The threesome is still running toward me when the Titan takes a step in my direction. Then another. My heart hammers in my chest seeing it venture so close. I’m laid out on the ground, my hip singing with pain, and here is this metal monster looming over me.
Maybe it does have a mind of its own.
Maybe that mind is telling it to stomp on my skull.
The red light fades from the creature’s eyes, and it lowers its muzzle. I flinch when warmed steel touches the outside of my arm. The horse nudges me. Then it nudges me again. When it pushes its head under my arm and lifts, I realize what it wants me to do. I grab hold of the silky steel threads that serve as hair, and swing the opposite arm around its neck. Slowly, the Titan lifts me to my feet.
As soon as I’m upright, the Titan jerks its head away and pins its ears back. The machine’s message is crystal clear.
I helped you up, but you’re still an idiot.
And that’s the first moment—with my chest still aching from adrenaline and fear, and Rags hollering who knows what—that I smile at the Titan.
I’ve had three days of practice since my first epic fail. And I’m getting better. Even Rags will admit as much. He says I take the turns too quickly, that only a madman would accelerate through them. He also scolds me about never utilizing the autopilot function. If you’d only used it that first day, the horse would have turned on his own and kept running at the same speed you’d set on manual. No near collisions with trees. No worries. Stop being so hardheaded, Astrid.
But I relish the control, knowing I’m setting the pace, calculating the angles, letting up only after I’ve pushed the two of us past the safe limits and into the caution zone. Barney warns me about the slay zone. Don’t get too cocky. And Magnolia tells me on the way home from Rags’s house each night how she worries about my getting hurt.
What no one says, though, is that I have to push the Titan. And I have to push myself. Because the sponsor race is tomorrow. Will the other jocks keep their Titans in the safe zone when the clock strikes midnight? Will they shy away from the caution zone?
No. Not when every sponsor is there watching. Those company representatives seeking to invest in a jockey and Titan 3.0 as part of their annual marketing plan. The races may only last the summer season, but having a winning jockey adds celebrity value to a brand, and it moves products off shelves in Detroit retailers. Sparklet Root Beer isn’t that glamorous. But when the face of the 2015 Titan Derby winner is smiling at you from the bottle, suddenly it is. There will be a few individuals looking to sponsor horses too, of course, but there may be only one or two of those a year, if any. Those few seek an ultimate gamble, front-row seats, and a way to impress their friends.
Only one jockey will win a free place in the circuit.
So, yeah, what no one mentions is my being reckless is our only shot. No sponsor will want an old, discontinued Titan model or a seventeen-year-old spokesmodel who can’t compensate with stunning good looks unless I push farther than the other jockeys are willing to go.
They have experience; months and months of training, if not years.
I have everything to lose.
I finish another lap and slow the Titan to a stop in front of Barney, who’s holding a tin bucket. Rags and Magnolia are out of sight. Barney lifts the bucket. “Time to clean him up.”
“Seriously?” I ask, but I’m already reaching for the handle, because a break from racing sounds glorious. It’s early June in Detroit, and as fiery as my father’s temper. The skin on my forearms is red from the sun, and even the Titan has perspiration across its coat from the engine’s cooling fluid. So when Barney tells me there’s a water hose at the back of the stable, in the shade, I practically sprint toward it. When the Titan doesn’t immediately follow me, I turn and give a frustrated come on wave of my hand.
Barney chuckles as the horse clops after me, taking its sweet time, stopping to sniff dandelions as if it can enjoy such things. When we arrive at the barn, I duck inside and search for anything else I may need to wash the thing. I find some brushes, soap, and a couple of dry towels near a dusty full-length mirror. I’m about to holler for the Titan to move its rear when it trots toward the end of the barn, stopping short of the hoses.
“Hey, no,” I say. “I have to clean you. You can’t go to your stall.”
I stop when I see another horse, a real one, reach its head out and nuzzle the Titan. The mare is gray in color, with a white face and mane. The Titan meets her nose and nods his head up and down. The mare matches his enthusiasm, coming off her front legs a few inches and touching back down.
