That Summer (17 page)
“So tell me about it him.”
I tried to conjure up John's face. “There's nothing much to tell. I met him in vet school and we started going out. He's a wonderful guy, kind, generous, loyal…”
Kevin said, “You sound as if you're describing a dog.”
I laughed. “I liked him very much. I tried to love him, but I just couldn't. End of story.”
“You couldn't because of Liam.”
I sighed. “I suppose.”
“Anne, look at me.” Surprised, I turned to him and before I realized what was happening, he had taken me in his arms and was kissing me.
It was a kiss from a man who knew something about kissing. My first reaction was to push him away. I stifled that, though, and let him keep on kissing me, opening my mouth when he asked. When I had had enough, I pushed him away.
“Really, suh,” I drawled. “This is a public place after all.”
“There's no one here except us and a few hundred ghosts,” Kevin said.
I laughed a little shakily. That had been a powerful kiss.
He said, “You have beautiful skin. That's one thing the camera loves—beautiful skin.”
“Thank you.” I wished he wouldn't compliment me.
“I meant what I said. I could get you a job in pictures.”
“Kevin, I didn't spend all those years studying veterinary medicine to become an actress.”
“All right, all right. I hear you.”
“How much longer are you staying for?”
“I've got to go to New York for a couple of days, then I'm coming back for a week or so. To tell you the truth, I was really very tired after I finished filming my last movie. I need a break from everything.”
“Well, it's not too calm around here with a murder investigation going on.”
“Yes, but you're here, and that makes it very nice indeed.”
“Thank you, sir.”
We got back on our horses and returned to the big house where Mary cooked us a wonderful breakfast. Then I headed to the track to work with the horses.
L
iam and I drove up to Maryland for the annual Alibi Breakfast, where owners and trainers gathered on the Thursday morning before the Preakness, the second race in the Triple Crown. The breakfast was held at the Pim-lico Race Course in Baltimore, and it was traditionally where Derby owners and trainers got together to swap sad stories of why they had lost the Derby and why their horses would most certainly win the Preakness.
I had to make another trip to Nordstrom to buy a linen suit that would be appropriate for the breakfast and ended up with something in fuchsia with a V neck and a short skirt. I saw Liam looking at it, but he didn't say anything.
When Pimlico had been built in 1870 it had been a world-class track, but in later years the neighborhood around it had decayed until the track itself was an urban fortress in a sea of poverty and violence. Still, for one day out of the year, it was once again the focal point of the racing world.
Over the last two weeks, the turf reporters for all the big dailies, as well as the
Bloodstock Journal,
had come to a consensus that Someday Soon's win in the Derby was a fluke. If the early speed had not burned out Honor Bright and Mileaminute, Someday Soon wouldn't have had a chance. This was the song that Bob Baffert and Sheikh Mohammed and D Wayne Lukas and Prince Salman sang all during breakfast, and it was the song that Liam and I heard when we went down to the stakes barn to visit Buster.
“Do you think he has a chance in the shorter race?” a turf reporter asked Liam as we leaned on Buster's stall and watched him eat hay.
“Sure I think he has a chance. He won the Florida Derby and it was a shorter race than the Derby.”
Reporter Fred Isle pointed out, “He wasn't racing against Honor Bright and Mileaminute in the Florida Derby. And he lost to Honor Bright in the Wood.”
Liam said, “The Wood was a prep race for the Derby. We're not prepping any more; we're in the real thing. Someday Soon can win the Preakness.”
The other turf reporters who were hanging around the shedrow saw Liam talking to one of their number and soon a whole swarm of them had descended on us. Liam introduced me.
“There's nothing wrong with Someday Soon, is there?” somebody asked.
“There's nothing wrong with the horse,” Liam replied. “Dr. Foster is an old friend.”
“How come my old friends don't look like that?” one of the men joked.
Liam ignored the comment.
I said, “I'm surprised that Someday Soon isn't the favorite for the Preakness. After all, the horse won the Kentucky Derby. And he won it in pretty convincing fashion.”
