t look to Jamie for any answers. Instead when the tone went off, I cantered the first four jumps of the jump-off in much the same manner that I had jumped the first course. When I landed off the fourth jump and headed to the fifth, the long approach, I squeezed Logan forward while still keeping a feel on the reins. If I threw him away, he would be likely to take off and scamper to the fence. I needed to keep him listening while pressing him forward. Five strides away from the fence, I eased down into the saddle. I half-halted Logan and sailed over the fence.

  “A clean go and a time of 44.98 in the jump-off for Personal Best and Hannah Waer.”

  Jamie and Zoe acted like I hadn’t just ridden the round of my life.

  “Good job,” Jamie said. Zoe said nothing; she wouldn’t meet my eyes. That was fine. They could play their own mind games if they wanted.

  Back at the barn, Chris was waiting. “Great ride. Perfectly executed.” He passed me his phone. “Do you want to see for yourself?”

  We watched the video together. Chris was right. It did look good. I was amazed at how in control Logan looked. And how happy he looked. His ears were pricked forward the whole way around the course. He liked his job now.

  “Forward it to me and I’ll send it to my dad,” I told him.

  I did just that, and then we waited.

  Chapter 35

  My dad finally called. He didn’t start with some casual normal conversation opener like, “Hi,” or “How’s everything?” He just said, “Okay.”

  “Okay what?” I said, even though I was pretty sure I knew what he was okaying.

  “Okay, you can move barns and send Logan home with Chris. He’ll have two months with him and then we’ll reassess. But there’s one condition.”

  Of course there was. Nothing was ever straight-forward-you-can-have-what-you-want with my dad. He spent too much time managing business transactions that always included this assumption and that agreement.

  “You will be the one informing Jamie,” Dad said.

  I swallowed hard. I had to tell her I was leaving her barn? Would she even care, or would she be glad to be rid of me? I had to imagine she was the type of person who would make things ugly for clients who left. She didn’t seem like the type of trainer to take the high road and be professional. She probably preferred being the dumper, not the dumpee.

  “Don’t you think she won’t believe me or something?” I said to Dad. “I mean, isn’t it weird for me to do it?”

  “Do you know when I fired my first employee?” he asked.

  I wanted to say, “When you were thirteen?” but I bit my tongue. He was giving me what I wanted, after all. “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  “I was eighteen. Your age. Ryan has had to fire plenty of people. It’s an important skill and I want you to learn it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “If that’s what you want, I’ll do it.”

  I had no idea how, but if it meant riding with Chris instead of Jamie, I’d do it.

  I think I was the only eighteen-year-old in the history of horse shows who ever had to fire her trainer. Well, in the history of horse shows in the twenty-first century anyway. Most parents paid the bills, made the decisions, and had the difficult conversations. Cheryl called her mother nearly every day to report on how she’d done and by all accounts she was a full-on grown-up. I’d heard Cheryl talking to her mom about paying a credit card bill—apparently her mom footed the bill for not just her horse show life, but for the rest of her life too. “How am I going to do it?” I asked Chris.

  “It’s a tough one. I guess just be honest with her.”

  One of the things I loved perhaps most about that summer was the two different Chris Kerns I got to see. Of course they weren’t actually different. But there w
as the grand prix rider, who wore Pikeur breeches and Parlanti boots and shirt and coat and helmet. He looked incredibly hot in his show clothes—professional and radiating a star-like quality. He was one of the most well known riders in the entire country and I loved watching him ride and then get off and take off his helmet, his hair slightly sweaty underneath. I loved how he would put his helmet in the crook of his arm and with his other hand wipe the sweat from his forehead.

  Then there was the other Chris, the Chris when we weren’t at the horse show. The Chris standing before me right then, making me dinner. The regular guy Chris, who was still smoking hot. The Chris in perfectly fitting jeans, loafers, and a button-down shirt. When I saw that Chris, my breathing stuttered for a second. He had totally transformed. I guess maybe it was like dating a professional baseball player or a police officer. You got two for the price of one—you got to stand in awe and lust after the man in the uniform and then again when you saw him in regular street clothes.

