Blue Ribbons

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  “Stop babying me.” My voice turned angry. “Why don’t you just pretend I’m Jane?”

  I’d seen Jane tossed plenty of times—no one treated her like Martha was treating me. They dusted her off and threw her back in the saddle. One time, a year or so ago, she fell off, rode two more ponies, and only later found out that she’d broken her wrist. She had a cast put on and only missed one week of riding, even showing with her cast. If it had been me, I would have been made to sit on the sidelines for six weeks.

  “Whoa, slow down,” Martha said.

  “No, stop treating me like a princess.” I turned and took off toward the barn. My shoulder did hurt a little as I ran. I tried to ignore it.

  Luckily, Frankie ran straight into the barn, where Hektor caught him. Martha came jogging into the barn behind me and when I saw her I was overcome by guilt—she’d never been anything but nice to me. She always tried to talk to Mom when I had a bad trip and get her to go easy on me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay. We all probably treat you with kid gloves too much. I think we figure you have enough tough stuff to deal with in your life.”

  I looked at the ground, embarrassed by my outburst. But didn’t they treat me like a princess because my mother had so much money? Or was it really because my mom was sick? “I just want to be like Hailey or Jane.”

  “I know,” Martha said. “I know just how you feel.”

  Martha never talked about her burns and what she’d lived through. She’d probably been teased and stared at and treated differently as a kid. But she never compared her experience to mine. I got enough comparative cancer sympathy from other people. They didn’t mean any harm. I knew they were just trying to relate to me. But I’d had my fill of my friend/ relative/ neighbor had ovarian/ breast/ stomach/ brain cancer stories. The stories were either meant to be super inspiring—and she’s alive today! Or a commiseration—it’s so sad. Neither made me feel much better because this Momcer (mom with cancer) was all mine.

  Chapter 36

  * * *

  Hektor asked Martha what to do with Frankie.

  I stepped forward to get him. “I’ll take him.”

  “You’re not getting back on,” Martha said.

  “I guess not,” I said. “I wonder why he did that anyway? He was perfectly relaxed . . .”

  “The lunge whip.”

  I nodded, now remembering Martha raising it. She hadn’t snapped it, only raised it, but it had been enough to send Frankie into a frenzy. “He was terrified.”

  I took the lead rope from Hektor and walked Frankie toward his stall. I wasn’t mad at him. More than anything, I just wanted to understand him. He could be so normal sometimes and then, just like that, something would set him off.

  Martha walked after me down the aisle. “We should call your mom and tell her what happened.”

  I stopped Frankie and turned. “Why? I’m fine. She’s just going to freak out.” Talk about setting someone off. If Mom knew I’d fallen off Frankie? She didn’t even know I was riding him. She’d never let me ride him again, that was for sure.

  “She’d want to know right away.”

  I sighed. “She’s not even picking me up today. She’s busy with work. She’s totally stressing out about getting things done before her surgery. I don’t want to bother her.” Oh, I’d done it all right. I’d played the cancer card. One moment I didn’t want to be defined by my Momcer and the next I was happily using it to my advantage.

  “Is Lauren picking you up?”

  “No, my dad.”

  “Then you should call him.”

  “Can’t I just tell him when he comes? Please?”

  “Promise you will?” Martha stared at me like she knew I would somehow forget.

  “Promise.”

  Hailey and Jane had been riding and when they’d heard what happened to me, they were all concerned.

  “I’m totally fine,” I told them. “It was no big deal.” I wanted to forget the whole thing, especially how I’d told Martha not to baby me. I was glad everyone had been out riding and hadn’t heard that part.

  When Dad picked me up, my shoulder was aching a little more. I’d definitely be taking some ibuprofen as soon as possible. I just wanted to go home.

  Then, instead of getting on the Saw Mill, Dad turned into the parking lot of the diner.

  “Wait, what?” I turned in my seat to look at him. “What’s wrong? Did something happen? Is Mom in the hospital?”