“Your jockey rode a smart race,” someone returned. “Santos kept him out of traffic and he laid off that blistering pace. The chances of your horse having such an easy trip in the Preakness are slimmer.”
“I think you gentlemen will be in for a surprise,” I said mildly.
We stayed at the stall for about a half an hour, then made our way back to our car.
We had driven up the night before and checked into a hotel. “What do you want to do this afternoon?” Liam asked as we got into his Lexus to go back to the hotel.
“Do you want to get changed and go back to the track?” I asked.
He looked at me gratefully. “You don't mind?”
“Of course not.”
We changed into jeans and spent the afternoon hanging around the barn, talking to people and watching Buster.
That evening we went out to dinner by ourselves. Liam took me to a nice restaurant on the harbor and we had a leisurely dinner and went back to the hotel afterward. “Come into my room and we can watch television together,” I said.
“Okay.”
I stretched out on the bed that was directly in front of the TV and Liam turned it on. “Maybe there's a ballgame on,” he said.
The Orioles were playing the Boston Red Sox and Liam came back to the bed and stretched out beside me. I had taken off my sneakers and socks and I wiggled my toes enjoying the freedom.
Liam said with amusement, “Such pretty toes. Somehow you don't imagine your vet having pink toenails.”
“A pedicure is one of the finer things in life,” I said.
“Do you get manicures and pedicures, Annie?” He sounded genuinely curious.
“You bet I do.”
“Let me see your hands.”
I held my hand up for him to see. My nails are short, but I had a French manicure.
“Pretty,” he said.
“Thank you. I can't have long nails because of my job.”
“I don't like long nails.”
“Then I'm happy I don't have them.”
“I'm so glad that you've been here to share this experience with me, Annie. I'm not great with words, but I want you to know that it means a lot to me.”
“I'm glad I'm here too.”
“I wish your dad had been able to see this.”
“I'm sure he's watching, Liam.”
He nodded soberly.
I asked, “Is your father coming for Saturday?”
“Both he and my mother are coming. I think he's mad that he didn't come to the Derby.”
“He didn't think Someday Soon would win.”
“You got it.”
“Kevin told me that he always got along better with your father than you did.”
“That's true. They're the same, Kevin and my father. I think they respect each other.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“They both always get their own way.”
“That could be said of you too.”
He shook his head. “The difference is that I count the cost of getting my own way; they don't.”
I thought about that. “That may be true of your father, but I don't think it's true of Kevin.”
“Please, Annie. Kevin's good looks, not to mention his social status, have always gotten him everything he ever wanted. He wanted to be a Hollywood star and he is.” He turned to look at me. “I'm just afraid he may be thinking that he wants you.”
His face was somber.
“I think you're exaggerating. Kevin and I are just friends.”
“Kevin isn't the kind of man who can be‘friends’ with a woman who looks like you do.”
“You're prejudiced,” I said.
“Don't fall for him, Annie. He's corrupt.”
“Puh-leeze,” I said. “Kevin may be spoiled, but he's not corrupt.”
“He is. I can smell the corruption in him like I can smell it in my father.”
He was deadly serious. I said, “I think you're wrong, Liam. You and Kevin were always in competition when you were young. I don't think you see him clearly.”
“I think it's you who doesn't see clearly, Annie. I'm worried about you.”
He was beginning to get my back up. He was making poor Kevin sound like an ogre. “I think you've lost all sense of proportion on this. Kevin and I have been enjoying each other's company, that's all. We haven't seen each other in ages.”
“Has he kissed you?”
I could feel myself flush. “That's none of your business.”
“Shit. He has kissed you.”
I glared. “Will you watch the damn Orioles and stop cross-examining me? The more you talk the more you sound like a dog in the manger.”
A muscle flickered in his jaw. “I love you, that gives me the right to be concerned about you.”
“I love you too, but that doesn't give me the right to criticize whoever you go out with.”
“I'm not going out with anyone right now.”
“Well, if you were, I wouldn't say bad things about her to you.”
“If there were bad things to be said, then you should say them.”
“I'd love to see your face if I told you a girl you were going out with was corrupt.”
“If she was corrupt, I'd want you to tell me.”
