Horse Heaven

by Jane Smiley

  But it was a mystery. She could come up with nothing.

  She held her hands up in the brilliant moonlight, and looked at them. They were clean. She looked first at the palms, then at the backs. Even her nails were perfect and unbroken. Fine. But her hands were interesting, pearly in the moonlight. She placed her palms together, then looked at them again, then put them to either side of her face. They were cool and comforting. Of course they were. People often remarked upon that, that her touch was comforting. Al sometimes asked her just to put her hand on his head to see if he had a fever. He never did, but he felt comforted. Dick, too. Her stepchildren and her step-grandchildren. That was funny, something she had noticed over the years without realizing. Her hands offered something whether or not her intentions were involved. Well, that was a pleasant thought. She rested her face in her hands. Ah. Yes.

  Her face. Well, Rosalind didn’t have to look at her face in the mirror to know all about it. She had looked at her face in the mirror enough times over the years. Probably she would never have to look at it again. She removed her hands and turned her face toward the moonlight. Perhaps she felt it, little grains of silver light gathering on her cheeks and forehead and nose and chin, collecting on her lips and eyes, congregating on her neck, scattering through her tangled hair. Right where all those quanta of light lay clustered, there was her face, as in a mask. She could feel it tingling, the tiny interval between her self and what the light revealed. That was what you could not look past, wasn’t it? They told you that in school—when you looked at something, really you were looking at reflected light. There was no way to look at the thing itself, at least with your eyes. Eyes were made for this world, with this sun and moon and all their imitators. Perhaps, Rosalind thought, there were other worlds inside this one that eyes were not made for. Even so, she did not touch her face, not wanting to disturb the granules of light shimmering there. Rather, she stood up and let the light cascade down the rest of her body, over her shoulders and breasts and belly and hips, thighs and knees and shins, and ankles, a dry flow of infinitesimal beads, almost audible, if the ear could hear such a lovely sound, note falling upon note, a torrent of harmonies, setting her vibrating from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. She stood very still, so as not to interfere with this vibration, and held her arms away from her body. Still her eyes were closed, but the light of the moon was so bright that she could see everything perfectly well.

  This feeling, Rosalind thought, was not unlike orgasm; it had that richness. She supposed that, if it was not orgasmic, then it was not any feeling she had ever had before; perfectly new. The sensible thing, of course, was just to stand there and feel it, quit questioning it, and so she did. And as she did, her skin diffused and the motes of light heavy upon it went suddenly into her and began vibrating within, except there was no within and there was no without. She had been invaded from all sides, taken, penetrated, removed, replaced, done for.

  There was no climax, no movement upward or downward. The feeling was present, and then she sighed and sat down again on the bed and the feeling was gone. Nothing came after it, no longing, no sense of loss, no fear, only another sigh. And then she slipped between the sheets of her Irish bed and slept without dreaming until the fragrance of scones and lemony tea awakened her in time for her plane, even though the hotel dining room was four floors down and at the other end of the building. But in Ireland, it appeared, anything was possible.

  52 / LIQUIDITY

  NOW,” SAID MARY LYNN to Deirdre, “what I really appreciate about Thoroughbreds is how liquid they are.”

  “You mean asset-wise,” said Deirdre.

  “Oh my God, yes,” said Mary Lynn. “In comparison to the house, the beach house, the boat, the art, and the old cars, and all the junk Skippy’s bought over the years, my God, it’s going to take us years to sort that out.”

  Deirdre gathered that she was not leaving him for the guy from Microsoft but, rather, on general principles. She no longer wanted to be the doer of good works married to a Washington power-broker. Which element was the worst—the good works, the marriage, the power, or Washington itself—defied analysis, but none of them held any appeal any longer, and since Skippy didn’t know how to do anything in the world other than power-broking in Washington, there was no shifting him, and so—

  Deirdre sensed that she was expected to provide some female solidarity on this. That was why they were not out at the track, but having lunch in a restaurant. She sensed this because, just before she left the track, George had said to her, “I bet it’s a divorce, darlin’, so be sympathetic.” All through the barley soup and the potted shrimp on a bed of bitter greens with aromatic vegetables, Deirdre had been biting her tongue and reviewing her female experience for some sort of sisterly feeling, but in fact it appeared that she had no relevant female experience and she was incapable of sisterly feeling. On the other hand, she was surprised to note, she was not either enraged or terrified. It was she herself who had gotten rid of most of her owners, and so it was she herself who had put all her eggs in the Hollister basket. When the Hollister horses (who even now were running well and making a profit) had liquefied and flowed away, she would have six horses in her barn, three allowance horses who had earned her maybe twenty thousand dollars in the last year, and three claimers, who, of course, were only passing through. And, of course, the miracle mare and her divine daughter were as liquid as all the others, and would pass on, too. One of her perfect daughters, a three-year-old, had won a stakes in California, enhancing the mare’s value yet again, and thereby pricing Mary Lynn and Skippy’s half well out of Deirdre’s range.

