Hunter Derby: (Show Circuit Series -- Book 3)

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  The kids all had their different personalities. Zoe felt really stupid for having somehow assumed they’d be anything other than regular kids. Sure, it was painful sometimes to see a kid who had so many challenges in life. But it made her realize how lucky she was and how she couldn’t afford to mess up her own life.

  The horses allowed the kids to do things they usually weren’t capable of. Some of the kids could do more than others. Some could trot and one could canter. Others could only walk, but still Zoe could see how relaxed they were once they were in the saddle.

  One of the kids she led often was mostly non-verbal. On the day he clearly said Daisy’s name out loud, Zoe teared up.

  After that lesson, she’d gone into Daisy’s stall, pressed her face against her coat, and full-on cried.

  Kirsten had found her there.

  “I’m not even sure why I’m crying exactly,” Zoe said. “It was just so amazing. You heard him, right? He clearly said Daisy.”

  “I go home and cry like three days a week.”

  Zoe wiped away her tears and a little of Daisy’s hair that was now plastered to her face. When Kirsten left her alone again, Zoe whispered to Daisy, “He said your name. Did you hear it? You are amazing. You are the best.”

  The next time Zoe spoke to her counselor she told her how grateful she was to be working at Narrow Lane—how she felt it was making her a better person.

  Zoe learned that just like with regular kids, she had her favorites. Of course Molly topped the list. John helped out plenty of days, not just with Molly. He seemed to have fully gotten over how she’d acted that first day they’d met at Narrow Lane.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me John’s sister rides at Narrow Lane?” she’d asked Linda the day after finding out.

  “I didn’t tell you that?” Linda said.

  “No, you didn’t, and I totally put my foot in my mouth in front of him.”

  Linda shook her head. “I’m telling you, I can’t sleep so it’s like I’m not even thinking straight most of the time. I’m sorry.”

  It wasn’t as if Zoe and John could hold amazing conversations as they worked together during a lesson at Narrow Lane, but just being in close proximity to him was something Zoe came to look forward to.

  One time after a lesson finished up, Zoe got up the courage to ask him more about Molly. “I don’t know much about muscular dystrophy,” Zoe said. “Is it something you’re born with?”

  “You mean cerebral palsy?” John said.

  “Oh God, yeah. I just got the two confused. I should have known the difference.”

  Here she was trying to be sensitive in how she asked and instead she had solidly inserted her foot in her mouth. Again.

  “Don’t worry about it,” John said. “It’s not like I would have known much about it either if I hadn’t had Molly for my sister and then started helping at Narrow Lane.”

  Zoe wanted to ask him if he would have volunteered at Narrow Lane if Molly wasn’t his sister. Basically she wanted to figure out how saintly he was.

  “So cerebral palsy is usually something you’re born with although sometimes you can’t see it right away,” John said. “I think with Molly they started to know pretty early because she had problems swallowing. She still does. But mostly the muscle problems affect the way she moves. Some kids with CP have seizures but we’re lucky because Molly doesn’t. We’re also lucky that she doesn’t have neurological symptoms.”

  “That’s good,” Zoe said, but then felt stupid again. Could there be anything good about having CP?

  “How do you get it?” she asked.

  “You don’t always know. It could be from premature birth or an infection during pregnancy. My mom didn’t have any of those so we don’t really know what happened or why she has it. I know my mom feels like somehow she did something wrong.”

  “That’s awful.” Zoe thought of her own mother. Surely she had blamed herself for Brayden’s death and it had eaten away at her, making her basically unable to care for Zoe. After all, her mother should have kept a better eye on him. You don’t let a five year-old wander all around a farm unsupervised, especially a farm with large animals and a pond. Sometimes Zoe couldn’t decide what made her more angry—that her mother had let Brayden drown, or that after his death she wasn’t much of a mother to her.

  “I know.” John looked contemplative, like it was something he thought about often.

