Golden Filly Collection Two

by Lauraine Snelling

“You want to watch the rest of the program or go to the beach?” she offered David the choice.

  “The beach.” He turned to Adam. “Unless we should go see that gelding now.”

  “Tomorrow will be fine. You two have a good time.”

  She drove all the way without a word. She could feel David glancing at her, waiting for a response to his comments, but she focused only on the road. She parked in her usual place, with the Pacific stretching before them. A fishing boat, dark against the gray swells, chugged north to the man-made harbor.

  “So this is where you’ve been coming. I can see why.”

  “David, I’m thinking of quitting racing.” There, the words were out.

  Chapter

  11

  That’s the stupidest idea I ever heard.”

  “You saw that race. It was typical, just the way my season is going.”

  “Trish, every athlete, every jockey, has a down time.”

  “I hardly get any mounts, other than ours and Adam’s.”

  “There are more jockeys here; the track is bigger, and so is the money. Besides that, you’re not the darling here you were at home.”

  “I’m not a winner here either.” She clamped her lips shut, then turned

  her head. “So you’re saying my wins were because of Dad and Spitfire?” “No, that’s not what I meant. Quit twisting my words around.” “So?” She crossed her arms across her chest.

  “So what?” David looked at her, confusion written all over his face. “So, what did you mean—about me being the darling at home.” “Well.” David clicked his teeth together and pursed his lips. “At home

  you were known before you apprenticed. Everyone liked you, and Dad had

  both a good name and lots of friends. And then you had that gift…”

  “Had is the right word.”

  “Shut up and let me finish this. You have a gift of understanding horses and getting them to perform at their best for you.”

  “Had, David, had. It’s not happening anymore.” Trish twisted to open her car door.

  David grabbed her arm. “No. Let’s get this out in the open and talk about it.” As she started to pull away, he tightened his hold. “Now. You want to make Dad a liar?”

  “That’s a low blow if I ever heard one.”

  “He believed in you. I believe in you, and so does Mom. You’ve lost your confidence, that’s all.”

  “David, I have tried. I do everything I can and still nothing works out right. Maybe I can come back to racing later, but for now, if I don’t win a race, especially the one with Firefly before I have to leave for home, I’m quitting.” She shoved open her door. “You coming down to the beach or not?”

  She grabbed her bag, cooler, and blanket out of the trunk and headed for the trail.

  David took the cooler from her as soon as he caught up. He followed her down the trail and out to her favorite spot.

  Trish dumped the gear, removed her shoes, and scuffed through the dry, loose sand down to the wet, where foamy waves scalloped an edge. She hunched her shoulders against both the inward and outward chill and watched the waves curl around her feet. The sand being sucked away from under her felt about as secure as the world she’d been living in lately.

  “I can see why you like it here.” David stopped beside her.

  Trish raised her face to the sun. “Dad wrote about peace in his journal, and this is the place where I seem to find it best.”

  “Mom said she gave you his journal and the carved eagle.”

  “Yeah.” Trish turned and started walking in the ankle-deep water. “Don’t you miss him so much you want to—to…” She kept her gaze on the foamy water curling about her feet.

  “To scream? To cry? Bash my hand against a wall?” David snorted. “Sure I have. I’ve done it all. And then I felt better—for a while.” He turned his fist over so she could see a fading scar line. “That’s what I got for it.” He traced the line with a fingertip. “But you have to go on, Tee. Dad would want that.”

  “Have you read his journal?”

  “No.” David shook his head. “You had it down here.”

  “It’s back on the blanket in my bag.” She turned and started back.

  “Come on. We have a little bit of time before I have to leave. Chemistry calls, you know.”

  Back at the blanket, Trish pulled the leather-covered journal with the cross tooled on the front from her bag and handed it to her brother. “Here.” She then lifted two sodas from the cooler and gave him one of those too.

  While he paged through their father’s journal, she wrote in her own.