  I said, “So tell her she’s a terrible trainer and she treated me like dirt and she’s fired?”

  Chris poured a little olive oil into the pan on the stove. “Okay, maybe not that honest.”

  “What do you think she’ll be like? You know her better than I do.”

  “Well, Jamie’s the type who does things that don’t make sense. Like, she’s the type to get pissed when a trouble client leaves her.”

  “So I’m a trouble client?” I walked over and put my arms around him.

  “I didn’t mean you.”

  “Now I’m your trouble client,” I said, moving my hands to his belt. “You’re going to have to make me happy and it might not be easy.”

  “I think I can handle it,” he said, putting his arms around my waist.

  “Oh yeah?”

  He kissed me, slow like he was trying to tempt me. “I think I know what you want.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” I said.

  But Chris did know what I wanted. He made it all about me right then, about my pleasure. We went into the bedroom, he laid me down on the bed, slowly took off all my clothes. When he touched me it became all about the pressure. At first it was slow and light, barely grazing my skin, making me arch my back and yearn for more. Then it was more direct and deliberate, but still not too much or too hard. My breathing quickened and I gave in to thinking about nothing but myself. For the first time ever, I was vocal, gasping at first and then moaning as he glided his fingers back and forth over and then inside me. Somehow he knew to gradually touch me stronger and deeper until I came. Afterwards he was smiling, clearly pleased with his talents. And he was hard—something I had wondered about as he was touching me. Very hard. We so weren’t done.

  I decided to tell Jamie as she was making up the next day’s schedule in the tack room. Of course Zoe was there.

  “Hi, Jamie, can I talk to you?” I asked.

  Jamie didn’t turn from the whiteboard. “Do you think we should school Ranger before the A/Os or just flat him?” she asked Zoe.

  Had she heard me? Or was this selective hearing? I asked her louder if I could talk to her.

  “Yes, what?”

  I glanced at Zoe. “I was sort of thinking maybe in private?”

  “I don’t have all day,” Jamie said. “Say what you’ve got to say.”

  So I had to do this in front of Zoe. Perfect.

  “I’m moving Logan. Well, not actually moving him now. I’m keeping him at my stalls, but I’m changing trainers . . . to Chris. And Logan’s going home with Chris to Pennsylvania after Circuit.”

  For the first time Jamie turned to look at me.

  I continued, “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. But it’s time for a change for us.”

  “So you want me to believe your mom and dad are letting you move your horse to the barn of the guy you’re fucking?” she said.

  “It’s not just . . . this isn’t about—” Her coarseness left me stumbling for words. I guess I had assumed she’d be angry, but I hadn’t thought she’d go that low.

  “Everyone read your little diary. Do your mom and dad know about that?”

  “I didn’t write that stuff.” I stared hard at Zoe. “Someone who was jealous of me and Chris did.” I took a deep breath. I would be professional. I wouldn’t stoop to Jamie’s level. I tried to channel my father. “I think we’re getting off track. I came to tell you my plans, which my parents are in agreement with.”

  “Flat or school?” Jamie turned back to the whiteboard, making it clear she was done with me. She’d probably never speak to me again.

  “School,” Zoe said.

  “What about Harley? I think he could use a lunge.”

  I stood there a moment longer. Chris had warned me that Jamie would be like this. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. And what did I expect from Zoe? For her to take my side, or give me any signal of regret for what she had written? No, that wasn’t going to happen.

  Chapter 36

  We spent the evening on Chris’s couch, watching more House of Cards. Half the horse show was probably at Backcountry and maybe we should have gone out together too, to make a statement, but we’d decided to stay in. I had planned to call my roommate-to-be, but I kept putting it off. Now it was almost getting too late to call.

  “Oh, come on. You’ve been sitting there with your phone in your hand for the whole night,” Chris said.

