A rider I didn’t recognize stopped her horse near where we were between a side ring and the food court and said, “Should I call 911?”
Before I could answer, Grandmother opened her eyes and said, “Don’t even think about it.”
She hadn’t made any move to get up. But she was awake. And sounded pretty alert to me.
She looked up at me and said, “Now everybody in this family has ended up on the ground. I just joined the on-your-ass club.”
“Is there something you want me to do, Miss Becky?” Emilio said.
He was still there, holding on to Sky’s reins.
“Go see if you can find me some fruit or some yogurt or both,” she said to Emilio. “It’s the damn blood sugar again.”
He handed me the reins, then ran toward one of the concession stands.
“That horse needs to get back to the barn,” Grandmother said.
“The horse,” I said, “is in better shape than you are right now.”
“Wanna bet?” she said.
I was watching her get back into character, but when she tried to get up on her own, she made it only a few inches before putting her head back down.
“I need to call for the show doctor,” I said, kneeling next to her.
“You need to do no such thing,” she said.
Now she reached out a hand. I grabbed it and pulled her up into a sitting position.
“This is not going to be a thing,” she said. “We have too much going on. I got so caught up in being a trainer again I forget to take my insulin shot this morning. Simple as that.”
Somehow Emilio was already back, with an apple and some yogurt, and a bottle of water. She ate the yogurt first, then devoured the apple. Knowing her, she had probably forgotten to eat lunch, never a good idea for a diabetic, especially one over the age of seventy.
“All right, then,” she said. “Feeling better already.”
“All right, nothing,” I said. “If you won’t see the doctor here, we’re going home right now and calling Dr. Garry.”
“The hell we are,” she said.
She reached up again with her hand and I got her standing. She still looked a little wobbly to me. But she stayed up.
“We’re not calling anybody,” she said. “This has happened to me before, just not in front of you. We’ve got way more important things to worry about than me having a little dizzy spell.”
Then she grinned and brushed some dirt off her shirt and the front of her breeches. My grandmother, as much of a baseball fan as my dad, said, “Was I safe?”
I reached for her arm. She pulled it back. I handed the reins to Emilio. The three of us continued our walk toward the barn as if nothing had happened.
“We are not going to tell your mother about this,” she said. “And if somebody tells her, we are simply going to tell her that I tripped, got it?”
“Got it,” I said.
“We had another good day,” she said. “That’s what matters here.”
We had to pass Tyler Cullen’s owner’s barn, which was much bigger, much fancier, than our own, with a lot more horses in it. As Emilio and Sky approached, Tyler came walking out, big smile on his face that signaled he already knew about Grandmother.
Shit.
“Down goes Grandma!” he said, and then barked out a laugh that I worried might scare all the horses in the area.
He looked as if he had more to say, but then Grandmother was slowly walking in his direction. Emilio stopped, but Grandmother put up a hand and said, “I got this.”
Grandmother was about five nine. Maybe five ten in her riding boots. Nearly half a foot taller than Tyler Cullen. She got very close to him now.
She was smiling, but not speaking until finally, she said, “One more to put on my list.”
“What list?” he said.
But she was already walking away.
FIFTY-FIVE
EVERYTHING WAS SETTING up perfectly for us, coming off a month of successes on both Coronado and Sky. I’d gotten a third-place ribbon on Coronado the previous weekend. Then a second on Sky this afternoon. Solid performances, by the horses and me, as we moved toward the big events in March and April that would determine whether I rode my way onto the Olympic short list.
Tyler Cullen was already on the short list. So was Jennifer Gates. But now I had started to think I had a legit shot at Paris. I could not only feel it, but I wanted it. Over the last month I’d started to perform like an elite rider. An awesome feeling. The way Mom had always felt.
We were having a family dinner: Mom and Grandmother and Daniel and me. Mom had been even more quiet than usual tonight, drifting into the background as was her way when Grandmother was holding court. Rarely would all of us have a meal together. Most days Mom left to work out before I got up, sometimes not returning until early afternoon.