Mom cred?
I shake my head at Luke. “Whatever it takes, especially with points on the line, I guess.”
He winks at me in response.
* * *
“I’m leaving,” I call into the basement Saturday morning. My parents are down there organizing stuff to sell at flea markets for some extra money. “Thanks for letting me take the car.”
Mom comes up the stairs carrying an armful of old board games. “Have fun. It’s you and your home ec group, right?”
“Yep,” I say, grabbing my jacket. “A.J., Isaiah the horse racing fan, and Luke.”
Mom’s eyes suddenly light up. “Luke’s the one I’ve seen you walking home with, right? The hunky one?”
I freeze as I’m shrugging the jacket on. “I guess?”
“You guess you walk home with him or you guess he’s good-looking? What’s going on there, anyway?”
“There’s nothing happening there,” I snap, my heart suddenly hammering, and Mom flinches. She’s only teasing you. Calm the hell down, Mary Ellen.
“Sorry,” I say. “What I mean is … he has a girlfriend. We’re just friends.”
Mom nods like she gets it, but I’m alarmed at how my initial instinct was PMS-levels of defensiveness.
I’m saved when my dad emerges from the basement with a box of books. “Have a good time with the horses. But if any mafia goons approach you, tell them you’re Italian, but not that Italian.”
“It’s not going to be shady. It’s Family Day.”
“Doesn’t the mafia call themselves a family? Then this might be the ideal setting for them.”
That actually gets me to laugh, and I’m glad. Clearly, I’m feeling jittery about this whole experience and I chalk it up to being nervous about spending an entire day with all the guys. What if we have nothing to say to each other beyond our class assignments? It’s going to make for an awkward afternoon.
I walk outside and I’m greeted by a beautiful fall day. It’s sunny and warm, the sky is bright blue, and there’s a light breeze blowing through the red and yellow leaves. I have no idea if this is good horse-racing weather, but it seems like it should be.
I’m unlocking the driver’s side door when I see Luke coming up the street. I freeze, wondering if my mom is watching from behind the curtains.
He waves. “You ready for Family Day at the Races, Agresti?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I say.
“We are fam-il-y,” he sings in a high-pitched voice as he opens up the front passenger’s side door. “I got all my, uh, classmates and me.”
“You may want to stick to biking,” I say, giggling as I start the car.
We pick up A.J. first. He insisted that I could get him at his dentist’s office, which is a few blocks from here. “I have an appointment in the morning for a cleaning. It’ll just be easier for you to get me there,” he’d said. We find him waiting by the curb.
“Yo,” he says, opening the passenger side back door.
“Any cavities?” Luke asks.
“Huh?” A.J. says, sounding confused. “Oh, no. Not this time.”
“On to Isaiah’s we go, then,” Luke says.
“I’m glad his mom is letting him come,” I say.
A.J. leans forward. “Do you have a strategy for meeting her?”
Since Mrs. Greenlow wants to meet the person doing the driving, Isaiah says I’m the only one she wants to meet.
I shrug. “Apparently I have mom cred, so that’s what’s going to win her over.”
“You do!” Luke says, “You’re … what’s the word? Wholesome!”
Wholesome? Seriously? The PMS-ish feeling comes rushing back and I’m suddenly cranky. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s not a bad thing,” A.J. says. “You’re just not, you know…”
“The type of girl no guy wants to date?” I spit.
“Take it easy,” Luke says, patting my shoulder. “Why would you think that?”
I know exactly why. Because apparently I was so wholesome, my boyfriend dumped me for a girl who wasn’t. But I don’t say that. “I don’t know,” I sigh, feeling bad that I’m getting so angry over the Hunter thing for the bazillionth time.
“Believe me,” Luke goes on. “I didn’t mean it like a bad thing. You just know who you are and you’re okay with it.”
“And moms love that sort of thing,” A.J. says. “Like, you’re not going to lead anyone down the wrong path or some shit.”
I shrug. “Well, then both your moms are going to be disappointed because I’m really going to take you to an underground fight club and not the racetrack.”
