Flying Changes, Page 29

  "Holy crap! Did you see that?" says someone from behind me.

  Another squeeze from Dan, quickly, so I won't leap to conclusions.

  I know exactly where she is on the course even though I haven't looked since she began. She gallops between the jumps on the straight, collecting him just in time for the takeoff, and cantering tightly around the turns. With Joe now snorting with each stride, she takes the wishing well, triple bar, and picket fence.

  They're coming up to the water jump now. It's a beast of a thing with a fourteen-foot spread. The last horse dropped not one but two rails and then came down in the water.

  Apparently Joe's capacity for spreads has become the thing of legend--it was, after all, the in-and-out at Strafford that secured Eva and Joe the wildcard space. I hear people around us murmur things like, "watch this" and "check this out," and find myself peeking through my fingers.

  They are flying. Joe's powerful body is pounding the footing so hard it flies up in chunks behind him. His muscles are so defined he looks like separate pieces you could take apart and reassemble, like Lego. He barrels toward that jump like nobody's business and Eva is right there with him, pumping her arms with each thrust of his head. Two strides before, he pulls his head up, brings his haunches under him, shifts from a four-beat gallop to a three-beat canter, and bursts from the ground.

  As they arc silently through the air, my eye-covering hand drops to my lap and I stop breathing. Joe rises impossibly, with Eva curled over his back and around his neck, her hands thrust up toward his head.

  All around us, people gasp. They clear the top rail by a good six inches. When Joe lands more than a foot past the end of the water, a wild cheer goes up.

  I glance at the flashing red numbers. She's flying. She's clear. And the only thing left between her and the finish is the double oxer.

  Dan has seen that my eyes are open, and he's looking at me, not Eva. He knows about me and double oxers. The last time I encountered one, I broke my neck and my horse died. I glance quickly at him, emit a tiny sob, and watch as my daughter approaches my greatest fear.

  They're over in a flash, then gallop hell-bent toward the electric eye that will stop the clock.

  Eva swings her head around to get a look before she even slows Joe down. As the numbers sink in, the crowd goes wild. I almost leap out of my skin when five or six short blasts of an airhorn go off directly behind me.

  Jeremy shrieks, and I jerk around just in time to see Nathalie's girls quickly stuffing the contraband airhorn into the arm of a jacket, leaping about, screaming and hugging each other.

  Eva's face is so full of joy, so full of--I don't even know what, it's indescribable, so beautiful I can hardly bear it. She reaches down and slap-pats Joe, whose whole demeanor indicates he knows exactly what he's done.

  And then, as Eva takes an impromptu victory gallop around the perimeter of the arena to the enormous delight of the crowd, Dan leans in to me and says, "Do you realize your daughter just won a thirty-thousand-dollar purse?"

  I snort. Never had it crossed my mind. Not through any of this. And I'll bet anything it didn't cross Eva's either.

  Dan, Mutti, Jeremy, and I make the long drive home that night, leaving Eva to spend the night at a hotel to celebrate with her friends. Last I saw, she was surrounded by stablemates and sipping a glass of champagne. Illegal, yes--but I don't mind because Nathalie was there, so I have no doubt whatever that her glass wasn't refilled. Eva will travel back to Wyldewood with her friends and horse tomorrow.

  It's been a long day, and the drive is grueling. Five hours into it I wonder whether we should have flown after all. When I was planning the trip, I figured that with having to change planes it would take about the same amount of time as driving, but right now it feels like any other option would have been better.

  Even though Dan does all the driving, the only person who manages to sleep is Jeremy. Which means, naturally, that when we finally get home--even though it's well after midnight--he doesn't feel like going to bed.

  I pace back and forth, back and forth, jiggling and singing until I finally get him to sleep, but each time I try to lay him in his crib, his eyes pop open and I have to start all over again. At one point, when he's fallen asleep for the sixth time and I lean over the crib to try to deposit him, I consider spending the rest of the night exactly as I am--bent over at the waist with my arms between him and the mattress, because I know for absolute certain that he'll wake up when I try to pull my arms out and I'll have to start all over again.

  But it turns out to be impossible to sleep standing up with a crib rail running across your midsection and nowhere to rest your head. And so slowly, slowly, I pull my arms out.

  Silence.

  I wait, frozen, disbelieving.

  He jerks awake and begins to shriek.

  When Dan appears and takes him from me, I almost weep with gratitude. Then I make a beeline for bed.

  I'm out instantly, and just as instantly am flying over jumps on Harry--one after another after another--stadium jumps, set up in a field of wildflowers. Each time we approach, he says, Let me, and I wait until the moment is right and then say, All right, because that's the way we work.

  But suddenly we're approaching a double oxer. My body, vision, limbs, and veins flood with stress. I stiffen, realizing with dreadful clarity that I'm dreaming, but that's no comfort at all because I know perfectly well how this dream ends.

  I'm begging now: No, no, no, Harry, no, not that. But he doesn't listen to me and then I do what I've never done with Harry--I yank hard on the reins and lean back in the saddle, thrusting my legs forward and trying to pull him back. But it's no use. He just charges forth.

