Nicolette knew she rejected the idea out of fear of Renatus being injured. She also didn’t want to be responsible for Lydia getting hurt. Apart from providing Renatus and Lydia with the resources they needed to be fully prepared for a race, very little was in her control.
Renatus fidgeted above her. His warm round hip in the sunlight was lustrous and hard, like muscles made of honey. Lydia looked down at her and smiled. Nicolette had began to like her more than she cared to admit. She looked up and thought about smiling, but she did not smile.
Nicolette was reluctant to enter Renatus into the stakes race. Lydia seemed unable to cope with her refusal. She was desperate to be at the track. She stalked back and forth in the yard carrying the Conditions Book and making urgent phone calls to her friend at Frisch. She sat Nicolette down and explained what was in their favor. Renatus’ pedigree and the fact that he’d already won a race. Her eyes looked heavy and glazed from lack of sleep. It was as if her sole reason for existence was this horse and this upcoming race.
In the evenings Lydia sat quietly with Renatus in the barn, until she grew tired and went home. Nicolette knew very little about Lydia, but she could tell her obsession with the horse was borne out of either insecurity or loneliness.
Nicolette felt sorry for her, but the stakes were too high. She’d had so little to hold on to lately. She just wanted to be settled and stable on the ranch for a while. At least until she could decide on a path for herself.
She avoided Lydia. When she wasn’t working on the house or the barn she went out to the weeping tree and sat for long spells. She didn’t want to think about her family or her life for it only reminded her of how alone she was; her sisters had managed to right the course of their own lives and were now thriving in high school. Her parents had passed away during the course of the two years she was locked up, one after the other, a fitting end to their lopsided romance.
Instead, she thought of ways to tell Lydia to go find some other horse to obsess over and take solace in, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Mulder had said she was talented. Maybe she deserved a chance to prove something.
Nicolette had come this far, however unwise, and had already invested nearly fifteen thousand dollars in the horse. She got up and walked back to the ranch. Lydia was packing up her supplies for the evening. She had a tote bag in her hand, which she was about to place on the front steps.
“What’s that?” Nicolette asked.
Lydia pulled out a riding shirt and held it up.
“These are your colors,” she said.
Mulder’s crew came by and helped prepare Renatus for the race. They massaged him and the farrier put on his racing plates. Lydia then took him for a light walk, and brought him back. Nicolette stood alone with him in the small paddock behind the barn.
“Might as well, right?” she said, as if to explain her decision to enter the race. He was motionless, his large eyes surveying her intently. He had surprised her at that first meeting at Mulder’s – not shying away from her presence, and instead seemed to warm to her immediately. She ran her hand across his mane. “Might as well.”
The crew washed and brushed Renatus, then loaded him into a trailer. Nicolette had paid the entry fee plus the added fee. The purse was over fifty thousand dollars. She would be lucky to come close to breaking even.
She drove with Lydia in her Chevy behind the trailer as they headed to Albemarle. Lydia was quiet and contemplative. She was nervous.
“This is what you do, right?” Nicolette wondered if this was another mistake.
Lydia looked at her. The defiance in her eyes was still there, but it was subdued.
“I’m ready,” she said.
“Will your parents be there?”
“My father left when I was six.”
“And your mom?”
“She’s too scared. She never comes to see me race.”
When they got to the track, Renatus was transported to the check-in area.
“They have to check his documents and then make sure we didn’t slip him anything illegal,” Lydia said with a grin. “Then they’ll get him ready and saddle him up.”
“And you?”
“I have to change.”
Just then Nicolette saw Adley. He was wearing a black button down shirt with Albemarle Racetrack embroidered on the breast pocket. “Ugh.” She sighed heavily. He looked over.
“Whadya know, it’s the fucked-up jailbird again.” He said it kind of sing-song like, but kept on walking. “Y’all ain’t got no business here.” They were standing outside the jock’s room.
“Yes we do fuck face,” Lydia said. Adley stopped and looked at her.
He tramped over. “What did you say?”
“You heard me,” Lydia said. “We’re in the stakes race.”
“You and this shit.” He pointed at Nicolette, keeping his voice low, “Are in the stakes race?”
“That’s what I said.” He gawked at Lydia, but Nicolette could tell he wanted to avoid a scene. “A woman won Santa Anita last year,” Lydia continued, hints of a smirk rising to the corners of her mouth.
“Yeah, a cheating bitch,” he said under his breath, before walking away.
When he was out of earshot Nicolette turned to Lydia. “Go change in the ladies room and meet me back here,” she said. She had a feeling she needed to keep her jockey on very short reins.
Two hours later their race was up. Nicolette bought beer in a plastic cup and made her way up through the bleachers. The oval track lay before her, the green grass thick and vivid. Spectators strolled around eating Italian ices and hot dogs. Nicolette sat in a warm April scene of sunglasses and visor hats. Tanned faces blushed with excitement. She heard terms she didn’t fully understand, but they were filled with the promise of something thrilling to come.
The jockeys and horses made their way to the gates. It was a startling stream of colors. Red-dish horses with shining, wispy tails. Brown horses, silver-grays, jockeys in checkered yellows and blue stripes or patterns of pink. Lydia was in her white silks with green rings around the arms, and seemed to glow in the sunshine.
