“Who else can we call then?” I asked. “Call Addie or Taylor.”
She gave me a sheepish smile. “My phone’s actually dead, and I don’t know their numbers.”
“Too many selfies?” I said.
“Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll walk. Let’s go.”
“Okay,” I replied.
I headed off, not moderating my pace to take into account her shoes. She stayed a few steps behind me through the show grounds but once we got onto the sandy path heading over to Grand Prix Village she lagged behind.
Feeling badly for her, I slowed down. “Are you okay?”
“My shoes are going to be completely ruined.”
“Which I’m sure you’ll tell your mom right away. That and how I lost the golf cart.”
Silence. It was dark on the path with only the light of my phone to guide us. I thought we might come across some other people in a golf cart heading back from the grand prix and they might offer us a ride. But we saw no one. Only shadows of bushes and trees. I felt grass against my legs and startled.
“What is it?” Dakota said.
“Nothing. Just grass, I think.”
“What if it was a gator?”
There were alligators in the canals and ponds along the grounds. Sometimes you’d see one sunning itself in plain day. But it was unlikely one would come out of the water and brush against my leg. And they weren’t large enough to bother people—they stuck to the occasional Jack Russell.
“It felt smooth, not like an alligator would.”
“How do you know what an alligator feels like?” Dakota said.
“I’m just guessing. They’d feel scratchy.”
“I kind of want to take my shoes off. I’ll be able to walk faster,” she said.
“No, you better not. All the manure mixed in these paths… You could get ringworm or something.”
“Gross,” she said. “I’m probably getting it anyway. All the sand is getting in between my toes.”
“We’re almost there.”
We made it onto pavement. Up ahead, I saw the barn. Dakota stopped and took off her shoes, emptying out the sand. I waited for her to put them back on and we walked together to the barn and into the house. Inside she took her shoes off again and held them up so I could see. “Trashed,” she said. “I might as well just throw them away. Three hundred dollars—down the drain.”
“It sucks,” I said. I wasn’t going to say I was sorry. This was not my fault. And plus I’d seen her closet when I was putting away her new show coats. She had fifteen pairs of designer shoes just like them. “Make sure you wash your feet off well.”
“What did you think, I was going to just go to bed without taking a shower?” She gave me one last evil look and turned and walked upstairs.
I tried Chris again. Still went to voicemail. I needed someone to talk to so I called Ryan instead. I told him all about Dakota and her spoiled ridiculousness. He thought it was good for her that she had to walk home in the shoes. “Maybe it’ll teach her not to wear slutty shoes,” he said.
“Or maybe she’s on the phone to her mom right now getting me fired,” I said. “A golf cart costs thousands. What if I can’t find it?”
Ryan spoke calmly. “If you get fired, you’ll get another job. I’m sure they’re other people like you who go to Florida with a job all set and then it doesn’t work out the way they thought it would.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “Do you have to be so reasonable? It’s like you’re fucking fifty years old.”
Ryan laughed. “I guess I have always been kind of ahead of my time.” It was true. He was very popular in middle school and high school, much more popular than me, but he was always the kid who was so much further ahead of everyone else. He had studying down to a science so he could do the least amount of work and still get As. He threw mind-blowing parties that kids died to get an invite to and somehow managed to get away with charging a cover fee so in the end he came away with pocket money to last until the next party.
We talked about Chris and I told Ryan how he hadn’t answered. I didn’t tell him my irrational fear that he was with MB who wasn’t showing that night either. I complained, “I just feel like he’s not there for me.”
“He wasn’t going to Florida to be there for you,” he said soberly. “He was going to build his business and you weren’t even supposed to be there. Then, all of a sudden, there you are. You can’t expect him to be there for you. Maybe you need to be there for him.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. I thought I’d been trying, being understanding, but maybe I needed to do more. Mary Beth’s words about my sex life with Chris resurfaced in my head.
