Horse Heaven (79 page)

Before he left, George had taken her out to dinner and fed her all of her favorite dishes—some very nice crab cakes, a salad of baby greens with a balsamic vinaigrette, a veal piccata nestled on the plate with braised fennel and leeks, and a felicitous lemon-ginger mousse. For her part, she had given him something, a black-and-white photograph she had found in an art gallery, of six male athletes, naked, from behind, a baseball player, a marathon runner, a basketball player, a jockey, a soccer player, and a pole vaulter. Though the collage was seamless, all the figures had been blown up or reduced so that they were equal in height to the marathon runner, who was six feet tall. All were nicely burnished, too. “I consider this a purely educational graphic, George,” she had said, “and I expect you to hang it in the kitchen.”

“Who do you think that is?” he said, pointing to the jockey.

“Could be anyone perfect,” she had replied. “Your eye does go to that one, does it not?”

“They’re the first to tell you they’re the most fit.”

“It does look that way from this photo, doesn’t it?”

They had gone on about the picture for at least a half-hour, then he had taken her in hand. He said, “You’ve done everything for me, Cousin.”

“You’ve earned your pay, George. You’ve done your work and kept your sunny disposition and never incurred the wrath of the officials or the owners.”

“You must accept my gratitude, anyway.”

She had sniffed, then said, “Well, I do. And you must accept mine, for giving me a laugh now and then. I’m going to miss you.”

“Yes, you are, so I am going to do you the favor of telling you all over again that you are a prideful woman. You don’t think much about the seven deadly sins, no one in this country does, but even so, they’re still about.”

“You can accuse me of gluttony, George.” She had taken another bite of her mousse. Lust she kept to herself. “But if you ask me, life is the deadliest sin, as it always ends in death no matter whether you sleep in every morning or not. Personally, I think insomnia is—”

He went on, “The priest at my church calls them ‘the seven deadliest self-imposed punishments.’ ”

“That’s very California of him. No wonder you’re going back to Ireland.”

“You’ve imposed a considerable burden of pride upon yourself, Cousin.”

“Have I?”

“Pride is the hardest burden to bear, the number-one sin, the one that separates you from God.”

“I knew that name was going to come up.”

“God loves you, sweetheart.”

“Ah, George—”

“All these years, I’ve given in to your pride and not talked to you about God at all, but now’s the time.”

“Why?”

“Because it is. You are rejecting the love of God, and look at you. You may call yourself an embittered woman all you wish, as if saying it will make light of it, but it’s true and it doesn’t make you happy.”

“And the love of God will make me happy?”

“Here’s how it works, Cousin. First you admit it exists, then you admit you can see it, then you admit you can feel it, then you admit you want it, then you return it, and then it fills you. Then you are happy.”

“Seems like a lengthy process, George.”

“Pride makes a grand thing small, darlin’.”

And then they had stopped talking about it, and she had taken George to the plane the next day and put him on it, and that had been two months ago. He had nailed her good, and they both knew it. Her own pride had made every grand thing she’d ever experienced small, and then smaller. Wasn’t she right now among the nature-lovers, busily making all this grandness about her—this ocean, these mountains, this light of day—as small as she could so she didn’t have to admit that she couldn’t experience it, didn’t know how, was immune to it?

But, then, did she know how to make anything large anymore?

By now the scene around her was bright and animated. The deck was full of people, first-day-of-vacation people, who were oohing and aahing at the scenery they had awakened to discover. How they had slept, how hungry that sea air made them, how happy they were to be here, it wasn’t like this back in Columbus, how nice it was to make a change. Many of them smiled at her and said “Good morning.” She smiled back. Even to speak, she thought, would be to cast a cloud over their pleasure.

Tiffany she had made large, so large that she had had to run a third of the way around the world to cut her down to size. What had she said to George, in passing, as if it didn’t matter, just for something to say? That she was tired of making a big deal of everything. “What have I gotten from bringing my passions to bear on everything, George? Exhausted. That’s what.” But it was all too true. The horses had done her in; Tiffany might do her in.