  After a few pages, David pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll be back.”

  She could hear his voice choking up. But David, being David, didn’t like others to see him cry. Arms wrapped around her raised knees and chin on one, she watched him walk toward the surf.

  Maybe not winning is God’s way of telling me to get out of racing, she wrote in her journal, as David fought his private battle on the water’s edge. While I can’t see quitting forever, maybe I’m supposed to spend all my time being a senior this year, getting the good grades Mom was after me for all last year. Dad, I sure wish you were here to give me your good advice. I have said I will praise the Lord, but that’s so hard when things aren’t going the way you want them to. When she rubbed the moisture from her eyes, she rubbed sand into them. Now her nose really dripped.

  She tucked the journal away and rummaged for a tissue. She blew, blinked, and lying back, kept her eyes closed to let the tearing wash away the grit. She heard David’s scuffling feet and then felt him drop to the blanket beside her.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Just some sand in my eyes. How about you?”

  “I’ll live.” He tapped her arm with the corner of the journal. “I have something to ask you.”

  “Okay.” She shielded her eyes with her arm.

  “Will you please think this idea of yours through? Don’t make any decisions about what you will or won’t do until you talk with Mom.”

  “David.”

  “No, listen to me. You’ve seen how Mom is working with the babies and taking an active part in the farm. She thinks Dad would want it that way.”

  “David, she’s the one who didn’t want me to race, remember? The track was too dangerous for her little girl.…Maybe she’ll be happy if I quit.”

  “All I’m asking is that you keep an open mind.”

  “Look who’s talking. Do you think you can just tell me what to do?” She sat up and turned to him.

  “I’m not telling you what to do—I’m asking.” David spoke softly, gently. “I’m just asking.”

  Trish glared at him, trying to stare him down. But the look on his face forced her to swallow her words. “All right,” she whispered. She put the books back in their bag and the empty cans in the cooler. “We better get going. I have a final on Monday.”

  The instructor spent the class time reviewing for the final. Trish listened with total attention and took careful notes so she’d know what best to review. For a change she didn’t feel like falling asleep. Maybe it was an adrenaline high clicking in early. At least she didn’t have any mounts the next day, and could spend the afternoon studying.

  “Here.” She handed David the periodic table of elements and their symbols when she got back to the car after class. “You can quiz me on them on the way home.” She turned the key in the ignition. “Did you eat already?”

  “Yeah. I called Mom too.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “How’d your class go?”

  Trish only shrugged. When she realized David couldn’t see her response in the dark car, she said, “The teacher spent the time reviewing. The final is on Monday. Right now I just want to get it over with. If I never see another chemistry book, it’ll be too soon.” She turned the car into the parking lot of a take-out Chinese restaurant. “You want anything more?”

  “You know I can always eat Chine
se. Just get plenty and I’ll eat part of yours.”

  Trish muttered under her breath and got out of the car. She placed the order and paced the room. What’d he have to call home about, and get Mom all worried before she needs to be? Not that she needs to worry about this anyway. After all, racing or not is my decision.

  “Your order is ready.” The soft-spoken woman behind the counter smiled as she placed the styrofoam containers on the stainless steel surface.

  “Thanks.” Trish paid and walked out. Runnin’ On Farm could hire jockeys just like the other owners did. Couldn’t they?

  If they could, why did the thought of someone else riding her horses give her a pain in the heart region? Would this be one part of her father’s dream that fell apart?

  She handed the containers in to David. As she plopped onto the seat, she spoke through gritted teeth. “You didn’t have to tell Mom.” They ate their dinner in silence.

  Trish had just gotten to her room back at the Finleys’ when the phone rang.

  “It’s for you, Trish,” Martha called up the stairs.

  Trish picked up the receiver. “Hello.” At the sound of her mother’s voice, she sat down on the bed. “Hi, Mom.”

  “My flight comes in at seven on Saturday. Can you pick me up?”

