After a moment, I unroll my window and hang over its edge.
“Hello!” I call into the box.
“Kccchchhchcchch e weccchhhh, echy wachhhh ur nachhhh…”
Its tone is clearly apologetic, its inflection explanatory.
I lean out my window and shout directly into the box. “Let me make this perfectly clear. I’m not leaving until I see Nathalie. So you can either open the goddamned gate or I can park right here and climb over. Which is it going to be?”
The box falls quiet, although I can tell from the crackling that the channel is still open. Then there’s a click, as the person at the other end shuts off the microphone.
Lord, I hope whoever it is decides to open the gates. The brick wall is high, and I’m not at all sure how well I’d handle the dismount.
After a few seconds, the gates swing open.
I find Nathalie in the indoor arena, wearing black breeches and high boots. I stand just outside, beside the door to the lounge, watching.
She’s carrying a cordless microphone and is instructing a girl on a dark bay Thoroughbred. Each piece of both girl and horse looks fine when taken separately, but somehow the sum of the parts is not making a whole.
“No, Danielle, that’s not it. That’s not it at all,” Nathalie calls out. She’s clearly getting cross. “You’ve got to get him under you. He’s spread out like a pancake. Collect him. Use your legs to bring his hindquarters forward. Yes, there you go—no! You’ve lost it again!” She shakes her head in frustration. “If you simply push him forward with your legs, it won’t work. Period. You’ve got to keep the
whole
of him balanced. You’re not keeping track of both ends of your horse.”
There are three girls standing in the arena with Nathalie, listening, watching intently. So far, no one has noticed me. Apparently the gatekeeper did not call down a warning.
“There! There!” Nathalie suddenly shouts, stabbing the air with her finger. “That’s beautiful! Do you feel the impulsion? Hold it. Feel it. Memorize it. Beautiful! Beautiful, Danielle!”
As the girl on the horse passes by, Nathalie catches sight of me.
She stares for a moment. Eventually I decide to interpret this as an invitation to enter, since she’s clearly not coming over to me.
My heart beats faster the closer I get to the group in the center of the arena. Four sets of eyes are trained on me—even the girl on the horse sneaks occasional glances.
Nathalie folds her arms across her chest. “I was wondering when you were going to show up. Eva’s things are already packed. If you need someone to help you load, I’ll have one of the girls find Miguel.”
I look from side to side, my face burning under continued scrutiny. “Um, can we talk for a moment?”
“Go on,” she says.
“In private?”
She glares at me for a moment, and then calls out to her mounted student. “Danielle, keep working. You girls watch, and if Peashooter gets all loose and rambly again, try to figure out why. I don’t want you to say anything to Danielle, though, because you might be wrong. We’ll discuss theories when she’s finished.” She turns to me. “Come on,” she says. She leads the way to the lounge. Four girls are gathered around the watercooler.
Their eyes widen when they see me.
“Beat it,” says Nathalie, jerking her thumb at the door.
The girls file out wordlessly. This time when the door closes, there is silence from behind it. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t silence.
“So what’s up?” says Nathalie, striding across the room and flopping onto an ancient orange-and-brown-flowered couch.
I take a seat in an old Barcalounger and look her straight in the eyes. “I want to know if you’d consider taking Eva back into your program.”
“That depends. Is she still in a snit?”
I stare at her, gritting my teeth and trying to hide it because I know my anger is unreasonable. Nathalie doesn’t know what’s happened to us; and besides, last time she saw Eva, she
was
in a snit. A world-class snit.
Nathalie spreads her hands, and drops them on her thighs. “Hey, I’m sorry to be blunt, but I call them like I see them. Personally, I’m not sure Eva has what it takes. One bad show, and she bailed.”
“She didn’t bail. You withdrew her,” I say quietly.
“Two entirely different things,” she says, leaning forward. “And you’re damned right I withdrew her. What would you have done? Sent her, and your best horse, back out on a course that sloppy when there was no hope of placing?”
I look guiltily at my lap, because of course I also had no intention whatever of letting Eva complete the course.
“And she most certainly did bail,” Nathalie continues. “She bailed on the rest of us. I made it very clear that if she didn’t show up to support the others the next day, she was out. And guess what? She didn’t show up.”
