by Lincoln Cole
“Who’s riding?”
“Thursday? I don’t know. Probably Ivan again. Or maybe Frankie.”
“Are you going to go watch the race?”
Calvin shrugged. “Tickets are expensive, and mine isn’t free since I’m only assistant trainer.”
“Well, isn’t Faraway Bay going to win?”
“Probably. He’s racing down a class so he’s by far the best horse in the race.”
“Then bet on him and win back the cost of a ticket. Heck, I’m sure you could win back the cost of two tickets pretty easily…”
Calvin groaned. He could see where this was going. “Your uncle isn’t taking you?”
Mikey looked at the bar again. “No, he has to work.”
“I don’t know if I’m even going to go,” Calvin said. “I need to spend some time grooming the rest of the stable and Butch hasn’t even told me if I can have the day off yet.”
Mikey was silent for a long minute. Calvin picked up the patties and tossed them on the grill, and then he dumped a bag of potato strings into one of the baskets and dropped it into the oil. The sound of sizzling food filled the air. Calvin felt his stomach grumble and wondered where Willy kept the horseradish sauce.
A minute passed in silence as they both savored the smell.
Outside, a wolf howled at the distant moon.
And then:
“Emily will be there,” Mikey said. His voice was barely above a whisper.
“Who?” Calvin asked. Great mystery of life, his heart skipped a beat. He already knew Mikey’s answer.
“Emily. The girl who helped you with Maribeth’s Dream.”
Calvin sensed a trap. “So?”
“So I was just saying that she’s going to be there.”
Calvin decided that Mikey was just a little too clever for his own good. “Why would that matter?”
Mikey shrugged as if to say it didn’t. Calvin bit back a curse.
Calvin put the fries and burgers onto two plates and set them down on the counter, taking his seat next to Mikey and mulling the idea over in his mind. He tried to convince himself that there was a choice in the matter.
“You know Emily?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” Mikey said, biting into his sandwich.
“And…you’re sure she’s going to be there? You know, so I could thank her for…”
He stopped himself and sighed. Mikey was staring at him, chewing a huge mouthful of food, and his eyes were grinning. “Uh huh,” Mikey said with his mouth full.
Calvin sighed. He still had six dollars in his pocket.
“Be here at eight.”
***
Calvin regretted not bringing a fedora to the racetrack with him. It was late in the season but the sun was still sweltering just past midday. He knew he would have burns on the back of his neck, but that would be okay. It was one of the last few good race days of the year, and he didn’t regret shelling out the dollar fifty to get him and Mikey in.
He did regret, however, the other three dollars he’d lost so far gambling. Two of them he would have sworn were sure fire winners, but the track was running fast today. Both horses liked to take the lead and stay there, but with outside post positions they’d both ended up breaking in the middle of the pack. And there they had stayed.
But at least the atmosphere was pleasant. The grandstand was packed with bodies. Moving from one side of the courtyard to the other took ten minutes of constant ‘excuse me’s. It was a sea of hats with people dressed in their Sunday best. Calvin liked big crowds. They were alive with electricity and energy. Everyone was here to socialize and to watch horses run. This was his community.
Someone bumped into him, pushing him further against the fence. He glanced at the man as they split apart, received a muttered apology, and then the man disappeared. Calvin checked his pocket—not the back one like most rubes, but the front one—to make sure his money was still secure. It was.
That was good. He wanted to gamble it—the three horse in the next race was another sure fire winner—but he also wanted to save it for the last race of the day. That was when Faraway Bay was running. Sure, it would be nice to put six dollars on the horse he trained instead of one-fifty, but it was better to put one-fifty than nothing.
Plus he wasn’t sure where Mikey had run off to. Calvin was pretty certain by this point that he’d been played. Emily wasn’t here, at least that he’d seen. And that is if her name was even Emily at all and not one of Mikey’s inventions.
What he couldn’t decide, however, was if he was disappointed or relieved. He didn’t know what he would have said to Emily if given the chance.
It didn’t matter though. Mary and Emily hadn’t shown up but it was still a good day. Calvin hadn’t even brought it up to Mikey, just letting the kid enjoy himself. Mikey had been disappearing all day, playing with his friends or just running loose.
Of course, that wasn’t without its own concerns. Calvin half expected an officer to storm up to him at any moment to see if he was in charge of the little hellion.
“The horses are at the gate!” the announcer called, his voice enormous over the din of the crowd. A hush fell over the crowd and Calvin leaned against the gate. “And…away they go!”
The bell tolled and hooves thundered. Dust hung lazily in the air from the stampede and the crowd erupted in cheers and jeers. Calvin wasn’t much for shouting, but rather preferred to mutter: “Come on three, come on…” to himself, a litany against ill-fate.
For the next two minutes time seemed to slow as adrenaline coursed through his veins.
The announcer roared overhead, rattling off names at an auctioneers pace and never once stopping for a breath.
The four held the lead.
The two took over, putting six lengths between him and the pack.
“…and as they round the backstretch…”
The crowd was louder now, seemingly a thousand voices crying in unison.
Calvin held his breath. He couldn’t see across the track but his mind’s eye was playing out the titanic struggle the announcer was describing in perfect clarity.