  Let me, he says, as though we're approaching a normal jump. My hands and calves and lower back scream No! For God's sake, No! and then his ears prick forward, together this time. Trust me, he says, and next thing I know I'm flying over the crest of that oxer.

  And then we're over it. We're just over it.

  I awake with a start. When my eyelids flicker and I realize I'm staring at the ceiling of my bedroom, my breathing and heart rate start to normalize. I lie staring up at the rabbit-shaped crack in the plaster, trying to process what just happened.

  This is the first time in more than twenty years that Harry and I have come safely down on the other side of an oxer. It's our first safe landing since his death.

  I begin my early morning ritual in utter silence, pulling my tan breeches on over cotton underwear and long socks, and completing the effect with the T-shirt that Dan wore at the show yesterday and left tossed in a heap in the corner.

  I creep down the hallway, pausing just long enough to peek into Jeremy's room. Dan is in the gliding rocker with Jeremy sprawled across his chest. They're both out cold.

  Hurrah is expecting me--as though he, too, dreamed of his brother.

  I enter his stall with his bridle slung over my shoulder. I run the reins over his neck and then stand at his shoulder, holding the bridle's headband up with one hand and guiding the bit into his mouth with my other.

  Then I stop.

  With the reins still draped around his neck, I put the bridle back on my shoulder and lead him from his stall. When I say lead, I mean I walk and he follows, his shoulder at my hip, because I have nothing on his head at all, just reins slung around his neck.

  I walk into the arena and come to a stop just past the mounting block. When Hurrah stops beside it, I remove the reins from his neck and toss the whole bridle into the corner. It hits with a thud.

  I've never ridden completely without tack in my entire life. I have a brief moment of misgiving, but then decide that if Pat Parelli can do it, why not me?

  The center of the arena is set up with jumps--from one of Joan's lessons yesterday, I guess, and the guys haven't taken them down yet to drag. This will make things easier, since by default we'll have to stick to the rail.

  And so I climb the mounting block and slip onto Hurrah's red-and-white-striped back
.

  Even though he knows I have no equipment with which to control him, he waits until I ask him to walk. And then he does. And when I ask him to stop, he does that too. And I laugh because I can't imagine why I've ever used tack in all my life, and next thing I know we're cantering around the perimeter of the arena. I have my eyes closed and my arms stuck out like wings, which is appropriate because we're flying and there's not a moment of hesitation, not a hiccup of misunderstanding. Hurrah and I are in at least as much harmony as when he's got a snaffle in his mouth. Perhaps more.

  When I open my eyes, I see a flash of movement through the window that leads to the lounge. Dan has brought Jeremy down from the house. They're both in pajamas, both sleepy, with tufts of hair sticking up at odd angles.

  Dan freezes when he realizes I've seen him, because this is usually when I turn bright red, slip from Hurrah's back, and disappear until I've recovered my equilibrium. But since I'm cantering without a saddle and without a bridle and with my arms out to the side like a little kid playing airplane, I burst into laughter instead and press my left calf into Hurrah's rib cage.

  His left ear drops in surprise. Are you sure? he asks. And I bring my right leg back a bit and press harder with my left and say, Yes. He leans into the turn, heading for the triple bar even though I can tell he still doesn't believe me because his ears are swiveling independently.

  Are you sure? he asks again.

  Yes, I say emphatically, urging him forward with both legs and my upper body.

  His ears perk forward, together this time, and his pace picks up and I feel the joy of flight in his body. We're nearly there now and I look up at Dan's astonished face just as Hurrah gathers his strength for the massive push, a hundred thousand pounds of compressed energy exploding forth before--

  Silence. As we arc over the fence, I raise my face and close my eyes and hope that Pappa's out there somewhere, watching.

  Acknowledgments

  I am indebted to a great many people for seeing me through the birth of another novel: To my critique partner, Kristy Kiernan; and my first readers--Elizabeth Graham, Maggie Dana, and Karen Abbott.

  To Carrie Feron and Selina McLemore at HarperCollins, for wonderful support and the type of editorial guidance for which all writers hope.

  To Seana Pope, for taking me under her wing and showing me New Hampshire, and for her many other tireless efforts on my behalf.

  To Teresa Paradis, for answering my questions about the transport of PMU horses, and to all the volunteers at Live and Let Live Farm, for their hospitality and for sharing their stories with me. Special thanks to Heather Evans and Teresa Gladstone, who will recognize hints of their own horses herein.

  To Margaret Odgers, for providing information about Nokotas.

  To my writing group, who propped me up and generally kept me going with consistent love and support.

  To Emma Sweeney, agent extraordinaire.

  And to Bob, whose contributions are too vast to enumerate.

  About the Author

  SARA GRUEN lives in northern Illinois with her husband, three children, two dogs, three cats, two goats, and horse.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Other Books by Sara Gruen

  Water for Elephants

  Riding Lessons

  Credits

  Cover design by Mary Schuck

  Cover photograph by David De Lossy / Getty Images

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  FLYING CHANGES. Copyright (c) 2005 by Sara Gruen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition (c) MARCH 2007 ISBN: 9780061829970

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  Sara Gruen, Flying Changes

  (Series: Riding Lessons # 2)

 

 

 

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