The Good House: A Novel (10 page)

Allen, who had watched her show him all summer, was firmly convinced that he wasn’t.

As the class began, Mamie and Allen were watching Rosemary Hines, an internationally famous American rider, on her horse, Tango. I was watching Rebecca on Hat Trick, near the entrance gate. Hat Trick was excited. He was popping his legs up in front, doing little half rears, but Rebecca just leaned forward each time he went up, then turned him in little circles. I saw Rebecca pat the horse’s neck once he had settled a bit, and then I saw her look up and wave to somebody on the far side of the arena. I had to squint to see who it was. It was a man. He was making his way closer to the entrance gate and I saw that Rebecca was calling something out to him. I thought that it might be a trainer she had worked with in the past, but then, when he got closer to the gate, I saw that it was Peter Newbold.

What was Peter Newbold doing at the Westfield Horse Show?

I looked over at Brian’s table and saw that they were all intent on watching Rebecca’s competitor. When Tango knocked down a rail, many of them cheered, and Mamie hushed them indignantly. Rosemary Hines cleared the last jump, and the crowd in the bleachers and the spectators under the tent cheered. It had been a good round, from what I had seen, except for the knocked rail.

Now it was Rebecca’s turn, and when she trotted Hat Trick into the ring, Brian’s table let loose with whoops and cheers, and Mamie again asked them to lower their voices.

“You could spook Rebecca’s horse,” she hissed at them. “Jesus,” she whispered to me, “where do these people come from?”

I watched Rebecca canter Hat Trick in a large circle in the far end of the arena. She was waiting for the starting horn.

“Look,” Mamie said, “she’s making him circle next to that scary jump with the Union Savings Bank sign on it, so he can get a good look at it. Rosemary’s horse spooked at that jump.”

Allen just grumbled something that neither of us could understand, which made Mamie and me chuckle. Then the starting horn blew. Rebecca tipped her head politely at the judges and then cantered Hat Trick toward the first jump.

I won’t bore you with the jump-by-jump details, I’ll just sum up her ride by saying that Rebecca and Hat Trick made it look easy. They approached each jump with the correct stride and the horse soared over every obstacle with grace and style. Hat Trick appeared to prefer a slower pace than the course called for, and each time Rebecca spurred him on, he gave a little buck—kicking his hind legs out to the side—and then charged forward. When they cleared the last jump, the group at Brian’s table leaped to their feet and cheered. Mamie was cheering, too, and she elbowed Allen playfully. Hat Trick, startled by the sound of the cheering crowd, performed a short series of bucks as Rebecca cantered him in a large circle. Rebecca was laughing at the horse’s high spirits and patting his neck. Then she rode him out of the ring.

“It looks like he has plenty of energy left for the jump-off,” I said to Allen.

“He doesn’t like speed, but she’s a great rider. We’ll see,” Allen said quietly.

Linda Barlow was waiting for Rebecca and Hat Trick outside the gate. I looked over to where Peter Newbold had been standing, but he was gone. Maybe he had just stopped by the show with Elise and they were seated in the stands someplace. Maybe he’d come to watch Rebecca ride. Perhaps part of her therapy involved getting back into the competition world and he’d come to check on her. I looked over at Brian’s table and everybody was high-fiving him and swilling champagne.

Four horses, including Hat Trick, had qualified for the jump-off. The first horse, Dante, ridden by Michael Wallace, got a clear round and a very fast time—forty-nine seconds over the seven jumps. The next rider, Canadian Linda Randolph, knocked a rail and came in with a time of 54.3. Linda was followed by Leslie Carter on her famous stallion Romulus, who got a clear round but came in at 51.5 seconds. So the horse to beat, for Rebecca, was Dante.

“What do you think, Allen?” I asked as Hat Trick trotted into the arena.

“I think if she’s smart, she’ll try to get a clear round, even if it means coming in too slow. Why destroy the horse’s confidence by taking risks with him?”

The starting horn sounded and Rebecca cantered toward the first jump. The time doesn’t start until the horse has cleared the first jump, so she took her approach nice and slow. After landing, however, she spurred him into a fast gallop around a turn to the second jump. The next jump—a high vertical one—preceded a very sharp turn back to another vertical. It was this second vertical that had caused problems for the horse that had knocked down a rail. It had looked quite difficult for all the horses. The turn threw the horses off balance and then their stride was off and they launched themselves too close to the second jump. That’s why Linda Randolph’s horse had knocked the rail with his hind feet. Allen had told me that the riders had all taken the turn too quickly. When Rebecca approached the first vertical, Allen was shaking his head and mumbling, “Too fast. Too fast.” Hat Trick tucked his knees in front of his chest, and when he was in the middle of the jump, his body forming an elegant bascule many inches above the top rail, Rebecca shifted her weight and turned the horse in midair. The other horses hadn’t been able to start their turn until a couple of strides after the fence. When Hat Trick landed, he didn’t need to recover his balance by swapping his lead; he was already on the right lead, perfectly balanced and heading toward the second jump, which he cleared with ease. To approach the next jump, the previous riders had galloped around a large hedge fence and then had a straight approach to the “in and out.” Rebecca decided to cut in front of the hedge. She whipped Hat Trick’s head around right after the previous fence, and there was the first of the two “in and out” obstacles, only three strides away.

“OH MY GOD,” cried Mamie.

“Crazy bitch,” said Allen.

I could hardly stand to watch, but I did. Hat Trick looked like he was going to refuse. His body shortened, his head started to turn, and Rebecca raised her riding crop and gave him a smart whack on his flank, just behind her leg, while at the same time making an almost animal-sounding roar. Hat Trick abandoned any ideas of not jumping then, and though he chipped in a little close to the first jump, he cleared it, but then landed awkwardly for the second. Rebecca sat deep in the saddle, spurred him on two strides, and then it appeared that tiny Rebecca lifted the massive horse over the second jump, her hands almost touching his ears, her body arched over the curve of his neck. They landed and the jump was untouched. The crowd exploded in cheers. She rode the last fences with ease and ended with a final time of 47.3 seconds. Rebecca had won the Grand Prix.

The people at Brian’s table were all on their feet, again with the high-fiving and pumping their fists in the air. Brian was wiping a tear from his eye. It had been an amazing performance. I smiled at Mamie and Allen, who both had rather grim expressions.

“That woman’s going to get herself, or somebody else, killed someday,” said Allen.

“I’m afraid you may be right,” said Mamie.

“What? You should be thrilled, Mamie,” I said. “All that money for the shelter.”

“I am,” she said. “I just feel a little sick watching somebody take a risk like that with a horse.”

“But he’s fine,” I said. I really don’t know as much about show jumping as they do. To me, and, it appeared, the rest of the crowd, it had been a stunning display of courage and athleticism shown by both horse and rider.

Allen and Mamie just shook their heads and I heard Allen cursing again. Then Mamie went over to congratulate Brian.

At the end, the top three horses galloped a victory lap around the arena, after they were handed their medals. That’s when I saw Peter Newbold again. He was standing at the bottom of the bleachers, not too far from our tent. Rebecca was grinning at him as she galloped past. I saw her stand in her stirrups and wave in his direction, and I saw him gaze up at her. He was shielding his eyes with his hands. It was hard to see her, looking up the way he was—up into the blinding sunlight of that August afternoon.

seven

I had my first little suspicion about Rebecca and Peter not long after the Westfield show, actually the same week that Frank’s guys were working on the Dwight house. It was a Wednesday night and I had a closing the next morning. A big closing. A new-construction home in Gloucester with water views that sold for just under a million. This time the purchasers were mine and it was Wendy’s listing. It was a rainy evening and I was going through all the paperwork for the next morning. I was also finishing off a nice bottle of Pinot Noir that I had grabbed from the MG when I arrived home. I try to make it a point to not drink the whole bottle, but if I don’t finish it, I have to go back and lock the partially drunk bottle in the trunk of the MG. What if one of my daughters stopped in unannounced and saw a half-consumed bottle of wine in my cupboard? If I finish it, I can always hide it under some garbage in the kitchen. So that night, because it was pouring rain, I decided to finish off the bottle. It was just the thing. So warming. Plus, I was celebrating. I was going to be handed a big fat check the next morning.