She went around to the stairs and mounted to the next deck, the promenade deck. It was much fancier up here, with great windows all along the deck, and polished wooden doorways and gold and all. She turned and entered the dining room, which was already, at, what was it, five-thirty, set up and aglitter with glassware and place settings and napery. She walked down the long buffet table, upon which men in white were setting out platters and chafing dishes. Bagels. Cream cheese. Another sort of cream cheese, onions, smoked salmon. Another sort of smoked salmon. A tiny dish of capers. She lifted her gaze. Dishes by the dozen, piled and mounded and stacked with food, all of it fresh, all of it made into a picture. She took a deep breath, and felt that biological rebound set in again—daylight, food, beauty, luxury. Were they not the simplest things to fall for? And yet. She went to the end of the buffet table and picked up a plate.

T
IFFANY WENT AROUND
the barn with Ellen and followed her down a path that led to the back of the property, to a wooded pasture screened by trees from the rest of the paddocks. The day’s mid-Atlantic heat and humidity were gearing up, but there had been plenty of rain and the grass was green and thick. Groups of horses, grazing in twos and threes, looked up or came over to the fence. It was a scene Tiffany was utterly familiar with now, but it always pleased her. She was reminded of something. She said, “I meant to tell you. My mama was talking to her cousin, and she said that they had a great-uncle who was a horse-breaker in North Carolina back around the twenties and thereabouts. He didn’t have any children, so the cousin didn’t know much about him, but now my mama doesn’t think this is all so crazy anymore. Or, I guess, better crazy in the family than crazy out of it.”

They came through the trees. Standing at the far end of the two-acre rectangle was a large black horse. He lifted his head, but he did not approach, not even one step. He looked at them for a minute or two, then bucked, kicked, farted, and set off galloping. He ran toward the fence, ducked, pivoted, kicked up his heels, and ran in the other direction. Tiffany, whose runners had given her a good eye, said, “He’s fast!”

“Look at him turn. He can pivot on one front toe or he can rock back on his haunches.”

He reared, and his forehand was in the air for what seemed like five minutes. Ellen said, “Made to jump. But you can’t touch him or approach him.”

“Why did you buy him?”

“I didn’t. They gave him to me.”

“Who gave him to you?”

“Barry Jordan, at Patch Creek Stud Farm, up by Chesapeake.”

“Is he a stallion?”

“Not anymore. That’s why they gave him to me. His owner had him at the track up in New York, and he won some big race, but then he got ruled off for savaging someone, so they sent him to the studfarm to see if that would calm him down, because, you know, sometimes it’s the stress of racing that makes them bananas, but he was still bananas, and when the stud manager said that they preferred not to stand him, the owner had him gelded.”

“You know what Deirdre says.”

“ ‘Geld him now and improve the breed.’ ”

“So you said you would make him into a riding horse?”

“I said I would. We’ll see. It takes a month for the testosterone to clear. It’s been two weeks. But I took all the mares out of these back paddocks. We’ll see.”

“What’s his name?” said Tiffany.

“You know what? They wouldn’t tell me. And they wouldn’t give me his papers. All I know is what I told you. Of course, I could read his tattoo and call the Jockey Club, but I can’t get close enough to him to read his tattoo at the moment.” She was smiling, perfectly happy. Nothing ever daunted Ellen, or, rather, nothing about a horse ever discouraged her. “We’ll name him something when we think of it.”

This horse was a discouraging sight. He was rearing and running around and kicking up and pinning his ears now, and two times he ran toward the fence as if his bad intentions were personally directed at them. At the same time, he was obviously beautiful and talented. Tiffany said, “Ugh. I don’t like him.”

“He is a bad bad boy,” said Ellen, but she said it fondly. “Maybe when he’s less of a boy, he’ll be less bad. We’ll see.”

They turned and walked away, down the path and into the trees. Epic Steam stopped expressing his opinion of them and stood still. After they disappeared, he put his head down to graze, but then he began trotting the fence line. As for his testicles, they were gone but not forgotten. The fence was four feet six inches high, white boards, with a live electric wire running around the top to discourage wood chewing. Epic Steam was not nearly bored enough to chew wood—he was much too interested in the mares and fillies he could smell in the distance. One of these days, though no one yet knew it, he was going to discover his greatest talent. It was just a matter of time.

