by Tudor Robins
“Obsidian!”
She nods. “Isn’t his new rider cute?” Her braids bounce on her back as she rises in her trot, then takes Obsidian up to a smooth canter.
“And talented, too. He’s going well for her. They look great.”
We watch in silence as the pair goes around the course. Quiet, confident, making it look easy. The girl smiles the whole way, and I don’t think she’s faking it.
They exit the ring and Slate sighs. “There goes my childhood.”
I put my arm around her. “I know. It’s mostly a happy story, though. We all need to move on.”
“Speaking of moving on, let’s finally talk about Jared. He’s an eleven-out-of-ten Meg-o. Tell me how he kisses.”
“I have a better idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Look at these results with me and tell me if you think Lacey might be in line for Reserve Champion.”
She looks at the paper in my hand, looks at me, and her eyes open wide. “Oh super-wow Miss Meg. I think you just might be right.” She grabs me in a hug. “Who knew you’d turn out to be coach of the year?”
My voice is muffled against her shoulder. “I’m not positive. I could be wrong. Let’s wait and see.”
But I’m right. Even without winning a class, Lacey and Salem’s results were consistent enough to beat all but one other horse-rider combination. Lacey’s face looks in danger of splitting in two as she accepts her super-sized blue-white-yellow ribbon.
As we watch the girl who took Champion receive her ribbon, Slate whispers in my ear, “Her parents paid big bucks for that horse, and had him shipped in from Virginia. You guys almost beat her on a cow horse.”
“Who has a cow horse?” Craig’s come up behind us, spread his arms around both our shoulders.
“My new roommate at university. I just got her info yesterday.” Slate winks at me, turns a gleaming smile on Craig. “Listen, I’ll let you two catch up. I’m going to go meet our little Champion.”
“You were right about her jumping, Meg,” Craig says.
I nod. “I told you. She was a real find. And she’s been great to work with. Super-trainable.”
“I have a couple of families who’d be interested in a mare like that. Or, she’d make a great addition to our school. Is she sound?”
“Completely.” I catch sight of Rod as he steps forward to congratulate Lacey. “But she’s not really for sale.”
“Is that so? What are you going to do with her once the summer’s over? Bring her back here? You might as well sell her to me, and you can still ride her once you’re back.”
I grab Jared, pull him over. “Craig, this is Jared Strickland. He’s Salem’s co-owner. I’m afraid you’d have to work hard to convince Jared to sell Salem to you.”
Craig reaches out for Jared’s hand and, as they shake, says. “Well, Jared hasn’t heard what I’m offering. If she were to vet check sound, and subject to a trial period …” the figure he mentions is twice as much as I would ever have dreamed of asking for her.
I suck air through my nostrils, stand as straight as I can. Holy crap! Jared doesn’t even try to disguise his shock. “Really? That much? Oh my God, Meg; you never said.”
Rod’s standing beside us now. Rod’s surprise at the amount is as clear as Jared’s. His brows furrow.
“That’s because she’s not on the open market.” I smile at Craig. “I appreciate your faith in the mare, and what we’ve done with her, but Lacey – her rider – has worked hard with her, and helped make her worth what she is. Jared and I want Salem and Lacey to have a chance to stay together.”
I reach out to touch Rod’s arm. “Your offer’s great Craig, but we’ve already been talking to Lacey’s dad about Salem, so I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Craig shrugs. “Well, let me know if anything changes. Great work Meg.” And with that, he’s gone.
Rod and Jared stare at me. “What? It wasn’t a lie – we were all talking about Rod buying Salem. That one time. Remember?”
Rod blows his breath out. “Hey, I love my daughter, but not for that figure we weren’t.”
I laugh. “Well, let’s just say that’s the starting price, and once we deduct the training and showing fees I owe Lacey, that cuts it in half.”
Rod narrows his eyes. “Why do I get the feeling that’s not exactly how these things work?”
I link my arm through Jared’s. “They work the way we want them to work, right partner?”
Instead of answering, Jared swings me out of the way as Lacey comes belting past us to her dad, and throws her arms around his waist. “Did you see? Can you believe it? We won! We won!”
Rod looks over her head and mouths, ‘Thank you.’
I give him a thumbs up. “Our pleasure.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
We turn out of the driveway quickly enough, but Jared pulls over less than a hundred metres down the road.
