“Yes!” Dawn gave Ben a hug and waved up at Wendy. Wendy waved back. Instinctively, Dawn glanced toward the track kitchen to look for Randy’s truck, an old habit from when he always made a point of watching the race when one of their horses was running. But gone was that luxury for him anymore. He was just too busy.
~ * ~
The celebration at The Rib restaurant was big and loud. Everyone involved was there but Matthew and Gordon. Since the young men were usually at school an hour away, their absence wasn’t totally alien to the festivities. Gordon had driven his mother’s car back to school and would return tomorrow for Matthew’s discharge and transfer from the hospital.
“Hear! Hear!” Tom said, seated next to Wendy. “To Alley Beau!”
George and Glenda, Ben, Dawn and Randy, D.R., Maeve, Carol, Linda and Maria, and Dusty, Tom and Wendy, Randy Sr. and Liz, all raised their glasses.
“Salud!”
“She came back good, huh?” George said. Alley Beau was his favorite.
“Hell! She was just getting going!” Tom said. “She didn’t want pulled up.”
“I told you she’s going to be a router,” Dusty insisted.
Ben smiled. How many times had they sat at this very table over the years? How many times had they celebrated, agonized, made decisions.
“She’s a big Cadillac made for cruising,” Dusty said. “Who knows how far she’ll run.”
Ben laughed. “There were times I couldn’t see her keeping her long legs untangled. Remember how rubbery-legged she was as a baby.” He imitated her jelly-legging it. “I had my doubts.”
“Not me. Never,” George said.
Randy smiled. It had been a long day. He was exhausted and could barely keep his eyes open. He took a long swallow of his ice cold beer.
“Daddy!” Maeve tugged at his arm. “I dressed myself all by myself today.”
Randy chuckled and kissed the top of her head. “I can see that. You look so pretty!”
“Me too,” Maria said.
“And you look so pretty too!”
Both girls were dressed in pink from head to toe and had big pink ribbons in their hair. “What about you, little man?” Randy asked D.R.
“Daddy!” D.R. scolded. “I always dress myself.” Jeans and flannel shirt just like his daddy. “You know that.”
Randy laughed. “Ah, I forgot.” He ruffled D.R’s carrot-top hair and smiled when his son combed it back in place just like Uncle Tom’s.
Here came the salads, hot rolls, cold butter and homemade jam. “Everyone decide what they want?” Two servers stood ready to take their orders. It was a long drawn-out process. Once that was done and everyone started eating their salads, talk went back to “the kids.”
D.R. learned how to spell encyclopedia today. Maeve and Maria learned how to stand on their heads and say the Pledge of Allegiance. “…to the flag, one nation, under Gods, for which it stands, Americas for all.”
“I like that,” Ben said. They all agreed. “So, Dusty, what do you plan to do with that little filly?”
“Well.” Dusty slathered his roll with butter and motioned for the jam. “I haven’t thought very far ahead on that. I don’t think it’s going to be easy finding her a home, even if she is relatively sound. I’m thinking maybe I could turn her out in T-Bone’s old field for a while.”
“Why not turn her out with Biscuit and Poncho,” Dawn said, discreetly ignoring the rather imploring look she just got from Ben. Biscuit and Poncho were Linda Dillon’s old ponies. Dawn bought them from her when Ben had kicked Linda off the racetrack and she left town. It was because of that turn of events, they’d all become friends.
“What’s the filly’s name?” Linda asked. “They might know her.”
Everyone laughed.
“Her name’s Bonnie Bee.” Dusty piled jam onto his buttered roll. D.R. imitated him, piling his just the same way. “I just don’t want to get attached to her,” Dusty said.
“You mean, anymore than you already have?” Tom asked.
Dusty smiled. “She’s such a cute little thing and she tries so hard to do everything right.”
“I hear you,” Ben said. “But there’s going to come a day when you will all realize you can’t fall in love with them. You just can’t.”