A.J. thumps back in his seat. “Man, that would be epic.”
Wholesome. God, let’s see how long it takes me to move past that one.
We pull up in front of Isaiah’s house, a sprawling pale-yellow ranch with immaculate landscaping and a weeping willow tree in the front yard.
I take a deep breath and unbuckle my seat belt. “Well, here goes nothing.”
When I knock on the front door, Isaiah steps out, followed by a thin woman in a cardigan, her big brown eyes solemn. They look so much alike my mom would say, “She could’ve spit Isaiah out.”
“You must be Mary Ellen. I’m Elena,” she says with a slight Caribbean accent. She sticks out her hand and when I shake it, I make sure to have a firm grip. My father says he doesn’t trust anyone with a weak handshake.
“So, we’re going to go now,” Isaiah says, gesturing over his shoulder toward the car.
“Just a minute, honey,” Mrs. Greenlow says. “I want to make sure you know the rules here.”
“I know, no gambling. And no talking to anyone but my friends.”
I suddenly feel all melty inside at being referred to as Isaiah’s friend. But then I realize it’s probably just less formal than saying classmates.
“Isaiah tells me you’re a good student and are respectful and that the other boys are, too, it’s why I’m allowing this,” she says. “I don’t mean to seem so overprotective, but I know how racetracks can be and I just want to make sure you’ll look out for each other.”
“Well, it’s Family Day,” I say, wracking my brain for anything optimistic to say. “I bet there will be lots of parents and kids. Maybe even grandparents!” Maybe even grandparents? How is that reassuring? Good god.
“Thanks again for letting me go, Mom,” Isaiah says, probably wanting to get out of here before I say something else stupid.
Mrs. Greenlow smooths her hand over his hair with a small smile. “Have a good time. And text if you’re going to be late.”
When we get into the car, she waves to us from the porch. I can’t help but notice her forehead creases and I feel bad.
“I’m sorry about that,” Isaiah says from the back seat. “If we were going to the outlets or something she wouldn’t have been all crazy like that. I just didn’t want to lie to her.”
“No worries, she wasn’t crazy at all,” I say, smiling at him in the rearview mirror. “We’re just glad she let you go.”
It’s a chatty ride to the racetrack—apparently Mrs. Sanchez is married to a bodybuilder and A.J. found his profile on Instagram last night—and there are no awkward silences or anything, which deep down I had feared. Like, it’s close to impossible to be quiet when pondering how much protein Mrs. Sanchez and her husband have to cook to keep him in that kind of shape.
We pull into the crowded parking lot of the racetrack, which we can’t see since it’s obscured by a large building. There are a lot of little kids running around, and the smell of barbecue is coming from somewhere beyond the main gate.
“A guy in a pink suit and gold chains just walked in there,” A.J. marvels, pointing inside the gate.
“Hey, guys who like pink suits and gold chains have families, too, you know,” Luke says, and I can’t help but giggle.
“We’re going to need a program,” Isaiah says after we pay our entrance fee. He points to an old man in a
green visor, who’s holding up what looks like magazines, then digs into his pocket and pulls out a dollar, which he hands to the man.
“Good luck today, sir,” the man says, smiling at Isaiah.
“Oh, we’re not betting,” Isaiah says. “We’re here for Family Day. I just want to see who’s racing.”
The confused expression on the man’s face is priceless as he eyes all of us, trying to place how we are all “family.” But he smiles again brightly. “Well, have a good time, regardless!”
We pass an area that looks like stables, right in front of the main building. There’s an odor of hay and manure, which makes A.J. pinch his nose. “Why they gotta smell like that, man?”
“They’re very large creatures,” Isaiah says seriously. “Their waste is going to be bigger and smellier than most animals.”
“And that’s where they bring the horses before the race?” Luke says pointing to the stable-y looking area. “Where you can see them before you bet on them?”
Isaiah nods, his eyebrows raised as if he’s impressed. “How did you know?”