This is the moment for the atomic bomb. I open the hatch and let her fly—
“Nathalie!” I say sharply. She looks startled, and I let my eyes bore into hers for a moment because I believe this is the first time I’ve ever had the upper hand. “Eva didn’t bail on you. She didn’t show up the next day because we learned that her father and his wife had been in a horrific car accident and we had to rush to the hospital in Lebanon. Her stepmother was killed on impact. Her father was in grave condition and died shortly after we arrived.”
Nathalie’s face morphs completely. I experience a tiny twinge of post-Catholic guilt because I’m fully aware that we didn’t find out about the accident until after Eva had already blown off the rest of the show, but I saw an opportunity to flush Nathalie’s ultimatum down the toilet and I ran with it. Any mother in my situation would do the same. If it turns out I’m wrong about the God thing, surely he’ll consider it a venial sin.
Nathalie leans slowly back into the depths of the couch. It’s a long time before she speaks. “I’m so sorry. How’s Eva?”
“As well as you might expect. I don’t suppose I’ll really know for a while.”
Nathalie sits with both hands pressed to her cheeks. After a while she gets up and goes to the coffee machine. She pours herself a Styrofoam cup of something that looks more like molasses or tar than coffee, and then lifts the pot by way of an offer.
I shake my head.
She wanders over to the window of the lounge and stands watching Danielle put her horse through his
paces. Horse and rider have now come to an understanding. He’s regal and flashy, but he’s no Hurrah—and he’s certainly no Joe.
Nathalie sips her coffee with her other hand on her hip. She stands like that for ages, drinking her coffee and staring into the arena. Eventually she turns around and comes back. She flops back down onto the couch and puts one boot up on a nearby chair.
“Are you sure coming back here is the right thing for her right now? I mean, wouldn’t it be better to be with her family?”
“I’m not at all sure it’s the right thing. But I found her crying in the barn last night, wracked with guilt because she misses Joe but figures she shouldn’t be thinking about anything other than her dead father.”
“Aw, Jesus.”
“She also says if she can’t ride Joe, she’ll never ride another horse as long as she lives.”
Nathalie sips her coffee silently. Then she says, “Well, if it’s any consolation, Joe seems to share that sentiment. He’s been sulking since she left, jumping every damned thing in sight. Paddock fences, that is, because of course nobody else can get on his back.”
“Even you?”
Nathalie throws me a look. “Annemarie, he’d throw even you.”
We’re both silent for a minute. “You can tell me to shut up if you want,” I finally say, “but if you can’t ride him, why did you buy him?”
“I bought him because I’ve never seen a seven-year-old horse that can do one-tempi changes, and because Joe can and will jump anything. I saw Yvonne Richards
ride him at Fairhill and bought him on the spot. Sometimes you just have a feeling about a horse, and I had it about Joe. In spades.”
“So why was she selling him?”
“Because even though he let her ride him, he made it pretty clear he was merely tolerating her. And when he didn’t feel like tolerating her, he threw her. And she’s in her fifties and getting tired of hitting the ground. It’s funny—hubris, I guess. I’ve known Yvonne for many years, but I didn’t believe her when she said he wouldn’t let anyone ride him. But he didn’t.”
“Until Eva.”
“Until Eva,” she replies.
“Would you consider selling him to us?”
Her face swings around. “I thought you said Eva wanted to come back.”
“No. Actually I just asked if you’d consider it.” I lean forward, pleading with my eyes. “I’m in a real pickle here.”
Nathalie turns away in disgust.
“What? What did I say?” And then I realize. “Oh jeez—no pun intended. Honestly. Look, I don’t know what’s best here. I’m just trying to assess the options. What I haven’t told you is that Eva’s four-month-old baby half brother was orphaned in the accident, and now he’s living with us. He means the world to her, so I’m not at all sure she should be away from home six days a week. If Eva doesn’t come back here—and she really does refuse to ride any other horse—she’s just going to rattle around at our place until she gets into trouble. And that’s a guarantee. And the only other option I could come up with was buying Joe.”
There’s a moment of surprised silence. Then she
says, “I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. He’s not for sale.”
