Golden Filly Collection Two

by Lauraine Snelling

  But the near-accident ruined the morning for Trish, knocking her right back into her pit of despair.

  A black horse galloping by reminded her of Spitfire—the way he held his head, the way he begged for a run, his deep grunts when he ran hard. It seemed like months since she’d seen her horse. Would he still remember her?

  Thoughts of Spitfire brought thoughts of home. How were the babies, Miss Tee and Double Diamond, coming along? How she needed a hug from her mother, and a good old bad time from her brother, David. She watched out for the other working horses and paid attention to her own mount, but one part of her mind visited Runnin’ On Farm—and home. When could she go back?

  I’ll call as soon as I’m done with these beasts, she promised herself.

  The rising sun had burned off all but stray wisps of the morning fog, which hid in the lowest places by the time the last horse was worked according to Adam’s schedule.

  “You got any mounts this afternoon?” Adam asked when Trish had dropped down into a faded-green director’s chair. When she shook her head, he said, “Good. I’m taking you out for lunch.” When she started to object, he raised a hand. “No, I know you have homework, and you’d probably rather head for the beach, but we need to talk.” He looked up as Carlos stuck his head in the door with a question. After giving the needed answer, Adam turned back to Trish. “Someplace without so many interruptions.” He grinned at her. “Besides, it’s still overcast at the beach and will stay so all day.”

  Trish glanced at her watch. “Can I go home and change first?”

  “If you want. I’ll meet you at the Peking Gardens at noon.”

  When Trish entered her bedroom, the first thing she did was dial home. The phone rang and rang. “You’d think they’d have the answering machine on at least,” she muttered as she dropped the receiver back in the cradle.

  She tried her best friend, Rhonda. At least they had the answering machine on.

  When she looked in the bathroom mirror, she saw that tiny spatters of mud had given her freckles. She washed them away and scrubbed her hands. The face in the mirror didn’t smile back. A smile was too much effort.

  She shucked off her clothes and tossed them into the hamper. Damp mornings messed up her jeans. Maybe she should wear chaps like some of the others. She looked in the mirror again. Maybe I should just quit.

  The thought scared her. It was coming too frequently lately.

  “All you need is one good win.” She pointed her hairbrush at the grim face.

  And that’s about as likely as you acing a chem test, her little nagging voice rejoined. You know, if you’d…

  Trish slammed the hairbrush down on the counter and left the room. All she needed was one more person telling her what to do, even if it was her own head.

  Adam waited for her in a corner booth. While the restaurant had many patrons, the tables around them were empty for the moment. Trish slid into the red vinyl booth seat across from him. An icy Diet Coke stood in front of her.

  “Thanks.” She sipped and set the glass back down. A sigh escaped from deep within.

  Adam reached across the table and covered her clenched hands with his own. “How can I help you, Tee?”

  Tee, her father’s pet name for her, did it. Trish covered her brimming eyes with her hands.

  Would she ever stop crying?

  Chapter

  02

  Oh, lass, I’m so glad for you.”

  Trish heard the words, but they didn’t make any sense. Here she couldn’t seem to quit crying, and Adam said he was glad for her! Her thoughts tumbled over each other, shutting off the tears like a faucet.

  She mopped her eyes with the napkin in front of her, then dug in her purse for a tissue. After blowing her nose and wiping her eyes again, she took a deep breath and blew it out. She stared at the face across from her.

  “How come you and Martha both say you’re happy to see me crying? Seems kinda mean to me.” Trish sniffed, and sipped her Diet Coke.

  “Well, Trish, these weeks since your father died, you’ve been all frozen up inside. And that’s not healthy.” He shook his head. “Not at all.”

  Without looking up, Trish said, “It didn’t hurt as bad that way. Now I hurt all the time.”

  “Maybe, but the healing has begun. You have to let the feelings out, cry them out, express them, in order to deal with all that has happened.”

  “But my dad is still gone.”