  But what could he possibly do about it? What could anyone do about it? When she’d first met John she’d assumed his life was near perfect with a perfect little happy family. She tended to assume that about most people. But the truth seemed to be that every family had its own pain. There was John’s family with Molly’s CP. And there was Dakota with her absentee parents. Also Hannah with her anxiety-plagued mother.

  “I wish my mom didn’t blame herself in any way but I’m sure she does,” John said.

  “She’s so good with Molly. She’s amazing.”

  “She is,” John said. “And my dad too. They’ve never stopped trying to give Molly the best possible life and they never will.”

  Zoe felt her throat getting thick. How would her life have been different if she’d had parents that cared about her as much as John’s and Molly’s parents clearly cared about them? But could she fully blame her mother after losing her son?

  John’s experience with Molly made him good with the kids at Narrow Lane, or maybe he was just a natural at it. Either way, he was always ready with a steadying hand when they needed it. Somehow he seemed to anticipate what they’d need long before it was visible but he also didn’t overdo it; he didn’t come to their aid unnecessarily, which would make them feel weak.

  One day, Zoe was leading a girl she’d never led before, Sara, when Sara reached out and grabbed Zoe’s hair. Completely surprised, Zoe yelped. John helped gently pry Sara’s fingers from Zoe’s hair.

  “Oh yeah,” he said casually. “Sara does that sometimes.”

  He took off the ball cap he was wearing and handed it to her. “You might want to put this on.”

  Zoe looked at Sara’s face—old Zoe would have been furious at the teenager. But she strangely couldn’t find any anger inside of herself. She knew it wasn’t Sara’s fault.

  “I’m putting on the hat,” she said to Sara as she accepted it from John and tugged it over her head. “My hair is one of my prize possessions and I can’t afford to lose it, or I’ll never get a date!”

  Sara stared straight ahead. She didn’t seem connected to the world around her. When she was on the ground she made all sorts of noises and grunts and sometimes flapped her arms—in the saddle she was controlled and peaceful.

  “Let’s get back to work,” Kirsten said to them all, and Zoe could see Kirsten was trying to contain her smile.

  Had she known that Sara would pull Zoe’s hair and she hadn’t said anything? Had both Kirsten and John known? He did seem quick to offer his hat, like he knew the drill.

  After the lesson was over and Zoe was untacking Daisy, John and Kirsten came into the barn.

  “Sorry about the hair pulling,” Kirsten said. Now she was full-out smiling.

  “You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?” Zoe said.

  John chuckled, which was her confirmation.

  “Thanks a lot, guys. I guess I better be on my guard from now on.”

  “No, definitely not,” Kirsten said. “We’ll tell you if you need to know anything about anyone else, I promise. Right, John?”

  “Definitely,” he said. “We just couldn’t resist. Do you hate us now?”

  “No, I just might never trust you again.”

  Zoe wasn’t actually mad at them. It felt kind of like the pranking that members of a sports team might do. The harmless kind that built rapport. If anything, Zoe felt like maybe they were coming to accept her, to see her as one of the team. Maybe this had been her initiation and now she was one of them.

  “We owe you a drink,” John said.

 
“Definitely,” Kirsten said. “At least one drink, maybe two. How hard did she get you?”

  Zoe touched her hair. “She took out a decent clump.”

  “Two drinks, it is,” John pronounced.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  What had once been a sleepy Westchester town with a quaint center consisting of only a handful of stores was now a bustling New York city suburb with an elongated main street and chain stores grouped on intersecting streets. The Episcopal church with its pretty front yard, the old playhouse, and a few other original buildings still lent the town a sense of its place in history.

  At one point, there had been a thriving group of fox hunters in the town but the hunt club had disbanded a few years ago, sending its remaining hounds to adoptive homes. The rustic tavern that the members of the hunt frequented was now refurbished into a toney pub with exposed brick walls and framed photos of prominent sports figures, including a few race horses.

  “Show jumping just never gets its due,” Zoe said as she walked in with John and Kirsten and glanced over the shots of baseball players, basketball players, football players, soccer players, and even a few boxers. “I mean when you think about it, they’re actual Olympic riders who live around here and are their pictures up on the wall? No.”

  “It’s a good point,” John said. “I guess I’d never really thought about it before.”

  It felt a little strange being somewhere other than the barn with them, but it wasn’t an altogether unfamiliar feeling for Zoe. It was the way it went with horse people. You formed your friendships in the barn aisles or at the in-gate and then over time that led to dinners at restaurants or outings to the mall or spa on off days.

  Those first times out together in real clothes always were slightly uneasy, as if you needed to figure out who a person was out of the show world. A girl who felt confident in the show ring could be shy and reserved outside of it, and vice-versa.

  Kirsten looked a little smaller, a little softer outside of Narrow Lane. They ordered a round of drinks and sat together at a table constructed from an old keg barrel.

  Zoe had gone over how to deal with social drinking with her counselor.

  “I’m not an alcoholic,” she had told her counselor over the phone.

  “True, but you have a history of substance abuse and alcohol abuse. And you take medication for bipolar disorder.”

  “Wow, you make my life sound so rosy.”

  “I’m just trying to mirror the facts for you.”

  “Mirror, mirror on the wall . . .” Zoe trailed off. “So I can have one drink? Just so I don’t stick out?”

  “There’s no exact rulebook. You have to learn to know yourself and what you can handle. You might very well find you can’t drink at all.”

  John raised his glass. “To surviving a hair-pulling!”

  They clinked glasses.

  “You know, I really thought I was going to hate working at Narrow Lane.” Zoe gave a quick sidelong glance at Kirsten, to make sure she wasn’t offended. She’d already tempered what she really had felt, which was that at first she had hated working at Narrow Lane. “I mean, I just didn’t understand how important therapeutic riding is. I guess I was just scared and worried about what I was going to see and that was really stupid.”

  “A lot of people feel that way,” Kirsten kindly offered. “It’s a pretty normal feeling.”

  “But the work you do is amazing.” Zoe looked at Kirsten meaningfully. “Really, it’s amazing.”

  “Thank you.” Kirsten straightened in her seat like she was really pleased. “That means a lot coming from you. John told me all about how accomplished a rider you are. I don’t really follow horse showing at all.”

  Horse showing—the way she referred to it drove home just how much Kirsten didn’t know about Zoe’s world. It was funny how two people could work with horses but have two completely different experiences.

  “It’s great that you’re branching out and seeing these kids with the horses,” Kirsten added. “I’m sure it’s off-base but show people kind of have a reputation for being elitist assholes.”

  “Some are elitist assholes,” Zoe said, laughing. She was glad to deflect the conversation away from her ‘branching out’ because of course she hadn’t exactly branched out voluntarily. Something Kirsten knew since every week she had to sign her timesheet. But something John might not yet know. “But some people are really great and do a lot of charity work.”

  “I guess it’s just like any world—all kinds of people,” John put in.

  Zoe asked Kirsten how she got into riding. She told her how she’d started at a local lesson barn and then had gotten involved with Pony Club, working up to earning her C-2 rating.

  “I’m sure all the things I’ve done would sound crazy to you,” Kirsten said. “You’ve probably never been out of a ring.”

  “Hey now,” Zoe said, trying to make light of the obvious chip on Kirsten’s shoulder. “Actually I grew up on a farm with acres to ride over and a pond where we’d take the ponies swimming.”

  Zoe caught herself, feeling the familiar closing of her throat. She was almost transplanted back to that awful day that changed her life forever. The feel of her pony underneath her as she rode bareback around the pond shouting Brayden’s name till her voice hurt. Then, later, the emergency responders searching the water. Eventually the ambulance pulling out silently.

  She never took her ponies swimming again.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear you’re different than a lot of the horse show people,” Kirsten said.