  “You know,” said Mary Lynn, “Skippy keeps saying, ‘But they won’t remove him from office! They don’t even have a simple majority! I don’t understand why you’re leaving me! Wait till after the vote! Wait till after the election!’ Well, just you wait. This isn’t the first or last marriage for which this whole thing was just too much.”

  “I’m sure,” said Deirdre. “But this can’t be just about that.”

  “You know it isn’t,” said Mary Lynn, “and I know it isn’t, but Skippy thinks everything is about that. So what I say to him is, they have to stay married, but the rest of us don’t.”

  Deirdre ate her dessert—lemon tart with a raspberry sauce—and she did not splutter. Neither did she curse, neither did she wail, neither did she gnash her teeth, neither did she tear her hair, but only thanked Mary Lynn for their long association and wished her well.

  ———

  LATER, WHEN SHE ASKED George about why she had gone so quietly, he said, “But, Cousin, you were not having a near-death experience. You were having a death experience. Against such a thing, protest does not avail.”

  Deirdre had always assumed that a death experience would be sudden, or at least quick enough, but this one happened a drop at a time, giving her plenty of occasion to wonder why giving up something she had such a beef with was so painful. First of all, George decided to leave and go back to Ireland. He had his reasons for this, but they were, as both of them knew, only excuses. Money, employment, preferences, really, he just wanted to be back in Ireland, and his experience with her might help him to a job at a stud or with another trainer there. Tiffany didn’t like this idea at all. “Now, in the first place, George, things aren’t over here, so you don’t have to be buying your ticket home right now. And in the second place, even if Deirdre took a little vacation from training and went to, say, Tahiti, for a long break, and the horses went to other trainers, you could find yourself another job, and this would be a very good time for you to better your position by taking a job in California or up in New York. I bet Dagoberto would—”

  “That sounds like quite an effort, darlin’.”

  “Well, of course it does, but—”

  “My plan is to float to the top, not to swim there.”

  “Now, I’ll tell you something about that,” said Tiffany. “I saw on the TV that men are heavier than water, and
so you better not be thinking you’re going to float to any top of anything.”

  George laughed.

  “And trainers are leaving the business in England all the time. I read that in the Thoroughbred Times. Even the trainer for the Queen of England is leaving the business because he can’t make money racing in England, and—”

  “In Ireland you don’t have to make money, darlin’, you just need something to do to keep you occupied during the day—”

  “And the sheiks are moving their whole operation to France because the bookies in England won’t give back more than one percent of their take because they can always get out of horse racing entirely and stick with football—”

  “You’ve been reading those racing magazines in your spare time!”

  “Well, of course I have, you should, too. Now—”

  “I’m thinking I need to find my level, Tiff. You need to find your level, too, you know. I just have a feeling your level is several stories up from mine.”

  “Well, if I had your experience and knowledge, I wouldn’t be going back to Ireland!”

  “Oh, wouldn’t you, now? Well, don’t you know that’s where you soak it up? In Ireland, it comes right into you with the air you breathe. You should go with me, dearie. They’d eat you up like sweet buns in Ireland.”

  Ah, well, Deirdre’s heart flipped over on that one, but Tiffany tossed her tiny braids and said, “No, thank you.”

  And so George made his reservations, and they all knew he was just happy to go back and be another Irishman among Irishmen.

  And then Helen came to Deirdre one morning, and said, “Deirdre, honey, I just want to tell you my plan, because, even though I’m going to keep doing your books and all, I’m going to do them from home, because, you know, I’ve gone into the consulting business.”

  She held up an ad. It read: “Which phone company? Which cellular? Which computer? Which Internet provider? Which insurance plan? And where should I go for lunch? Let me arrange your life. I know ALL the details, and what’s more, I’ve read the fine print! LET’S GET GOING, Helen Vanden Plas, 1-800-876-5432.”

  “What are you charging?”

  “Seventy-five dollars an hour.”

  “Gotten any calls?”

  “Twenty-six so far. Ten jobs.”

  “Want to buy a racehorse? It’s a good tax deduction.”

  “Ah, sweetie, don’t I know it. I’ll still see you, honey. I’ll come out and have lunch with you.”

  Maybe she would. But it was nice to know she would think about it.

  Two days later, the van came in and picked up Mary Lynn and Skippy’s horses. Two were going to New York, one to Kentucky, and the other three to California. Deirdre watched as Tiffany wrapped them. She wrapped the chestnuts in green, the gray in red, the bay in yellow, and the brown in electric blue. She did a good job, even all the way down, not too tight, not too loose. Then she led them up the ramp one by one and clipped them into their stalls. The van guys lifted the ramp, and then they were gone with a puff of diesel exhaust. Now, of the six non-Hollister horses, there was only one horse left, because she had told all her owners she was leaving the business. That horse was racing that afternoon, and would surely be claimed. If not, his owner, who was a bettor who claimed and lost a horse maybe once a year, had said he would take him off the next day, and that would be that.