  “Sure.” Trish felt her heart beat faster. Her mother was coming to see the race!

  “I thought we’d go out for dinner, so think of someplace nice.”

  “Okay.”

  “So how are you doing?” Her mother’s gentle question ignited the burning in Trish’s eyes.

  “Ummm.” Trish looked up through her bangs. “I guess David told you what I’ve decided. And the cruddy way I rode today—I don’t know. Sometimes it all seems more than I can handle.”

  “Ah, Tee, that’s the point. You don’t have to handle it, at least not all by yourself.”

  “Yeah, I know, but the doin’ is the hard part.” Trish sniffed. “Mom, I just can’t stand losing all the time.”

  “Well, we’ll talk more when I get there. The gelding runs Saturday?”

  “Right. In the fifth race. I have a mount in the fourth.”

  “Give it all you’ve got. I’ll see you Saturday night.”

  Trish tried studying for a while, but when her eyes kept drifting closed, she got up and went downstairs. David lay on the sofa watching television, with Martha working her needlepoint under the lamp. Adam had already gone to bed. Trish wished she could.

  “How about helping me for a while?” She poked a finger into David’s shoulder. “You don’t need to see the end of this program anyhow.”

  He turned into a sitting position. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you to say please?”

  “She tried, brother dear, she tried. Come on, David, please. I can’t stay awake, and you explain this stuff so it makes sense.”

  “Oh, all right.” He rose to his feet. “Good night, Martha. Thanks for the pie.”

  “Pie? You ate Chinese just before we got home!”

  “Have to keep up my strength.” He followed her up the stairs.

  “Let’s go through this thing first.” She handed him a copy of the periodic table. “Give me the element and I’ll give you the symbol.”

  “Iron.”

  “Capitol F, small e.”

  “Aluminum.”

  “Capitol A, small l.” They continued on through the entire table, with David asking for weights and definitions at times.

  Trish paced around the room, her brow furrowed in concentration.

  “I’d say you have those down pretty good. How about a list of terms.”

  She handed him a sheaf of papers stapled together.

  “Okay.” He glanced down the page. “Stoichiometry.”

  Trish groaned. “The determination of the atomic weights of elements, the proportions in which they combine and…” She scrunched up her face. “And…” She gave David a pleading look.

  “…and the weight relations in any chemical reactions.”

  Trish repeated the entire definition twice more. “Next.”

  “Avogadro’s Law.”

  “Oh, I hate this one. Avogadro’s Law is the theory that equal volumes of all gases…” She shook her head and started again. “Something about molecules and weights.”

  “Come on Trish, think.”

  “Avogadro’s Law: equal volumes of all gases under identical conditions of temperature and pressures contain equal numbers of molecules.”

  “Yes!”

  When Trish fell into bed an hour later, her head was full and her heart running over. If only she’d had David around all summer.

  Friday morning fog gave David a taste of summer on the San Francisco Peninsula. “I’m freezing,” he said as he huddled into his jacket. “Turn on the heat.”

  “I don’t suppose you want the top down.”

  He gave her a dirty look. “The sun’s not even up yet.”

  “You could have stayed at home in bed.”

  “And miss this? You outta your mind?”

  Everyone seemed in good humor that morning, even Gatesby. He galloped the track in an even gait, not pulling against the bit more than once or twice. Trish patted his neck as she came through the exit.

  “What a good fella. I was beginning to think you had it in for me.” He shook his head and walked back to the barn. He didn’t even shy when another horse dumped its rider and tore off down the road.

  After dismounting, Trish stood right in front of the horse, took both sides of the snaffle bit in her hands, and looked him straight on. “You up to no good or don’t you feel all right?”

  Gatesby blew at her and tried to rub his forehead on her chest.

  “Watch him, Juan. He’s behaving himself.”

