“You’re a champion, Miss McCabe,” he said. “Congratulations.”
FORTY-SIX
I’D WATCHED CHAMPIONS honored on plenty of other Saturday nights. I’d watched Mom step up onto the medal stand and be handed the winner’s check and have a special sash placed around her neck, before they handed her and the two runners-up bottles of champagne.
First time for me.
The check for $250,000, oversized for the photographers, was made out to me. When we got the real one, Grandmother and Steve Gorton would divide the money. I wasn’t great at math. But I was good enough to know that our share was just over $100,000. Might have been pocket change to Gorton. Not to Atwood Farm. It didn’t mean that we were in the clear. Just that we could keep on keeping on for the time being.
My place on the medal stand was slightly higher than Matthew Killeen’s and Tyler Cullen’s. Matthew had congratulated me. Tyler Cullen took his place and stared straight ahead, still caught up in his tantrum. After past ceremonies, the riders who’d finished second and third would pop the champagne and spray the champion with it.
Matthew looked over at Tyler’s sullen face and told me, “Save it and drink it. You want mine, too?”
“I’m good,” I said.
I saw Dad and Mom and Grandmother standing together off to the side. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen them together like that. Maybe when I’d graduated high school. One big happy family, I thought. One night only.
I couldn’t see Steve Gorton anywhere.
Dad waved. I smiled back at him. Tyler Cullen turned and apparently decided I was smiling at him. Or mocking him.
“Something you want to say to me?” he said.
First words he’d spoken to me since the jump-off ended.
“Nah,” I said.
I walked over to my family.
“Everybody behaving here?” I said.
“Your grandmother is practically begging me to come back,” Dad said.
Grandmother blew out some air. “Full of it to the end,” she said.
“I think we need to go give that bottle of champagne the attention it deserves,” Mom said.
Now I smiled at her. “What are the rest of you going to drink?”
Mom and Grandmother led the way out of the ring. Dad put an arm around my shoulders.
“I’m glad I didn’t miss this one,” he said.
As always, he’d cast himself as the cool dad and was playing his part before he took off again for New York or California and missed even more of my life.
“Can you stick around for a couple of days?” I said, pretty sure I already knew the answer to that one.
“Back to Gotham in the morning,” he said.
I whispered, “How are you and Mom getting along?”
He grinned. “I’m fine as long as I don’t make any sudden moves.”
“Should have been with her tonight,” I said.
“You know what?” he whispered in my ear, “I’m not so sure about that.”
I looked around for Daniel now, but couldn’t spot him. Knowing him the way I did, I figured he might already be back at the barn with Coronado.
Dad and I walked back through the in-gate and took a left, on our way to the tent.
“Ask you something?” I said to Dad.
“Your grandmother still hates me, if that’s what you’re wondering about,” he said.
I poked him with an elbow.
“What did you say to Mr. Gorton at the tent?”
He grinned again.
“Well,” he said, “I might have mentioned that if I saw him down there talking to you before you went into the ring, I was going to knock him on his ass.”
“Still not a horse show guy,” I said, then asked him to wait while I checked the schooling ring for Daniel. He wasn’t waiting for me there, but Tyler Cullen was leaning against the fence and swigging from his champagne bottle.
Then he saw me.
“Looking for your boyfriend?” he said. “He left.”
FORTY-SEVEN
Daniel
THE CEREMONY WAS over. Becky had invited Daniel over to the house for a family celebration.
“I did everything you told me to do,” she said.
He smiled at her and said, “For once. I’ll see you a little later.”
The tent stayed open like a bar on championship nights and Becky had gone inside with her parents and grandmother. Daniel had passed the schooling ring on his walk to the barn when he heard a loud and familiar voice behind him.
Do not stop.
Just keep walking.
“Hey! Hey, Ortega!”