by Ann Self
As Jane continued walking through the east wing, all she could hear was the tapping of her boots until she heard something else. She stopped abruptly to listen to a muffled scratching sound. Claws on metal, furious in its rhythm. Again a prickling sensation raced up her spine, fanned over her shoulders and ran down to her fingertips. When she realized it was the rooster, locked in a horse trailer just outside, she laughed at herself. Reggie hadn’t been able to finish the pen in time, so the rooster was still confined to a trailer-prison to protect the public. The trailer had been hidden close beside the east wing, instead of in its usual place, so no one would mistakenly try to use it.
Jane quickened her pace, and her blood did not slow its mad racing through her veins. Mean Chicken was trying to find a way out and after a few hours locked in the trailer, he would be meaner than ever and ready to attack everything in sight.
After working for a couple of hours with three different two-year olds, Jane returned them to their stalls. In the background, she heard the muffled popping of fireworks.
“Happy birthday,” she mumbled facetiously.
At one point she heard a car racing away from the old parking area, and she caught a glimpse of what looked like the blue mini-van. She decided Lucinda must have sent Travis, the Whitbeck’s gopher and all around footman, to spy on her. “Well, he can just report that I’m working late into the night,” she spoke with satisfaction, happy again at the sound of her own voice.
Jane then brought two yearling colts and two fillies into the giant indoor arena to get them used to the ring and various pieces of training equipment. They still had patches of tan fuzz left over from winter, with shinier new coats of chestnut and bay peeking through. After running around bucking and kicking and nipping each other, the troop settled down and followed Jane about eagerly, as they had come to enjoy these training sessions.
She arranged brightly painted long poles or cavaletti, on the ground at the far end of the ring, all evenly spaced. When the youngsters were older and trained to saddle, it would be a regular part of their routine to trot over the poles without losing rhythm or cadence; and Jane felt it was important for them to get used to the cavaletti early on. She began to run around the ring, laughing and coaxing and snapping a whip against her boots. They responded excitedly, shooting fluffy tails in the air and prancing on gangly legs. Jane ran over the poles, calling encouragingly, and they followed curiously.
She bolted over the poles one more time, lifting her booted feet gracefully in the air with a see-this-is-how-you-do-it flair; and then turned to watch as four youngsters followed, snapping bony knees high over the poles.
Jane froze in place when she heard exuberant clapping and laughter from further down the long arena. The youngsters startled and mashed close together around her body, and she gasped when one stepped on her foot, making them startle again. A colt sniffed her cheek with puffs of warm air to see if he sensed fear.
Across the ring, pouring in from the side door as they exited a line of purring limousines, was a small contingent of glittering partiers. They fanned out on the surrounding cement apron and leaned against the waist-high partition. Among the partygoers Jane could spot Elliot, Cecily, Owen, Lucinda, Ashley Parker and her lawyer father and socialite mother. She gasped when her eyes fell on Brian Canaday and Allison Paget—Movie Star.
“Jane! Come over here!” Elliot motioned sharply with his arm as he yelled to her.
“Oh no...” Jane muttered under her breath. She was sweating, disheveled and her only makeup was a fine patina of dust from the ring. Why didn’t I at least leave on the good shirt, she thought, glancing down at the unisex denim workshirt with rolled up sleeves.
She winced. “Oh well, Madeline, you did warn me.”
There was no escape. She adjusted her Red Sox baseball cap and checked the long ponytail streaming out the back to see if it was still holding together. Jane started towards the gaggle of dinner jackets, bow ties and gowns. When she moved, the yearlings moved, adopting the same focused stare as she had. They advanced as a unit of legs, hooves and boots, and the young horse’s ears twitched back and forth to pick up strange murmuring voices.
As the equine brigade approached the cloud of perfume and cologne and dancing pinpoint reflections from jewels and sequins, one colt and a filly dashed away in panic, but two other colts stuck it out and escorted their human right up to the shimmering crowd.
“People,” Elliot laughed, adopting his smooth public persona, “this is our other instructor-trainer and yearling nursemaid.”
