by Maggie Estep
When the Wench started taking lessons from me, I saw the first sign of jealousy in Wanda.
“Who is this woman you’re teaching?” she’d wanted to know when I came to her place after giving the Wench her first lesson. Ordinarily I only taught children. But I thought an adult would be challenging. And I was right.
“Just some woman. She’s a little odd. Took up piano a year ago and she’s not young. There isn’t much hope for her but she’s intelligent and she pays me.”
“Is she beautiful?”
“Not exactly.”
“But she’s very attractive.”
“Maybe,” I conceded.
“Tell me,” Wanda said, turning the jealousy into a fierce sexual encounter, making me tell her, as I entered her, what I imagined Ruby looked like unclothed.
I felt slightly odd the next time I gave the Wench a lesson. But I wasn’t truly interested in the Wench. She was more than ten years my senior, she was stubborn, and most likely not attracted to me.
Now I find myself thinking of the Wench wistfully. Wanda was difficult. The other women who pursued me were like birds. Flighty and insubstantial. But the Wench probably isn’t the answer. All the same, I decide to call her. We have to set the time of our next lesson anyway.
I take my cell phone out and ask it to call. I have her in my phone book under Wench. The phone rings four times and a machine comes on, asking that I leave only really good messages.
“A tall order, your highness,” I tell the infernal machine. “This is your piano teacher. I wonder when it is you would next care to show me what you’ve been doing to JSB. Do call me.”
Referring to Bach as JSB had formed a tender bond between us. I had always thought of him that way, and during our second lesson, Ruby called him this, which is when I’d known with certainty that I could teach her.
I put the phone back in my pocket and keep walking uptown.
I feel sad.
Ruby Murphy
12 / Hotwalker
I get home to Coney and find Ramirez’s door open. My neighbor is in his customary position at the kitchen table. Chin resting in hands. Skin dark against his white wife beater and the bright yellow of the kitchen. Elsie, his girlfriend, is standing near him, leaning her hip on the edge of the kitchen table. She’s wearing nothing but a pair of panties and one of Ramirez’s T-shirts, the front of it distended by her enormous, surgically enhanced breasts.
“Ruby!” She beams.
“Elsie, hello,” I say, endeavoring not to stare at her minimal getup.
“We were just feeling my chest,” she says, putting her small pudgy hands to her enormous breasts. “They hurt like a motherfucker. Feel this,” she says, grabbing my hand and placing it on one of her gargantuan glands.
Her face is eager for my reaction as my fingers play over the hard lump. “Oh God, Elsie, that’s horrible.” I pull my hand back.
“Feels nasty, right?” Ramirez asks.
I nod. “Are you gonna be okay?” I look at Elsie, trying not to stare at her chest.
She shrugs. “I guess so. The thing that makes me mad is I can’t work now. Ain’t nobody gonna give me a job with fucked-up titties.”
“Come on,” I protest, “there’s got to be something you can do.”
“Pfffh. I used to think about law school. But not now. Not at my age,” she says.
“Why not?” I smile, picturing her kitted up in a business suit, sexy and bossy in bitch red nails and a navy mid-calf skirt.
“I’m old,” says the woman one year my senior. “And I’m tired,” she adds, cupping her breasts again to show me exactly what has tired her so profoundly.
I roll my eyes at her. Then, to take her mind off her troubles, I tell her about my own new job following Frank. Neither she nor Ramirez looks particularly approving.
“That doesn’t sound safe, lady.” Ramirez frowns and shakes his big head.
“It’s fine, for now,” I tell my neighbor.
At which point Stinky, who’s heard my voice through the door, starts wailing out his hunger cry. I excuse myself, leaving Elsie and Ramirez to their own devices.
There is chaos in my apartment. Stinky has evidently gotten in under the sink and pulled the trash bag out of the can. There are eggshells, coffee grounds, and other malodorous items strewn across the light green linoleum floor. Lulu has jumped up onto the shelves and knocked all the spice jars down. Anytime I’m gone more than a few hours, the cats express their disgust in this way.