  “I know. And nothing can bring him back. But you will be able to go on, and one day you’ll look around you and life will be good again. Not the same, but good again.”

  Trish let the tears spill over and stream down her cheeks. When she could speak, she took courage and brought up the question that was scaring her: “Do you think I’ll be any good as a jockey again?”

  “Oh yes. You have been given a wondrous gift with horses, and that hasn’t been taken from you. It may be put under wraps for a while, but it will come back.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I don’t just think, I believe so.”

  Trish kept his words in her mind as she drove back to the Finleys’ condominium. The sun, now hot on her back as she climbed the stairs to the front door, begged her to come out and enjoy it. Once in her room, she changed into a lime green swimsuit and, picking up her homework, went out on the deck off her room for some serious studying. The words and symbols danced on the page in the bright sunlight, so she went back inside for her sunglasses.

  Within a few minutes, she went back inside and down to the kitchen for a glass of iced tea. Next she needed a highlighter. By the time she finally got settled and tried to concentrate, the words swam before her eyes. She rolled over to her stomach and squinted against the glare. Within moments she lay fast asleep.

  That evening Trish walked in the door of her chemistry class, homework unfinished, and suffering a headache that made her sick to her stomach. And if she had touched water to her skin, it would have sizzled. She sat straight up in the chair, without touching the back of the seat. Her clothing was painful enough.

  How could you have done such a stupid thing? Her nagger was perched on her right shoulder, she was sure. To fall asleep in the hot afternoon sun like that, when you’ve hardly been in the sun at all…

  Trish just groaned and rested her head in her hand.

  The teacher walked to the front of the room and announced a quiz, worth ten points.

  Trish covered her eyes with her hand and shuddered. She answered only two of the ten questions, got up, and left. There was no point in staying. She could hardly spell her own name, let alone pay attention to a lecture she didn’t understand in the best of times.

  All the way home, she could think only of the beach. At least at the beach she felt closer to her father. And out there she could think; she could hear her song. Tomorrow, she promised herself. As soon as you’re done at the track tomorrow, you can go to the beach. She flinched at the sting of her back. Tomorrow she’d keep a shirt on.

  She hardly slept that night. Twice she got up and into the shower to cool the burning.

  At three a.m. Martha knocked on the door, just after Trish had crawled back into bed. “Trish, what’s wrong? Can I come in?”

  “Sure. It’s just my sunburn. I fell asleep on the deck this afternoon.”

  “Here, let me see.”

  Trish pulled up the back of her nightshirt.

  “Oh, you poor dear.” Martha gingerly touched one spot. “Hang on, I’ll be right back.” She returned in a few moments, carrying a bottle of green gel. “This will do the trick. Aloe vera, God’s burn ointment. Only instead of just using pieces of the plant like we used to, you can buy it in a bottle now.” She sat down on the bed by Trish and poured some into her hands. “Now, this will feel cool.”

  Trish flinched when the stuff touched her back, but she soon breathed a sigh of relief as the cooling strokes took away the pain.

  “Now I think you’ll sleep, my dear.” Martha stood up a
nd set the plastic bottle on the nightstand. “Put this on again when you wake up, and before you leave for the track, I’ll cover your entire back with it.”

  “Thank you,” Trish mumbled, already half asleep.

  Gatesby was in rare form when Trish took him out on the track in the morning. He tossed his head and jigged sideways down the track. “Knock it off, you dunderhead.” Trish tightened the reins as she scolded him. Gatesby half reared, ears flat against his head. Trish felt like clobbering him one, right between those flat ears. Instead, she pulled him to a stop and waited until he blew out a deep breath and settled his weight evenly on all four legs. When his ears pricked forward, she loosened the reins. “All right now, let’s see if we can behave.” Gatesby shook his head and set off at a smart walk as if he’d never acted up in his life.

  By the time works were finished, Trish’s sunburn cried for the soothing green gel. She trotted over to the women’s rest room and pulled off her shirt.