  Firefly trotted the track like the perfect lady she was. While Trish concentrated, to detect any limping on that foreleg, the filly trotted on with a strong, even beat. Trish felt a load release from her shoulders. She wasn’t aware she’d been worrying about the filly.

  But you said you’d quit if she doesn’t win, her nagger whispered. Your dad always said winners never quit and quitters never win. That’ll make you a quitter.

  As the sun burned away the fog, Trish felt her own black cloud rolling in. Do I really want to quit? Maybe I could call it taking a break. What’s the word—a sabbatical? One year off.

  She worked the rest of the Finley string with the argument jumping back into her mind every time she dismounted.

  “You sure got awful quiet,” David said as he boosted her up for the last time. “You all right?”

  Trish shook her head. “No, but I will be.” One of these days—or years.

  If you quit, it’ll be like starting all over when you go back, the nagger threw in.

  “Give it a rest!” Trish gritted her teeth. Her horse flicked his ears back and forth and broke his even gait. “No, no, not you, easy now.” The animal relaxed again at Trish’s soothing voice.

  After works, Trish joined David, Carlos, and Adam in the office. The box of bagels and two kinds of cream cheese lay open on the desk.

  Trish unfolded her chair and, after smearing spinach and garlic cream cheese on a sesame-seed bagel, sat down. She crossed one ankle over her other knee to help form a table.

  “Well, what do you think of bagels?” she asked David, who had his mouth full.

  “He hates them; he’s only on his fourth half.” Adam pushed the box closer to David.

  David swallowed, and after a sip of coffee, could talk. “Who’s counting?”

  Trish concentrated on her breakfast. Biting a bagel just the right way took plenty of thought and planning. She tried to ignore the voices in her head. She tried to ignore the voices of the men in the office. She tried to ignore the pain in her heart. She failed on all counts.

  You said you’d praise the Lord too. Remember? She jumped to her feet and threw the uneaten third of her bagel in the trash. She left the office without a word.

  David found her a
while later, sitting in her car, chemistry book propped against the steering wheel, sound asleep. “Trish.” He shook her shoulder. “Trish, come on. Wake up.”

  Trish stretched her neck and rotated her head from shoulder to shoulder. She yawned fit to bust her jaw. When she blinked her eyes for the fourth time, they finally focused. “What do you want?” Her voice came out flat and dark, just like her feelings.

  “You said you wanted to come along when we went to see the gelding.”

  “The gelding?” While her eyes might have been functioning, her brain stayed stuck in the sleep mode.

  “The claimer. We have to make a decision.” His voice came across so big-brother patient she nearly gagged.

  Instead she yawned. This time she heard it crack.

  “Well, if you’re not interested, we’ll go without you. But since you’ll be the one training and racing him, I’d think you’d like to be there.”

  “I might not be the one racing him, you know.”

  “Ah, Trish. I don’t want to hear any more about your quitting.”

  Trish pushed open her car door. Going with them was better than staying alone.

  “I like him,” David whispered in Trish’s ear as they watched a woman walk the gelding around in the deep sand circle to cool him down.

  “I’d rather have a filly.”

  “Geldings usually make more money in the long run.”

  “He seems even tempered. We’ve watched him galloping. And the stats don’t lie.” Trish turned back with the others.

  “Why do you think he hasn’t done better?” David asked as they walked back to their own office.

  “He’s coming back from a quarter crack on the off rear that ended his two-year-old season. I think he’s a late bloomer too. He still hasn’t finished growing and the owner got too ambitious in the races they entered him in. A lot of things can happen, you know.” Adam seemed to be thinking out loud.

  “He’ll do good this year,” Carlos added.

  Yeah, if we get him. Trish kicked a rock ahead of her. The way things are going, I’ll probably jinx that too.

  “So you want to do it?” Adam sat back down at his desk.

  David looked over at Trish. At her nod, he dug his billfold out of his back pocket and took out a check. “Mom signed this. We just have to fill in the amount.”