I notice that the answering machine is blinking wildly. I begrudgingly hit Play and listen to two messages from Ariel and one from my insane piano teacher, Mark Baxter. He sounds sort of down. I contemplate calling him back but my fiercely anxious cats are weaving between my calves, demanding dinner.
No sooner have I put the beasts’ meat in their bowls than the cell phone chirps. I pull it out of my pocket and hit the Talk button.
“You’re very fond of horses, aren’t you, Ruby?” Ariel says by way of greeting.
“Sure,” I tell her. “Why?” I add, suspicious.
“I’d like it if you put in a little cameo appearance as a hot-walker.”
“What?”
“Hotwalkers are the people who walk the horses off after morning exercise.”
“Yeah, I realize that….” She’s beginning to annoy me.
“I’d like for you to go work as one for a short time. With Arnold Gaines, the trainer that Frank works for. If you present yourself at Belmont tomorrow, Gaines’s assistant, a man by the name of Ned Ward, will hire you.”
“How on earth did you work that out?”
“That’s of no importance,” she says tersely.
“But I don’t want another job,” I protest.
“It’s not a job job, Ruby. It will enable you to keep an eye on Frank. You needn’t do it for very long. A week should surely suffice. Maybe less. You’ll be paid. By me and by them. Though what they’ll pay you isn’t much. Five dollars a head, I believe.”
“Five dollars a head?”
“Each horse you walk off.”
“Christ. You know how long it takes to cool a horse down?”
“I have no idea.”
“A long time.”
“Oh. Does this mean you’d rather not do it?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I don’t mind. I guess.”
“Oh, Ruby …” she says.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“Right,” I say.
“Oh, there is one thing….”
“What’s that?”
“You need to present yourself at the Belmont security gate at five A.M.”
“Five A.M.?”
“Oh my. I was afraid of this. Are you not a morning person?”
“Being at Belmont at five A.M. requires something above and beyond a morning person. Do you know what time I’ll have to get up?”
“Oh. Well …”
“Well I guess I’m getting up in a few hours.”
“I truly appreciate this, Ruby.”
“One would hope, Ariel.”
I click the phone off and stare from my piano to my cats to my red shoes, which are sitting in the middle of the living room floor. I feel obscenely lonely.
I try calling Mark Baxter back. Not that he’s likely to cheer me, but as insane as he is, there’s something deeply sexy about him, and really, the only thing that’s kept me from pouncing is a previous experience with a twenty-one-year-old. In conversation I discovered that his mother was only six years older than me. This was too weird. I don’t need to revisit such feelings. All the same, it is pleasing to talk to insane sexy men. Mark’s machine comes on, his clipped voice carefully enunciating the number I have reached. I hang up.
I walk over to the piano and forage for my Handel piece in the stack of sheet music. Lulu perches on top of the ancient Steinway and watches as I attempt different voicings of the opening chord. About a half hour into my Hande
l session, the phone rings. I jump up from the piano bench, glad for the distraction, and get it on the third ring.
It’s Jane, my closest female friend. Jane the yoga addict who has all but abandoned me this last year as she’s forged further and further into the world of yoga.
After chastising her for not calling in many days, I ask how she is.
“I held a ninety degree headstand for twenty breaths today,” she announces.
I sigh. Listening to exacting reports on the details of Jane’s yoga practice is my penance for boring her with the particulars of my currently nonexistent sex life.
I dutifully ask questions about the ninety degree headstand, and even have mild pangs of jealousy since I can only hold it for a few seconds before I come clomping down, not so much from lack of balance or strength as from an overwhelming fear that I’m going to fall forward, crunch my neck, break my spine, and spend the rest of my life incontinent and paralyzed.
After Jane has pattered on a good while, I casually mention my new career as a private investigator and hotwalker.
“What?” Her voice climbs two octaves.
“I’m being paid to follow this woman’s boyfriend. And now I have to get up at three in the morning and go work at Belmont.”
“What?” Jane’s voice stays in the high registers.
I run it by her again.
