Golden Filly Collection One (75 page)
“As I was saying earlier, I just don’t understand why Trish—”
“Now, Mother…” Grandpa Johnson patted his wife’s hand. He checked his watch. “I really think we’d better get on the road. I hate to leave you all, but I don’t drive after dark anymore and Florida is a ways off. So thank you for a good time and this fine meal.” He pulled out his wife’s chair after he stood. “Come on, Mother. Let’s get all the hugging and crying done so we can be going.”
Trish pushed back her own chair. “Sorry I didn’t get to spend more time with you,” she said as she gave her grandfather a big hug. “Thanks for coming.”
“You too, Grandma,” she added. “Maybe you’ll fly up for Pimlico. That’s not too far away from Florida.” Trish hugged the gray-haired woman who was short like herself.
“I don’t know, dear. Watching you up on that black horse of yours nearly worried me to death. Now, you be careful.” She stepped back and shook her head.
“I will, I promise,” Trish said.
The Finleys left for the airport soon after the Evanstons waved off the departing grandparents. Hal had his arms around both Marge and Trish as they all stood in the parking lot waving good-bye.
“Well, let’s get back to the hotel. We have a lot to do before we leave tomorrow,” Hal said.
“I thought we were leaving for Pimlico on Thursday.” Trish looked up at her father.
“We are. But I have to fly home to Vancouver for a chemotherapy treatment. Your mother is going with me and we plan to be back on Wednesday.”
“But I thought…” Trish started to say. Her little nagging voice didn’t give her a chance to finish.
No, you weren’t thinking at all. Not about your father and the cancer. You just think about horse racing.
I
wish Dad were still here.” Trish flopped back on her bed on Monday morning.
“Well, he’s not and you’re wasting time.” David whirled around and headed for the door.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing!”
“Right.” Trish grabbed her windbreaker and trotted after him. David nearly ran to the elevator, or at least it seemed that way to Trish.
I didn’t oversleep. No one’s called. What set him off?
Trish’s mind played with the questions while she studied the stern profile of her usually easygoing brother as they waited for the hotel elevator.
“Let’s take the stairs.” David wheeled to the right and pushed open the exit door. As they clattered down six flights of stairs, Trish’s mind took up the game again. Even the set of David’s shoulders declared his…anger? Resentment? Disgust? Trish wasn’t sure. Just keeping up was effort enough.
“Okay, what is it?” She crossed her arms over her chest after snapping her seat belt in the rental car.
David’s sigh sounded as if it had been trapped inside long enough to build up steam. “Does it ever occur to you that sometimes I get tired of being in charge?”
Trish was taken aback. “No. I mean, I guess I thought we kinda shared that, the responsibility and all. It’s not like Dad does this on purpose. Leaving, I mean.” She felt as if her words and thoughts rattled together and came out broken. “Besides, we have Patrick now.”
“I know.” David gripped the top of the steering wheel and leaned his forehead on his hands. “I guess part of it is this awful feeling I have in the pit of my stomach.”
“Awful feeling? About what? Did Dad say something to you before they left this morning? I just gave them a hug and fell back to sleep.”
“I don’t know. No, nothing was said. Maybe it’s just Dad’s leaving us here.”
“At least you don’t have to talk with that guy from
Sports Illustrated
again. All by yourself.”
“I’ll be there if you need me,” David reminded his sister.
“I meant without Dad. He always says exactly the right thing. I sound like someone with half a brain.”
“Well, the article
is
mostly about you and Spitfire. Besides, you know what kind of questions they’ll ask. Think of your answers in advance.”
Trish nodded. Silence fell while they both looked out the window of the car. A flicker of red caught Trish’s eye as a scarlet cardinal lighted on one of the blossom-frosted branches of the dogwood tree in front of them.
“Look,” Trish whispered. “Halfway up the tree on the right.” She breathed a sigh of delight as a dull-colored female joined her mate on the branch. The little male glistened like a ruby jewel set among the creamy blossoms.
“Well, we better get going.” David reached for the ignition key and then paused. “We’d better be praying, Tee.”
“For what? Right now things are going pretty smooth.”
“I don’t know, but I have a feeling.” David turned his head to back the car out of the parking space. “A bad feeling.”
Trish mentally sorted through her favorite Bible verses. They were printed on three-by-five cards and tacked above her desk at home. Her father had started the collection during his first hospital stay the previous fall. Finally she settled on “In everything give thanks.” It was hard to pray when she didn’t know what to pray for.
What if you really don’t like what’s coming?
her nagging little voice inquired.
Then you’re going to feel pretty stupid giving thanks for it.
Some days her inner voice seemed to be a help, but more often it nagged at her—like today.
Glad for the reprieve, Trish leaped from the car as soon as David parked beside barn 41, near their stall. A silver and blue horse van was stationed in the road waiting to load. The sounds of an early-morning track were music to Trish’s ears. Horses nickering, a sharp whinny, people laughing, the rhythmic grunts of a galloping horse counterpoint with pounding hooves on the dirt track, a bird warbling his sunrise song in one of the gigantic oak trees.
Spitfire nickered as soon as he heard Trish greet Patrick. He tossed his head, spraying her with drops from his recent drink, then wuffled her hair and nosed her hands for the carrot she always carried. Trish gave him his treat and scratched behind his ears and down his cheek. The colt leaned his head against her chest and closed his eyes in bliss.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ll be a-spoilin’ him rotten.” Patrick shook his head, but his smile told Trish that he understood the special relationship she and Spitfire shared. “Come on, old son.” Patrick slipped into the stall and saddled the colt with practiced ease. “You be in bad need of a good run.”
Trish fitted the headstall over the soft black ears and buckled the chin strap. Spitfire answered a whinny from a horse a few stalls down.
