Golden Filly Collection Two (35 page)

If you quit, it’ll be like starting all over when you go back,
the nagger threw in.

“Give it a rest!” Trish gritted her teeth. Her horse flicked his ears back and forth and broke his even gait. “No, no, not you, easy now.” The animal relaxed again at Trish’s soothing voice.

After works, Trish joined David, Carlos, and Adam in the office. The box of bagels and two kinds of cream cheese lay open on the desk.

Trish unfolded her chair and, after smearing spinach and garlic cream cheese on a sesame-seed bagel, sat down. She crossed one ankle over her other knee to help form a table.

“Well, what do you think of bagels?” she asked David, who had his mouth full.

“He hates them; he’s only on his fourth half.” Adam pushed the box closer to David.

David swallowed, and after a sip of coffee, could talk. “Who’s counting?”

Trish concentrated on her breakfast. Biting a bagel just the right way took plenty of thought and planning. She tried to ignore the voices in her head. She tried to ignore the voices of the men in the office. She tried to ignore the pain in her heart. She failed on all counts.

You said you’d praise the Lord too. Remember?
She jumped to her feet and threw the uneaten third of her bagel in the trash. She left the office without a word.

David found her a while later, sitting in her car, chemistry book propped against the steering wheel, sound asleep. “Trish.” He shook her shoulder. “Trish, come on. Wake up.”

Trish stretched her neck and rotated her head from shoulder to shoulder. She yawned fit to bust her jaw. When she blinked her eyes for the fourth time, they finally focused. “What do you want?” Her voice came out flat and dark, just like her feelings.

“You said you wanted to come along when we went to see the gelding.”

“The gelding?” While her eyes might have been functioning, her brain stayed stuck in the sleep mode.

“The claimer. We have to make a decision.” His voice came across so big-brother patient she nearly gagged.

Instead she yawned. This time she heard it crack.

“Well, if you’re not interested, we’ll go without you. But since you’ll be the one training and racing him, I’d think you’d like to be there.”

“I might not be the one racing him, you know.”

“Ah, Trish. I don’t want to hear any more about your quitting.”

Trish pushed open her car door. Going with them was better than staying alone.

“I like him,” David whispered in Trish’s ear as they watched a woman walk the gelding around in the deep sand circle to cool him down.

“I’d rather have a filly.”

“Geldings usually make more money in the long run.”

“He seems even tempered. We’ve watched him galloping. And the stats don’t lie.” Trish turned back with the others.

“Why do you think he hasn’t done better?” David asked as they walked back to their own office.

“He’s coming back from a quarter crack on the off rear that ended his two-year-old season. I think he’s a late bloomer too. He still hasn’t finished growing and the owner got too ambitious in the races they entered him in. A lot of things can happen, you know.” Adam seemed to be thinking out loud.

“He’ll do good this year,” Carlos added.

Yeah, if we get him.
Trish kicked a rock ahead of her.
The way things are going, I’ll probably jinx that too.

“So you want to do it?” Adam sat back down at his desk.

David looked over at Trish. At her nod, he dug his billfold out of his back pocket and took out a check. “Mom signed this. We just have to fill in the amount.”

Trish left for the jockey room. She was riding in the first race.

“How’s it going?” Mandy asked as Trish walked into the locker-lined room. The wall-mounted television was on, as usual, showing past races until the day’s program started.

Trish shrugged. “Still up and down, I guess. I got to go home for a few days and that helped. And then my best friend came down to shop and sightsee. Now, that was fun.”

“Good. How’s the racing?”

“No wins.”

“Me either. I think some of those big guys got a scam going. They just take turns, if ya know what I mean.” Mandy leaned back in her chair. “’Course, now, if I won once in a while, I probably wouldn’t feel this way.”

“How long you been racing?”

“Four years. Started out on the fair circuit and last year moved up to the big time at Bay Meadows. I’ll try my luck at Golden Gate Fields this year too.”

“You ever think of quitting?”

“You kidding? About every time I get tossed. One time I was laid up for a month; thought about it lots then. But I make a decent living and I’m doing what I like best.” She took a brush out of her bag and started brushing her hair. “Besides, I don’t have training for anything else.”

“Did you go to college?”

Mandy shook her head. “College? Honey, I never made it through high school. Finally went back and got my GED. I wasn’t kidding when I said I went downhill for a time. A hard time.”

She turned and leaned her hip against the counter. “You hang in there, kid.” She waved her hairbrush for emphasis. “You’ve been at the top. You’ll get there again.”

“Wish I could be so sure.”

And Trish felt even more unsure after the first race. She and her mount started out well. The trainer said the colt liked to be in front so Trish got him out and kept him there. But the pace was fast and the colt gave up when another horse caught up with him.

While the trainer was happy with a show, Trish wasn’t. “You did a fine job with him,” the young man said. He led his horse away and Trish followed the other jockeys back under the stands and out to the jockey rooms. At least now she could head for the beach.

When David suggested driving into San Francisco, Trish shook her head. “I’ve gotta study. I was hoping you’d help me again. We could go to the beach.” She smacked herself on the forehead. “Ah, no. I’ve got one more lab to make up. This afternoon’s it. You could help me do my lab!”

“Right. Think I’ll go into the city while you’re at school. I’ll help you again tonight when I get back.”

“Oh, David.” The cloud that hid her sun looked like rain.

Chapter
12

W
ho screamed?

Trish blinked. She’d been sound asleep, but someone had screamed. She listened, every nerve ending taut. Was it someone in the house?