I have, hands down, won the “bet you can’t top this” contest that is one of the tender rituals of our friendship. I then tell her what’s what with Oliver. Though she doesn’t know him well, Jane adores Oliver. And, like me, she can’t quite come to terms with someone so full of life being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
“I can’t believe you dragged him to a racetrack,” Jane chides.
“He was so happy, though. You should have seen him. Radiant.”
Jane sighs.
“I should go now,” I say eventually. “I have to go see a man about a horse in four hours. Or see a horse about a man. Something. In four hours.”
“And do I ever get to see you again, actually have dinner with you or something?” Jane asks.
“Yes. I have no idea when, though, now that I’m the girl with three jobs.”
Jane bids me sweet dreams and we hang up. I feel a little bit better.
I round up my cats and put them onto the bed. Before I’ve even gotten under the covers, they both jump down and shoot me withering glances for trying to impose affection on them.
I pull the blanket over my head and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
X
SEEMINGLY MOMENTS later, the alarm goes off. I stare in disbelief at the clock’s face telling me it’s three A.M. With a wave of horror I remember that I not only have to get up, but I must travel all the way to the far reaches of Queens to partake of physical labor.
I feed the cats, slug back two cups of coffee, get in three pages of Anna Karenina, and then do ten perfunctory sun salutations. I throw on some clothes, stuff a hairbrush and a raincoat in my backpack and head out.
Ramirez’s door is, for once, closed. One of the mysteries of Ramirez is that the man never sleeps. No matter what time of day or night I come in, if he’s home, he’s awake with the door open. Ramirez works as an independent contractor for the city in the winter, doing clean-up jobs; in summer he operates the Inferno ride in Astroland. It’s not like he doesn’t need sleep. Either of these jobs is fairly taxing. But I think he’s like the guy in the Tom Waits song:
He came home from the war with a party in his head And an idea for a fireworks display…
There are things inside Ramirez’s head that keep him up most nights.
I emerge into the predawn darkness and walk to the subway station, climbing up the many stairs to the deserted platform. A train waits with open doors, its innards brightly lit. I take a seat and stare ahead.
In theory I like the idea of what I’m about to do. Pretending to be someone I’m not. Spending time around horses. In practice, though, it’s already turning out to be a logistical nightmare. I’ve got to get all the way to Jamaica, Queens, and switch over to the Long Island Railroad. Then walk a ways from the train station to the track. And then what? Are they just going to laugh at me when I present myself? And will Frank catch on to the fact that I’m watching him?
I worry over all this as the doors whoosh shut and the train begins making its way through the darkened hinterlands of Brooklyn.
At Avenue U, the ill-fated stop where Ariel got on forty-eight very long hours ago, yet another willowy misplaced-looking blonde gets on. This one, thankfully, minds her own business.
I switch over to the Long Island Railroad in Jamaica. It’s still too early for most commuters. There’s one lanky gray-haired guy who looks like he washes his face with Ajax, and across from him there’s a crazy woman with a bunch of suitcases. She smells strongly of lilacs.
X
TWENTY MINUTES later I’m walking along the highway to the racetrack’s backstretch entrance. It’s chilly out but I’m so busy worrying that I’m sweating by the time I reach the Belmont security booth.
A brassy blonde in a brown rent-a-cop uniform sneers out a “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Ned Ward, in Arnold Gaines’s barn,” I say pleasantly.
“And you are?” She appraises me with vicious little button eyes.
I never look like I fit in. No matter where I go. Even if, like right now, I’m trying to look the part. I’m wearing old black jeans, a loose black sweater, and worn-out combat boots. I have my hair knotted at the back of my head. I figure I look like someone who’s ready to walk a bunch of persnickety thoroughbreds. But obviously, to the security guard, I look out of place. I give her my name. She picks up a phone and dials.
“Yeah,” she drawls into the receiver, “there’s a Ruby here.” She listens a moment. Frowns. “Yeah, asked for you, Mr. Ward.” She fastens her tiny button eyes on me. “He don’t know what you want,” she says, pleased to tell me I’m not wanted.
