“And you didn’t call her back?” she says, her voice incredulous.
I shake my head, utterly miserable, two inches tall.
“Annemarie Costanze Zimmer! She is a three-time Olympic medalist! Why didn’t you call her back?”
Mutti watches me for a moment, and then leans back in her chair. “Annemarie. You must listen to me. This is a godsend. It solves everything—the horse, the boy, school, everything!”
“I suppose so,” I say.
“Then why in heaven’s name do you sound glum?”
“Because she’s the only child I’m ever going to have, and I’m not finished being her mother.”
“Oh,
Schatzlein.
You will not stop being her mother. Look at us—you are forty and still living with me.”
“I’m not forty! I’m thirty-nine!”
“Pssh!”
says Mutti, waving her hand.
“And besides, I lived away from home for twenty years before I came back.” I feel a bit petty for having to point that out, but it’s an important distinction. Otherwise I’m just a forty-year-old loser who never left home.
Mutti leans forward, seeking my eyes. “Do you think it was easy for me to let you go train with Marjory?”
I frown. Strangely, this had not occurred to me. I had seen Eva’s potential experience as a parallel of mine, but I had not looked at it from the other direction.
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” Mutti continues.
“Really?”
“Of course! You wanted so badly to go. You couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”
“That wasn’t because of you, Mutti. Pappa was making me miserable.”
“I was so hurt,” she continues. “And think of how your father felt. It was hard for him, too—to admit that she was the better trainer and that you belonged there rather than here? But he did. He knew what was best for you and he worked hard to persuade me, because I did not want you to go. I was absolutely sure that Marjory would take my place in your life. And of course she did not.”
I stare at her in amazement.
She’s right. I loved Marjory. I loved living with her, loved training with her, loved everything about that period in my life until the accident ended it all; but despite this, I haven’t been in contact with Marjory in almost eighteen years. Instead, I’m sitting in my mother’s living room.
“
Schatzlein,
Eva is in serious trouble.”
“I know that. Believe me.”
“The best thing we can do is remove her from the situation. You say you don’t want her to go live with Roger. Fine. I understand. It’s too far away. But Nathalie—she works out of where? Columbia?”
“Yes,” I say staring at my lap.
“That’s an hour away at most. Please, please, for God’s sake, call her back.”
“I will, Mutti.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes.” I look up and find her scrutinizing me. “I will, Mutti. Things are different than they were when she first called.”
Mutti nods deeply, agreeing with me so vehemently her drink sloshes from side to side in her glass. “It is the right thing. And absolutely, without question the best boy repellent in the world. This will save her. You will see.”
“Unless she breaks her neck.”
“Annemarie!” snaps Mutti.
“All right, all right, I’m sorry,” I say, draining my glass for the second time.
This time, Mutti doesn’t refill it.
Eva returns at just past eleven. She walks in the back door, peels off her jacket, hangs it up, and goes straight upstairs. Mutti and I exchange glances and immediately go over to the row of coat hooks.
I lift a sleeve and press my nose against it. “Just tobacco. Thank God.”
Mutti sniffs the air at various points around the jacket.
“Yes. Cigarettes,” she nods. She delves into Eva’s left outside pocket and comes out with a fistful of stuff. She opens her palm and examines it—two peppermints, various coins, and a crumpled piece of paper, which she carefully unfolds.
“A movie receipt. From tonight. So.”
“Well, thank God for that,” I reply, up to my wrist in Eva’s right outside pocket.
The phone rings.
“I’ll get it,” I say.
Mutti shrugs and stuffs everything back in Eva’s pocket. “Okay. Now that everybody’s accounted for, I’m turning in.”
“Good night, Mutti.”
She pads off into the hallway. Harriet, who is doing her dead-dog routine—lying flat on her back with her belly exposed—lifts her head, considers following, and then decides against it. As she plops her head back down, gravity pulls her lips away from her teeth in what looks like an upside down snarl. Her whole body shudders in a mighty sigh.
“Oh, good girl!” I croon, giving her a quick caress as I pass. “You
do
love me, don’t you?”
I grab the phone. “Hello?”
“Hey, sexy lady.”
“Dan!” I squeal. “Where are you? Are you home yet?” I press the phone closer to my ear, listening for clues. There’s a bit of crackle, so he’s on his cell phone, but I don’t hear any traffic noises in the background. That’s a good sign.
“I’m not, no.”
“Oh, Dan,” I say. My jaw begins to quiver. I’m in serious danger of melting down right here and now—he’s been gone so much, and I’ve never needed him more than I do at this moment.
“Not anymore, that is,” he continues in a slow drawl. “See, even though Mike and I just drove a couple of thousand miles straight through in shifts, and all I’ve been thinking about for the last eighteen hours is getting home and into bed, when I got there, it turned out that the bed I wanted to be in wasn’t there…”
“What?” I say, perking up. “Dan, where are you?”
“Where are you?” he parries.
“At home, of course.”
“Where?”
“In the kitchen.”
“Look out the back window.”
I rush forward until the phone cord yanks me to a halt. Then I roll onto my tiptoes, peering over Mutti’s lace half-curtains.
The roof of Dan’s truck picks up glints of moonlight in the stable parking lot.
“I thought you’d already be in bed,” he says. “Was hoping to surprise you. Are you turning into a night owl on me?”
I’m halfway to the stable before I realize I’ve left
Harriet behind. After a moment of hesitation, I go back for her.
Dan and I lie in bed, limbs entwined and feet tangled with the mulberry eiderdown. Before long, we’ll have to reach down and get it, but for now we bask in the aftermath of passion.
Harriet is behind me, desperate to wiggle her way between us. Our nocturnal activities worry her—she doesn’t know exactly what we’re up to, but she knows it doesn’t involve her and she doesn’t like it. When we’re finished, it always takes her a while to recover.
She lays her head across my neck so that her nose is between our faces. When she pushes hard enough to impinge on my windpipe, I shove her away. She reappears instantly, burrowing, twitching.
“So what made you change your mind?” says Dan, ignoring the dog and running his fingertips up and down my back.
“About what?”
“Letting Eva compete.”
“It’s largely so she won’t end up pregnant or in the slammer,” I say.
“Yeah, but you didn’t find out about any of that until after you’d already agreed. Unless I’ve got it backward.”
“No,” I say quietly. “You’ve got it right.”
Harriet has crept forward enough that her belly covers my whole face. I lift her up and toss her behind me. She reappears within seconds, nudging insistently.
“I dunno,” I continue. “I was tired of fighting, and my position was full of holes. Besides, she’s very clear
that it’s what she wants to do, which I guess in the long run is more important than what I want for her.”
“And what do you want for her?”
I take a moment to eject Harriet again, and then pause, considering the question while tracing loop-de-loops on Dan’s chest.
“I want her to be happy. I want her to not hate me. I want her to be successful.”
“What do you want her to be successful in?”
“I don’t know. Medicine. Law.”
“Law. Like her father?”
“No,” I scoff. “Not patent law. Not criminal law either,” I hasten to add. “Okay, forget I mentioned law at all. Medicine. Paleontology. Astronomy.”
“Not astrology?”
I whack him. “I want her to be successful in something where she can’t break her neck.”
“I’m sorry, but I think astrology qualifies—”
“Dan!”
He wraps his arms around me, pausing first to rebuff Harriet, and rocks me against his chest. “I know how hard this was for you. For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing the right thing.”
I lie against him in complete surrender.
“I hope so, Dan. God, I hope so.”
When I call Nathalie, she is gracious and happy to set up an audition, although I also get the impression that most people don’t make her wait three weeks while they waffle.
When I break the news to Eva, she is so ecstatic she flings her arms around me. (Twice! In forty-eight hours!)
Eva bounces happily on the car seat beside me. She has reason to be upbeat; she might well have expected to be driven to boot camp, not the famed Nathalie Jenkins’s farm for an audition. She’s so excited and so pleased that she neglected to bring the portable CD player and headphones that are normally required to drown out my presence.
“What did she say again?” she says, looking at me with glistening eyes.
“I’ve already told you three times!” I laugh.
“Come on, Mom, I want to hear it again!”
“She said that she saw you at Canterbury and was impressed at how you got Malachite through the final stage.”
I pause, smiling, waiting.
“Because…” she prompts.
“Because obviously he was in way over his head, and yet you managed to get a clear round out of him anyway.”
I sneak a glance at her. She’s waiting, staring out the windshield, pretending to be patient. After a few seconds, her eyes dart over to me. Her fingernails dig into the seat’s upholstery. She starts banging her knees together.
Her head swivels toward me, her mouth open, but before she can speak I continue. “And that clearly you’ve got huge potential. ‘Natural born talent,’ were her exact words, and she wants to see what you’re capable of on another horse. A good horse.”
Eva sighs dreamily and leans back in her seat.
A moment later she says, “Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?” I say, laughing again.
She sits forward again. “So obviously she doesn’t want me to bring Malachite.”
“Clearly not.”
“And you’re not going to let me bring Hurrah.”
“No.”
“So will I be riding one of her horses?”
“I would imagine so. That’s one of the things she and I will be talking about.”
I glance at her—quickly though, since I don’t want to run off the road. Her eyes sparkle as she revels in the possibilities.
“And I’ll be living there?”
“If she takes you on, yes.”
“Oh, she’ll take me on all right,” says Eva, nodding confidently. Her bravado breaks my heart.
She flops back into her seat. I’m not looking at her, but I can sense her. The air around her throbs with anticipation and energy. I feel a pang of guilt, because if I had only followed up on this when Nathalie originally called, there probably would have been no Eric Hamilton, no pot in the woods behind the school, no condom in the purse and all that little piece of latex implies.
But even now—when there is not a shadow of doubt that this is not only the best choice but the only choice—I can’t allow myself to think ahead to the moment when I drop Eva off with her bags.
Instead, I parcel that whole concept off in the back of my brain and rattle and thump toward Columbia in my dear old Camry that has almost no suspension, sharing a welcome moment of closeness with my daughter.
Wyldewood Farm is enclosed by a brick wall. When we pull up to the tall wrought-iron gates, I roll my window down. The black box embedded in the gatepost crackles at me.
“I beg your pardon?” I say.
“Kccchchhchcchch e weccchhhh e schguu?”
“I, uh—I’m sorry, I can’t understand you, but my name is Annemarie Zimmer and I’m here with my daughter, Eva Aldrich. We have an appointment with Nathalie for four thirty.”
“Kcchcchchh e wuuu,”
says the box. Then the gates swing slowly inward. I roll my window back up and drive through.
Wyldewood is better described as an operation than a farm. The buildings—two barns and an indoor arena—are huge and new, with cedar siding instead of vinyl.
The walls are red and the trim a pewter gray—some painter’s attempt at capturing Wyldewood’s stable colors, which are crimson and silver. Windows dot the long sides of each barn.
The property is sectioned off into individual paddocks and outdoor schooling rings. About half of the paddocks contain horses, each turned out singly, which is the fate of horses in truly competitive barns. There are Thoroughbreds, Dutch and German Warmbloods, Oldenburgs, Hanoverians, and one that looks like a Holsteiner, although I’m judging purely by height, face, and neck since the legs, body, and feet of the horses are completely obscured by red coverings. But what I can see is magnificent: their necks are thickly muscled and gleaming, their faces noble, with the bemused expression of creatures who are entirely sure of their value on this earth.
Behind everything, at the top of a steep hill, is a house—an impressive white colonial with large shade trees whose original outline has been obscured by many additions, including a four-car garage. I can’t help but wonder whether it contains the lemon yellow Maserati Nathalie won at last year’s Jumper Classic. Lined up beside the garage are three shiny gooseneck horse trailers, each of them crimson and silver and probably capable of hauling six horses.
Even though Nathalie does double duty as a Grand Prix show jumper and four-star eventer (as I did back in the Cretaceous period), and even though she’s won some of the biggest purses both disciplines have to offer, it wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to support what’s going on here. There’s definitely income from somewhere else—and plenty of it.
As we wind our way to the parking lot, Eva’s face is glued to the window. A patch of fog furls and unfurls on the glass in time to her breathing.
I pull into a spot at the end of a long line of cars and get out. To my surprise, Eva remains in the car.
“Annemarie! Eva!”
Nathalie herself strides toward us in tan breeches, leather paddock boots, and the ubiquitous quilted vest. She is in her mid-forties, wiry, with dark brown hair pulled back at the nape of her neck. “Glen called down and said you’d arrived. How are you?”
“Good,” I say. “Cold. Beautiful place you have.”
“Thank you.” She turns to Eva, who has finally climbed from the car. “And how are you, young lady?”
“Fine, thank you,” she says in tiny voice. I do a double take, checking that it’s still Eva who is standing next to me.
She’s blushing, looking down and scrubbing her toe in the dirt.
Nathalie turns to the barn entrance and cups her mouth with her hands. “Margot!” She waits a minute and then calls again, “Margot!” Another pause, with her head cocked. “Bah! She can’t hear me. Come on inside,” she says, turning and leading the way.
The interior of the barn is as warm as our house—no wonder the outside horses are all in blankets and leg wraps. There’s not a single winter coat among them.
The aisle is wide and airy, and lined with huge box stalls. The concrete floor has not a speck of hay or mud on it, and when I look up, I realize there are skylights in the peaked roof. Birds twitter happily in the rafters.
About halfway up the aisle a tall horse is in cross-ties, surrounded by young women.
“Margot!” calls Nathalie.
“Yes?” answers a woman crouching beside the horse. She stands up and turns toward us. She’s in her late twenties, also a brunette, and also slight.
“Come meet Eva. And her mother. Annemarie, Eva, this is Margot, my head groom.”
“Stable manager,” says Margot.
“Right. Stable manager. Anyway, I’d like to talk to Annemarie for a while. Can you show Eva around?”
“Sure,” says Margot.
“Relax, kid,” says Nathalie, giving Eva a friendly whack on the shoulder. “No one’s gonna bite you. Except maybe Pinocchio. You’ll want to watch yourself around Pinocchio.”
Even though Nathalie winks, Eva barely cracks a smile. Seeing Eva so completely starstruck fills me with unspeakable tenderness.
“Come on,” Margot says, leaning toward her in a conspiratorial fashion. “We’ll show you the apartment first.”
Eva, Margot, and the other girls—all of whom are roughly Eva’s age—make their way down the aisle, leaving me alone with Nathalie and the horse.
He’s an enormous chestnut, seventeen hands if he’s an inch. He regards me curiously. I extend the back of my hand for him to sniff and then lay it on his neck. It’s rock solid, as is the rest of him.
“Is he a Trakehner?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“He’s gorgeous.”
“Beauregard’s my champion eventer, a two-time Olympic medalist. Silver and bronze.”
“Really? What year?”
“Ninety-two,” she says. “And ninety-six.”
I freeze mid-pat.
“I hear you’ve got his teammate in your barn,” says Nathalie.
A prickle of dread shoots up my neck and across my cheeks.
“I read about it in the papers last year,” she says in a steady voice. “Besides, word kind of got around the circuit, if you know what I mean.”
My shame is hideous. People have been talking about me all winter, and I wasn’t even aware—although I suppose that’s a blessing. I wonder if Eva caught wind of it at Canterbury? And what on earth will she hear from this point on?
I drop my hand from Beauregard’s shoulder.
“No need to be uncomfortable,” Nathalie says. “Quite frankly, you came across as something of a hero. McCullough’s a bastard and we all know it. So how is the great striped Hanoverian anyway?”
“He’s fine, thanks.”
“He lost an eye, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Otherwise he’s sound?”
“He’s perfect,” I say.
“Well, good for you. McCullough can fry in hell, for all I’m concerned.”
“Me too.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence. I turn to face her, still feeling the heat of my blush.
“So,” says Nathalie, clapping her hands in front of her. Beauregard yanks his head up, startled. “Let’s get
down to brass tacks. I saw Eva ride at Canterbury. I think she has huge potential. Her lineage doesn’t hurt,” she adds, looking pointedly at me.
“She’s worked very hard this year.”