“Oh, not this again,” Glenda said, chuckling. “This is a business, this is a business….”
“And you have to think like a business person,” Dawn added.
“Or else,” George said, pointing a finger.
“It’s a business, you hear me,” Tom said.”It’s a tough business and you have to make tough business decisions, because that’s the business.”
They all laughed, Ben included. “I don’t want you all going around with your head in the clouds and your feet too high off the ground.”
Maria and Maeve lifted their feet in the air.
They all laughed again and from across the room, the people at several tables nearby laughed along with them. This restaurant was a regular hangout for racetrackers. It was close to the track. The food was delicious, hardy, affordable, and the portions were generous.
Randy put his arm around Dawn and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled. “What’s that for?”
“I don’t know. I was just thinking about that day you told me to bug off here.”
“Bug off?” She laughed.
“Yeah, or something like that, and you did that Fioritto thing.”
Dawn laughed again. “That’s the second time I’ve heard that today. What is a Fioritto thing? I don’t know what you’re all talking about.”
“It’s a look,” Tom said. “A look that makes people say, “Oh shit!’”
Maeve and Maria sat up straight in their chairs.
“Tom!” Carol said.
“Sorry, kids. My badd!”
The girls giggled.
“I heard from Cindy today,” Liz said. “She had another day of Saltines and ginger ale.”
“How well I remember that,” Linda said absentmindedly as she cut up the tomato on Maria’s salad. “Day after day after day.”
They all looked at her. Linda had been pregnant and alone. Maria’s father was long gone, a fleeting moment in her life. She’d ponied and exercised horses through her fifth month. Talk on the racetrack back then was she was trying to make weight and give riding another try. That’s how skinny she’d gotten. She had Maria in the off season and no one knew. Some thought she’d gone to Florida for the winter. Some thought she’d gone out West.
Linda raised her eyes, saw everyone looking at her, and sighed. “But it was all worthwhile. Cindy will forget all about it when the baby’s born.”
They nodded, all looking at little Maria.
“Eat, eat!” Mama Leone, the third-generation owner said appearing at their table. “Food come out soon!”
“Yes, Ma’am!”
The table fell quiet as they munched and ate. No one dare argue with Mamma Leone. As the main course was brought to the table, Randy got a phone call. He cupped his hand over his ear and listened, then got up and walked out to the foyer.
Dawn glanced up as he returned. “Emergency?”
He nodded. “I gotta go.”
“Do you need help?” Tom asked.
“No, I’m fine.” He lifted his Porterhouse steak with his fork, positioned it in his napkin to take with him, baked potato in another napkin and gave Dawn a kiss. “This shouldn’t take long. I’ll see you at home. Good night, everybody.”
“He needs help,” Randy Sr. said. “He’s wearing himself out.”
Dawn sighed. “I know. But he won’t listen to me.”
“Can’t he hire another vet?” Liz asked.
“A good-looking one my age,” Linda said.
They all laughed and then fell quiet again, but for the business of chewing, eating, and cutting up meat.
“Pass me the A1, please.”
“Can I have the Tabasco?”
“More tea?”
“Yes, pleas
e.”
“Mommy?” D.R. said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t like peas.”
“Since when?”
“Since today,” D.R. replied, entertaining everyone with a most serious expression on his face as he moved them all around his plate. “I don’t think I’ll ever like them again.”
~ * ~
Dawn stopped at Ben’s farmhouse on the way to work in the morning to have coffee with Wendy and wished her luck today with Matthew’s transfer to rehab. “He left me another message this morning,” Wendy said. “He’s still insisting he’s not going.”
“It doesn’t appear that he has a choice,” Dawn said. “Does he? Can he just come home?”
“No. They say he needs physical therapy and a controlled environment because of the damage to his eyes.”
Ben and Tom had left for the track already and it was just the two of them. Wendy poured them both a second cup. “In a way, I almost wish T-Bone’s Place was done already. Maybe he could have just gone there.”