  Tradition with Dad went like this—when something was wrong, he took me out to eat. E.J.’s in the city, the diner in Westchester. We had our spots. He’d order us waffles and egg creams and he’d level with me, in a way that Mom never did. Dad would let me know what was really going on with Mom’s cancer after she had essentially kept me in the dark all in the name of protecting me from life’s evils.

  “No, everything’s okay. I just thought we should talk.”

  Even though I only wanted to go home, I didn’t tell Dad that. We parked and went inside. It was 4:30, my shoulder throbbed, and my appetite for whatever dinner Lulu was cooking that night would no doubt be ruined, but it didn’t matter.

  The menu was on the paper placemat, the same one I used to draw on when I was young enough for the waiter to bring me crayons. I almost wished I could ask for crayons now, just to give me something to do.

  The waitress brought our egg creams. Dad took a big sip, like he was fortifying himself. “You know I don’t believe in lying to you.”

  “But Mom does . . .” Did I really want the truth? I acted like I did to Mom, but maybe the ignorant, over-protected route was best. I stared at the placemat. It had a color-by-number butterfly and a small word search with words like bacon and waffle and juice. I knew where every word was from memory, even the backward ones.

  “It’s harder for her to talk honestly about her own health. It might be different if I were sick.”

  Sometimes I wondered what it would be like if I could trade a sick mom for a sick dad. Which one would I choose? It was a horrible thing to think, really, but I couldn’t stop myself. I guess I always assumed my dad would die first because he was older. I’d never thought I’d lose my mom. Now, with Dad that much older, something could happen to him, too, and I’d be all alone. Who would I live with? Wendy? Susie? Dad’s younger sister who lived in California and I barely knew?

  “The surgical intervention is going to give her a good shot at going back into remission, but it’s going to be tough on her body. She doesn’t have much strength now.”

  “Surgical intervention?” I said. “The doctors have gotten to you, too?” Why did doctors always come up with these nice ways of saying the most awful things? Like radiation therapy. Massage was therapeutic. Not radiation. And it wasn’t surgical intervention. It was surgery. The kind where they sliced you open and cut up your insides, all in the name of good health.

  Dad laughed. “Okay, surgery. After the surgery, she’s going to be hit hard.”

  Now cancer sounded like a contact sport. If ovarian cancer were football, Mom was about to be in the Super Bowl.

  “She’s weak already so surgery’s going to be harder on her this time. She’s not going to be up to much so you’ll have the pleasure of my company more.”

  I stirred my egg cream. I wasn’t sure I even liked egg creams anymore. When I had one with Hailey once, she got all grossed out because she thought it actually had eggs in it, which, given the name, wasn’t that crazy an idea. It was just soda water and chocolate syrup and milk. But soda water and milk was kind of a gross combination. Still, it seemed cruel to tell Dad that I didn’t like them anymore. “Okay.”

  Dad rubbed his beard. “That’s it? Questions?”

  “What’s there to ask?” I wiped my mouth unnecessarily with my napkin. Before he could work harder to get me to open up, I changed the subject. “So, I fell off today.”

  “Off Drizzle or Sammy?” Dad looked surprised, but not particularly worried.
After all, I was perfectly unhurt.

  “No, I rode Frankie, one of Jane’s ponies.”

  “Susie had you ride him? Does Mom know?” I could see Dad’s brain churning—he was already a few steps ahead, figuring out the goods on this one.

  “At first Tommy asked me to ride him because Jane was sick. I rode him really well, so he kept having me ride him. I wasn’t riding Tyler because he was hurt. It was just a freak thing. He saw Martha lungeing and spooked at the lunge whip and he reared and—”

  “He reared?”

  “It wasn’t a big deal really.” I wished I hadn’t said he reared.

  “Mom doesn’t know yet, does she?”

  “Can we keep it between you and me?” I gave Dad my sweetest smile and stirred the bubbles in my egg cream. If you listened closely, you could hear them fizzing.

  Dad shook his head.

  “I want to ride him again . . . if Tommy asks me to. I don’t want Mom flipping out and saying no.”