Oh, funny, Elliot. Jane smiled a tentative hello to the crowd, as she nervously smoothed a shirttail into the back of her breeches. She brushed a quick look over Brian, who was flanked by a radiant Lucinda and beauteous Allison. Brian’s eyes were darkly shadowed under harsh overhead lights, but she could tell they were fastened relentlessly on her. He was especially handsome in a black dinner jacket and bow tie; probably the outfit he’d purchased at the Quincy Marketplace.
Jane felt like a bug skewered on a pin. She gasped inwardly when her eyes caught sight of a cameraman with a broadcast TV camera on his shoulder, wandering through the crowd. An assistant trailed after him with a coil of power cable, connecting the remote camera to the truck. She guessed the interviewing was over with, and he was now filling in with background-shots for the late evening news, shots that were going live to the station from the remote mobile unit, and could be used at any time.
The final insult, to be caught on camera in this dusty state.
A sly, pleased grin spread slowly over Lucinda’s face. She sidled closer to Brian to insure she remained in his sphere of attention. Lucinda was a vision in gold and looked like she’d stepped from a pirate’s treasure-chest instead of a dressing room. Her gilded hair cascaded in curling-iron ringlets down to a miniscule waist, and her costume for the evening was a dress of a shimmering, crinkly gold material as thin as foil; the front panel held up by shoe-string straps crisscrossing a back that was bare to a dangerous level. The front hem had a vertical slash to her thighs, revealing tiny shapely legs, and cascaded in a ruffled gold cloud down over Jimmy Choo platforms. Her face gleamed with a professional make-up job—and malice. Lucinda looked relaxed and refreshed as if she’d spent at least an hour in a scented bubble-bath; and a dusting of gold sparkles gave the birthday girl’s hair, face and shoulders a twenty-four-carat shimmer.
Allison Paget was breathtaking. Tall and statuesque, with a bountiful Hollywood cleavage, she was a stark contrast to the tiny golden Lucinda. The star was tanned to a nut brown from the electric beach, basted with fine oils, and wearing an Alberta Ferretti creation of parchment chiffon as delicate and translucent as breath. Crinkled off-the-shoulder cap-sleeves sprouted from her tightly gathered and tucked bodice, which then flowed into wispy handkerchief layers clinging to shapely hips. The dress ended in an asymmetrical petal hem wafting over long legs and Charles David sandals. Her wheat-blonde hair was dramatically swept up and sculptured to her head, with escaped strands around the hairline gelled to ribbon candy. The style was very flattering to her swan’s neck, carved features and glistening candy-pink mouth.
Ashley Parker was glowing in a blue sequined Badgley Mischka, but hung back with her date and parents, not wishing to be seen next to a stunning movie star. She would later comment to her father that the Hollywood crowd was just too “bourgeois” for her, and her mother would agree, as she daintily plucked at the folds of her satin Versace.
Allison was unaware of the Parker snub. She moved on a graceful cloud of perfume, sparkling and smiling and wafting parchment petals. The woman had been gifted with radar, knowing without looking when the large glass eye of the video camera swung in her direction. Jane thought something must have been beaming from the lens to make Allison’s eyes bigger, her back straighter, and her voice mellifluous. She clung to Brian’s arm, constantly glancing up and smiling at him, and it was obvious she was more than a little fond of the man. There went Madeline’s theory, Bria
n was definitely not just an ‘escort’.
Jane spotted Owen in the crowd. He was hovering around Allison in his rented dinner-jacket, hoping to be caught up in the movie-star wake, or at least be seen on camera with her.
Allison let go of Brian and leaned over the partition to pat a colt on his fluffy head, as the youngster eyed her sparkling diamond bracelet. His small nostrils flared at the flowery scent of her perfume. “How do you get them to follow you like that?” Allison asked, smiling warmly at Jane; and Jane found herself being irritated that the woman had to be so damn charming—as well as breathtakingly beautiful. She hoped the cameraman wouldn’t be attracted to this cute scene.