“It’s been known to happen.” I could picture Ryan smiling on the other end of the phone. Maybe there would come a time that he’d need me for advice, or comfort, or something. So far our relationship had been the other way around—me always needing him.
“Thank, Ry,” I said.
“Anytime, H.”
Chapter 19
The golf cart hadn’t been found by mid-week and I’d learned that ours wasn’t the only one that had been stolen at WEF this year. Apparently golf carts had been disappearing from rings, never to return, as had saddles. Another barn had also been hit by the saddle thief, as he or she was being referred to, and people were speculating that there might be a connection between the ringside and barn thefts. The biggest question, though, was with the barn thefts—how was the thief getting past some of the gates and the locked tack rooms and trunks? Was it an inside job? All around the show, people were hiring locksmiths to install additional locks or they were taking their saddles home for the night.
I called and spoke with Audrina and she was more concerned with how awful we must have felt to have been robbed than with the money she was out. “Is everything okay with Dakota?” she asked tentatively.
“Yup, it’s going fine,” I said.
I wondered whether Dakota had told her about the ruined shoes but I guessed not when Audrina said, “Oh, thank God, Hannah, you are a lifesaver.”
I wondered how much Dakota spoke or texted with her parents. My guess was not much. Audrina said she’d order a new golf cart. I asked when she and Winston would be coming to visit and she seemed to dance around the subject, throwing out phrases like, “Need to pin down Winston,” “Get our calendars aligned,” and “Find a workable date.”
I found out why Chris hadn’t answered his phone Saturday night when Dakota and I needed help. It had all worked out okay for us but it still bothered me that I had needed him and he hadn’t been available. He had taken an Ambien and said he must not have heard his phone.
“Since when you do take Ambien?” I asked.
“I just haven’t been sleeping well. I needed a good night’s sleep.”
“Where did you even get it?”
“Jimmy gave me a couple. He said I looked tired and I told him I hadn’t been sleeping well.”
With Valentine’s Day coming up, I decided to ask Linda what salon I should go to for a wax. “Not super expensive, though,” I said. “Not the salon of the stars. I’m on a serious budget.”
It was true. My job had a decent salary as far as I could tell not having had a job before but life was expensive, especially at the horse show. I always thought I’d run back to the house for lunch but then I never had time and I ended up eating the overpriced food at the show. Too many times Dakota wanted to get take-out and I never wanted her parents to pay for my food too, so I always split the bill and paid my portion.
“What are you getting done? Hair cut, mani/pedi?” Linda asked.
“I need to, um, get a wax. Bikini.”
It wasn’t like I was wearing a bathing suit anytime soon but Linda must have known I was just taking care of some landscaping issues.
“You don’t want to wax. Go get laser.” She told me to see Irina at the spa she went to. I thought about asking her if it hurt more than waxing but decided I would sound wi
mpy. Instead I made an appointment and found myself a few days later in Irina’s capable hands. I also found out that it did hurt. That it felt like someone stabbing you with sharp glass repeatedly. But I closed my eyes and held my breath and made it through. Irina asked me if I wanted everything off. “Is that what, I mean, like, most women do?”
“Depend,” she said, “On what the boyfriend like. On what you like.”
“I don’t know what I like,” I said. “And I don’t know what he likes either.” I could hear Mary Beth’s voice in my head. “But a Brazilian… that’s everything, right?”
She smiled. “Yes, all off.”
“Okay,” I said. “Go for it.”
I decided I needed something radical to get Chris and me out of our rut. I felt like he was so busy with his clients that during the day I barely saw him. He’d even picked up two more clients since he’d been at WEF. That was good for him, but not good for us. I was busy too, but I would have found time to hang out if he had time. So much of his time revolved around Lily. Riding her horses, teaching her, walking the courses with her, strategizing and planning the show schedule with her and her father. If Lily weren’t homely looking with dull, frizzy hair and a kind of unfortunate ill-proportioned nose, I would have been seriously jealous and worried. But, thankfully, there was nothing attractive about Lily. I’m sure she idolized Chris and fantasized about him but there was no way he was going to be interested in her.