  I had filled out the online questionnaire from Tufts back in the early summer, before coming to Vermont. Early to bed—check. Early to rise—check. Neat and tidy—check. I guess I was still all those same things, but somehow I felt that if given the chance to fill out the form now I’d do it differently. I was a different person and I no longer wanted the boring, dorky roommate I had imagined back in June.

  I dialed the number. Her phone had one of those enjoy-this-music-while-you-wait things: a song I’d never heard before. I’d tried connecting with Elizabeth Van Norman of Tucson, Arizona via Facebook but she’d ignored my friend-requests. What did it say when your future roommate didn’t want to be your Facebook friend?

  Finally, she answered, “Yeah?”

  “Hi, is this Elizabeth?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Um, it’s Hannah Waer. I’m going to be your . . . we’re going to be roommates . . . at Tufts?”

  I covered the phone and mouthed “help” at Chris, who motioned to me with a flick of his hand to keep talking to her.

  “Oh yeah, it’s just . . . no one calls me Elizabeth. It’s Van.”

  “Oh, cool.”

  Somehow Van didn’t seem like someone who was early to bed early to rise. Van with a strange song I’d never heard didn’t seem like someone who would make her bed and bring a vacuum with her to school (I was most definitely bringing my stick-vacuum).

  “So you’re from . . . I forget?” Van asked.

  “I’m from Boston.”

  “Hometown girl, huh?”

  “Yeah, kind of lame, I know.”

  “Whatever. So, like, I don’t really sleep at night.”

  “You mean you go to bed late?”

  “No, like I don’t sleep. I’m not like part of the Cullen coven or anything but I usually just nap a few hours during the day.”

  “But this . . . I mean did you fill out the form?”

  “Form?”

  “We all got a form, over email? About whether we go to bed early or like a neat room?”

  “Oh shit. I’m sure my mom filled that out. She hacks into my email all the time.” Van laughed. “Poor you. She probably made me sound all perfect, like I study all the time and like to organize my sock drawer in my free time.”

  I joined her in laughing a little. What else was there to do? And in a way I was kind of relieved. I wasn’t getting some clone of me to live with. I’m not sure it would exactly work out to have a roommate who kept a vampire schedule, but at least I wouldn’t be living with my long-lost type A twin.

  When I got of
f the phone, Chris looked at me with curious eyes.

  I told him about the mix-up and he said I could probably petition to get a new roommate before school even started.

  I shrugged off his idea. “Something tells me to wing it. I never thought coming here this summer and taking care of Logan by myself would work out and it did. I need to learn to be more go-with-the-flow.”

  “I guess that’s a great attitude,” he said, like he still thought I was planning my own funeral.

  “She asked if I had a boyfriend. She dates someone in a band and he plays gigs in Boston.”

  “And do you?” he said, his eyes curious again.

  I smiled shyly. “I said yes. Was that right?”

  Chris moved closer and put his face inches from mine. “Sounds right to me.”

  He kissed me and I had to pull away to ask, “What’s going to happen? I mean when Circuit’s over?” I had put this convo off for too long.

  Chris tilted his head to one side. “You could come to some of the shows, especially since I’ll have Logan.”

  “And maybe you could come visit me at school?” I wished I’d said, come visit me in Boston. Why would Chris want to come to my dorm room? No, we’d stay at a nice hotel. Have breakfast in bed. I couldn’t possibly imagine him in a dorm room, crammed into a twin size bed with me. Suddenly I felt so much younger than him and I wished life were different and we were the same age and things like this wouldn’t be a problem. “You’re not going to want to come visit me at school. I mean, how could you even, with your show schedule.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll have to see what my schedule is like by then.”

  “What do you mean? Don’t you already know?”

  Top riders always had their show schedules planned out for the entire year. Changes might come up, like how he’d come to Vermont instead of going to Europe, sure, but there was a plan in place. His entries for fall shows would already have to be in.