  “She’s going to,” Dad said, matter of fact.

  “Can you talk to her?”

  Dad shrugged. “I can, but you know she’s going to be upset and protective of you.”

  I looked out the window. Dad was always so accepting of Mom’s reactions. Did that come with marrying when you were older? Did it come from marrying a powerful professional? Was it because she was sick? I couldn’t always remember how it had been when I was younger, before Mom was sick.

  “Sometimes I don’t love riding Tyler.” I felt like I was testing out how it sounded. How Dad would react.

  “Hmm.”

  “I didn’t really—” I was going to say, want him, but I stopped myself. Dad had a faraway look in his eye, like he couldn’t stop thinking of Mom. I didn’t want to be the spoiled brat who didn’t like her fancy pony. I couldn’t be that girl. Not now.

  “So what can I do to help Mom?”

  Dad brightened and I knew I’d made the right decision. “We just need to be there for her . . . tell her how much we love her.” Dad trailed off, his eyes moist. “The problem is there’s not much we can do. That’s the worst part of all of this.”

  His huge love for Mom was embarrassing. It made me uncomfortable. It always seemed like their love was uneven, like maybe he loved her more than she loved him. Or maybe he just loved harder than she did. But it was touching, too, in a way. I mean, he really loved her. I ached for him. Somehow it felt like this was the hardest on him, although I knew that shouldn’t be true.

  Dad inhaled sharply, pushing back his tears. He wiped at the corner of one eye and took a sip of his egg cream. “We’ll be okay, we’ll be okay.”

  It sounded like a mantra. Like something people say again and again before they go into the ring to make them think positively. Like, I will stay patient and let the jumps come to me. I will stay patient.

  He looked at me. “You aren’t having much of your egg cream.”

  I smiled and took a big gulp, even though it made me feel kind of gross as it bubbled down my throat.

  Chapter 37

  * * *

  Dad made me tell Mom about Frankie. That I’d been riding him and I’d fallen off.

  “You’re not hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  She looked at Dad. “Maybe we should take her to see Dr. Garner just in case?”

  “She’s fine.” Dad rubbed my shoulder—thankfully my other shoulder because the one I’d fallen on did kind of hurt. I didn’t know if it was because of what Dad said to me at the diner or whether I was looking at her for the first time in a while but Mom looked terrible. Her eyes looked too big and cloudy. Her skin looked thin, like if you scratched at the surface it would flake away. I couldn’t imagine how someone could cut her open without killing her right then and there.

  Mom narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to have a word with Tommy. And Susie? What was she thinking?”

  “I think she thought I’d asked you and it was okay.”

  “Tommy should have never put you on that pony. He’s dangerous.”

  “He’s not dangerous. He’s gotten so much better.” I wanted to tell Mom how well I rode him, but I didn’t think that would matter to her. “His rearing was a freak thing. Please don’t get mad at Tommy. It was my fault.” It would be horrible if Mom laid into Tommy. He was the only one in the barn who didn’t treat me like a total princess and that would be over forever.

  “You’re not supposed to ride any ponies but your own.” Mom leaned her head back on the couch. “I just don’t want you getting hurt.”

  “Okay,” I said. I couldn’t bear to argue with her given how she looked.

  I went to my room and flopped down on my bed. Riding Frankie had been the best thing ever, something I was excited about, and now that was officially over.

  I pulled out my phone and checked my messages. I sat upright as I saw I had a notification from The Chronicle that someone had responded to my old post looking for information about Frankie. After the initial bunch of messages wishing me good luck, nothing else had come in and I had pretty much given up on finding out anything about him that way. I moved to my computer and pulled up The Chronicle site. It took me a moment to find the old thread from my post but then I was there, clicking on the message from a woman named Janette Reese.