As I put the papers into a folder, I realized that the buyer’s home insurance document was missing. The buyers were not planning to attend the closing and so they’d had the document Fed-Exed to me. It was on my desk.
I need a new assistant,
I thought as I dripped the last drops of wine onto my tongue. My friend Alice’s daughter Kendall was working for me while she took a gap year from college. I’d just been too busy to interview and hire somebody with more (any) skills. Now I was stuck. There would be no time to stop at the office in the morning; the bank was in Beverly, in the opposite direction of the green, and there would be traffic all the way.

When I began having my occasional glass of wine, a few months after my return from Hazelden, I swore to myself that I would never call anyone, e-mail anyone, or drive after having as little as one drop of alcohol in my system. And I had stuck to my guns on this. But that night before the closing, I realized that I was a little buzzed, yes, but far from intoxicated. It would take me ten minutes to drive to the office—fifteen minutes tops, because of the rain. I would just drive extra slow.

I pulled my raincoat over my head and ran out to the car. Soon I was driving up winding Pig Rock Lane. Honestly, I could drive the route to my office with my eyes closed. And I was far from drunk. There had been times—many times, actually—when I had driven home with one eye closed so that I could see one road instead of two. That was before rehab, of course. But now, I was driving slowly and actually quite enjoying the spooky autumn evening—the leaves whirling about in my headlights like crazed bats, the windshield wipers whipping back and forth, back and forth. There was nobody out on that rainy night but me. How lovely it was to have the whole road to oneself, to cruise along on that road, that wet black ribbon of a road that wound its way through my sleepy town.

When I pulled into the parking lot behind my office, I was surprised to see Peter’s lights on upstairs. He wasn’t usually up there on Wednesdays. His Volvo was parked there in the lot, and next to it was another car. It was a silver Land Cruiser. I parked next to Peter’s car, stepped carefully out of my car, and jogged around the house to the front steps of the porch. I walked along the porch to the side entrance, which is closer to my office. There, I fumbled with my keys a little. I have too many keys; it’s always a problem. So I fumbled with them and then I dropped them, right into the azalea bushes that are planted around the porch.

I cursed, of course, and then I decided to hop from the porch down onto the lawn. I was afraid that if I went back to the steps and walked around, I wouldn’t remember which bush the keys had fallen behind. So I sort of leaped from the porch, but the grass was soaked and I slipped and landed on my ass. Murphy’s Law—at that exact moment, Peter Newbold opened the side door and stepped out onto the porch.

“Hello?” he called anxiously.

I sprang to my feet. For some reason, I thought that an athletic move of some sort would be an indicator of sobriety. I was only a few feet away from Peter, and I thought he was going to have a heart attack when he saw me shoot up into the air from the ground below him.

“What the hell?” he cried, staggering backward. The man was actually clutching his chest. Then he said, “Hildy? Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me, Peter,” I said. It had been a while since I’d had to talk my way around a thick tongue. “I just dropped my keys.… Then … I … slipped when I was … looking for them.”

I bent over and knocked the bush around a little. I tried to make all my motions fluid and natural, but it was rainy and slippery. At one point, I almost went over again and I had to catch myself by grabbing the side of the porch.

“Here,” Peter said, “let me help you.”

I couldn’t tell if I was imagining it, but he seemed amused. I get so paranoid when I drink; that’s what AA and rehab will do to you. I worry now that everybody can tell if I’ve so much as looked at a drink. In reality, who would be able to tell if a person was a little tipsy on a night like that? It was pouring, so you can imagine how slippery the ground was.

Peter stepped off the porch, and after a few seconds, he pulled the keys out from under the bush and handed them to me.

“Thanks, Peter,” I said. I started back to my car and he stepped back up onto the porch, still watching me.

“Wait a minute,” I said, laughing and turning back to the office. “I never got … what I came for.”

I stepped purposefully over to where Peter stood, back up on the porch, and said, “Will ya give me a hand up, Peter?”

Peter looked at me carefully. “Maybe you should walk around to the steps.”

“Nah, this is quicker,” I said, and I started to climb up. Peter reached out and grabbed my arm and hauled me onto the porch. This time, instead of groping with my keys again, I just went in through the side door with Peter. The door to my office is at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Peter’s office. Next to my office door is a table that holds a potted fern. If you pull the table away from the wall, you can open a drawer in the back, which I did as Peter watched.