“Hah,” I said.
He ran his hand through his hair. “This is getting us nowhere.”
“Why don't we just drop the subject?”
He glowered at me. “Are you falling in love with Kevin?”
“I don't know yet. And that is the last word I am going to say on this subject.”
He looked grim.
Good,
I thought.
Let him put that in his pipe and smoke it.
Silence fell as we both pretended to watch the ball-game. I was terribly conscious of his long body stretched out beside mine in the bed. I wanted so much for him to turn to me, to take me in his arms, to kiss me and tell me he loved me the way I wanted him to love me. Tears pricked behind my eyes.
Oh, Liam,
I thought achingly.
He picked up my hand. “I'm sorry, Annie. I suppose I was prying. But it's only because I care about you so much, and your father isn't here to look after you any more.”
“I haven't needed anyone to look after me in a long time, Liam. As I keep telling you, I'm all grown up.”
“We all need someone to look after us,” Liam said soberly. “It's what makes us human.”
I let my fingers curl around his. “You always took care of me when I was small.”
“You were always on my side. And there were times when I desperately needed someone on my side.”
I thought of the ugly scene that I had once witnessed between Senator Wellington and Liam. The senator's words had been so chilling, so demeaning, that they could be counted as abusive. Liam, who at sixteen did not have his father's facility with language, had been white with shock. I had slipped into the room when the senator left and slid my hand into Liam's.
“Let's go for a walk, Liam,” I had said. “Let's get away from here.”
He had closed his hand around mine tightly. “Yes, good idea.”
We had walked for miles around the farm, hand in hand, neither one of us talking.
“I hate him,” Liam had said finally.
“He's not a nice man,” I agreed.
“It's hard to accept that such a shit is actually my father.”
“What made him so mad at you?”
“He wants Mom and me by his side when he kicks off his reelection campaign. I told him I didn't want to be there.”
“That's what made him so angry?”
“One of the things.”
“What are you going to do?”
“If Mom goes, I'll go with her.”
“Will she go?”
“Probably. Then she'll get drunk.”
I squeezed his hand.
“The problem is, he has all the power. He has the money and he has the farm. I love the farm, Annie. I want to make it into a top-notch thoroughbred breeding operation. I've talked about it with your dad and he says I have very good ideas. But if I piss the old man off too much, he won't give me the free hand that I need.”
“Stay away from him as much as you can and try to be polite when you're in his company.”
“That's what your dad says.”
“Daddy gives very good advice.”
“So do you.”
The feel of Liam's hand around mine brought back that scene with amazing clarity and I looked up at him. “Thank God you bought Pennyroyal.”
He looked down at me. “I know. I didn't tell you this, but your dad was the one who advised me to buy a few of my own horses so that I wouldn't be totally dependent on my father. I did a lot of research and I liked Pennyroyal the best of all the mares being sold at Keeneland. Then I paid the farm the stud fee to breed her to Thunderhead.”
“Do you board her at the farm for free?”
“Your father said to make sure I paid a boarding fee for all my horses. He said that way it would be clear that they were mine and not part of the farm.”
“It sounds as if Daddy was afraid of the same thing you were, that your father would sell the farm.”
“Yes. Thank God he gave me that advice. I don't think I would have thought of it on my own.”
I smiled at him a little mistily.
“God,” Liam said. “I miss him.”
I nodded but did not speak. Then I rested my head against his shoulder and he slipped an arm around me and we went back to watching the ballgame.
T
he day of the Preakness dawned clear and bright. The early odds made Honor Bright the favorite at 2 to 1. Then came Mileaminute, the D Wayne Lukas horse, then Tango With Me, the speed horse. Someday Soon was fourth at 7 to 1.
“We don't get no respect,” Liam said when he saw the odds.
I said, “They all think Someday Soon will run out of track. If it was the Belmont, at a mile and a half, he might be the favorite.”
“Probably not. Probably Honor Bright would be the favorite for that too.”
I put on my lucky pink suit and hat and we drove out to the track, passing through the blighted neighborhood of Belvedere. The track was packed, with over 100,000 people jammed into the stands.