“Oh my gosh. Does the Titan have a girlfriend?” Magnolia strides in, a plastic bottle in her right hand, and two sodas stacked in her left. “If that machine develops a real relationship before I do, I’ll just die.”
I laugh. “You have a different boyfriend every month, Mag.”
“My point exactly. They come and go so quickly.”
“Because you show them the door.”
“Because they bore me.” Magnolia smirks. “Besides, didn’t you break up with Dave?”
“Not exactly,” I mumble. Dave and I dated for exactly three months during my junior year. I know, because he gave me a box of dried, chalky chocolates to commemorate the day, and then promptly dumped me for Misty Gamin. I never knew quite how to take that.
“What did I tell you?” Magnolia hands me one of the sodas. “If you believe you dumped him, others will too.”
“I don’t care that he dumped me,” I say.
“Riiight.” Magnolia juts her chin toward the back of the barn. “Rags said you’re going to clean him. Want help?”
“If you’re offering.”
I give Magnolia my elbow and she takes it, smiling.
After Magnolia and I wrangle the Titan away from the mare and into the back, I turn on the water hose, point it toward the horse, and prepare to spray.
The Titan snorts.
“You think I won’t do it?” I say.
The Titan gazes over my head, searching for the gray mare. Realizing it’s ignoring me, I squeeze the lever and water shoots from the nozzle. It hits the Titan square in the chest and causes a fine mist to float over Magnolia and me. Magnolia squeals and the Titan rears up on his back legs, surprised that I actually did it.
The steel horse makes for the front of the barn. Feeling brazen, I step in front. The horse halts and tries to get by on the other side, but I’m there, spraying away. Dirty water washes in rivulets down the horse’s legs. When the horse tries to escape for the third time, I hold up my hands to shush him.
“It’s okay, horsey,” Magnolia says between sips of her soda. “We all gotta bathe. If you want to impress that girl of yours, the first step is good hygiene.”
When I turn the water back on, I don’t squeeze the lever as hard. This time, I start with his silver hooves and work my way up slowly. Even though the water is far from its head, the beast holds its nose so high in the air I can’t help but giggle. The Titan eyes me laughing, picks up a long, glittering leg, and brings it down into a puddle of watery mud.
Dirt splashes across my shins.
“Oh!” Magnolia exclaims. “Did he do that on purpose?”
I press my lips together because, yeah, I think it sure as heck did. “You want to play that game?” I level the spray gun at the horse’s face, count to three, and squeeze. As the water hits it, the Titan stumbles backward until its rear slams into the back of the barn. I stop spraying at once and rush toward the creature.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “I didn’t mean to—”
The Titan lifts his right leg.
Oh, no.
I turn to flee, but before I can, water and mud spray across my back. Magnolia holds her stomach with laughter for several seconds, but when the Titan kicks more and more mud onto my clothes, she makes for the barn door, yelling that I’m on my own.
Refusing to be bullied by a computer, I continue spraying the horse. And the horse conti
nues spraying me. In the end, one of us is very clean. And one of us is covered in muck. I glance down at my shirt and jeans, my shoes and socks and bare arms. I’m wet. And filthy.
And cool despite the summer heat.
And having fun, though I hate to admit it.
I shake the nozzle at the horse. “You’re an ornery piece of scrap metal, you know that?”
The horse huffs, and I laugh. The sound startles the Titan. Its ears circle forward as if it’s surprised to hear this sound from me.
“Can I wipe you down?” I grab one of the towels, feeling loony for asking permission from a machine.
The Titan turns its face away, but I take a determined step in its direction. “Come on. Let me dry you off. Please?”
The Titan looks at me and—I swear on my grandfather’s gambling addiction—it sighs. As if it’s conceding. As if it understood my request. I dry it off using firm pressure and a circular motion, and when I get to behind the Titan’s ears, the beast leans into my touch. I have to bite down to keep from giggling.