The three caught up to the frontrunners.
“…they’re rounding the turn into the homestretch with Misty’s Jumper and Crossing Eden neck and neck…”
“Come on Jumper,” Calvin shouted. His voice was tinny against the din, but he didn’t mind. The horses reappeared in his line of vision, hooves flying in a blur. He had to lean far over the fence to see past the others. “Come on Misty’s Jumper!”
The volume inched up another octave.
“…and at the wire Misty’s Jumper has it by a nose!”
Some people screamed. Some hugged. One man threw his hat on the ground and cursed. Everyone was invested.
It took Calvin a minute to remember he hadn’t actually placed a bet on the three. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter.
The crowd gradually calmed back down and Calvin realized he was out of breath. He chuckled to himself, shaking his head. He remembered the first time, some ten years ago, when his dad took him to the track.
He’d been Mikey’s age. The racing bug had bit him hard, and he remembered thinking that this was what he wanted to do when he got older. And one day he wouldn’t just help train horses, but he would own them. He wanted to capture that excitement, to bottle it, to hold onto forever.
He still did. It was euphoric. Addictive. The racing industry would be around forever, he knew. There was nothing comparable to this level of excitement.
“One more race on the ticket, right?”
The voice startled him. He hadn’t heard anyone walk up behind him. Calvin turned, one hand dropping to his pocket where he kept a pocket knife. Mary Munro stood there, smiling at him. He pulled his hand back, embarrassed, and then nodded. She’d caught him completely off guard.
“Yeah, one more.”
“This is the one with Faraway Bay, right? The one you train?”
He nodded again. “He has the rail. If
he breaks well he’s a shoe in.”
Mary nodded, still smiling. Calvin had the vague impression that her smile was at an inside joke, but one that he wasn’t privy to. She was alone, at least for now, and he tried to keep his emotions at bay. It felt like excitement and anxiety were doing battle in his stomach. Maybe the unknown girl with green eyes would be here, after all.
The thought was terrifying.
“So…have you seen Mikey?” he asked. It was the only question he could think of that wouldn’t giveaway his intentions.
“Oh, he’s on his way. With Emily and Olivia,” she said, accenting the first name. “I have to say, I wasn’t expecting him to wake me up quite so early this morning.”
Calvin groaned. He couldn’t stop himself. “What did he do?”
“Oh nothing. Except make me promise to come to the track today and to bring Emily.”
“That little…”
“Oh it’s nothing. My father got us passes and I was already planning on inviting Emily and Olivia to the fair. I was just kind of surprised. He told me some interesting things.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, you know. This and that…”
She was clearly having a lot of fun.
“I swear if I’d known he was lying to me…”
Mary laughed. “It’s okay, Cal, really. I just wanted to give you a heads up that they were on their way over. It’s actually quite sweet. Emily is a real cat, and with you she’ll finally be able to go on double dates with me and Steven.”
Calvin couldn’t think of anything to say. His palms were sweating now as she so casually laid his intentions bare. Part of him wanted to deny it and dismiss the possibility, but another part looked at things more reasonably. That was why he was here, after all.
The only problem was, he had no idea what to say. Should he just come out and ask Emily on a date? Should he try to be friendly first and then ask her later? Or should he just talk to her today and hope that sometime in the future he might be able to ask her out.
He honestly didn’t know. He wished he had as much confidence in the inevitability of Emily saying ‘yes’ as Mary did.
When he actually thought about it, it was a stupid plan. He’d met Emily once. They’d spoken barely three words to each other, and then she’d been gone. If she had felt the same connection he’d felt for her she wouldn’t have left so fast, right?
Right?
He didn’t know, and he hated the insecurity.
He felt his confidence ebbing away. What the hell was it about this girl that made him feel so…helpless? He’d known lots of girls, and they were pretty much just people. Talking to them, seeing them had never been a problem. He’d asked a few out, had fun. But there was just something entirely different about Emily. Something that made him feel simultaneously terrified and alive.
He just had no idea what he was supposed to do to win her over. He was terrified she would say no. But he was just as terrified that she would say yes. What would they do? How would he impress her?
He felt out of sorts with no clue what to say. He thought back to a slogan he’d seen at Butch’s racing stable. Something someone wrote up on the tack wall. It said:
Step 1: Buy a horse.
Step 2:??????
Step 3: Profit!
That was how Calvin felt right now. He’d met a pretty girl and he wanted to win her affection, but he had no idea how. It had never seemed so important before. He had no idea what step two was.
“Oh, here they come,” Mary said, waving toward her friends. Calvin felt his heart doing leaps. Mary looked at him with an expression of mixed pity and amusement. “Just breathe, Calvin.”
“Easy for you to say,” he muttered. He spotted the two girls with Mikey making their way across the courtyard to them. It was a lull between races, not nearly as packed as it would be in a few more minutes.
Emily was beautiful, her hair in a ponytail with a green ribbon and yellow dress. The sun caught her skin, still pale but not unattractive. But it was her smile that captivated him. He’d thought she was pretty at the barn. She was stunning.
“’And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare,’” Mary quoted, watching his face.