Luke shrugs. “I did some research.”
I try not to smile when I picture Luke sitting up all night looking up horse racing online. It’s kind of sweet that he’d read up on it.
We enter the main building and it’s bustling with people. There’s a soft hum of voices echoing off the high ceilings, which have banners hanging from the rafters. There are pictures of jockeys’ outfits stitched on them, with a name of a horse underneath it and a year. Isaiah points to the more famous horses and explains what they meant to the racing industry. On the side, there are ticket booths with the words “Betting/Claiming” on signs above them, and there are lines of people gathered at each one.
And right in front of us, up a walkway, and beyond an expanse of green benches and small fence is the racetrack itself. It’s bigger than any type of sporting venue I’ve ever seen. I mean, I guess it would have to be since the track is over a mile long. The rich red-brown dirt of the track encircles a park-like area, with trees and a pond and a scoreboard-looking thing in the middle.
Isaiah’s eyes are huge as he takes in the whole scene, and a smile is spreading on his face. “This place is more beautiful than I thought.”
This time when I feel the smile coming, I don’t even try to fight it.
CHAPTER 13
“Go! Go! Goooooooooo!”
This has become the word of the day. Also in our vocabulary: “Come on, [fill-in-the-blank horse name], come on!” As in, we all pick horses we want to win and bet against each other. Not with money, but with “Whoever wins this race gets off dish duty on Tuesday” or “The person whose horse comes in last has to say something nice to Jared this week.”
Of course, Isaiah has picked the winner for three straight races, so he’s not going to have dishpan hands nor have to man up and tell Jared his beret choice is awesome. Even though his knowledge is giving him a distinct advantage, he tries to explain odds to us, why certain jockeys are better than others, and breeding, but it’s kind of a lot to take in. Especially when horses with names like “Snack Attack” and “Barbie’s Dream Horse” are running. Like, how could I not pick one of them when they are so awesomely named?
But Isaiah is completely in his element, as my mom would say. It’s a total 180 from his in-school personality. He’s chatty and giggly and even talks smack to us before the races. Like, I never thought I’d see the day when Isaiah would point at us and be all, “You guys are so going down, it’s not even funny.” It’s delightful.
“This place is pretty happening,” Luke observes by the time the fourth race rolls around. And by “happening,” I think he means, “holy cow, there’s a lot to look at.” Like, there are actual families here today, moms and dads and grandparents with kids. Upon seeing the aged, I felt vindicated for my stupid comment to Mrs. Greenlow earlier.
There’s a picnic area that has a karaoke stage and clowns giving away balloons to kids. At one point, a clown starts waving us over, and Luke freezes in place and is like, “Guys, clowns scare the crap out of me. I can’t go over there.” And this leads to the awesome moment where the entire JAILE family admits to also being terrified of clowns (“That clown probably wants to kill us in our sleep” is how a saucer-eyed Isaiah puts it) and we all literally run in the other direction.
There’s also a DJ from one of the local radio stations handing out bumper stickers and T-shirts to passersby as songs blast from the booth. A.J., after rocking out on air guitar to “Bohemian Rhapsody” in front of the booth, was declared “pretty righteous” by the DJ, so now he’s walking around with a “Rock On with Classic Rock 102.7” bumper sticker stuck to his chest.
But then there are the die-hard gamblers. Like, you can spot them right away. They’re generally men, but there’s a few older ladies studying the forms, too. There are people in tracksuits and others in khakis and polo shirts, the stressed-out looks on their faces betraying their Preppy for the Poolside garb. Their intensity is at once amusing and frightening and somewhat sad.
It’s funny, but A.J. is probably the anti-die-hard-gambler, insisting on going to see the horses before the race, pantomiming the trumpeter’s song when the horses are called to post, and then jumping up and down when they sprint toward the finish line.
Everyone seems to be enjoying the day and I’d say it would have been completely perfect, except that Luke keeps getting texts every now and then that make him frown or shake his head, momentarily distracting him from the festivities.