Spotting the plastic bottle Magnolia left behind, I pick it up. After seeing that it’s some sort of Armor All for Titans, I grab a clean rag and work in the white cream across the horse’s body. Finally, I wring the used towel and pull it backward like I did a few nights ago when Zara and I cleaned dishes. Except this time, my target realizes what’s coming. I pop the horse lightly on the thigh, and in return the Titan noses me roughly in the back. I stumble forward and catch myself on the stall. Gazing ahead, I see that the gray mare is watching.
“Your boyfriend’s aggressive,” I tell her. “You could do better.”
I turn around and take in the Titan in all its clean glory, but it’s too dark in here to appreciate my handiwork. So I motion for the horse to follow me, and after the Titan pauses at the mare’s stall for a few seconds to prance, it obeys. I stop the creature at the front of the barn and wave my hand toward the mirror until it gazes over and sees its reflection. Almost immediately, the Titan jerks its head upright, chest puffing out.
The horse turns from side to side, nosing the mirror and then lifting its chin. I suppose I can’t blame the mechanism for accessing its preprogrammed vain emotion. The Titan looks good—black steel shining, threads of steel hair smooth against its back, silver hooves glowing in the dying sun. Even its false lashes appear longer. Standing back, I swell with pride that this is the machine I’ll be riding in tomorrow’s sponsor race. It no longer looks like a broken-down engine stored in an old man’s work shed. Today, it looks like a champion. Not a first edition that’s been twice replaced, but the edition that got it right.
My heart fills with something I can’t name, and before I can dwell on it, I toss the last of the used towels over the horse’s prideful head. Then I stride out of the barn and into the summer evening. Magnolia is perched on Rags’s unfolded tailgate, legs dangling beneath her. She covers her mouth and laughs into her hands when she sees me. And when Rags and Barney round the vehicle, they laugh too.
I guess I look worse than I thought.
“That horse is a menace,” I mutter.
“That he is,” Rags agrees. “But he cleans up nice, huh?”
We all turn and inspect the thing strutting outside the barn, never venturing too far from the full-length mirror.
“He’s a good Titan,” Barney says. “Strong, with potential we never fully explored. We might just have a shot tomorrow.”
Barney is saying what we want to believe. But the truth is the odds are stacked against us. Four days, I’ve been riding. Yes, I’ve studied every aspect of the Titans for the last five years. And maybe I’ve got a knack for racing like Barney says. But those other jockeys will have studied their Titans too, probably for much longer, and with better resources behind them.
I brush the drying mud from my jeans and avoid Rags’s gaze. “I thought of a name for the horse.”
Rags, Barney, and Magnolia stare at me. I roll my eyes. “What? It needs a name, right?”
Rags smiles like my grandpa used to after downing a mint julep. It’s infectious, that smile. And I find myself mirroring the emotion. The old man slaps his leg and jogs to the front of his truck. When he returns, he’s holding an envelope. He gives it to me, and after I take it, he shoves his hands into the pockets of his orange hunting vest and rocks back and forth on his heels. He doesn’t look so old in this moment. Just the opposite, really. I can almost glimpse the young man behind those hooded blue-gray eyes. A man with a mischievous grin, a brain that sizzled, and dreams so big only a blueprint could capture them.
I open the envelope and shake my head with disbelief. Because there’s my name, and the serial number for our Titan 1.0, and race dates and legal jargon and signatures on clean, crisp lines. Only two spaces are empty, in fact; one where I’ll sign, and another where I’ll fill in our Titan’s call name.
“Our registration papers.” I hold them to my chest and glance up at Rags. “I almost forgot.”
“Good thing I didn’t.” He practically dances as Magnolia leans over my shoulder, saying she wants to see.
“Get her a pen,” Magnolia orders.
I gaze at her, my best friend. My rock when the ground beneath my feet trembles. Is there anything I wouldn’t do to keep her in my life through the years? “Thank you, Magnolia.”
“For what?”
“For believing in me,” I reply. “For being my friend.”
“This whole thing still makes me nervous.”
“But you’d do it too,” I say in almost a question, wondering if she’s ever upset that Rags gave me this opportunity instead of her.
