Dawn glanced at Virginia. The woman smiled.
When the man sitting next to Dawn touched her wedding band, Virginia stiffened. Though most women would probably have instinctively pulled their hand away, Dawn reacted quite differently. She pushed his hand away. The man’s response surprised Virginia even more. He simply nodded.
Each time they arrived at the destination for one of the passengers, seemingly the person always in the middle, several people got out, then piled back in. This process was repeated until Dawn and Virginia were the only passengers left.
“How much farther?” Dawn asked. The buildings were becoming increasingly more upscale, more like most any other city in the world, but it was getting dark.
“We’re almost there,” Virginia said, motioning she had more to say, but later.
“Day O – Day O!” The man looked at Dawn in his rearview mirror. “Day O!”
Finally arriving at the hotel, as the driver retrieved their bags from the trunk of the cab, Virginia leaned close to Dawn. “Do not tip too much. You will have paid handsomely already.” Dawn slid two twenty dollar bills out of her wallet. Virginia motioned for her to put one back.
The car driver frowned when Dawn paid him and walked back around to the driver’s side. Virginia tugged Dawn by the arm and picked up their bags and headed inside. “We could have been here thirty minutes ago. He dropped us last so you would have to pay more.”
Dawn glanced back over her shoulder.
“No, don’t,” Virginia said. There were several young men loitering outside the door. “Don’t make eye contact.”
As soon as they entered the lobby, Virginia let out a sigh of relief. “I hope they serve food here because we’re not going anywhere.”
“There’s supposed to be a five-star restaurant.”
“Good.” Virginia marched with Dawn to the registration counter. Both waited for the clerk to look up from his desk. “A reservation for Dawn Iredell,” Dawn said.
The man entered Dawn’s name into the computer and glanced at Virginia. “This reservation is for only one. You have two.”
“It’s a suite with two beds,” Dawn began, “so….”
Virginia intervened. “How much extra?”
The man punched additional information into the computer. “Forty-two dollars a night.”
“It will only be for one night. For me at least,” Virginia said, and then thought better. “Well, maybe more. I will see how comfortable I am here.”
“You will be most comfortable,” the man said rather indignantly.
“Wonderful then.”
When he handed Virginia the key, Dawn picked up their bags and followed her to the elevator.
“The old coot,” Virginia said, after they’d boarded and the doors closed.
Dawn smiled. “I have a feeling I’d still be riding around in the cab if it weren’t for you.”
“Well, needless to say I have not stayed at a hotel such as this during my previous trips to Uganda, but I do know the ropes.”
They reached their floor, exited the elevator, and Dawn led the way. “I wonder if they have room service.”
Virginia laughed. “I doubt it.”
Their room was not spacious, but did have two beds, a sitting area, a refrigerator, a safe, and a decent bathroom. Dawn opened the curtain. No view. Just another hotel. “Better that than seeing the squalor,” Virginia said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Dawn looked at her.
“I have a love-hate relationship with Uganda.”
Dawn stared at what little of the road she could see down between the buildings. There were people milling about. One man pushed another. Both walked away. “Why do you come, Virginia?”
“To help.”
Dawn nodded. If she could ask her Aunt Maeve that question she probably would have answered the same way.
“Oh, wow!” Virginia picked up a brochure off the dresser. “There is room service. And look at this, a lovely menu!”
After dinner selections were made and orders placed, they had time to wash up, Virginia first. While waiting for her turn, Dawn took the opportunity to phone home. She talked to Carol, told her everything was okay and to let Randy know. “I got through easily to our landline but his cell wouldn’t come up, not even for texting. Tell him I’m fine, that Virginia is with me and that we’re safe and snug at the hotel and waiting for dinner to be brought up.”
“Virginia?”
“A woman I met on the plane.”
She heard the children in the background. “Mommy! Mommy!”
“Put them on speaker phone,” Dawn said, laughing.
