Golden Filly Collection Two (30 page)

“Hey, I like this one.” Trish held up her bagel, spread with walnut-raisin-cinnamon cream cheese. “What other kind did you get?”

Adam picked up the container and read the label. “Spinach/garlic. You’ll know you’re an adult when you like this one.”

“Hah! Carlos, which do you like best?”

“All of them. You riding this afternoon?”

Trish nodded. “Two mounts. I’m coming up in the world.” She licked the cheese from her fingers. “I’ve been meaning to ask you guys…Mom and Patrick said we should keep our eyes open for a good claimer.”

“How much do they want to go?” Adam crossed his feet on his desk.

“I don’t know. But if I buy part of it, I’d rather have a filly.”

“Is Patrick going to train for anyone else?”

“I think so. At least for the owners we had before. With David going off to school, we’ll have to hire help.”

“There’s a gelding running on Saturday that might be one to look at.” Carlos leaned against the doorframe. “I’d buy him myself if I had the money. Just coming back from a quarter crack in the off-rear hoof. Hasn’t been handled right either, far as I can tell.”

Trish shrugged. “So much for my idea of a filly. How much is the claim?”

“Thirteen thousand. I’ll find out when he’s working tomorrow.”

“Okay. I’ll call Mom tonight. We can look at his papers today, can’t we?”

At their nods, Trish stood up. “I better get going. I’ll come by after the fourth.”

Mounted in the saddling paddock a couple of hours later, Trish felt the stirrings of excitement. Her butterflies must have sensed it too, for they started their pre-race warm-ups. Trish listened carefully to the trainer’s instructions. Her butterflies proceeded to aerial flits and flutters.

The gelding she rode trotted docilely beside the pony rider. The trainer had said this old boy needed waking up. Trish tightened the reins and squeezed her heels into his sides. The gelding pricked his ears and danced sideways.

Trish kept tuning him up, right into the starting gates. When the gun went off, so did the gelding. He lit out for the turn as if there were tin cans on his tail. She let him run, pacing the horses on either side. They were three across coming out of the turn. The gelding ran easily, and with two furlongs to go Trish made her move.

One swing of her whip and he stretched out. Another and he took the lead. “Go for it, you wonderful beast!” Trish urged him on, the finish pole thundering closer. A nose crept up on her right side. Even with her boot, the shoulder, the neck.

She went to the whip and the two dueled the final strides. But it was number three to win by a nose, giving her a place.

Trish vaulted to the ground. The black clouds took up their positions on her shoulders—again.

“Good race, young lady. He ran better for you than he has for anyone. When I told you to wake him up, you did a fine job.”

“Thank you. Sorry it wasn’t the win.” The simple words didn’t begin to communicate Trish’s feeling of regret. He should have won.

The black cloud hung close when Trish mounted again. The filly, entered in her first race, exhibited little to no confidence as she tentatively did what Trish asked. She tiptoed into the starting gate. The gun and the gate startled her so she broke off-balanced. It took till half the backstretch for her to gain her stride.

“Come on, baby,” Trish crooned instead of yelling. The filly opened up and headed for the pack surging in front of her. She swung wide to pass the clustered horses and, coming out of the turn, seemed to realize what she was supposed to do. But too many seconds were wasted in learning and she tied for fourth.

Trish bit her lip to be polite to the trainer. He congratulated her for the fine riding job.
If you’d finished training that horse, she might have won.
Trish roped the words before they left her mouth and corralled them in her mind.

And you should have ridden her this morning so you’d have known how to handle her,
the nagger added to the shouting match already going on.

“Yeah, I know.” Trish slapped her whip against her boots. If only she could go to the beach, but it was too late in the day. She had lab tonight and somehow had to find time to make up a couple of labs that she’d missed.

Or, messed up on,
the voice reminded her.

On the way to inspect the gelding, Adam and Carlos took one look at her face and refrained from commenting—on the races, the weather, or even the horse.

“I don’t really like him,” Trish muttered as they walked back to the barn.

“I’m not surprised,” Adam answered.

Trish ignored his tone. To question him would be too much trouble. Right now, anything was too much trouble. It took all her energy to drive to the college.

At least she didn’t burn the place down. But driving home, she could barely keep her eyes open.

You said you’d give God the glory,
the voice in her head gloated.

“Oh, shut up!” She fell across her bed exhausted.

Chapter
09

R
honda, over here!”

“Trish, I made it, I really made it!” Rhonda, her crop of carrot-colored hair flying as she zigzagged between the crowd, waved her hand, and jumped to see over the shoulder of a woman in front of her. “Excuse me.…excuse me.” Finally, she dropped her bag and collapsed into Trish’s arms.

A woman in a tailored business suit glared at them both. “Teenagers…” she muttered as she passed them.

The two girls looked at each other, at the woman’s broad-shouldered back, and burst out laughing.

The giggles overwhelmed them again as they held each other at arm’s length. They sank into two chairs until they could catch their breath.

“Welcome to California!” Trish tried to adopt a straight face—and failed.

“So how much can we cram into three days?” Rhonda picked up her bag and pulled Trish to her feet.

“I thought we’d go to the beach today. I have two mounts tomorrow—Gatesby is one—and then I took Sunday off. We can shop or sightsee or…”

“Yes!”

“Yes what?”