  “Whoa, that’s a bad one.” Another jockey turned to study Trish’s flaming back. “Here, let me help you.” She took the bottle and applied the gel.

  “Thanks. It feels so much better when someone else puts it on.”

  “What’d you do? Fall asleep in the sun?”

  Trish nodded. “Dumb, huh?”

  “Yeah, well, we’ve all done it.” She leaned closer to the mirror to study a spot on her chin. “You’re Trish Evanston, aren’t you?” Trish nodded. “You’ve won the biggies. We were all so excited when a woman won the Triple Crown. We were yellin’ and screamin’. The guys thought we were crazy. That colt of yours, he’s something else.”

  “Thanks.” Trish leaned a hip against the counter. “What’s your name?”

  “Oh, sorry, I’m Mandy Smithson.” She turned from the mirror. “I want you to know we all feel terrible about your dad.” She shook her head. “Tough break.”

  Trish sniffed and blinked her eyes. “Thanks.”

  Mandy turned to face her. “Trish, I know how you feel. My mom died from cancer when I was thirteen. She’d been sick for a long time.”

  “Oh no. How awful for you.”

  “Yeah, it was. I never had much of a childhood. And then I kinda went off the deep end. Took me a long time to get back on track, so don’t let that happen to you.” She touched a finger to Trish’s cheek where a tear had fallen. “Don’t try to tough it out. I did, and it’s not worth it.”

  “But I can’t even ride decent anymore.”

  “You will. Just takes time, that’s all.” Mandy squeezed Trish’s arm. “Hey, something else I learned. People don’t know what to say to you so they look the other way. Makes you feel kinda like you’re invisible.”

  Trish nodded again. “Uh-huh.”

  “So you smile first. Don’t wait for them.” She waved with one hand as she left the room. “See ya.”

  Trish blew her nose with paper from one of the stalls. After taking a deep breath, she left the room. Invisible, that’s exactly what she felt like sometimes.

  After a light lunch, Trish grabbed her bag and walked around the track to the jockey rooms just south of the grandstands. The white building gleamed in the sunlight. Tall palm trees rustled in the breeze in the front courtyard of Bay Meadows Racetrack, where busloads of retired spectators were already disembarking. It promised to be another perfect California day at the track, now that the fog had burned off.

  Trish sighed. In spite of the weather, she hadn’t had a perfect day here since she arrived. Today she had one mount and that was only because Adam still had faith in her. No one else seemed to want to hire her anymore. Well, after this race she would head for the beach. At least there she felt like there was some hope.

  She couldn’t keep her eyes open even though she sat in the most uncomfortable chair in the room. The conversation of the other women jockeys flowed around her while she tried to study. She scrunched farther down in the chair, flinched from her sunburn, got up, splashed water on her face—and still nodded off.

  When someone touched her shoulder, she jerked awake.

  “Time to suit up,” the attendant said.

  Trish checked her watch against the clock on the wall. “Thanks,” she mumbled, still caught in the slog of sleep. At least she’d shined her boots and goggles earlier. She pulled on a white sleeveless turtleneck, then her white pants, and laced up the front closure. Boots next, and after grabbing her helmet, she made it to the silks keeper and then the scale, the last in line.

  “I was beginning to wonder about you,” Adam said with a smile when she met him at the stall in the saddling paddock under the grandstands. The layout of the paddock felt so much like the one at Portland Meadows, Trish caught herself looking over her shoulder for David.

  At the “riders up” call, she stroked the filly’s nose and ducked under the horse’s neck to be tossed into the saddle.

  “Now, let her get her stride good and keep her off the pace about fourth or so. The track’s good and fast and you’ve only six furlongs, so you need to make your move as you come out of the turn. Remember, this is only her third time out and she’s not always quite sure what to do.”

  Trish nodded in all the right places. She swallowed hard to get her butterflies back down where they belonged. They seemed to be engaged in a somersault contest, at her expense.