“What are you …”
He leans across me, pushes my door open. “Shh. Just come with me.”
“Where …”
“Just come.”
I follow him to the back of the truck, climb onto the tailgate beside him.
“Look.” We’re parked right at a small break in the lilac bushes, and straight through the opening I can see Lacey’s barn; Salem’s new paddock.
“Oh …”
We left Lacey grooming Salem in the barn and now, as we watch, Lacey leads her out and to the paddock.
At the gate Lacey pats Salem’s neck, slips her a carrot – I can tell by the way the mare dips her head and noses Lacey’s hand – then pulls Salem’s halter off.
Salem stands perfectly still for a minute. She’s backlit by the setting sun.
“So pretty,” I breathe. Jared bumps his shoulder against mine.
Then Cisco, cheeky little troublemaking Cisco, noses up beside my old mare – Lacey’s new mare – and nudges her neck.
Salem hesitates for one more minute, and in that minute she must bunch every muscle in her body, because she explodes in a kicking, head-shaking, arched-neck run, with Cisco galloping to catch up to her.
She looks so happy. So carefree. I’m swamped with love for her.
“You OK?”
My tears are there – not at the surface, but deeper down – and they’re not tears of sadness. I concentrate on holding them down. “Fine. Good. I have everything I want, so why shouldn’t Lacey?”
“You have everything you want?” Jared turns to me, one eye closed against the glare of the early evening sun warming our faces.
I scootch my hand over, lift my pinky finger to tap his hand. “Yup, everything … for the time being.”
So, I wish I wasn’t leaving here in ten short days.
And, I wish Jared and I weren’t going to be two-hundred kilometres, and a ferry ride apart.
It would be good if Slate was going to university just a little bit closer.
And, so I’m still not sure exactly what’s going to happen with my riding back in Ottawa.
But.
I trained a horse, and now I know I can train another one and, because I’m good at it, I can take my pick of places to ride.
And I made friends – lots of friends – on the island, which will be great when I come back next summer to work for Betsy and Carl again.
And Jared. Two hundred kilometres don’t matter. The ferry doesn’t matter – at least not now that he’s not afraid to take it. We’ll visit each other through the fall, and maybe he’ll even be closer in the winter, and the spring. We have next summer to look forward to.
“Are you absolutely positive you have everything you want?” Jared hops down to stand in front of me.
“Um …”
He digs into his back pocket, pulls out a small pouch. It’s so familiar – I’ve seen a pouch like that before …
Click. I know where it’s from. Which means I know what it is. “No!”
“What’s that?”
�
�No, I don’t have everything I want. I want what you’re holding!”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” I hold out my hands and he places the velvety sachet in them. “Oh, oh, oh …” I fumble with the string, fish my fingers inside, and the silver chain I pull out catches the last of the sun’s rays.
“I love it.” I find the tiny, perfect, leaf on the end and press it tight against my breastbone, where it feels just perfect; where it will stay from now on.
I look him straight in the eye. “I love you.”
I should be nervous, holding my breath, gripping the tailgate hard enough to break my fingernails.
But the late summer breeze is still warm, and the birds are singing, and, in the distance Salem has settled down to graze in lockstep with Cisco.
And I know what Jared’s going to say.
“That’s good news, because I love you, too.”
Photo Credit: Debora Dekok
About the Author
Tudor Robins is an Ottawa-based writer with strong ties to the Kingston and Wolfe Island area. When Tudor’s not writing about horses, you can find her reading about horses, or riding horses, and spending time with her two sons and her husband. She has also written Objects in Mirror
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Please enjoy an excerpt from
Objects in Mirror
Objects in Mirror
I’ve looked up to Matt for so long. Over the past several days I’ve also come to like Matt as a person; not just as some abstract riding hero. I trust Matt. And, I have to admit, sitting here next to him in his battered jeans and his faded t-shirt, I think Matt is drop-dead gorgeous.
You and every other girl who’s ever met him. I know, I know. It’s not hard to think of about a million reasons Matt would never like me. Or at least ten:
First five – Matt:
· Amazing dark eyes;
· Just the right amount of freckles;
· Rides like a god;
· Is nice, smart, funny and everybody likes him;
· Not interested in me anyway.
Second five – me:
· Way too many freckles;
· Much room for improvement with regards to riding;
· Am rarely funny and, when I am, usually end up insulting someone by mistake;
· Am either too fat (my opinion) or too skinny (opinion of assorted adults) – either way body clearly leaves much to be desired;
· Not interested in him anyway. Really. Not.