Sadly, at night, Chris was more interested in getting a good night’s sleep, a full eight hours, than sex with me, it seemed. Which was why drastic measures had to be taken.
Once the laser was over, it was over. It didn’t hurt anymore. More like a dull hum in that general area. I drove straight from Irina’s office to the mall to Victoria’s Secret where I bought two pairs of skimpy, lacey matching bras and thongs. When I got home, I looked at Irina’s work. My skin was only slightly speckled red but she said that would go away in a few hours. Was it sexy? I had no idea. Would Chris think it was sexy? Would he even notice? I took the underwear out of the bag and held it up. At least I’d done something. I’d taken steps to get him interested in me again. Now, I just had to get him alone and put my bag of tricks to work.
The end of each show day was a wonderful time. It was especially good if the day had gone well. But either way, it had a sort of slow-down charm that reminded me of stories of how people used to sit on their porch in the summer and have a cool drink and maybe read the evening news. The mornings at the show were rushed—racing around to put in orders with the in-gate guys, making sure the right horses were braided and at the show, putting the right bit on the right bridle. There wasn’t much time to enjoy the sun rising over the show grounds, unless you found yourself at the ring for an early class with a few moments to appreciate the horse show coming to life. But the late afternoons and evenings were for sitting on a tack trunk or in a chair in the tack room either at the horse show or back at the farm and taking a moment just to breathe as the sun dipped in the sky, casting shadows all around. We’d plan for the next day, make up the white-board, discuss any changes to tack or preparation but there would always be moments to reflect on the day’s performances and to gossip a little. Sometimes Linda and I sat on the comfortable wicker furniture on the portico at the farm overlooking the ring as the automatic sprinklers watered the footing. A hawk sailed overhead, perhaps looking for a tasty Jack Russell, and a mourning dove cooed. Rudi and Taffy collapsed at our feet, tired from a day at the barn too—or in the case of Taffy, a day riding shotgun in the golf cart.
Linda would take a beer from the fridge and we’d relax as the temperature in the air went down and the occasional birds flew by. Linda offered me a beer the first few times but now she knew I didn’t like beer. (Even though I loved kissing Chris after he’d had a beer—that faint, yeasty taste.) I envied her as she tipped her head back and pulled on the beer. To my mind there seemed like nothing cooler than a woman who liked beer. And Linda wasn’t the kind of woman who only liked beer when she was out at a bar so she could keep up with the men.
Watching her drink her beer, I thought about Chris and how I’d first met him at the bar in Vermont. He had been drinking a beer. My stomach pulsed with the knowledge that I still hadn’t made my first move toward reinvigorating things between us. The underwear I’d bought still sat in a drawer and he hadn’t seen the work of Irina. Valentine’s Day had come and gone. We’d gone out to a nice dinner but then I had to go back to stay with Dakota. Chris had parked in the driveway and we’d kissed for a few moments but I’d felt a certain relief in his kisses, like he was grateful I had Dakota to look after and I wasn’t coming back to his condo. It was like the complete opposite of how we’d kissed fervently in the car in Vermont. When I whispered in his ear, “I’m sorry this is it for tonight,” he said, “Don’t worry about it,” and it felt like he actually meant it. Like he was happy to go home, take an Ambien, and sleep.
“Did I ruin your romantic little evening?” Dakota said when I came inside.
“No, it was nice.”
“No nookie for Chris tonight, though.”
Her crass words sent shivers down my spine. Maybe because Chris didn’t seem to care about nookie anymore.
“That’s just juvenile and uncalled for,” I snapped at Dakota, maybe a little too harshly, and went to my room. I hoped there was nothing worse then calling a girl who yearned to be mature juvenile.