All three of them started shouting at the same time.
“Hi, Mommy!”
“No! Me! Hi, Mommy!
Maria chimed in. “Hi, Dawn! Mommy has a date!”
“A date?” She’d never known Linda to go on a date. She said she swore off men forever after Maria’s father.
“He’s a count-tent.”
“Well, that’s nice. Are you all behaving?”
“No.” Carol laughed. “They have me pulling my hair out. They miss you.”
“I’ll be home in a few days. Be good. I love you.”
With a litany of “I love you’s” in return, Dawn hung up just as Virginia emerged from the bathroom.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
Dawn nodded and wiped her eyes. “I’m fine. I just realized how far away from home I am. My today is their tomorrow.”
Virginia smiled. “In theory. Go wash up. Dinner will be here any minute.”
Chapter Eight
Junior tacked his new horse Overdue Max and led him out into the shedrow.
“What are you doing?” Ben asked.
“I’m going to see what I got.”
Ben hesitated. “You don’t want to have him checked out first?”
“Why? Do you think I should?”
“No. Not necessarily.” Ben turned to walk away.
“Dammit, Ben, come on. What are you saying? What would you do?”
“He’s just playing with you,” Tom said, ducking out from under the webbing of Alley’s stall, grooming bucket in hand. “You want a leg up?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do now. Ben…?”
“I’ll see you up at the track,” Ben said.
Junior looked at Tom. “I swear I’m sick to my stomach.”
Tom laughed and gave him a leg up. “You’re going to second-guess your every move until you’re in that Winner’s Circle, no matter how many horses you train. Get used to it.”
Junior mounted and walked “Max” around the shedrow talking to himself. “What is wrong with you? You’re acting like you’re some kind of idiot. Get a grip.”
His father-in-law Tony Guciano called to him from their barn. “Is that the big horse?”
“Yep!”
“I’ll see you up at the track.”
Aw geez. Junior bowed his head.
“Wait for me,” his mother-in-law Loretta said.
Junior glanced ahead. Tom and Ben were almost to the track kitchen. “Oh no. Is that the film crew?” He was never one to shy from an audience, but at the moment he wished he could just disappear. “And the horse I came in on. Sorry, Max!” He patted the horse on the shoulder. The horse was tensing up too. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” He stood in his stirrup irons to even his weight and glanced back over his shoulder. In addition to his in-laws, here come Dusty hobbling along.
“Sing, sing…” he said to himself. “Sing.” He sat back down in the saddle. “Hey there little red riding hood, you sure are looking good.” His voice cracked. “Oh, God. I sound like I’m going through puberty. What the fuck? You’re everything a good ole wolf would want. OWWWW!”
Firestone yelled to him. “Is that Max?”
Junior nodded.
“Be tied on.”
“I’m always tied on. Tied-on’s my middle name.” He stood in his stirrups again, adjusting, adjusting, and then sa
t back down. He checked the girth, thinking - I wonder if they galloped him in blinkers? Did they run him in cheaters? Why is he looking around so much? He stroked the horse’s neck again. “I mean Bah….Bah....” he sang.
Gibbons joined the fray, and along the way, walking with her cane, Betty Greer. “Who’s that?” she asked, already knowing since the horse was all Junior could talk about earlier when he came to gallop one for her.
“This is Overdue Max! He’s my man!”
“You’re going to rub the hair off him,” Betty teased. The horse was all spiffy and shiny and looked more like he was going to the races than a morning gallop. He even had braids in his mane; Lucy’s touch last night when she came to see Max for the first time.
The track would be closed for training in just a few minutes so there were very few horses being exercised. Junior had already gotten on twelve horses this morning. Max was number thirteen. That thought crossed his mind as he walked Max out onto the racetrack. The horse was feeling good and danced a little at the start. Junior trotted him down the rail, stopped him in front of the grandstand and let him just stand there a moment.
“Okay. So you’re sensible. That’s good.”