They were all nervous about the old-timers coming to live at T-Bone’s. Having them at the racetrack was a huge responsibility let alone having them practically in the front yard. Early on when discussing the possibility of having T-Bone’s house turned into their permanent home, everyone involved admitted to having fears of one of the residents falling, emergency vehicles at night, deaths, funerals.
“Well, that’s just a simple fact of life,” Mim had said in typical Mim fashion. “We’re all going to die sooner or later. It’s going to happen wherever we end up. You want us to sign something that says you’re not responsible for us falling over and hitting our heads or dying of old age or living past a hundred?”
Wendy and Dawn looked at one another across the kitchen table, so many things on both of their minds. “Are we ready for this?”
“I think so,” Wendy said. “At least as far as T-Bone’s Place goes. Everything’s moving right along. Vicky wants to try and do the cooking herself. I have a feeling she’s going to wear herself out.”
Chef Diamond Lou at the racetrack was “orchestrating” the meals for the old-timers now. Not that he had been on board at the beginning. “I can’t serve without seasoning! It’s a travesty. Who say old people don’t like spice?”
“It’s hard on their digestion, Diamond,” Wendy insisted.
“Fine. No problemo. I give them parsley each meal to fix digestion.”
He and the old-timers and Vicky had worked it out. They now ate healthy favorites and gourmet meals each day and had come to some indisputable conclusions as to which spices and herbs worked and which unfortunately did not. Parsley accompanied each meal and was never not eaten. Chef Diamond Lou drizzled agave juice on it and served it fresh at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
“What time’s Ben’s appointment today?”
“Noon. High noon he says.” Dawn finished her coffee and stood up to leave. “Good luck today.”
“You too,” Wendy said. “You’re going with him, right?”
“Yes.”
When Dawn arrived at the racetrack, she was surprised to find the young girl from yesterday standing outside the guard shack with a woman whose appearance and stern posture, strongly suggested she was Hillary’s mother. Dawn parked her car and walked toward them. Jason, the stable guard stepped outside to greet her. “They’re here to see you.” The girl avoided looking at her.
“Good morning,” Dawn said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m Janet Walker,” the woman said. “This is my daughter, Hillary. I understand you have already met.”
“Yes,” Dawn said. “We met yesterday.”
“Well, we’re here to apologize.”
Dawn looked at the girl. “I believe she apologized yesterday.”
“Yes, but she didn’t mean it,” her mother insisted. “Did you, Hillary?”
The girl looked at Dawn. “No, but….”
“Well, I appreciate you both coming by,” Dawn said. “I was going to make a trip over to see you later today and now I don’t have to. Thank you for saving me the time.”
“I love horses,” the girl said. “I hate what happens to them at the track.”
Her mother sighed.
Dawn looked at the girl. “Hillary, you’re mistaken. I don’t know where you got the impression that bad things happen to all the horses at the racetrack. Bad things happen to horses everywhere. I hate that too. But here… here at Nottingham Downs, we’re making a difference. We’re doing something about it. I think it’s great that you love horses. So do I. But you can’t go around judging people and places as if we’re all the same.”
“I tell her that all the time,” her mother said. “I don’t know what to do anymore. If it’s not horses, it’s the puppy mills, the cattle feedlots, the sheep herders.”
Dawn looked at her. “The sheep herders?”
The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. Something about the sheep.”
“What’s with the sheep?” Dawn asked the girl.
“Duh! They take the babies away.”
Dawn stared. “Seriously? Why?”
“I don’t know. So they can make some rare expensive cheese with the milk.”
“What do they do with the lambs?”
The girl looked at her. “Easter dinner.”
“Oh, that’s sad,” Dawn said, the guard Jason still standing at her side.
“We’d like to replace your shirt,” the mother said, reaching into her purse for her wallet. “Rest assured, you will pay me this back, Hillary.”
“I don’t want your money,” Dawn said. “Thank you anyway.”
