I put Encore away in his stall and went back to the house to get a dry pair of socks. The last thing I needed was blisters on my feet before the show. I was about to open the door when I heard raised voices.
“Who do you love more,” Missy was shouting. “Your precious daughter or me?”
“That’s not fair,” Dad replied.
He’d obviously returned from his meeting to find Missy having a hissy fit over something. Post pregnancy Missy was not a woman I liked very much at all. I wondered if maybe her hormones were still out of whack or something because there was no other explanation for her sudden, bizarre behavior.
“I’ll tell you what’s not fair,” Missy cried. “You give her private lessons whenever she wants. Let her ride whatever horses she wants. You bought that crazy ex-racehorse for her and won’t back me up when I suggest that we send it away for training because it’s dangerous and now you want to let her ride in the very same class that I’m going to be riding in at the Easter show? How do you think that will make me look? Riding in the same class as my boyfriend’s daughter?”
There was silence while she paused for air but my father didn’t reply.
“It makes me look like an idiot. That’s what it makes me look like,” she yelled. “What if she places? Or God forbid beats me and wins the thing? What happens to my big comeback then?”
“There will be plenty of other shows,” Dad said calmly.
“Yes, other shows that your daughter will want to go to and ride in. What if she beats me all the time?”
“That hasn’t happened yet,” Dad said.
“But you know it’s just a matter of time. She’s good. She’s the new me.”
There was some muffled sobbing and a soft thud as though Missy had thrown herself down on the couch and buried her face in the cushions. I didn’t hear anything else. Was my father comforting her? Promising her that he’d hold me back so that she could move up the levels again? I didn’t know why she was making such a big deal out of it anyway. Other Grand Prix riders took time off to have babies and then went right back to it. They didn’t need to work their way back up or enter classes that were clearly not meant for professionals like her. It was almost as if she had lost her nerve.
I slunk away from the house with my wet socks and an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t help thinking that Missy was going to be blocking my career every step of the way.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
I made myself scarce for the rest of the day, not wanting to add fuel to Missy’s fire. It seemed like just the mere sight of me set her off these days and other than doing my job, I couldn’t see what I had done that was so wrong. She was blowing everything out of proportion.
So I busied myself with the projects I had taken on for my father. Popcorn and Ballycat were both coming along quite nicely. Popcorn no longer tried to dump me off every five seconds or run my legs into fence posts and Ballycat was starting to accept that not everything in the whole entire world was going to eat him.
“You are a fancy pony,” I told him as I tacked him up. “You should have little girls lining up to ride you but they can’t do that when you are spooking at normal things like that grooming box.”
He’d been giving it a wide berth ever since I put him in the cross ties and every now and then he let out a little snort. I was trying to be firm but kind. I didn’t know why he was scared of everything but I’d been around him long enough to know that it wasn’t an act. He wasn’t pretending to get out of work. He was genuinely scared. Something must have happened to make him that way. Or someone.
“How about we go for a nice walk around the perimeter of the property?” I asked him. “It’s not quite as scary as the trail but it’s scary enough.”
Ballycat didn’t think that was a very good idea. As soon as he realized we weren’t heading for the safety of the ring he went into reverse.
“Oh no you don’t.” I closed my legs around his sides and forced him forward. “Who wants to ride a pony that can only go in the ring?”
His little ears flicked back and forth as he listen to my voice. I could almost feel him quivering underneath me. I stroked his neck and told him he was a good boy and made sure not to jab him in the mouth when he acted silly. By the time we made it once around the loop, he had settled enough that I was able to ask him to trot and on the third lap we cantered. I thought about how cute he would look at the show, all done up in hunter braids with a little girl on his back with pink ribbons in her hair. Only there was no way he was ready to leave the farm, let alone go to a show, since I’d only just got him to go around the farm without having a major meltdown.
As I let him walk I saw Missy teaching in the ring. She had a bunch of kids in a group lesson and they were hopping over a low course of jumps but she wasn’t looking at them. She was looking at me. Only when I tried to catch her eye, she looked away.
For a few months it had been cool having Missy around. She’d been like the older sister I never had. She’d given me advice on horses and boys and even on my father. Now, in an instant, she’d decided to exert her authority over me. Authority that she didn’t have. And if war was what she wanted. War was what she was going to get.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
In fact it was the very next day when world war three almost erupted in the office. I was looking at the list of horses we were taking to the show. Lesson students often paid a day lease to take Fox Run horses when they didn’t own one of their own and a couple of the grooms had been out sick with the flu so I’d promised my father that I would help with the clipping to get them ready. Most of them had already been body clipped or were in the process of shedding out their winter coats but they still needed their whiskers and ears trimmed. Dad was really particular about that sort of stuff. I was making notes on a piece of paper of the ponies that I was going to work on when I saw Ballycat’s name.
“This has to be a mistake,” I told my father as he walked in with Missy. “Why is Ballycat’s name on the list? He’s not going to the show.”