“All of the above!” Rhonda dropped her bag again and whirled Trish around in a circle. “I want a drop-dead outfit for the first day of school. Something so different, no one at home will have anything like it. Just think, we’re seniors this year!”

“Excuse us…” An elderly couple waited for the girls to stop blocking the aisle.

“We’re going shop-ping!” Rhonda flung an irresistible grin at them.

“Have fun, dear.” The white-haired woman smiled back.

“We will!”

Rhonda talked nonstop all the way to Half Moon Bay and out to Redondo Beach. “Wow, this is super!” She raised up in the seat to look over the windshield. The beach curved from the space-station-looking government buildings on the north to the Strawberry Ranch promontory on the south. White frosted breakers curled onto the golden sand, rolling in from the blue-green ocean.

“No surfers. I thought California beaches had surfers.”

“There are some at the jetty; that’s a couple of miles up the road. We can go there if you’d rather.”

“How about later?”

“Sure.”

“So this is where you come all the time.” Rhonda sat back down and opened the car door.

“Yep.” Trish got out and went around to open the trunk. “I brought the blanket and cooler. There’s no place to change if you want to put your suit on. The water’s so cold here I don’t really swim, so shorts are usually fine.”

“Okay.” Rhonda stuffed her bag into the trunk. “I’m ready.”

They slid and slithered their way to the warm, dry sand, then trudged south to Trish’s favorite place. Even her gull hovered nearby, circling and dipping in the hopes the girls had treats. Together they spread the blanket and plopped down.

“No wonder you like it here.” Rhonda lay spread-eagle on the blanket. “There’s hardly anyone else around.”

“More today than usual.” Trish nodded at a woman with three school-age boys playing in the waves with their black lab. A couple shared a blanket, absorbing the rays. “You want a pop?” At Rhonda’s nod, Trish opened the cooler and pulled out two Diet Cokes.

As they popped the tops and poured the cold liquid down their throats, they both sighed.

“So, how are things
really
going?” Rhonda brushed her hair back from her face with one hand and tilted her pop can with the other.

“Up and down. I think I’m a yo-yo sometimes and don’t know who is jerking the string.”

“I’d hoped things would be better by now.”

“So did I.” Trish crossed her legs and pushed to a stand. “Come on, let’s go walk in the water and I’ll fill you in on all the gory details.”

“Can we leave your stuff?”

“I always do. So far nothing’s been stolen. I think the stories you hear of everything being lifted are totally exaggerated.” She walked toward the waves, dragging her bare feet in the loose sand.

“Yikes! This is as cold as Washington coast water. I thought California water was warmer.”

“Told you so. That’s farther south. Here, you wear a wet suit or freeze.”

They stayed in the shallows where the waves rolled and receded, sometimes splashing their knees but mostly just swooshing at their ankles.

“So, how’s your riding coming?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Hey, this is me, Rhonda, your best friend, remember? To me you tell all.”

Trish conceded and told her about the poor showings at the track, her difficulty with chemistry classes, how she fell asleep all the time, the pit that seemed to yawn at her feet. She told about the Finleys, how good they were to her, how she overheard some guys say she was all washed up, and how she missed Spitfire. And finally, she mentioned the journals, the song, and missing her dad. She didn’t mention the pills.

“Pretty bad, huh?”

“A doctor I saw, because Mom insisted, said I maybe should join a group she knew of for kids who’ve had someone near to them die.”

“You gonna go?”

“No. I leave for home in a couple of weeks. Things were better when I was home.” Trish stopped and tossed water with one foot, staring out at the horizon.

“Bet you could find a group like that at home. I’d go with you if that would help.”

“Thanks.” Trish stuck her hands in the back pockets of her cut-offs. “One day I thought about walking out into the surf and not stopping, but that was quite a while ago.”

“Trish, no!”

“Don’t freak. I won’t. My dad’s journals have helped a lot. Did I tell you he wrote me a letter in the blank book he left for me? He hoped I’d start a journal too.”

Rhonda shook her head. “We haven’t had much time to talk lately, if you recall. What did he say?”

“You can read it if you like. It always makes me cry. Of course, every-thing makes me cry nowadays.”

“Remember, we used to laugh until we cried.”

“Yeah, a lifetime ago.” They returned to the blanket and two more cans of Coke. The wind picked up from out at sea and raised goose bumps on their arms as they sat watching the sun sink into the clouds layered on the horizon.

“Let’s go,” Trish said suddenly. “I know a great mini-mall with bargain stores calling our names. Tomorrow, after the races, I thought we could drive out to the Stanford Mall. It’s something else.”

“Stanford…as in Stanford University?”

“Sure. Palo Alto isn’t far from here.”

“You mean, like maybe we could drive around the campus? I would love to go to school there.”

“Yeah, right. What independently wealthy relative is bank-rolling your education?”

“It’s pretty tough, huh?”

“Uh-huh, and you have to be a near genius to get accepted there.”

“So far I have a four-point average.”

“Good for you. Here, which do you want to carry, the cooler or the blanket? This hill could get you in shape for a marathon.”

They spent the hours till closing trying on tons of clothes. While the number of packages they toted grew with each store, they still hadn’t found
the
outfit—for either of them.

“Tomorrow! If we can’t find what we want at Stanford Mall, it hasn’t been made yet.” Trish slammed the trunk shut on their latest buys.

“Are the mall prices as bad out there as the school prices?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m buying.”