Before Jane could answer Allison, a smartly dressed gentleman in the crowd jumped in: “Are you kidding? The horses love this girl. She has a real gift with them!”
Lucinda piped up quickly, as Jane knew she would. “Actually, this is part of the regular training at Springhill; we hire girls like her to gentle the colts and get them used to people before they go on to the real work.”
The colts and fillies suddenly raced away to play, entertaining delighted guests. Jane fussed at her dusty hair, feeling very exposed under the unforgiving glare of the giant lamps blazing down from the rafters. She desperately wanted to fade away to the sanctuary of her apartment, and away from that fearsome glass lens capable of projecting her dusty image into millions of living rooms. And especially away from Brian, who was now staring at her as if she had two heads. From the look on Elliot’s face, with his phony smile, he was just biding his time until he could get her alone and grill her over the coals.
“Jane...” Lucinda moved closer to lean over the partition, smiling sweetly. “Brian has promised to come see some of the shows this summer!” She purred in dulcet tones, smiling back up at Brian with the full force of her glossy outlined lips. Jane knew Lucinda was baiting her, and she wondered what Allison thought of the outrageous flirting.
“We’ll get you hooked on horses yet,” Lucinda cooed to Brian.
Jane wanted to gag.
“Gonna cost you money if you do, Brian!” Cecily warned, rolling her eyes to the roof. For once she was well turned out in a black taffeta gown engineered to hide a stocky figure. Elliot, resplendent in his crisp, black evening jacket and pleated pearl-buttoned shirt, shot Cecily a poisonous shut-up look. Cecily seemed taken aback for a moment, but made no response.
Elliot sprung into action to work damage control. “Actually,” he said to Brian, “these horses are quite a good investment—especially when you consider the stud fees, the prestige to the stable when they win shows, and the price of the off-spring.”
Brian looked at Elliot, studying him for a moment. Then he said: “I’m very impressed with the horses and with the whole operation—it’s a far cry from the musty riding academies and the nasty nags the public is normally exposed to. I had never heard of Dressage before visiting Springhill.”
“Most people haven’t,” Lucinda chimed in. “It’s very European, and it takes a great deal of skill and training to accomplish. What you see here with the babies is the easy part, the beginning. When you see me show Charmante, you’ll appreciate what a fine art it is.”
Jane reached for the lead shank to make an escape. One more second of Lucinda’s pontificating and she would have to run into a corner and lose her dinner. She planned to remove the horses and get herself out of there but Lucinda wouldn’t allow it. She wanted to keep Jane twisting in the wind as long as possible.
“Jane! When you finish with that, bring Charmante out please. I’d like to show Brian my horse.” Without waiting for an answer, Lucinda turned her back and began chatting effusively with her guests.
Jane sighed, quietly boiling, and half determined to ignore the command, when she heard Elliot bragging to everyone how stunning Charmante was and what a treat they were in for. She decided, for the sake of her job, she’d better comply. She returned the colts and fillies to their stalls, two at a time, as the shimmering crowd of guests milled about on the cement apron chattering like excited magpies. Elliot was definitely the big fish in this pond, working the crowd as if he was running for political office.
As she left the ring with the last two yearlings, Jane saw Brian glance up at her while Lucinda talked his ear off. She hoped the baseball cap would hide enough of her head and face to keep a mental picture of the cropped, ragged and stick-thin classmate of old from springing into his mind like a highway billboard. So much for her clever spying techniques—he knew all along that she had been trailing him in Boston. “Please don’t let him make the connection,” she whispered, firming her cap down on her forehead.
Plain Jane hung in the air like a ghost.
Charmante went through his routine in the indoor ring and guests were awe struck. Even those who didn’t know a horse from a cow were left in silent wonder at the sheer physical beauty and grace of the animal as they crowded against the half wall of the indoor arena. Jane watched Brian as she stood back away from the group of party people. She leaned against the outside wall of the building, trying to blend in with the brooms leaning likewise and avoid the cameraman; who was, thank God, for the moment busy filming the horse. “Just keep that nasty camera away from me,” Jane grumbled under her breath, looking at the cable snaking out of the camera, connecting it to the satellite truck and the world. She knew back at the station they would be plucking through the images on monitors and deciding what to show immediately and taping the rest for the later use. Jane checked her watch: It was eleven-ten, so they could jump back live all through the evening news.