A
LTHOUGH
L
EON
was fully equipped, with beeper, cellular phone, and voice mail, when Deedee went into labor at the Safeway in Arcadia, there was no one available to take her call. Right there between tortellini on one side and herbs and spices across the aisle, she lost her waters with a splash. But she who had once weighed 102 and now weighed 152 was well beyond embarrassment. The first thing she did was look in her grocery basket. Best not fool around with the frozen foods. She moved those to one side. That left a bag of potatoes, some oranges, two loaves of bread, a box of Team Cheerios, a jar of peanut butter—oh, what the hell. She took her purse out of the baby seat, knowing that the next time she saw one of these seats she would be using it, and left. Her goals were changing by the second. First it was shop for groceries, then it was at least buy the basics, now, as a result of feeling the first labor pain of her life, it was make it to the van in the parking lot.

She stood still. Underneath her maternity T-shirt, she saw as well as felt the contraction. It unfurled upward like a sustained gripping sensation, held her tight, then eased off. After it was gone, she began to count and walk at the same time. The Lamaze teacher had said the initial contractions would be about ten minutes, give or take a minute, apart. Deedee gave and took eight minutes. The contractions were two minutes apart. She had the second one right by the door and the third one about halfway to the van. She tried Leon again, left him another message, looked at her watch. It was eight-forty-two. She could not contract, walk, count seconds, and talk on the phone at the same time, so the message she left was, “Oh, shit, Leon, where are you?”

The first contraction in the van lasted thirty-six seconds, which left her just over a minute to turn on the ignition and pull out of her parking place. Then she sat there for another thirty-six seconds, gasping, while cars lined up waiting for her to move. They weren’t honking yet, though. Then she thought she was going to faint, so she put down her window, but since it was hot outside, that didn’t help much. She put her head down on the door of the van and
closed her eyes. That’s when the waiting cars started honking. Sometime later, in the midst of the noise, a voice said, beside her ear, “Deedee? Is that you?”

She lifted her head. It was Marvelous Martha. Deedee said, “The contractions are two minutes apart. How did Residual work this morning?”

“We just jogged. She did a half in forty-four and a half yesterday, though. Move over.” Deedee moved over. “What hospital are you in?”

“Arcadia Methodist.”

“I should have known.”

Deedee put the seat all the way back, which didn’t help all that much, since the baby, a nine-pounder according to her doctor, now straddled all of her internal organs. She lifted her feet and put them on the dashboard, then said, “Don’t make me put on my seatbelt. Ohhhhhhh.”

It came to Deedee that she might well die in the next five minutes to five hours, and so it would be best to make a confession. She said, “I’m sorry I didn’t like you. I was envious and angry.”

“That’s okay, dear.”

“And I’ve been a bitch to Leon. I mostly got pregnant to focus his attention.”

“It seems to have worked, sweetheart. He’s much better at his job now.”

“I was sorry I got pregnant. I thought about having an abortion.”

“Most people do, honey. Thinking about it isn’t the same as doing it.”

“Ahhhhh.”

“Did they teach you how to breathe?”

“Heeheeheehaahaahaaheeheehee.”

“There you go. The baby doesn’t know what you’re thinking, either.”

“I wish I’d done better in high school, and then gone to college.”

“You still can.”

“I was so awful to my mother. And she did this for me. I took money out of her purse for something.”

“What was that, Deedee?”

“Heeheeheehaahaahaaheeheeheehaahaahaawheeeeew.”

“It won’t be far now. We’re almost there.”

“It was for a jumping clinic with George Morris. I took it out of her purse a little at a time for three months when I was fifteen.”

“At least it wasn’t drugs. You can pay her back after the baby’s born.”

Should I live so long, thought Deedee. But she said, “Leon told me something.”

“What’s that, honey?”

“He told me that he saw Buddy and Curtis Doheny standing outside
Residual’s stall. When they saw him, they walked on down the aisle very casually. Ahhhh. Heeheehee. Here we are. Oh, God!”

Marvelous Martha pulled into the emergency entrance and glanced at her watch. The attendant was right there. She said, “I think her contractions are less than a minute apart.”