“Yes he is,” Missy said. “I have a new student who wants to try him out.”
“Try him out?” I laughed. “The only thing they will be trying out is a trip to the emergency room. That pony is not ready. He’s scared of his own shadow.”
“I saw you riding him yesterday,” Missy said. “And he looked just fine.”
“Because he’s starting to trust me,” I cried.
I looked at my father but he didn’t say anything. He looked as though he really wished he hadn’t come into the office right at that moment.
“Then I’d say he’s progressing nicely,” Missy said. “And the show will be a good place for him to get all the desensitization he needs.”
“You can’t be serious,” I said. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Emily,” Dad warned.
“My client’s parents want her to ride a pretty pony that will place,” Missy said, sticking her nose in the air. “And you obviously don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Fine,” I said, slamming down my pen and paper. “You do it your way then since you’re such an expert but when your lesson kid ends up in the hospital, don’t come crying to me because all I’ll have to say is that I told you so.”
“Emily,” Dad said again.
“Its fine,” I replied as I walked past him. “Whatever. I don’t care.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
The trouble was that I did care. A lot. I’d grown fond of little Ballycat and I didn’t want to see him get hurt. Or to end up with a reputation that he was a dangerous pony.
“Missy has gone insane,” I told Mickey as we sat in the tack room cleaning our bridles.
“Normal insane or super crazy insane?” Mickey said.
“There are different levels of crazy now?” I asked.
“There could be,” she said thoughtfully.
“Look, all I know is that I came back from the clinic and she’s acting like a comp
letely different person.”
“It’s the hormones,” Mickey said. “My mom said that after she had me, she spent six months in her pajamas and fantasized about running off to some desert island.”
“Really?” I said.
“Really. She even had a fake name picked out and everything. Veronica. As if anyone would believe she was a Veronica. She doesn’t look like a Veronica at all.”
“What does a Veronica look like?” I asked.
“Not like my mom.” She laughed. “You know, sexy. Mysterious. Anyway that’s not the point.”
“Okay, what is the point then?”
“That some women go all depressed and stuff after having babies like my mom did so maybe other women end up going the opposite. You know, all throwing themselves into work and trying to be the best again and super hyper crazy.”
“She’s super hyper all right,” I said. “She spent all night cleaning the kitchen.”
I’d woken that morning to a counter full of gleaming pots and pans and the threat that if I made absolutely anything in the kitchen dirty then I would quite possibly face bodily harm.
“There you go then,” Mickey said, nodding. “Normal people don’t do that, do they?”
“No.” I shook my head. “But you are forgetting something.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know Missy before she was pregnant. What if this is what she is really like? Maybe fat, pregnant Missy was only slowed down by the fact that she was the size of a beached whale. Maybe this is how she used to act.”
Mickey was quiet for a while. “Does your Dad seem happy with the way she is now?” she finally asked.
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “But it’s kind of hard to tell.”
“There you go then,” Mickey said, tossing her sponge into the bucket of water. “If she was like this before then he’d be happy but he’s not so she must be acting crazy.”
Mickey seemed satisfied that she’d solved the mystery but it still didn’t help with the fact that I was stuck living with a crazy woman who had raging hormones and an insatiable desire to beat me in the show ring.
“Don’t worry,” Mickey said, looking at my scrunched up face. “I’m sure your dad will sort her out.”
But Mickey didn’t know that my father had his own problems and one of them was keeping his job. I’d seen the letter that morning on the sparkling counter top. It was from the Fox Run owners. I’d known it would just be a matter of time before they found out about the suspension and now they probably had. I couldn’t know for sure what was inside that envelope but deep in my heart I suspected that it was the owners telling my father that they couldn’t have a trainer who was suspended for drugging headlining their prestigious barn. And if he lost his job then Missy trying to stop me from competing against her would be the last of our worries. We’d be out in the street. Or rather forced to live in a half demolished house and an unfinished barn.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
It turned out that the Easter show wasn’t actually on Easter weekend because they thought everyone would be too busy going to church or hanging out with their families eating food to bother and show up. That meant that it was the weekend after Easter and it also meant that Easter weekend was going to be just the three of us sitting around an uncooked turkey with awkward silence hanging in the air. And Easter wasn’t officially a turkey holiday like Thanksgiving was but we liked it so much that we made it so. At least my mom and I had always done. Missy seemed to think Easter should be a ham holiday. But I could remember my father salivating over my mother’s freshly roasted turkey and I knew that he loved it just as much as I did.
“We’re having turkey this weekend, right?” I asked him. “Golden brown turkey with lovely gravy and mashed potatoes.”
I could literally see my father’s mouth starting to water.
“Missy thought we should have ham,” he said.
“Ham? Gross.” I was silent for a moment. “Dad,” I said, trying to sound diplomatic and not like an awkward teenager. “Why do we have to do everything that Missy wants?”