“May I speak with him?” I reach for the phone.
“Tsk.” She furiously swats my hand away.
“Tell him I’m supposed to come hotwalk for Arnold Gaines.”
Security Bitch practically spits on me now that my true identity as a lowly hotwalker is revealed.
“Yeah, says she’s here to walk hots,” the brawny matron says into the phone. “He’ll come get you,” she says, hanging up the receiver. “You can stand outside.” She motions to the door.
“Have a nice day,” I say, smiling menacingly as I pull the door shut behind me.
I stand to the side of the security booth, under one of the enormous old trees flanking the main entrance to the backstretch. It’s a misty morning, fog deadening the sound of cars and trucks as they pull in. Security Bitch looks on eagle-eyed from her glass booth, checking each vehicle for its ID sticker.
After waiting ten minutes, I start to feel like a complete jerk. I should just give it all up, go back to Coney, and put in my shift at the museum. Ariel DiCello can solve her romantic problems without me and I can go back where I’m actually needed—lording over the ancient baubles that are all that’s left of Coney’s bawdy history and entertaining the various disturbos who come into the place.
Just as I’m thinking this, a guy walks up to me and introduces himself as Ned Ward, assistant trainer. He’s lanky and has a pair of beautiful green eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. The sight of him promptly dampens any notions about going anywhere but here.
Ned Ward
13 / My Hotwalker-to-Be
I’m in Joe’s stall going over the bay colt’s hind legs when Sebastian hollers at me that there’s a phone call. It’s a little early in the day for the cretinous owners to be bothering me with their various issues.
“Who the hell is it?” I yell at Sebastian, keeping my hands on Joe’s fetlocks.
“Marla up at Security,” Sebastian hollers back.
I mutter under my breath, stand up, pat the colt on the neck and walk ou
t of his stall. I go down the aisle to the office. Sebastian’s already disappeared somewhere.
“Yeah?” I say, picking up the phone’s receiver.
Marla, the unpleasant lass who mans the front gate security booth, informs me there’s a girl to see me about walking hots. I grumble at Marla that I’ll be over to get the girl. I’d forgotten all about it.
Arnie called me at home last night, disturbing me from the unwholesome task of flushing out the wounds on a kitten that had gotten kicked by a horse and that I’d taken home to look after. Arnie told me I was hiring a new hotwalker the next morning. Came recommended through a friend of his, which is no keen recommendation. Arnie’s an adequate trainer but a lousy judge of character. The people he calls friends are a scabrous lot of inept misanthropes, and I can’t say much better about the owners he attracts or the help he hires. His head groom, Sebastian, is the only good egg in the bunch, and it’s a fluke Arnie ever hired him to begin with.
I’d told Arnie I’d do as he asked and hire the hotwalker and then I hung up before he started going off about any number of the things that get his goat. I went back to looking after the kitten. A little black and orange splotch of a thing that had never had any sense around the horses and that I’d have to find a home for soon since I’m almost always at the track. I’d been having Lena, the tarted-up Russian émigré next door, come in to tend to the kitten twice a day. But I didn’t feel good about that. Lena wanted to get down my pants, and I was sure she was going through my drawers, probably fondling my socks and reading my junk mail.
Eventually I’d finished tending to the kitten, gotten a whopping four hours of shut-eye, then headed back to the track. The kitten hadn’t eaten much this morning, so between worrying about her and trying to figure out why Joe, the bay colt, wasn’t amounting to much as a race horse, I had my head full and had completely forgotten about the hotwalker.
I take the shitty blue bike out of the office and hop on, riding it down the main road that weaves between the endless rows of green barns. Would have taken me fifteen minutes to walk all the way up to the main gate to retrieve the new hotwalker. The bike, crappy as it is, will get me there in three. I get the thing going at a pretty good clip and have a hell of a time stopping when a loose horse suddenly appears right in front of me. I slam on the backpedal breaks, which makes the front wheel skid, and I come off, landing on my ass and nearly getting trampled by the loose horse.