  So many people that rode in other disciplines or showed only locally thought all show circuit riders could do was ride perfectly prepared horses around eight jumps set in straight lines. Yes, it was true of some percentage of the circuit but not all. Yet, Zoe didn’t have the energy to try to explain more of that to Kirsten. Not now.

  More people entered the pub, stopping in for a drink or bite to eat after work. Soon it had that nice amount of noise, enough to make a place feel popular but not so loud you couldn’t talk without screaming.

  After she finished her drink, Kirsten said she really had to get home. Her kids would be waiting for help with homework and her husband had probably burned dinner.

  Zoe could tell this was a stretch for Kirsten—that she didn’t usually stray from her routine of Narrow Lane and her home life. She felt oddly touched that she’d even come out for a drink at all.

  Zoe wasn’t sure whether this meant she and John should leave too. She moved to get up when Kirsten did and Kirsten said, “We said two drinks. Don’t leave because of me.”

  John made no movement toward leaving so Zoe sat back down. She’d only drank a quarter of her drink, pacing herself. Kirsten left a twenty-dollar bill on the table and said good-bye, and that she’d see them the next day.

  “She’s nicer than I thought when I first met her,” Zoe said, after she’d gone. “I guess a lot of my first assumptions were wrong.”

  “Kirsten’s really great. She doesn’t exactly rake it in doing what she does but she loves it and she’s so good with the kids.”

  “She really is,” Zoe agreed.

  “You’re pretty good with them too,” John said. “Molly really likes you.”

  “I like them a lot. I never thought I would. I mean I like helping kids in the show world and so I guess it’s not that different. I used to love helping Jamie with the pony kids and I really like helping Linda with Dakota.”

  “Maybe you should be a trainer. Have a barn full of pony kids.”

  “I don’t know. I also love to show. I don’t think I could give that up and to be a really great trainer you kind of need to do just that. What about you? Do you ever want to have customers?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe someday.”

  “You’d have to go to more shows. Why don’t you go to more now?”

  John fiddled with his beer bottle. “I haven’t really had the right horses.”

  “That doesn’t stop most people.�
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  John laughed. “That’s true but I only want to be in the ring if I have a chance. I don’t want to make a fool out of myself.”

  “Young horses guarantee you’ll make a fool out of yourself. Plus, even the best riders totally mess up sometimes.”

  “You can say that because you’re one of the best riders . . . it’s easy for you to say it’s not a big deal to mess up . . .”

  “I don’t think anyone would say I’m one of the best riders right now. I haven’t been in a show ring for weeks.”

  John didn’t ask if she wanted another drink. Maybe he knew about her history. Or maybe the two drinks thing had just been metaphorical.

  Either way, Zoe was grateful because thinking back about the pond and Brayden was making her really want to have another. And then another. And another. She really wanted to get wasted. To make the thoughts in her head go away.

  “I feel like we didn’t really show at the same shows as juniors . . . who did you ride with again?” Zoe said. Maybe if she kept talking to him, the suffocating feeling she had would go away.

  “We showed at the same shows sometimes. You just don’t remember me,” John said.

  “Really? I think I’d remember you if we had.”

  “I wasn’t very good.”

  “First of all, I find that hard to believe. And second of all, girls at the shows—we notice guys. Every single one of them. They kind of stick out.”

  “I rode with Kelly Saver. Do you know her?”

  Zoe shook her head.

  “She’s more of a local trainer. We did some of the same shows you did, like Vermont, but we were basically nobodies.”

  “That’s not a very nice way to talk about yourself,” Zoe pointed out.

  “It is what it is. Kelly was a good trainer but it was more of a local program and my family didn’t have any money.”

  “Did you do the eq or what?”

  “I did a little bit of everything. I rode whatever she had for me. I never owned my own horse. My parents couldn’t afford it. I qualified for all the eq finals my last year but the horse I rode was really green. My biggest claim to fame was winning the Connecticut Junior Medal Finals.”