Her attention was drawn again to Brian, who seemed genuinely impressed with Charmante. His eyes followed the animal intently as the horse raced around the ring with his flag-like tail at full mast. She wondered if he was impressed enough to part with a chunk of money as Elliot hoped. Jane jabbed some strands of a wilting pony tail back into the cap and tried to slap away a little of the dust of the ring from her breeches. As she was resting against the wall with one foot up like a stork, she started to survey the line of glamorous guests crowded along the partition with their backs to her. The flower and spice scents of perfume and after-shave were co-mingling in a choking cloud, making her suppress a sneeze.
She watched Cecily tugging and shifting the side of her gown as if it was biting into her. Jane figured she probably didn’t even bother to get the correct size. She continued her mental cataloging of the company and was startled when her eyes swept into the stern, icy-blue stare of Gladys, Cecily’s eighty-year old mother. Gladys Barrett was standing in the pack of guests, gripping tightly to the arm of Roger, her hefty chauffeur, and she was the only one in the crowd looking back at Jane and not at the horse. Gladys was tiny, slender and straight-backed even at eighty, and she was dressed in a black Chanel gown that hid everything she didn’t want to show, but emphasized her expensive jewel collection and still-diminutive frame.
Gladys’s white hair was permed and rinsed to its original blonde color, and the curls swept up and piled on her head like dollops of pale yellow whip-cream. The sharp-boned face under it had skin like fine pastry dough, with a fan of delicate wrinkles etched around her mouth and eyes. Her make-up was sophisticated and subdued—no Crayola eyebrows and clown cheeks for Gladys. Her nose was thin and slightly beaked, and the deeply-hooded pale blue eyes gave Jane a chill as they critically assessed her with all the warmth of the stone dogs.
Change her eyes to silver-gray, Jane thought, lose the beaky nose, and Gladys was Lucinda in fifty-four years.
“Would you like to see a few new foals and broodmares?” Lucinda asked Brian, as Jane captured Charmante and brought him up to the partition to be admired and petted by guests. “I could have her bring them out for you...”
Jane sighed at the effort that would be required to disturb the mares and their new foals, and get them safely into the arena. But Brian instantly dismissed Lucinda’s bright idea. “Another time—thanks anyway—and thank you, Miss Husted, for your t
rouble.” Jane nodded, a little dazed at hearing him say her name.
Lucinda started to babble something about Jane being well-paid barn help, but Brian turned from her abruptly and reached over the partition to pat Charmante’s neck. He smiled at Jane, who was standing next to Charmante’s shoulder holding the lead shank. “Even I know an exceptional horse when I see one.”
He leaned closer to the horse, and then sliced his eyes into Jane’s face with a penetrating stare that meant to solve the puzzle of her. He tried to catch and hold her gaze but her eyes danced away from his. She was struck dumb and speechless, as she always knew she would be. Blood ran hot and cold in her veins; attempting speech now would be disastrous. Even worse, the dratted cameraman was making his way through the crowd in her direction with his nosy spyglass, dragging the Boston metropolis right into her face. She tilted her head down ever so slightly—lowering the bill of her cap just enough to throw her eyes into deep shadow.
Lucinda stepped up next to Brian, fuming that his attention was not centered on her. On her birthday no less. “Jane!” she spat. “Be sure to look after Charmante carefully...take him back now, and see that his stall is clean and that he has enough water and bedding.”
Jane adjusted her cap and gathered up the lead shank, preparing to take Charmante out of the ring. “Dylan has done his job well, Lucinda. All his creature comforts are taken care of.”
“Still,” Lucinda smiled sweetly and spoke slowly, emphasizing each syllable as if Jane were an idiot, “a horse of Charmante’s quality and value deserves our best care, and a little extra effort from all the help employed in the barn...right?”