“Heck, yeah,” she says. “Sometimes I pray you hurt yourself just enough so that I can step in and save the day.”
I chuckle at her honesty, and when Rags returns with a pen and offers his back as a place to sign, I move toward him. Laying the white paper between his bony shoulder blades, I hold the pen above my signature spot, and write my name with intention. Thick letters so the Gambini brothers know I mean it.
Then I move the pen to the Titan’s call name. I glance once more at the horse strutting in the field outside the barn and shake my head. I remember the way Rags transported him in that jumbo coffin. And how the Titan rose to his feet from his dark prison within seconds of that lock being removed. How he ran to stretch his legs, to breathe the air and feel the soil beneath his hooves. It’s like he’d waited a lifetime for that run. Like he was trapped for years without an outlet. And then, suddenly, he was free.
I shake the pen a couple of times, and I write his name.
Padlock.
After church the next morning, I pack a small bag with an extra T-shirt, a clean pair of socks, and a stick of deodorant, planning to sneak out of the house for the day. In previous years, the lineup for the sponsor race was announced the morning of. But since my father didn’t come in to kill me in the middle of the night, and didn’t say anything this morning, I have to believe the list has yet to be revealed.
And I can’t be here when it is.
Zara stops me on the way out the door, a pout on her face. I sling my backpack over my shoulder and glance down the hallway to ensure my mom or, more importantly, my dad, isn’t coming. “You’re leaving again?” she whispers.
I grab her shoulder and give it a friendly shake. “I’ll be back soon enough.”
Zara pulls away, igniting a painful ache in my chest. “You’re gone like Dani is now.”
“That’s not true.”
Or is it?
Zara kicks at a pinkish stain in our dingy carpet and doesn’t reply.
“Look, how about tomorrow you and I hang out all day?”
She shrugs. “It’s weird around here. Dad yelled at Mom last night, and then she left with her garden stuff. She didn’t even come in to tell me good night.”
“She was gone that long?” I ask, surprised. Mom usually stays out late when she goes on a Garden Rescue Mission. But we’re allowed to stay up late during the s
ummer. Late enough so that Mom always pokes her head in to say good night as we’re nodding off, dirt smudged on her cheeks.
I quickly hug Zara to my chest. Then I reposition the backpack and repeat that I have to go, but that I’ll be sure and stick around tomorrow. And to not worry about Mom and Dad. Parents fight. It’s normal.
But it’s not normal. The amount of yelling that happens behind my parents’ bedroom door lately is not normal. And I know that what Zara is really afraid of is the same thing I am. That it’s getting worse. That everything in our house feels brittle. Like there’s only a thin layer of ice beneath our feet … and man, is it getting hot in here.
“Things will get better,” I say quietly to my baby sister. “I promise.”
Then I turn and walk out the door, determined to keep my word.
I take Padlock out several times that day. We run two furlongs—a quarter mile—and Rags announces our time. I’m improving, but it’s not good enough to beat previous jockeys’ times, which I’ve memorized. The horse and I do better on the half mile. Even better on the mile. But it isn’t until we reach the three- or four-mile sprints that we excel. All those fractions of a second on turns add up. I know how to hug the curb, and I know how to lean to ensure my Titan is stable.
Numbers tick through my brain until I’m afraid my head will burst. Our only shot is to have a long race tonight. Three miles or more would be best. Two is a must. History doesn’t tell us anything. The other four sponsor races don’t contain numerical trends, though most have been longer than a furlong to give sponsors enough time to make judgments.
I can tell Rags and Barney have the same concern I do. Eventually, Magnolia calls the elephant for what it is.
“So we need a long race tonight, right?” she asks.
“Unless someone has an extra fifty grand on them.” Barney scratches his belly and inspects Padlock.
“They’ll do fine either way,” Rags says. “You never know what race night will bring. That’s what makes the Gambini brothers rich. People match jockey strengths to track lengths and place bets accordingly. But that doesn’t always work or they’d always win.” Rags meets my gaze and says again, “You don’t know what race night will bring.”
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