The woman looked ready to cry. “Please…I need to do something.”
Dawn glanced at the first barn, where Dusty stood looking at her. He called to her. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes.” She looked at the mom and then the girl. “Are you off school today?”
The mom nodded. The girl just looked at her.
“Dusty, could you use some help this morning?”
“Doing what?” he said.
“Stalls?”
“Sure.”
“There you go,” Dawn said, nodding in Dusty’s direction and then looking at the mom. “Can you pick her up in a couple of hours? A couple of hours’ work and we’ll call it square. How’s that?”
Even as the mom was nodding in agreement, the girl was shaking her head. “I can’t work on this racetrack. I told you I know what goes on here.”
“Yes, I know, and you’re wrong” Dawn said. “Dusty, would you please come here a minute.”
Dusty walked over.
“Hillary’s going to help you out this morning.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Hillary,” Dawn said. “Dusty is our liaison person at Nottingham Downs. It’s his job to make sure all of the horses here are treated well. He takes his job seriously.”
“I’ll bet,” the girl said, staring off in the opposite direction.
“You’ll be working with some of the horses that are retired and going to be ReHomed.”
The girl turned.
“Let’s go,” Dusty said. “Do you know anything about horses?”
“Yes. Obviously.”
“Good,” Dusty said, walking back to the barn with the girl trailing behind. “I don’t have all day to babysit you.”
Dawn looked at the girl’s mother and glanced at her watch. “She’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Why don’t you pick her up around ten o’clock?”
“Does she have a license?” Jason asked.
“Yes, I have a copy of it right here.” Dawn reached into her purse and showed it to the guard. “Go ahead,” she told the girl’s mother. “We’re all set.”
~ * ~
It was a light training morning for the Miller barn with Alley having run yesterday, two horses in tomorrow and two to be entered for Sunday. Tom came and went, ponying horses for a few other trainers. In between, he helped Dawn with stalls and doing the
horses up. The blacksmith was due around ten-thirty. No one was scheduled to be shod today. Brownie was just going to check the horses running this weekend to make sure all was well. Johnny came and went. Jenny Grimm came by to check in on Alley Beau. Junior came and went. Randy stopped by. Juan stopped by.
Ben walked over to the Secretary’s office around nine o’clock to check in with Linda and Joe. Wendy wouldn’t be in the office until later in the afternoon after she got Matthew settled in at the rehab facility. Ben didn’t envy Wendy. Matthew could be pretty headstrong and entirely way too independent.
Linda looked up from taking an entry and smiled. Joe had one trainer in line. She had three. Ben jokingly tried nudging two of them out of the way and they laughed. He got behind the one in Joe’s line.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Miller,” Joe asked, when it was Ben’s turn.
“Well, I don’t know, Mr. Feigler,” Ben said. “Let me think.”
Joe smiled. “Did you hear Erie might be back in business?”
“No, I didn’t,” Ben said. He glanced at Linda who smiled and crossed her fingers. “Good! That’s good news.” Ben placed his entries for Bo-T and Wee Born on Sunday and then took the elevator upstairs to check on the old-timers. Every one of them, including the nurse Vicky was sitting in front of the big grandstand window watching the morning training activity.
“Buenos dias,” Miguel said.
“Buenos dias.” Ben pulled up a chair and sat down beside him. “How is everybody?”
“Good, good, fine, fine,” they all said, eyes glued to the racetrack.
Ben watched along with them for a moment. “Who is that?” he asked, pointing to a large black horse being galloped.
“Rider or horse?” Mim asked.
Ben chuckled. “Horse.”
“That’s Spring Bucket Bob.”
“I thought so.”
“That’s Junior Rupert galloping him,” Jack said.
All the old-timers nodded, agreeing.
“I never liked that boy,” Steven said. “Was always late, could never get his ass out of bed.”
‘He’s a lot better now,” Jeannie said. “I hear he’s going to be a father.”
“What?” Ben said.
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