Max had shipped in just a week ago from Mountaineer. His previous trainer said he’d only galloped him a couple of times since then. He couldn’t remember the exact days but said he went just fine. All this information ran through Junior’s mind as he turned the horse and urged him from a trot into a canter.
“You win your lifetime conditions, so I know you can run.” The horse bowed his neck and reached out nicely, a little snort with each stride, the kind one likes to hear. He picked up his stride a little more, seemed content to keep that pace, and galloped through the far turn, down the backstretch, into the clubhouse turn, and up the stretch like a champ. Junior was all smiles as he passed his entourage on the rail. “I’m in love!” he yelled. “And he ain’t even my type!”
“We’ll edit that out,” Leon said. “That’s a wrap.”
~ * ~
Richard walked down through the Casino talking with the patrons, shaking hands, waving to the regulars, smiling, laughing and then rode the elevator down to the ground floor. Wendy looked up when he entered their combined office. “Making the rounds?”
He nodded. “Did you hear from Logan?”
“No.”
Logan was the building inspector Richard had contacted when one of the maintenance crew found a crack in the grandstand foundation after the earthquake. The inspector’s “people” were all over the ground floor yesterday checking for additional cracks.
“Are you worried?”
“No. Not really.” Richard sat down at and picked up a note on his desk. “What’s this?”
“I don’t know,” Wendy said, preoccupied with a project she was working on.
The message read, “Don’t be late. Janet.”
“Janet? Who’s Janet?”
Wendy shrugged.
Richard sat staring at the note, trying to recall a Janet in his life. “I don’t have any appointments today? Do I have an appointment?”
“Not that I know of. Check your calendar.”
Richard glanced at his calendar then back at the note. “No number. No nothing. That’s not like you.”
“Maybe that’s because I didn’t take the message.”
“Who did?”
Wendy looked at him and laughed. “I don’t know. I have no idea. It could have been anyone, not that I think you want to go out and ask everyone in the Secretary’s office and get them all talking. If you don’t think you know who it is, throw it away.”
“You’re kidding me. This is me we’re talking about.”
“I know, but it was worth a try. Give it to me. I’ll go ask.” She glanced back from the door. “Just as long as you’re sure about this.”
Richard hesitated. “Never mind.” He took the note back and quickly fed it into the shredder before he had a chance to change his mind. He stared at the remains in the see-through bin for a moment, then looked at Wendy. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I was just wondering how you function - and do it so well I might add.”
Richard laughed. “I leave no stone unturned.” No sooner said than Leon and his film crew entered the office.
“It’s showtime!”
Being the poster boy for most all of the promo ads, Richard was used to the makeup routine. Powdered, buffed, hair combed, and camera in place, he sat up tall in his chair and flashed an award-winning smile. “I’m Richard Morrison and I am the General Manager of Nottingham Downs & Casino. I take pride in the work we do here at Nottingham. We have undertaken what so many in this business thought was impossible and we have made it work. Our motto ‘Where no Thoroughbred will ever be forgotten’ is an example we want everyone to follow.”
Leon gestured for one of his crew to take a close-up.
“Our commitment to the life of the Thoroughbred is stated on our racing program. It’s on the billboard out front. It’s prominent everywhere in the barn area. It’s in our hearts. We walk it. We live it. We breathe it. Nottingham Downs has raised the bar for horseracing in this country. We see the headlines. We see the national news. Are we saying we’re above all that? No. But we work hard here every day at making this racing industry better. And that’s what it’s going to take. Hard work, diligence, and transparency across the board.”
~ * ~
It didn’t take long for Cracker Jack Henderson to get settled in at T-Bone’s Place. He transferred his clothes from his suitcase to his designated dresser; top drawer for his socks and toiletries, a few mementos on the dresser top. He placed the book he’d been currently reading on the bed table, his slippers under the bed. He hung a handful of clothes in the closet, his flannel bathrobe on the back of the door, toiletries in the bathroom, and deemed himself “at home.” Lunch time, he took his seat at the table.