Nothing. She cleared her throat; it was hot and raw. Was it she who had screamed? When she thought about it, the screaming had been going on for a long time—or so it seemed.

She swallowed again. Water…a glass of water would help. She raised her head and checked out the corners of the room, all the places she could see, anyway, in the light that filtered through the eucalyptus branches outside the deck.

The glow from the streetlights flickered. It must be blowing out there. Had the scream come from outside?

For a moment she wished she had closed the drapes. But there was nothing to be seen. She sat up and swung her feet to the floor. It must have been her. Had she screamed out loud? Had anyone heard her?

Surely they would come if they had. She tiptoed into the bathroom and filled a glass with water. After the first few swallows she could slow down and sip it.

She rubbed her throat. It hurt.

When she crawled back in bed, she was afraid to close her eyes. It
had
been a dream. She had been screaming in the dream, but about what?

When she closed her eyes to remember, the scene flashed right back. Spitfire ran away from her. The more she called him, the faster he ran away. All the other horses too. Firefly, Gatesby, Sarah’s Pride, even Miss Tee and Double Diamond. All of them were running away.

She caught her breath. Dan’l, old gray Dan’l. She wanted to call to him but he was running after the others.

N-o-o! She sat bolt upright in bed. Tears streamed down her face. She turned on the light and reached for a tissue. What did it all mean?

When her heart finally resumed its normal beat, she lay back down. A long time ago she’d learned to say the name of Jesus over and over when she had a nightmare.

“Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.” She let her eyes drift closed.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
She could feel her muscles relax. First in her neck and shoulders, then down her arms. She inhaled and held the breath.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
When she let the breath out, she felt like she was sinking into the mattress.

Thank you, Father. I was so scared. Thank you for being right here with me. Amen.

Trish struggled up out of sleep again, but this time she knew the sound. Her alarm. She reached over and hit the snooze button.

She still felt like a field of fourteen Thoroughbreds had used her body for a track when the alarm buzzed again. If she didn’t get going now, she wouldn’t get a shower, and if she didn’t get a shower, she wouldn’t make it to the track. She dragged her loudly protesting body out of bed and, after turning on the shower, stood under the pounding water until she could think.

What had the dream meant? In the Bible God used dreams to tell people things. Was He doing that now with her?

She thought back to the night before. David had helped her with her chemistry again. She’d fallen asleep asking God to help her make a decision. That was it. To quit or not to quit.

Her head ached. Along with most of the rest of her body.

She didn’t feel a whole lot better by the time she arrived at the track but at least she was moving.

Dense fog muffled the morning sounds of the track. The cold mist only added to Trish’s feeling of confusion.

“Let’s wait a bit before we take the first one out,” Adam said when she joined him and David at the stalls.

“Yeah, I love this sunny California,” David said, shivering beside them. He’d brought his own car today in case he decided to do something different. “This is colder than winter at home.”

“If we were across the bay, on the other side of the hills, there’d be no fog at all.” Adam stuck his hands in his pockets. “Clear as a bell with the sun pinking the sky behind Mount Diablo.”

“You’re kidding. Let’s go there.”

“No racetrack out there either.” Trish tucked her chin down into her jacket collar.

“Coffee’s hot. Come on.” Adam led the way back to the office.

Trish accepted a mug and wrapped both her hands around it. While she didn’t much care for coffee, it was good for warming hands. She added a spoonful of sugar and two of mocha-flavored creamer. The closer it came to hot chocolate, the better she liked it.

But the hot drink didn’t help much out on the track. Dawn lightened the sky so that the fog floated more dingy white than gray. The jingle of gear, people’s voices, and horses snorting still sounded hollow.

The wind sneaked around Trish’s neck and up her cuffs, any place it could get in to chill her body. She poured herself a second cup of coffee between mounts. And this was August.

But by the time they were finished, the sun shone bright and the track slipped back into its usual cheery morning atmosphere. All except for Trish. She listened to the others discuss the training schedule and how the horses had done.

Adam and Carlos debated the relative merits of one race over another for one of the horses. David cleaned up the last of the bagels.

Trish was just leaving to go to the car to pick up her chemistry books when her agent called. Adam handed her the phone.

“I wanted to make sure you heard that the horse you were riding this afternoon was scratched,” he said.

“Great.” Trish couldn’t keep the disgust out of her voice.

“Sorry. Talk to you later.”

Trish hung up the phone and, at the question on David’s face, told him what had happened.

“I could spend the afternoon at the beach if we didn’t have that gelding running.”

“You don’t have to stay.”

“Or we could go into San Francisco.”

“You have to study. Remember?”

“Yeah, I know. You want to help me?”

“For a while. Then I need to go shopping. You and Rhonda aren’t the only ones who need school clothes.”

“You’ll live in shorts most of the year. I heard it can get pretty hot there.” Trish got herself a bottle of water out of the fridge. “You want to study here or at the condo?”

That afternoon Trish returned to the track in time for the fifth race. She walked with Adam and David over to the grandstands, where they all leaned on the rail.

The sun beat down hot on their heads and shoulders.

“Hard to believe the chill of the fog this morning, and hot like this now,” David commented after wiping the sweat off his face for the second time.

“The paper said it was 115 in Phoenix yesterday.” Adam wiped his forehead too.

David groaned. “And Tucson is farther south. Thank God for air conditioning.”

Trish listened to their conversation with only half an ear. When the bugle called for parade to post, she watched for number four. Gimme-yourheart trotted out on the track.

“I hate his name,” she muttered as the gelding crossed in front of them.

“You don’t have to like it. They call him Sam for short,” David reminded her. “Just hope he wins so we start recouping our investment.”