“Everything okay?” A.J. finally asks before the fourth race, when Luke shoves his phone in his pocket and sighs.
“Yeah,” he says tightly. “Greta and I just can’t figure out what we’re doing tonight.”
Oh. For some reason I feel the need to divert my attention elsewhere.
“Okay,” Isaiah says, opening up the form, either oblivious to Luke’s angst or just trying to change the subject. “We’ve got eight horses in the fourth race.” The names of the horses running are:
PICKADILLY
THAT’S SOME ISH
WEATHER OR NOT
RED SHIRTED
CLARENCE LEMONS
MYT QUINN
BOSSMAN BRYAN
LORD BERGAMOT
“Oh my god!” I say, tapping Weather Or Not’s name. “I’m totally picking number three!”
“Why?” Isaiah asks, looking genuinely interested at my enthusiasm.
“Come on, that name is awesome, I just have to!”
“Well, his odds are seventy-five to one. And it’s Red Shirted’s race to lose. He’s the favorite.”
“I know, but he’s my pick.”
“So when the horse finishes dead last, you’ll be the one”—he pauses for a second—“going up to Anthony on Monday, asking him what kind of protein shake he uses.”
“Fine. I’m willing to take that bet,” I say defiantly.
“If you guys don’t mind,” Luke pipes up, “I may go put two dollars down on Red Shirted. I mean, what’s the point of being eighteen if you can’t do things like a legal adult?” It’s weird, because he’s staring right at me when he says this, like he’s trying to tell me something.
Then it dawns on me: He probably wants a girl’s advice on dealing with Greta. “Um, I’ll come with you,” I say, and his face relaxes, so I’m glad I read that right. Though I’m not exactly sure I’m the relationship authority over here.
We work our way through the crowds to the main hall where the betting booths are. I wait for Luke to say something, because I don’t want to be like, “So, you’re in the doghouse over date night, huh?”
Finally, he stops short and runs a hand through his hair. “Are we cool?”
“Cool?” I repeat, wondering if I’ve somehow missed something.
“Yeah. I didn’t mean to insult you by calling you wholesome.”
I laugh. “Luke, that was hours ago.”
“I know. But you seemed really upset by it. I
just wanted to apologize if it’s—”
I hold up my hand. “It’s okay. It was a knee-jerk reaction, I guess. And there are definitely worse things to call someone.”
“Good. I really didn’t mean it as something bad, you know,” he says. “Anyway, why do you like that horse so much?”
“Uh, the name is kind of meaningful to me. I want to be a meteorologist.”
Luke’s face lights up. “That’s so cool. Do you want to be one of those people who sends up weather balloons? I’ve always wanted to know what they figure out from those things.”
I try not to gawk at him in wonder, remembering how Hunter’s crew used to be so dismissive of all that. “I think I want to do research, so it would involve weather balloons. Study weather patterns and storm systems and stuff. I’d love to do something weather-related for NASA,” I tell him. “People usually get disappointed that I don’t want to go the glamorous route of TV.”
Luke nods. “So, what brought on this love of weather? Was it so you could predict snow days? Because that’s totally what I’d be in it for.”
I can’t help but laugh. “No. It’s more to do with tornadoes, actually.”
Luke stops in his tracks, beneath one of the large windows of the main hall. A beam of sunlight is touching his head, making his hair glow all holy-like, as a look of complete fascination crosses his face. “Tornadoes? How? You’re from New Jersey!”
“I know! But we were doing this cross-country drive when I was eight and when we were going through Nebraska, we almost ran into one. The sky got all green and it got really still, and then, way down the highway, we saw the funnel cloud. I’ll never forget it—it was really thin and spindly, not like the one in The Wizard of Oz. And then the tornado sirens started to go off.”
“Jesus,” Luke says, his eyes wide. “What did you do?”
“Well, my mom just kept driving, all calm as a cucumber, but my dad started freaking out, and he was all, ‘We need to get off the road!’” I pause. “He’s from Italy. He’s not really used to that sort of thing.”
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