  “You okay now?” Adam looked up at her before backing the horse out of the stall.

  Trish nodded and swallowed again. Down, butterflies, down!

  The filly pricked her ears at the roar of the crowd as the field of ten trotted out on the track. When they lined up, waiting for the handlers to take each horse into its stall, the entry on her left reared and slashed out at the pony rider. Three men grabbed the animal and wrestled him under control before leading him into position four.

  Trish walked her filly into their stall, crooning her song of comfort all the while.

  The horse on their right walked in, and two more when number four reared again. The jockey scrambled off this time in case the animal went over backward. Again the handlers took the time to work the horse back into the stall and get the jockey remounted.

  Trish felt the tension ripple up her back. The filly stamped her front feet and switched her tail. Trish stroked the dark brown neck where dots of moisture revealed the filly’s agitation. “Easy, girl. Take it easy.”

  Silence. A brief, heart-thumping moment and the gates clanged open. They were off.

  Number four broke, stumbled, and crashed into the filly as she barely cleared the gate. Trish fought to keep her horse on her feet, and miraculously they made it through. By the time they were running true, the field clustered in front of them and all Trish could see was a solid wall of moving rumps. She started to swing out around when a hole opened in front of her.

  She drove the filly in and through the hole to be caught in a box. They were halfway through the turn before she could see another hole, and when they went for it, the filly gave her all. She dove through and headed for the three leaders two lengths in front.

  Trish rode her hard, but at the half-mile pole the jockeys went to their whips and number two took off. Trish’s filly passed the number three horse and crept up, nose to tail, nose to shoulder, nose to nose, straining for all she had. When the front runner passed the post, Trish and her filly were number two by only a whisker. It took the camera to declare the winner, but Trish knew it before the numbers flashed on the board.

  “Good race, lass,” Adam commented as he trotted out on the track to snap on a lead line.

  “She shoulda had it. What a sweetheart to come back after a bum start like that. They shoulda scratched that stupid beast beside us. And then to let her get caught in a box like I did. Adam, I’m sorry.”

  “Trish, I said you did a good job.” Adam clipped each word, enunciating clearly, as if she were hard of hearing.

  Trish shook her head. “She should have won that. A good jockey woulda brought her in to win.”

  Adam let her rant on.
At his “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Trish just shook her head and, clamping her hands under her saddle, strode over to the scale.

  At least now she could go to the beach.

  She tossed her bag in the backseat and pushed the button to put the top down. Maybe the wind in her hair would blow away the cobwebs. “And maybe all it’ll do is make your hair a rat’s nest,” she grumbled to the face in her mirror as she set her black plastic sunglasses in place.

  A gray fog bank hovered just on the horizon, sending high spindrift clouds to tease the sun. The ride was quick and effortless, and Trish could feel herself unwind as she arrived at her favorite spot. An offshore breeze kicked up sand as she tried to lay out her blanket that billowed and flipped up at the corners. Once on the ground, she plunked her cooler in one corner, her schoolbag in another, and herself on the rest.

  At least today she wouldn’t be tempted to sunbathe and fall asleep. She pulled an orange out of the cooler and, after peeling it, ate the whole thing, ignoring the cries of the gull wheeling above her.

  She dug her journal out of her bag and turned to the first blank page. She didn’t have too many pages to turn, because writing in a journal like her father had done still wasn’t a habit. She bit the end of her pen.

  But once she began, the words seemed to flow out of a deep well of despair:

  I feel like I’m being jerked around like a yo-yo. Yeah, and by a kid who doesn’t know how to use the thing. One minute I’m rolling high and feeling like maybe I’ll make it, and the next I’m bouncing on the floor and my string is all wrapped in knots around me.

  Everyone keeps telling me things will be better in time, but how much time? I miss you, Dad, I can’t even begin to tell you how much. Why did you leave me? What kind of God takes a father from his kids? Why didn’t you quit smoking years ago when we first asked you to?