By the time they loaded them in the gates, Nicolette was clenching her knees. The horses shot off and she sprang from her seat. The startling stream of thoroughbreds flew down the track and their colors merged. She saw a flutter of mane and muscle and dust. Dust that splashed before the stream and before her eyes, but the colors were so vibrant she never lost sight of them. Lydia came up in the middle of the pack, Renatus’ great limbs and chest forging, his head being driven forward in exquisite rhythm. Nicolette urged them on. She was so in sync with their rhythm that the only color she saw was that sharp brown beast pumping as he charged down the track.
Lydia and Renatus finished third, but when they came back to the ranch Lydia was still reverberating with excitement. “There is another race in four weeks!” She paced around the barn in her under-vest and breeches.
“If only you could have seen yourself. And Renatus— it was spectacular,” Nicolette said.
“We could have taken first. I backed off when I should have pushed him more.”
Nicolette wanted to reach out to her, to calm her down.
“You did great,” was all she said.
“He could give a lot more but I didn’t trust him,” Lydia said. “Next time you’ll see.”
“I don’t know if there will be a next time,” Nicolette said. “This was an experience. One that I’m glad to have, but that’s all it was, an experience.”
“What on Earth is your problem? You got a great horse here and a damn fine jockey. Why don’t you want this?” Lydia’s voice rose and fell as she spoke, as if she fought to contain a rising heat within her.
“I agreed to give it a shot. I never promised you anything else.” Nicolette’s tone and countenance were restrained, and that seemed to rile Lydia even more.
“What the fuck is your problem?” she said. Fire rose to the surface, brimming in her eyes.
She turned and marched towards the house. Lydia ran after her.
“He deserves better than you for an owner.”
She followed her up to the house, but stopped when Nicolette didn’t respond.
“I’m not gonna be stuck at Mulder’s fucking produce market forever, you know.” Nicolette kept going.
“Fine,” Lydia almost screamed. “I’ll go find another fucking horse to ride.”
She got into her Mulder’s Farm truck and pulled off so fast puffs of dirt under the grass kicked up in the driveway.
Nicolette went back to the barn and stood by Renatus’ stall.
“Sorry you had to see that on your big day,” she said. He seemed a little high strung, like he was still flinching and rearing to go. She patted his side and was overwhelmed by the feeling of such a huge and powerful animal beneath the palm of her hands.
A letter from Albemarle Racetrack was delivered to Nicolette the next day. It was directly from the secretary’s office. They were sorry to inform her that based on her inadequate facilities she was ineligible to enter any further races at Albemarle. Nicolette bristled with anger and she didn’t know why. She in fact did not want to enter any further races at Albemarle or anywhere else. But she refused to be told that she couldn’t.
She drove to see Mulder. They sat together in his study and mulled over her predicament. His furniture was made of what seemed like heavy lumber, including a ceiling high bookcase with a ladder resting against it. Mulder went over to a table console and poured two glasses of whiskey. He brought them over to the couch where Nicolette sat, held out a glass to her, then pulled it back. “Are you old enough to drink this?”
Nicolette chuckled and snatched it from his hand.
“The problem is you don’t have a trainer,” Mulder said. “And you don’t have a track. The first problem ain’t much of a problem anymore. A couple fellas already asked me about you. They like your horse and they wanna come work for you.”
“But I really don’t have the facilities,” Nicolette said.
“Why don’t you house him at the Albemarle stables? I’m sure they wouldn’t object.”
“Then I would have to pay a boarding fee, wouldn’t I? And who knows what they’d do to him. I’ll house my own darn horse.”
“Do you want to race him or don’t you?”
“I don’t have a jockey anyway.”
“Course you do. I got some boys already lining up to mount him.”
The horse racing business was madness. Nicolette calculated how much she had spent and how much she had earned from the race. Their payoff for a third place finish was five thousand five hundred and fifty dollars. She deducted Lydia’s ten percent, which meant she had suffered a loss of just over ten thousand dollars. Then she considered further expenses she would incur for giving Renatus the quality of care and housing he deserved. The upside was he could win a few races, but the downside always loomed large and threatening. If Renatus suffered a serious injury, that might be the end of everything. The loss of money was surmountable, but just the thought of losing a horse she never knew she wanted made her stomach sink. She couldn’t explain it. She had no connection to the beast. Lydia had spent more time with him than she had, but somehow Renatus had become an integral part of her new life.
After she received her winnings check, Nicolette deposited it and made a check out to Lydia. When she called over to Mulder’s he said Lydia had not come in for a few days. Nicolette asked if she had quit, but he didn’t know. She waited a couple days and called again. No Lydia.
Nicolette decided to visit the only other place she could think of to find the young woman. She headed south down Highway 151. Frisch Training Center was just off Route 6 on the banks of the Rockfish River. The stables sat on forty glorious acres of green grass that were fluffy and flat with a lined pattern, as if vacuumed with long, languorous strokes. She drove through the open gate down a driveway that led to a white colonial style home. Behind the house she could see the heart of the establishment – the yellow stables – as they stretched low and compact across the land.
Lydia’s old friend, the trainer Hyatt, greeted Nicolette and took her on a tour of the house and stables. He was a large man with a forward leaning gait, and Nicolette found that whenever they were indoors his steps made heavy thuds on the wooden floor. He explained that Renatus would have his own twelve by twelve foot stall, be fed twice daily, and would be able to stroll the grounds in the expansive paddock. Boarding was five hundred dollars per month, and all the expenses of vet care, emergency care, shoeing, worming and vaccinations, and training would be paid by the owner. Hyatt had offered his services as a trainer over the phone, so Nicolette knew the pitch was coming.
“He’s got some potential. I would never offer to take him on if I didn’t think that was true,” he said. “We’ve got excellent stable hands who will take good care of him.” They were outside now, leaning back against the paddock fence with the oval track before them. Nicolette could see hoof prints scattered across the dark dirt, but even so there was a determined pattern among the markings. This would be Renatus’ home for a long time. He would stay here until she could provide a proper home for him, and Hyatt would be his trainer. Still she decided to make Hyatt wait for her decision.
“There was another reason for my visit,” Nicolette said. “I’ve been looking for my jockey.”
“Ah, Lydia.” He smiled. “A difficult woman, but a damn good jockey.”
“So I keep hearing.”
He laughed loud and long, bending over to rest his palms against his knees. “I could tell you some stories,” he said in between gasps of laughter. “But her and I always had a good understanding.”
“I’m counting on that,” Nicolette said, stifling a smile. His laughter was contagious and she was trying to avoid being dragged into it. The stories about Lydia sounded intriguing, but for now she was just grateful the man she had chosen to cultivate Renatus’ talent was tolerant of the woman she had chosen to lead the horse to victory.
Hyatt directed her toward Charlottesville, which meant she was headed back up the highway to get to Lydia’s house. The bungalow style dwelling was on a quiet neighborhood street, except that the commotion coming from the house itself was far from tranquil. A man burst through the front door as Nicolette pulled up, causing the screen door to slam back against the wall. He was wearing a gray suit – the jacket flung over his arm – and his white shirt was sweat stained down the front. His flushed face twisted into an exasperated sigh when he made eye contact with Nicolette as she got out of her truck. It was a pleading, almost warning expression. But without uttering a word, he slipped into his Jaguar and sped off.
Nicolette stepped onto the porch and waited by the unhinged screen door. She could see into the living room, but the lighting was spare and her eyes had not yet adjusted. An object flew across the room and landed just inside the doorway. It was one of those old rotary telephones with the handset attached by a coiled cord. Lydia approached and picked it up. She slowly uncoiled the wire and replaced the handset. She noticed Nicolette standing outside.
“Hi,” she said in a composed voice, as though Nicolette’s presence at her home was a common occurrence. “The doctor... I’m trying to get her to call him and make him come back.” She gestured towards the road.
“The guy who just left?” Nicolette asked.
Lydia nodded. “It’s my mother. Come in at your own peril.”
It was out of the question to turn around and leave even after the word “peril.” Nicolette had seen peril firsthand in jail. Still her body tensed as she stepped into the house. A slender red leather sofa with long wooden legs was sprawled on its back. It was missing one leg that had apparently been ripped off. The coffee table was pushed against the side wall and newspapers, books, and half eaten meals splayed across the fl
oor beside it. A quick glance revealed that much of the house was in similar condition. A food cart holding a tray of medicine bottles and a plastic cup of water was perched against a large recliner chair, which held a very large woman inside it. Her folds seemed to flow over the edge of the chair, or perhaps it was the dress she wore, which had an excess of material that bellowed out around her. The outfit held Nicolette’s attention. It looked like something that had been amateurishly stitched together from various fabrics.
It was then that she felt the woman’s glare upon her, taking her in, formulating a plan of attack. “I’m not here for you,” Nicolette said. “I’m here for Lydia.” She wasn’t sure why she had said that, but it seemed to disarm the woman in an instant. The hand that had wrapped around the leg of the cart relaxed. The other hand held the broken sofa leg.
“She needs heart surgery,” Lydia said as she came up beside Nicolette. “She refuses to go to the hospital. I can’t go back to work until you get your operation, Silvie.”
“I’d like to see them try and take me.” The woman’s voice was low and guttural, almost hoarse, as if she had been yelling.
“The ambulance came and she turned them away. The fire department came to take her and she wouldn’t let them. She won’t even listen to her doctor.” Lydia sounded exhausted and wounded. Her usually intense brown eyes pooled with tears.
“When is the surgery?” Nicolette asked.
“It was scheduled for two weeks ago. She won’t go.”
“Try to fucking take me!” Silvie screamed. She threw the cart as if it were a piece of twig in her large hand. It broke against the wall and the pills and water scattered. Lydia walked over as if on auto-pilot and began to sop up the mess with paper towels.
“We have work to do,” Nicolette said and went over to help clean up. “If she doesn’t go will you stay here forever?”
Her tone was so matter-of-fact and distinct in the chaos that it drew the attention of both women immediately. Lydia stood and looked at her mother, who returned her glance with a questioning expression.
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