“What?” Calvin asked, distracted. Mary giggled.
“Oh nothing.”
The other girl, Olivia, was shorter and stouter with lighter hair. She wore a sun dress and ribbons in her hair and was pretty, in her own way.
But Calvin had eyes only for Emily. He’d been quietly wondering how she could have such a residual effect on him. How could anyone have that kind of effect on anyone else, for that matter?
He’d dated several girls, even kissed a few. Some had been friends, others he’d only met a few times before they dated. But none of them, ever, had made him feel like Emily did. Love at first sight seemed so preposterous.
And yet…
“I don’t think you’ve all been introduced. Calvin this is Olivia, Olivia, Calvin, and this is Emily.”
Calvin nodded at them both, wondering if he should offer to shake their hands. Or kiss their knuckles. Or something. He didn’t know proper etiquette, and he’d also never had a need to before today. He settled on a polite nod, still aware of his sweaty palms.
A moment of awkward silence and exchanged glances passed, and then Mary spoke up again. “Olivia, could you help me go place a bet? I wanted to put a few dollars on the next race. It’s one of my father’s horses.”
Olivia scrunched up her nose. “You need me to help with that?”
“Yes, Olivia,” Mary added, punctuating the words with a glare.
“But we just came from that direction. Why didn’t you place the bet when we were by the booths?”
“I only just now thought of it,” Mary said.
“And actually I’ll come too,” Mikey said, grinning at Calvin. “Calvin asked me to place a couple dollars on the next race for him too.”
And then he winked. Calvin almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. Mechanically he pulled the wadded bill and change out of his pocket and handed it to Mikey.
“Let’s go before the lines get too long,” Mary said, still glaring at Olivia.
“Oh, alright,” Olivia said, exasperated. “Are you coming, Em?”
“Actually I think Em should stay here,” Mary said, her voice taking on a note of incredulity. “To make sure to save us a spot when we get back.”
Olivia shrugged. “Okay.”
To her credit, Emily was staring off at the track and pretending like she wasn’t paying attention. Mary practically dragged Olivia away, and Mikey disappeared after them.
Calvin leaned against the rail next to her and fought down his panic reflex. He glanced over at her and smiled. She glanced at him and smiled. Their eyes met. He quickly looked away.
Calvin looked back. Emily quickly looked away.
“So…” Calvin started.
He cleared his throat.
Emily waited patiently. Calvin was grateful for that. The announcer was starting the calls for the next race. In a few minutes they would begin the parade, walking the horses in front of the stands.
Calvin tried to think of something to say.
Anything really.
A sentence, maybe.
“So I never got the chance to thank you for the other night,” he said finally, then cursed himself. Of course he’d already thanked her. And that wasn’t what he wanted to say anyway.
“Oh…it was no problem.”
“And I’m sorry about your dress. Come to think of it, I hope you managed to get the stains out but I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to. And if you weren’t able to get the stains out then I suppose you’d have to get a new dress. But that was a very nice dress.”
And now that he started talking, he couldn’t get himself to shut up.
“Thank you but I’m not terribly worried about it. My father used to own cows so I’ve done that sort of thing fairly often. Though not in quite
a few years. If I’d known a horse was in foal I would have worn different clothes when I went to Mary’s.”
Calvin nodded. A tense moment slipped past. Probably thirty seconds, but it felt like an hour. They exchanged another awkward glance.
“One of the horses I train is in this next race.”
“Yes, Mary told me.”
Of course Mary did. Why wouldn’t she? And what kind of statement was that anyway? Calvin didn’t know if he’d meant to impress Emily or was just idly talking. He felt like such an idiot.
Should he ask her about the weather? Her family? He didn’t know. He didn’t know, in fact, anything about her other than she was beautiful to look at and listen to and he wanted to spend more time with her.
The entire situation was ridiculous and getting worse. If he asked her out, of course she would say ‘no’. They didn’t even know each other.
He should give up now, while he was behind.
“What did you name her?” Emily asked suddenly. Her voice ripped him from his panic and Calvin quietly gathered his thoughts.
“Her?”
She giggled. “The baby from the other night. It was a she, wasn’t it?”
Oh yeah. Pay attention Calvin! Stupid, stupid. “It isn’t my mare or foal, so I don’t get to do the naming.”
“Oh,” Emily said, lowering her eyes. “Well, what would you name her?”
Calvin shrugged. “I’m a traditionalist, so I would probably name her something similar to the mare’s name. Maribeth’s Dream. So maybe Maribeth’s Star, or…I don’t know. Maybe Bethany’s Heart.”
“Bethany’s Heart,” Emily echoed, smiling at him. “I like that.”
That smile, so pure and innocent of intention, gave him back his confidence. He saw the entire world in that smile. The future. He glanced over and saw Mary, Olivia, and Mikey making their slow way across the courtyard toward them. It was filling back up for the next race, the last of the day.
Now or never. He might not even see Emily again after today, and that was something, he realized, that he could not abide.
He cleared his throat.
“Emily, would you like to…I mean if there’s the time and opportunity for…I suppose what I’m trying to say is…maybe some time in the future…whenever it’s convenient maybe…”