“But…Will you at least consider it? Eva will come into a considerable amount of money. It will be in trust, of course, and I still have to find out the details, but you can pretty much name your price—”
“Money is not an issue. I haven’t seen a horse like this since Beauregard, and Beau is seventeen and ready to retire. Joe is clearly my best prospect, possibly my next Olympian. I’m sure you understand.”
“But…but…” I stare at her for a while, feeling all hope drain from my body. Then I rise to my feet, listening as my forty-year-old knees crack.
“Hold on,” says Nathalie. “Where are you going?”
“Home, I guess.”
“Don’t you want to discuss this?”
I stop, confused. “Do you?”
“Yes, of course. Joe’s not for sale, but there’s no point having him in my barn if I don’t have anyone who can ride him. Let’s think about this for a minute.”
I plop back down.
“You’re only an hour away, right?”
“Right.”
“Are you fairly flexible?”
“With regard to what?”
“With regard to bringing her back and forth. Like maybe instead of spending six nights here and one night at home, maybe she could arrive on Mondays and go home Fridays. Or alternate three days here, then two days at home. Or something like that.”
“Really? You’d do that?”
“Yes, of course. I think the circumstances call for a bit of flexibility, don’t you?”
I stare at her in astonishment. “Yes. Yes, I do.” A tear slides down my face. I wish it didn’t, but I can’t help it. “Thank you, Nathalie. Thank you very much.”
Nathalie stands up and comes over to me. After a moment, she lays a hand on my shoulder.
“So,” she says gently, “why don’t you discuss it with Eva and let me know what she decides?”
I sniffle and nod.
“Give her my love. Tell her Joe misses her.”
Four days later, Mutti, Dan, Eva, Jeremy, and I fly to Minnesota to attend Roger and Sonja’s memorial service. It’s a shared service, which strikes me as unusual but makes sense considering their instructions were identical, neither had families, and the attendees would have been the same since they both worked at Aldrich, Scoville, and Gaines.
The coffins are closed and the service dignified and short. Both Eva and I cry throughout. I hope this provides some closure for her. I think it probably will—at least she isn’t burying her father with unresolved issues, as I did mine. Hell, I’m also burying my ex-husband with unresolved issues.
Roger and I were not meant to be married and both of us deserved better than what we had, but he was a good man and my God I’m sorry he’s dead. I’m also grateful that Dan seems to understand exactly what I’m going through, and instead of feeling threatened by it, just keeps his arm firmly around me.
Then the coffins disappear, rolling in unfollowed hearses to the crematorium. The interment of the ashes will happen later, quietly, and a year after that, when
the ground has had a chance to settle, a small square of marble will sit on top of each.
We go to Lawrence’s palatial home to eat canapés, drink, and reminisce. His house is so conspicuously adorned with the trappings of success that it’s pathetic, particularly since I know that Peggy is gone.
Is this what she was fleeing? Is she happier now? Did she and I have more in common than I gave her credit for way back when? I entertain the possibility—and not for the first time—that maybe, just maybe, I really have been an unbearable cow for most of my adult years.
As I look around the mirrored rooms at the expensive paintings and sculptures and couches whose fabric matches the curtains exactly, I can’t help wondering what Roger’s final house looked like. If he hadn’t left me, we’d still be together and I’d still be researching the perfect faux finish, still fussing over dichroic glass sinks, still trying to make my home a showpiece suitable for the lifestyle Roger and I were trying to maintain.
And then—even though I’m fully cognizant that I’ve been through the wringer and also think that maybe I’m on my third glass of dry sherry—I’m overwhelmed with relief that this is no longer my life.
As it turns out, I won’t be living in a moldy trailer with Dan. But I’d choose a moldy trailer with Dan over this with Roger any day. And then I feel guilty and have yet another cry over poor old Roger, who was what he was and couldn’t help it.
Dan and I are married ten days later. Mutti wanted us to be married at her church by her priest, but even though I know how much it means to her, I just can’t go along
with it. For one thing, I’m so lapsed I doubt the priest would agree to it (although Dan is arguably salvageable). For another, I can’t in good conscience receive communion even if I don’t believe that there’s a God somewhere up there reading my mind. But considering everything that’s just happened, I’m hedging my bets just in case.