  My heart raced when I read your post. About a year and a half ago, I sold my daughter’s pony, Blue. At the time we were desperate for the money. Both my husband and I had lost our jobs and we were about to foreclose on our house. We couldn’t afford the board on Blue and then this guy came to the barn we were at and offered us a few thousand dollars for him. I didn’t want to sell him and the guy kind of gave me the creeps. But he had the money in cash and we really had no choice. Ever since I’ve been wondering what happened to Blue. I’ve been so worried that man bought him for meat. But why buy a pony, and why pay so much for meat? It didn’t make sense. Then I was worried he bought him for some sort of cult sacrifice because he kept saying how perfect it was that he was white and had the blue eye. I know that sounds crazy but you never know about people. I’m so glad he’s okay and has a good home. I wonder what happened with that man and how Blue got to your barn. Thank you for giving me peace of mind after all this time.

  So now we had a new question: Who was the man who had bought Frankie and what purpose had he bought him for?

  After some Advil and a few days, my shoulder felt fine. Tyler was sound again. Jane had recuperated fully and was now back riding Frankie.

  When we were all hanging out by the ring watching Susie teach the big eq kids, I told Hailey and Jane more about what I’d learned from Janette. I’d already called them to tell them about her reply. Since then I’d exchanged lots of messages with Janette and learned more about Frankie. Her daughter had shown Frankie on the local circuit, which explained why he knew how to jump and do his changes, but wasn’t very polished. It also explained why he was used to being clipped and bathed and all that stuff. Frankie had not had the brand when Janette owned him. As far as she knew, he’d also never known any tricks.

  “Did you ask her if he was scared of tractor-trailers?” Hailey said.

  “Yup. I asked about tractor-trailers, men in baseball hats, and lunge whips and she said she couldn’t remember any of those ever being a problem.”

  Hailey ran the zipper of her half chap up and down. “So whoever the man who bought him was—he taught him tricks, branded him, and made him scared of all those things?”

  “He taught him one trick. As far as we know there aren’t any others.” I watched as Caitlyn Rogers, without stirrups, rode the course. Sometimes Susie made us ride without stirrups on the flat and that was bad enough. “How do they even do that?” I said. “Look how tight Caitlyn is.”

  Jane didn’t take her eyes off Caitlyn. “I’ve jumped without stirrups.”

  “A whole course?” Hailey said.

  “No, but a few jumps. It’s not impossible. You just have to get strong enough.”

  Caitly
n jumped through an in-and-out, holding her position perfectly in the air. She was Susie’s best chance at a ribbon in the Finals this year. Susie had been an assistant trainer at West Hills when they had won the Medal and Maclay Finals year after year, but she’d never had a student of her own win. If Caitlyn won or even got a top ribbon, it would be huge for Susie.

  I was thinking about how someday it would likely be me, Jane, and Hailey jumping three-foot-six courses without our stirrups. Someday we would be the big eq kids of the barn. If she had a nice enough horse, Jane would be the one who might be able to win it all. It felt predestined like that already—the kids who won everything in the ponies most often became the kids who won everything in the juniors. I couldn’t imagine myself jumping courses without stirrups. It seemed as impossible as when we’d seen a vaulting demonstration before a grand prix class at Southampton. Vaulting was where you basically did all these crazy gymnastics like handstands while trotting and cantering on a horse on a lunge line. You didn’t use a saddle but instead the horse wore a surcingle around its middle. The vaulters we saw at Southampton were from the Big Apple Circus and it was a cross-promotional thing where they hoped people watching the show would go see the circus.

  “So she had no idea what the guy bought Frankie for?” Hailey asked.

  I shrugged. “No. He just said he was perfect. But who knows what that means?”

  Caitlyn had finished her course and now Jane turned to look at us. “Perfect for what? I can’t imagine him being perfect for anything.”

  I rolled the word around in my mind. Perfect. “He liked his blue eye.”

  Jane said, “But what would you want a blue eye for?”

  I thought about the vaulters again and the circus. “Would a white pony with a blue eye be cool in a circus?” I had just said it on a whim. Hailey and Jane looked at me like maybe I was on to something. I continued thinking out loud, “Maybe he knows other tricks. Remember those vaulters in Southampton? Maybe he was a circus pony and he did tricks and someone also did vaulting on him.”