  Only Tiffany remained.

  Deirdre had told her to go back to Dagoberto, who was in Florida. With her five months’ experience working for Deirdre and some persuasion from Deirdre herself, not to mention the fact that Tiffany’s horses had won $114,000 since August, over $200,000 altogether, Deirdre was sure Tiffany could write her own ticket with Dagoberto. Tiffany didn’t say anything one way or another, and Deirdre didn’t say anything more, either, because the best thing about her day every day, and the one thing that made her the grateful, mild-mannered, and accepting woman she had miraculously become, was the sight of Tiffany in her jeans from the Gap and her Australian boots and her cowboy hat and her tiny little braids and her orchid-colored polo shirt from Lands’ End. Tiffany’s position in Deirdre’s barn was flexible, especially now that there was only one horse. What she elected to do on this, his last day, was groom him three times, top to bottom, and clean his bridle, and make sure, it looked like, that all the straws in his stall were oriented in the same direction. Deirdre said, “You’ll be rubbin’ the hair off the poor beast.”

  “There’s nothing to do. I stripped the other stalls yesterday. And I cleaned the feed room, too. He can use a bit of affection. He seems like he’s gone without it. I think that makes them a little dull.”

  “Darlin’, a poorly bred horse who’s only won three out of thirty starts is a little dull.”

  “Maybe a little affection would wake him up and give him some reason to, you know—”

  “Win a race?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “You are a sentimental thing, I must say.”

  “The horses like me.”

  “Yes, they do. Tiffany, you could be rubbin’ some nice animals—your own.”

  “You said you wouldn’t have them here.”

  “Your livelihood is of importance to me, especially as you are a young woman with a significant horse habit. As I am paying you such a pittance, and that is about to end, you need—”

  Tiffany always hated this line of talk, and interrupted her at once. “What’s the most horses you ever had in your barn?”

  “Racehorses? About forty. That was three or four years ago.”

  “Before the wreck.”

  “Long before. But I had sixty horses in my barn when I had the jumpers, for about five years there. It was a fair operation for a twenty-four-year-old girl to take on. I didn’t know what I was doing, which was a fine thing, and the best way to be with horses, if you ask me.”

  “How many did you ride every day?”

  “Six or eight. I didn’t groom them, though. I had a couple of young men just for that. Young in the sense that they were unmarried, but they were older than I, och, everyone was older than I then. It was a full-time job just sending in the show entries and keeping track of the show tack and equipment. During the show season, you could run your fingernails against their skin and come up clean, and that was horses who had turnout every day and did their best to put themselves in a mess.”

  Tiffany sighed.

  “That is not a desirable life, Tiffany, my girl.”

  “You would still be doing it if you hadn’t broken your back.”

  “Let’s talk about you. Now, I had a little chat with Bill Trout, and he’s got a couple of horses for you to rub, two allowance winners and a two-year-old with some good breeding. He said if you groomed for a bit and he saw how you worked with the horses he would—”

  “Deirdre, I’ve got five horses in Florida. If I got them here when they were going north, my expenses would be a lot less—”

  “Now, darlin’, here’s something I’m going to tell you, and I’m only going to tell you this one time, so I want you to stop picking apart that horse’s mane and listen.”

  Tiffany lifted her head and turned her splendid gaze toward Deirdre.

  “I’m done with this business.”

  “Cakes are done, people are finished.”

  “Thank you for correcting my usage. I am finished with this business. I’ve told you all along it’s a bad business, and I understand that you and I don’t agree about its merits relative to dealing drugs, litigating anti-trust cases, working in the federal government, spending your life in the prison system, recording rap music, cooking Italian food, working at Wal-Mart, singing in the church choir, or selling real estate. I accept your views, dear, but I am burnt to a crisp by this business. I have had enough.”

  “You know so many things that I may never learn—”

  “Last night, I lay awake and I estimated how many horses have passed though my hands in the last thirty years. I came up with thirty-five hundred. Thirty-five h
undred horses that I have laid hands upon, ridden, contemplated, dreamt about, decided the fate of, lost, hurt, broken down, misjudged, wondered about.”

  “Learned from,” said Tiffany.

  “Gotten futilely attached to,” said Deirdre.

  “Do you remember all their names?”

  “No, but I bet I could remember something about each one if I were reminded.”

  Tiffany came out of the stall. She said, “I know you care more about this than you’re letting on.”

  “Do you?”

  “I know you are sad.”

  “Then you know more than I do, Tiffany.” Deirdre looked at her watch. It was about an hour and a half until race time, and that was late, since the horse was running in the last race of the day. Tiffany stepped right up to Deirdre and put her hands on her hips. Deirdre looked up at her. She said, “You know, Deirdre, no one ever has asked you what you are going to do now.”