Now, sitting with Linda, an idea flashed into my mind. I had to go over to his barn. Right now. He’d be winding down with Dale. Dale would head home and Chris would be about to. I’d stop him and jump him right there at the farm. In the office. On a tack trunk. My cheeks turned red and I worried that Linda might notice but she was staring out over the ring peacefully.
But the moment the idea took flight in my mind I was already tampering it down. Don’t be ridiculous. Like I could really do any of that. It isn’t me. I wouldn’t go through with it. Then, my mind quickly turned to anger at myself. Why couldn’t I do it? I had to do it. I had to do it to save things between Chris and me, and I had to do it now anyway just to prove to myself I had the guts.
I stood up and told Linda I forgot I needed to bring something over to Chris. I told myself not to think more about it as I drove over to his farm in the golf cart. I was doing it. But what if Dale and Chris were there talking for a while and my resolve weakened? No, it didn’t matter. I had to go through with it. I kept reciting in my mind on the drive over: I will do it. I will do it. I wasn’t even sure what it was yet. That part of my plan was unformed.
Dale’s car was gone. Chris’s was the only one there. It couldn’t have been more perfect. My timing was exquisite. He was probably just packing up.
I barely parked the golf cart before I was out of it and on my way into the barn, Jasper by my side. A few horses had their heads over their stall doors but most were munching hay. Arkos saw me and tossed his head like he was saying hello. Chris wasn’t in the aisle. I went into the office and found him sitting on a trunk looking at something on his phone.
“Hey,” I said.
He startled slightly. “Hi.”
“What’re you doing?”
“Just looking at a few emails before I head home.”
“How was your day?”
Chris shook his head like he didn’t really want to go into it.
“You showed Arkos?”
“Yeah. Eight faults.” He let out a heaving sigh. “I was talking with Jimmy. He thinks I’m wasting my time. That I should get rid of the horse. Cut my losses. Try to sell him as an eq horse just to get some of my money back. He said if I have Cassidy Rancher show him in the eq a few times someone’ll snap him up just because Cassidy was on him. He’s probably right.”
I was hearing Chris’s words but emotionally I wasn’t really processing them because my mind was on what I had come here to do. If I let that out of my sight, I’d surely give up.
I stepped toward Chris. We looked at each ot
her and I could tell he was wondering what the hell I was doing. Why I wasn’t responding with words like a normal person would or acknowledging anything about what he’d said. Instead I leaned down to his level and started kissing him. He kissed me back but it was weak, without much intention. I probably should have stopped right there but I had willed myself to keep going, no matter what. It was like riding a horse that might refuse—you had to go to a fence thinking the whole way that you were going to get to the other side. If, for one split second, you thought the horse might waver, it was over.
Chris stood up, I think to try to shake me off. “Hannah—” he said, his voice slightly annoyed but still trying to be delicate. “I don’t think now is—”
“Shhh,” I said. I kissed him again. I would take his mind off Arkos. I could do this. I put my hand on his chest and smoothed it down to his belt buckle. I started to undo his belt. I would unbuckle it, unzip him, and get down on my knees. I would do what Zoe did to the cowboy in the field at the rodeo. I would do what MB did to Chris in the VIP tent.
“Hannah, no.” Chris pushed me away with his elbow. It was gentle, that push, but it reverberated all over my body. He did up his belt.
“Why not? What’s wrong with you?” I said. “Aren’t you interested in getting a fucking blow job?”
I hated the words as they came out of my mouth. But I was so hurt that he had rejected me. Wouldn’t any other guy have loved this? A guy like McNair Sutter? Of course, Chris wasn’t any other guy and that was why I’d fallen in love with him in the first place.
“For one thing, what if Lily comes back or her father because she left something here and walks in on us? I can’t afford to lose a client like her, or have it be all over HorseShowDrama.”
“But you let Mary Beth blow you in the spectator tent.”
Chris’s face blanched. “How the hell did you know that?”
“She told me.” I held my hands up. “I didn’t exactly ask her. Believe me, I didn’t want to know. But she told me anyway.”
Winter Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 2) Page 13