“So,” Steven asked. “You keeping your car?”
“Oh yeah. In fact I just passed my driver’s test with flying colors. Since I’m ‘of age’ I have to test each year now.”
“Flying Colors,” Frank said. “I loved that horse.”
“Welcome to Frank’s world,” Jack said.
Cracker Jack smiled. He’d eaten meals with the old-timers before, many times, but this was the first time dining as actually one of them. It felt nice. It felt right. It felt good being in the fold. Plus, he’d be getting three delicious meals a day. He’d gotten so he couldn’t stand his own cooking anymore. He hoped to get his appetite back.
Lucy and Vicky made several trips back and forth to the kitchen and placed the serving bowls of spaghetti and meatballs, salad, and bread on the table. Lucy and Junior’s daughter Julie was perched in her highchair next to where Lucy always sat. As a rule, Vicky sat on the other side. Some adjustments in the seating arrangements were being made since Cracker Jack was permanently joining them. Vicky would now be sitting between Jeannie and Bill. The newly-agreed-upon seating arrangement did not come easy. There were so many things to consider. Who liked facing the windows? Who didn’t? Who didn’t want so and so to poke them with their elbows?
As one of the two residents in wheelchairs, Jeanne being the other, Clint said, “It was a big deal.”
Lucy ultimately had turned the decision-making process into a game, complete with voting vouchers. It took a lot of thought on her part and an equal amount of work on the old-timers part when she laid it out for them.
“I don’t understand the rules.”
“Me neither.”
“Someone could cheat and we’d never know.”
“Who?”
“Anybody.”
“No cheating allowed,” Lucy said. “See, it’s like Monopoly. You just move your dice around the table and where it lands….”
All of the meals were served family-style. Small bowls and platters were placed all up and down the table so everyone only had to pass to the person beside them. Miguel
and Jack had the steadiest hands and usually helped with serving the coffee, tea, and water.
The conversation during the meals was usually lively and most always revolved around horseracing which was right up Cracker Jack’s alley, having been an international sports commentator for most of his life.
Frank remembered back when Cracker Jack got his start on the local sports talk show. “You were pretty damn hard to forget,” he liked telling him often. “First time I saw you in person, I needed a leg up just to shake your hand.”
Cracker Jack was “tall as a tree” in his younger days and still stood close to six-foot-five. He was always skinny as a rail and even skinnier now. But what was most memorable about him was his trademark long, bushy, wild hair, snow-white and just as long and wild as ever. Little Julie stared at him wide-eyed, obviously fascinated with his hair. When Cracker Jack shook his head from side to side, she giggled.
Jeanne laughed and reached over and tickled her to hear her giggle again. All the old timers loved having Julie at T-Bone’s with them, but none more than Jeanne. Unable to stand but for a minute or so at a time, she was basically confined to a wheelchair. In her own words she was, “A captive babysitter.” She loved holding Julie and rocking her to sleep.
“So what’s the plan?” Clint asked.
Cracker Jack shrugged. “Taking one day at a time.”
“I hear ya,” Steven said. “I’m just wondering, with you having your car and all….”
Junior came in the back door and headed straight for the kitchen sink to wash up. Whenever he had the time, he came home for lunch. The Miller barn didn’t have any horses running today and he only had two horses to pony, one in the sixth race, the other in the eighth. “Is there any spaghetti left?”
“Do you want it heated up?” Lucy asked.
“Nope. It’ll be just fine the way it is.” He gave his little girl a kiss on the top of her head, cause for more giggles, and sat down next to his wife. His bride, he called her. She got a kiss too.
“Well, you’re certainly in a good mood,” Vicky said.
Junior nodded. “Max galloped so great this morning!”
Book Four of the Winning Odds Series: Soon to be a Movie Page 6