“Ouch, right in my ear.” Trish rubbed her ringing ear. “Did you have to be so loud?”
“He’s just letting ’em all know he’s king.” Patrick smoothed the already gleaming black shoulder as he unhooked the green web gate across the stall entrance. “Now, you trot once around and then gallop nice and easy another. Let him get the kinks out.” Patrick boosted Trish into the saddle. “We’ll give him a short work tomorrow.”
Trish nodded. She slid her feet into the iron stirrups and clucked her horse forward. Spitfire walked with that loose-limbed gait that told Trish he was completely relaxed. His stride lengthened as they approached the entrance to the track, and Trish went to a post as he trotted out to the left.
The soothing rhythm made it too easy for her mind to keep chewing on David’s comment. If
he
had a bad feeling—David wasn’t one to talk much about his feelings. And for him to—Trish jerked her attention back to the present. She had to concentrate on riding. Accidents happened too easily when a rider let the mind wander.
“Wish I could just keep riding,” Trish muttered when she slid to the ground, much too soon for her liking.
While she’d tried to think of answers for her interviewer, Trish knew that journalists often threw a curve.
And that’s exactly what he did.
“Where will you be riding after the Belmont?” Bill Williams looked up from his writing pad.
“I—I’m not sure.” Trish couldn’t think up anything but the truth. “You see, I promised to make up a chemistry class this summer. The school let me drop it when I was having too much trouble with that and racing and all the other stuff going on.”
“By other stuff, you mean your father’s illness?”
Trish nodded.
Why, oh why, had she mentioned the chemistry?
“Dad and I originally talked about Longacres in Seattle, but I’ve been invited to ride in California too, so—”
“Is chemistry really so important?”
“No, but my promise is.” Trish felt a flush start up her neck.
How could she switch the subject?
“Other young riders get their GED or hire a tutor. Or just drop out of school. What do you think you’ll do?”
Trish took a deep breath. “My mom would never let me get my GED or drop out. She thinks college is really important.”
“What do
you
think?”
“Well…” Trish paused to give her brain time to get in gear before she said something she’d be sorry for. “School is important. But so is racing. Somehow we’ll just have to work it all out.”
When Williams finally said good-bye, Trish felt like she’d been scrubbed and hung up to dry like the bandages that swung from the wire along the aisle. She left the tack room and slipped under the web gate in Spitfire’s stall.
“Come on, you guys, let’s eat.” She gave Spitfire a quick hug. “I’d rather wash ten horses than go through an interview again.”
“You sounded pretty cool to me.” David picked up the bucket full of grooming gear. Trish watched as David put all the brushes and cloths away in the tack box. His whistle told her he’d gotten rid of the bad feeling he’d had. She knew where it had gone. Right to the pit of her stomach.
“Hey, what’s the matter with our Derby winner?” Red held the door for them as they entered the track kitchen. “You look like you lost your best friend.”
I did,
Trish almost answered. Her father had flown back home for treatment that morning.
“She just had a go-round with that writer from
Sports Illustrated,
” David answered for her. “She got caught on ‘where are you racing after Belmont’?”
“Well?” Red grinned at her. “Where are you?”
“I wish I knew.” Trish picked up a tray and set it down hard on the counter. Here she was a Derby winner, and right now she felt about as low as the last-place rider.
Temper, temper.
And if there was any way to strangle her resident critic, that would be fine too.
Trish ignored the three men talking around her as she mixed black cherry yogurt with crunchy dry cereal. While the combination didn’t look the greatest, it tasted good and was good for her.
Why did I bring up the chemistry? Now Mom will feel—who knows what she’ll feel? Right now I feel like hiding and bawling for a week or two.
She licked the yogurt off her spoon. She could feel the tears burning the back of her eyelids.
This is stupid. You have nothing to cry about,
her little nagger leaped back into the act.
“I’ll see you guys back at the barn.” Trish picked up her tray and left, ignoring their protests. But no matter how fast she walked, she couldn’t get away from the thoughts swirling in her head.
Good Christians don’t get down like this. You should be ashamed of yourself. You have so much to be grateful for.
It’s okay, buddy, you’re just tired. We’ve been through a lot the last few days. And besides, your dad just left. That’s always hard.
Trish decided she liked the second voice better. And it was true. She knew all about adrenaline highs, the kind that carry you through the excitement and then dump you down the next day.
“God, help us,” she pleaded as she slipped into Spitfire’s stall and sank down in the straw in the corner. “Please take care of my dad—and us.” Spitfire snuffled her hair and licked away a tear that had escaped and trickled down her cheek. Trish laid her head on her arms and let the tears roll. Spitfire stood over her, as if keeping guard.
By the time the others returned, slightly red eyes and a wayward sniff or two were the only signs of the storm that had passed.
The sound of laughter drew Trish to the tack room. She leaned against the doorway as Patrick, deep in his story, bent forward to deliver the punch line. Red and David, both with saddle-soaped cloths in their hands, listened and cleaned tack at the same time.
When her chuckle chimed in with the others, Patrick waved Trish to a chair without a break in his monologue. She settled back for a pleasant time. His stories could go on all day and into the night if encouraged.
Two hours later and feeling more like herself, Trish took advantage of a break and stood up. Her sides ached from laughing. The tack room looked like Mr. Clean had just sent his whirlwind through.
“I need to go study for a while. Those finals are coming right up,” Trish announced.
“Need some help?” Red looked up with a hopeful grin.
“Thanks, but no thanks. Besides, what do you know about government in Washington State?”
“I could ask you questions.”
“Sure,” David added. “About racing times and track conditions.”
Red snapped a rag at David’s knee. “Thanks. You’re a big help.”
