“Sounds easy when you put it that way,” I said. “Piece of cake, really.”
“French pastry,” Mom said.
“But you need to know something else,” Gus said. “Everything is going to feel bigger when you get out there. Look bigger. The jumps will probably look higher. Just the way it is, for you and the horses. So you gotta be ready for anything. And everything. It’s the Olympics. Shit happens.”
Seamus came walking into the ring with Coronado. Gus spun his chair around, heading over to where the ring announcer sat. When he was out of earshot Mom said, “I want this for him.”
“Not as much as he wants it for you,” I said.
“Hey,” she said. “He’s your trainer, too.”
“He likes me,” I said. “He’s in love with you.”
“As somebody I know likes to say,” she said, “blah blah blah,” before Seamus helped her up.
Gus was out in the middle of the ring by then, next to one of the practice jumps, his focus on her so intense as she began to canter Coronado, I was surprised she wasn’t bursting into flames. I knew how excited and scared she was. Probably more scared than excited. I felt the same way. But she looked happy that the waiting was almost over, and she was up on her horse. For once, she was probably thrilled that she was going early in the class.
Before long, they were calling out the names of the first six riders in the ring. I knew by now that Gus wanted to watch alone, from his usual spot to the right of the gate. I had my competitor’s badge around my neck—at the Olympics the badge only came off when it was time to compete. Or went to bed. And maybe not even then. I knew I had plenty of time before Emilio brought Sky up here. So I made my way down to the opposite end of the ring, in the grassy area between the outside fence and the stands. Struck one more time by the size of the place, and how everything inside seemed to be perfect, from the different-colored rails to the fresh white paint on the oxers and skinnies to the shrubbery, which looked as if it had been planted that morning. Even the footing, which had just been dragged in anticipation of the first horses and riders, looked brand new.
I kept taking in the whole scene in front of me, thinking, It isn’t just the stakes that are as high as they’ve ever been and might ever be for Mom and me. Gus was right: even the damn jumps look higher. My heart suddenly made me feel as if I’d run all the way here from the Village.
I’d been in college eight months ago. Now we were both here. I found the small, roped-off area where competitors could watch, past where the photographers were set up. I heard someone shouting my name from the stands, realized it could only be the voice of Steve Gorton, with whom we’d had to endure one drink a few nights ago at the Hemingway Bar at the Ritz. I ignored him. Maybe he thought we were about to have a moment. We weren’t. In the end, he didn’t know anything about us, or what was about to happen in the Royal.
About twenty minutes later, having watched the first riders into the ring, I looked down at the in-gate and saw Mom and Coronado. The PA announcer told the crowd who she was and where she was from and who owned her horse. There was a polite cheer for them. Then it was briefly as if the sound had been turned off. I stared at Mom. For one last moment, she and Coronado were completely still, before she moved the big horse away from the gate and out into the middle of the ring.
She’d finally made it to the Olympics.
Then, as she waited for the buzzer to sound, Coronado suddenly spooked and reared up.
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN
Maggie
MAGGIE DIDN’T PANIC, even as she was holding on for dear life, managing to stay on her horse the way she hadn’t been able to hold on that day on the trail when it had been a fox spooking her horse.
The good news was that she wasn’t on the clock yet. She knew she had time to get Coronado under control, if she could, before the buzzer finally did sound. She still couldn’t believe this was happening, when it was happening. Gus had told her there shouldn’t be any surprises over the first part of the course.
What about before her course even began?
Only one thing to do. Lean forward and hope like hell he stopped. If you leaned the other way all you were doing is pulling the horse back, maybe on top of you.
But Coronado stopped rearing as suddenly as he’d started. Maggie circled him back toward the in-gate. She had no idea what had spooked him. But it didn’t matter what. Something had.
She made a wide turn around, moving him back into position. As much as her mind was racing, she did manage this one fleeting thought: Better now than when we’re out there.