“So why haven’t I seen her before Canterbury?”
“I—I…uh…” I stammer, rummaging through my head for an excuse. But it doesn’t matter, because Nathalie has moved on—
“What’s her history? How long has she been riding?”
“Her whole life, really. But she only began training seriously this year.”
“And you’re the one who’s been training her?”
“No. We have another trainer.”
“Huh. I’m surprised, given your history,” she muses.
“Actually it’s because of my history,” I say softly.
“Ah…” she says, as understanding dawns on her. “Okay. Fair enough. Anyway, she’s got a rock solid seat, and that’s the kind of foundation I look for. It’s not something that can be taught. I mean, you can teach a good seat, of course, but then there’s the other kind, the kind you’re born with. You know what I’m talking about.”
I nod, picturing Eva stuck to Hurrah’s bare back like glue.
“I have two programs for students. Normally I don’t have a preference, but in this case I do. Ultimately it’s up to you.”
“What are they?”
“Boarders bring their own horses and pay a fee, both for board and lessons. Working students campaign my horses and live here. They earn their keep around the barn. Either way, if the student is still in high school the parent has to pick up part of the cost of the tutor. And
everybody goes home on Sundays. Unless they live too far away, of course. You’re only about an hour away, right?”
“Uh, yes,” I say. “We’re probably looking at the working student option.”
“So you don’t plan to have Eva campaign Hurrah?”
“No,” I say quickly.
“Why?”
“Because he’s only got one eye.”
“That doesn’t disqualify him.”
“I beg your pardon?” I say weakly, because a terrible thought has just crept into my head. Is Nathalie feigning interest in Eva to get at Hurrah?
“As long as he has full sight in his other eye, he’s fine,” she says matter-of-factly. “Horses can’t see the jumps they’re going to take once they get within six feet of them anyway.”
“
Please
don’t tell Eva that,” I say miserably. I glance from side to side, seeking my daughter. We’ve been duped. I want to go home. Where the hell have they taken her—
“Don’t tell Eva what?” says Nathalie, apparently completely unaware of my distress.
“About the regulations. I really, really don’t want to bring Hurrah out of retirement. He’s seventeen, he’s got some issues with his legs, and, well, just no. He’s earned his rest, and he’s going to get it.”
Nathalie’s brown eyes bore shamelessly into me. Then she nods. “Good. I was hoping you’d say that. Because I have a specific horse in mind for Eva.”
My eyes widen.
“Follow me,” she says, ducking under Beauregard’s cross-ties and marching down the aisle.
After a second’s hesitation, I duck under as well. She’s walking so fast I have to jog to catch up.
“But what about him?” I say breathlessly.
“Who?” says Nathalie, marching onward.
“Beauregard!” I say in amazement. “Are we just going to leave him there?”
“The girls will get him.”
“But they just went off with Eva.”
“Oh, honey, that was just some of the girls. I’ve got girls coming out my ears,” she mutters, waving both hands. “Girls, girls, everywhere girls.”
She steps into the indoor arena. Before following, I turn and look back down the aisle.
Beauregard has been swarmed by girls. Two are cooing into his face and three are adjusting leg wraps.
Nathalie leads me straight through the enormous arena and through a door on the far side into another building full of box stalls. She comes to a stop in front of a plaque that says
SMOKY JOE
.
“Here he is,” she says.
I peer inside. My eyebrows shoot upward.
“Here, I’ll take him out.” Nathalie grabs a lead rope from a hook, and slides the door open just a crack.
A blue roan face with black forelock and intelligent eyes immediately pushes itself into the space, nudging the door further open. Nathalie hooks up the lead rope. I can’t help noticing that she threads the nose chain across his muzzle.
I stand back as she leads the horse from the stall. He’s a true blue roan—white and black hairs evenly interspersed all over his body, with scattered black flecks
and a black mane and tail. His face is wide, with large, well-defined nostrils, his tail set low off a sloping croup. His body is so compact it looks short, but it’s not. He’s just extremely solid, his shoulders and flanks huge, his neck as cresty as a stallion’s. I glance underneath. Gelded—but I’ll wager it happened after he was fully mature.