“Emily,” Dad said, his voice stern.
“No,” I carried on quickly. “I’m not saying anything bad against her, just that we are all a family together now and we should take each other’s feelings into consideration. Don’t you think? I mean maybe over things that we all get to participate in we should take a vote. Like, we could vote on whether we eat turkey or ham.”
Dad looked at me and shook his head. “You know you are far too smart to be a daughter of mine.”
“So that means we can vote then?” I said with a sly smile.
“Fine. Yes. We can vote.”
“Woo hoo,” I cried, fist pumping the air.
“You haven’t even won yet,” Dad said.
“But I know how much you like turkey.” I winked at him.
True to his word Dad suggested to Missy that we vote on ham or turkey and of course turkey won because Dad and I were totally addicted to the stuff. Missy wasn’t too happy about that but there wasn’t much she could do about it. At least I didn’t think there was.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
“How long are you supposed to cook a turkey for?” I asked desperately.
I was on the phone with Mickey while the turkey sat on the counter top, mocking me. Missy had declared that if we wanted turkey so badly we should cook it ourselves. Then she said she was going out riding and left Dad and me standing there in the kitchen. Dad had shrugged and said that he only knew how to cook things that went in the microwave. That left me. And the turkey. Together. Alone.
“I don’t know,” Mickey said. “Just shove it in there and take it out when it looks brown.”
“I think it’s more complicated than that,” I said.
“Not really,” she said. “At least that is what it looks like my mom does. Oh and don’t forget to take the insides out.”
“The what?”
“You know, the gross bag of stuff that they shove inside.”
“You mean I actually have to stick my hand inside the turkey?” I gulped.
“Just do it quick like pulling off a band aid.” Mickey laughed.
“I wish I’d voted for ham.” I sighed.
“No,” Mickey yelled down the phone. “This is what Missy wants. She wants you to fail. You have to show her that you can cook a turkey.”
“But I can’t,” I said.
“You don’t understand,” she replied. “It’s not really about the turkey. It’s about everything else. You have to show her that she is not the boss of you. That you can do whatever you want and succeed.”
“Maybe in the show ring,” I said. “But the kitchen is another matter entirely.”
Only I knew Mickey was right. This wasn’t about cooking at all. It was about everything else.
“Okay then,” I said aloud to the empty kitchen. “Let’s do this.”
Two hours later, my turkey was roasting nicely in the oven and I had vegetables boiling in pots on the stove top.
“That smells delicious,” Dad said, looking surprised when he came into the kitchen.
“Piece of cake,” I replied.
I didn’t mention that I’d nearly dropped the turkey on the floor. The potatoes looked like knobbly knees and the frozen peas had burst out of the bag and scattered everywhere like little icy marbles that I kept slipping on.
“You look just like your mother,” he said.
“Please don’t say that,” I replied, brushing a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
“Why not?” Dad sat down at the counter and reached for a cookie.
“Hey.” I slapped his hand away. “You’ll spoil your dinner.”
“Well now you definitely sound like your mother.”
“I don’t want to be anything like her,” I said, my back to him as I stirred the gravy. “I want to be like you.”
“Your mother isn’t a bad person,” Dad said softly.
“Oh yeah?” I spun
around. “She won’t even talk to me.”
“She just gets upset,” Dad said.
“Upset?” I cried. “Parents should talk to their children no matter what.”
“But you have to understand,” Dad said. “She lost a child to horses and she doesn’t want to lose another one. It’s her worst fear. She’s just protecting herself.”
Dad rarely spoke of Summer. I wanted to know more. I was desperate to find out what had happened to my sister the day she died at the horse show when I was five. Mom had always blamed my father and horses. Now I had both of them in my life. And she had Derek, my evil stepfather. And I didn’t. I was happy with the tradeoff. I don’t know why she couldn’t be.
“You will tell me about her, won’t you?” I said.
His face fell.
“Not today,” I added quickly. “But some day?”
“Yes, some day,” he said vaguely.
Only someday sounded like it was further away than ever.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I set the table with our best china, which meant the plates that weren’t chipped. And I put out the fancy silverware, which meant not the plastic knives and forks we usually grabbed when we were in a hurry. I even found an old lace table cloth and a couple of candles.
I was standing back surveying all my hard work when Missy came back from the barn. We were officially closed on Easter Sunday so that meant no lessons, no boarders wanting a million different things or complaining and only a skeleton crew of grooms to do the basics.
I’d seen Dad and Missy out in the fields on Canterbury and Socks earlier. It looked like they’d been laughing. Maybe she was coming around after all.
“Wow,” Dad said. “That smells fantastic and just look at this.”
He pointed to the table with a smile. Missy just sort of shrugged. I’d taken her challenge and I’d not only completed it but I’d also won at it so she couldn’t really say anything at all. I just hoped that the turkey wasn’t dry or something.
Show Time (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 17) Page 6