Keeping It In The Middle

by Lyn Denver

  ~

  Four days after the flood, the sun finally broke through the clouds. Van raised her face to the warm rays of light, basking like a lizard. Binny's Acres had fared better than most after the record-breaking rain. One corner of the arena was washed out and would need replacement sand. About forty bales of hay were trashed. One horse had a nasty cut on her right foreleg that would need medicating for a few weeks and a dozen others contracted thrush, a nasty hoof infection that came from the ground being too wet for too long.

  Others in the community had much more tragic stories. One other polo barn had completely flooded, ruining tack and making the main barn practically unusable. Luckily all the horses were rescued and taken to high ground. A trail riding facility one town over lost everything and garnered national attention when a video of several horses fighting the current to swim over fence lines, went viral. Van avoided Facebook and all other forms of social media like the plague, but even she'd logged online in an effort to find out what happened. As best as she could understand, the horses had all been "rescued" by people stopping on the side of the highway. There had been no comment from the stable owner and the story disappeared online as quickly as it had appeared. Van hoped the horses were alive and healthy, wherever they were.

  "You ready?" Tyler asked excitedly. "Pete will be here in ten minutes."

  They'd been working so endlessly all week that Van almost forgot the date. Today was the day they were meeting their equestrian joint venture, the 3-year-old mare coming from South Carolina.

  "You think she'll be as pretty as her pictures?" Van asked. Suddenly she felt as excited as he looked. There was nothing quite like buying a prospect, imagining how fit they'd be in the future and how well they'd play down the road. In the back of every trainer's mind was the question, "Could this be the Best Playing Pony at the U.S. Open? Could this be the one?"

  Tyler tossed the bridle onto the rack behind the trunk full of saddle pads where she was perched. He sat next to her, pulling off his cap to scratch at his sweaty scalp. The weather had been intolerably hot and humid since the flooding. He had a mosquito bite the size of a dime on the back of his neck that was bright red. She had six to match it on her upper arms. The influx of flying pests had been a twisting of the knife from Mother Nature after the storms. Van had gone through half a dozen bottles of Pyranha fly spray trying to protect the horses.

  "Pete said she's gorgeous," Tyler finally replied.

  Van stomped her feet repetitively, rattling her knee into his. "I'm excited to meet her. I've never bought one so young, though. We'll have to wait forever for the real work to begin."

  Tyler leaned against the stall wall at their backs, crushing the tack odds and ends that would have to be properly put away at the end of the day. "We'll get you up on her for a few minutes at a time, two or three times a week, for the next six months, maybe even just bareback. We'll teach her to stand tied and get a feel for the action during 4-goal. Next year, we'll get her going properly and doing a little stick and ball. Maybe playing a little 2-goal or refereeing."

  "Speaking of 2-goal, your girlfriend has been texting Mike like crazy ... asking when we're going to do makeup days," Van said, relaying the conversation she'd had with Mike over coffee that morning.

  "My girlfriend?" Tyler asked. His brows were scrunched together and his lip curled as if disgusted.

  "Sally."

  He turned to look at her fully. "Since when is Sally my girlfriend?"

  "Since she asked Mike if she could have private lessons from you if the "inclement weather continued."" Van made sure to use finger quotes around Sally's very posh phrasing.

  "Shiiiit," Tyler said, stretching out the middle vowel. "What did Mike say? I hope he didn't sign me up for that, like I don't have enough to do around here already."

  "He told her you weren't available," Van laughed.

  Tyler shook his head and breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Thank you, Mike."

  "You know he would never allow it. If we sign up one person for makeup lessons, everybody wants one and it's mayhem."

  He shook his head. "Yeah, but Sally has deep pockets. Sometimes those clients get special treatment."

  Van raised an eyebrow theatrically, almost to her hairline. "How special?" she asked coyly.

  Tyler looked at her with a grin. He jostled her ribs with his elbow just as an immaculate rig pulled up to the front gate. It was a giant red Dodge dually with a long, shiny silver gooseneck trailer attached. "Nowhere near that special," Ty said as he jumped from the seat. He turned and gave Van a hand up. He didn't let go as he pulled her down the driveway smiling ear to ear. "Let's go meet our new baby girl, Momma!"

  After opening and closing the gate, Van jogged to the truck. Pete stepped out and tugged Tyler into one of those manly one-armed hugs before pushing him roughly away. Pete was short and wiry like a lot of polo players. He stood around five foot ten inches tall and couldn't weigh more than one hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet. He had blonde curly hair and a full beard he kept neatly trimmed. He looked like the picture perfect hipster, complete with skinny jeans and a thin flannel shirt that probably cost way too much, but was made to look like it didn't. He hugged Van with both arms, squeezing her too tight. "You're killing me, Pete!" she laughed.

  He let go of her, pushing her away with hands loosely holding her upper arms. He looked from her to Tyler and back. "My God, I missed you two assholes!" he said. "What's with the bride of Frankenstein look?" he asked Van, pointing to her stitches.

  Van shook her head. "Long story."

  "Short story," Tyler quipped. "Scary Samantha pegged her with a shot glass."

  Pete grimaced as he brought Van in for another hug. "Geez, Van. Stop picking fights with the bunnies would you?" he asked.

  She could barely breathe between the laughing and the hugging. "Okay, okay!" she shouted. "Let me go before I add broken ribs to the list."

  Pete pushed Van away playfully, pretending to box and then actually slapping Tyler on the face as he walked past, towards the back of the trailer. He swung open the single large door to reveal the gorgeous chestnut filly. Even though it was early in the season and most of the horses still held a tinge of their scraggly winter fur, this one was polished like a new penny. She had huge flaring nostrils and big, black eyes. They were opened wide, but not in the fearful way where there was a ring of white around the edge. Her eyes were just large and expressive, like how Van imagined an anime horse would be drawn. The horse glanced at Pete, Tyler, and Van in turn as Pete unknotted her lead rope from the trailer's window slat and led her off the trailer. She moved gracefully, looking at her surroundings but not seeming alarmed in the least.

  "She traveled great," Pete said, handing the lead rope to Van. "Ate her meals, drank water when it was offered. Never broke a sweat."

  Van laid a hand on the mare's forehead, roughing up her forelock. "You're a smart girl, aren't you?" she asked the horse quietly. She led the mare to the side of the trailer, out of the way as Pete unloaded his string of 4-goal horses. Ty helped him, settling the horses in a nearby paddock before returning to Van and the mare. He ran his hand over each of her legs, up and down her spine, and then finally her neck and ears.

  "She's gorgeous," he said, the words coming out almost as a breath.

  Van nodded her head. "We did good, Ty. We did really good." She wrapped her arms around the mare's head and squeezed it in a gentle hug.