So, considering all the above, I’m pretty curious when he pulls off the bumpy dirt road we’re traveling on to turn onto another, even bumpier and much narrower lane which dwindles to nothing by a huge tree growing beside an old fence.
He turns off the engine.
Quiet. Quiet. The quiet’s unbelievable. For about 15 seconds anyway and then the first tentative birdsong creeps back in. A cricket starts humming. The landscape, and the wild things that inhabit it, shift back into business; absorbing Matt and me and his pick-up truck into the movements and noises of the summer afternoon.
“There’s something I want to show you,” Matt says.
“OK.”
“This way.” He hops out of the cab. We’re stopped on a slight angle so I’m pushing uphill as I creak the heavy passenger door away from me. The drop to the ground is higher than I expected and a nettle stings my skin on the way down.
“You OK?” he asks.
“Uh-huh.” Stacking hay in the loft, helping repair jumps and, of course, crawling around on my hands and knees with Jamie, ensure my legs are always a mess of scratches, bumps and bruises. The nettle sting just adds to the overall effect.
When I reach his side Matt is balanced on the top rail of an old wooden fence. “It’s out there,” he says. What I see is a hay field, not yet cut, neck deep in places and swaying in the breeze.
Of course it’s beautiful in the way everything unspoiled in the country is beautiful but it appears to be a hayfield like many others I’ve seen – very much like the ones surrounding both my house and the barn. It’s with an equal mixture of interest and uncertainty that I follow Matt up over the fence and jump, feet first, into the depth of the grasses.
I was wrong. I was so, so wrong. There’s nothing ordinary about this field. I can’t believe how long I’ve lived alongside fields like this one without ever stepping into one before.
Pushing through the rustling grasses is like swimming in greenery. I lean forward into the wind, barely feeling my feet and legs supporting me, using my arms to part the way and propel me forward.
The field around me is dizzying, like the disorientation I’ve felt in the ocean when waves dance and ripple all around, and the sand beneath my feet shifts under my eyes. My progress through the field, half surfing, half wading, with the grasses brushing my bare skin has made my whole face smile. When Matt turns to me the same smile is on his lips, pushing up through his cheeks and into his eyes.
He motions to me to stop and rests his hands on my shoulders and turns me, ever so slowly, in a complete circle. We’re in the centre of the field, on what must be a slight rise, because all around us that moving, living, dancing carpet spirals out and out until, on all four sides, it hits trees. Not a road or a fence or a building of any sort – not even the truck – is visible from here.
I think of all those times I’ve heard of places referred to as “the centre of the universe” For me, this might just be it.
Matt leans in closely, cupping his hand around my ear to be heard over the wind-driven rush of the grasses and the exclamations of birdsong. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Amazing!”
I’m not sure if he can hear me but he clearly understands. He gives me a thumbs-up and a pleased smile and something inside me breaks away and dissolves. A piece of armour I had no idea I possessed is gone; melted in an instant by one simple instance of delight.
I look at Matt in a whole new way now. Smart, still, yes. Talented, of course. Good-looking, especially here in the sun and the wind. But a gift-giver too, kind and generous.
“Thanks!” I yell and the wind whips my word away and scatters it across the field.
Acknowledgments:
Many people provided advice, encouragement, support and motivation in the writing of this book. While explaining what each person did would require another book, I do want to acknowledge the contributions of some specific people by naming them here:
Beth and Greg Caldwell, Veronica Grajewski / Partridge Acres, Sandra Gulland, Margaret Kirkpatrick, Janet Leak, Hilary McMahon, Courtney Mellor, Jason and Christina Pyke, Tim Robins, Evan and Bryn Robins, Patricia Sanford, Kellie Sheridan, The Trillium Hunter Jumper Association, Chris Van Hakes.
I also want to thank every friend, acquaintance, and family member who encouraged me to indulge my entrepreneurial spirit and self-publish this book.
Huge thanks also go out to each and every reader. When you buy my book, or take it out of the library, or lend it to your best friend, I am so happy, and when you write to me, I’m over the moon. Thanks for your support!
To Tim, Evan, and Bryn,
for believing in my writing
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chap
ter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
About the Author
Objects in Mirror
Acknowledgments: