AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Instead, drafting, deleting, and redrafting the text I want to send her punctuates my entire departure.
And my flight.
And my ride from the airport to the retreat where I’m to be tutored in the art of not making a fool of myself in front of my new clients.
I stare at the words I have left after nine hours of writing, editing, and rewriting:
Lolly. You have my heart. You need never return it. It’s yours to keep.
Everything else I’ve written:your laughter, your smile, the way you dance,they’re just noise in the wind. And the other stuff,I haven’tpairedwith…I backspace over the ridiculous phrase.Had sex with…Didn’t sleep with… I know you think I… It isn’t the way for me…As I tried to tell you, I’m free…are all merely weak excuses for allowing myself to be temporarily blown off course. I want her to knowthere’s no one else, you’re the one, I can’t stop thinking about you,but there’s no poetry, no passion, none of the drive of my own language.
Lorca had it right, “Land of shadows eat my mouth,” but the English doesn’t do it justice.
I sit in the cab, finger hovering over the text.
TEXTRSTART_Lolly, you are my heart_TEXTREND
Over the next few days, I am parted from my phone at the start of each day, and only have it returned to me when we finish supper in the formal dining room. I check my messages over and over and over again, but the text remains unopened. She won’t even look at my feeble words. I grip the stupid little machine under my pillow as if that buzz, the one that tells me a message is incoming, might save my life, but she sends me nothing. My team writes, my mother writes, even Gustavo asks how I’m doing, but Lolly is silent as the damned grave.
I’m the star, but nottheonly star,Thrills, Spills, & Killshas hired. According to my teachers, I’m the top-shelf horse trainer who’s about to cater to the uber-rich, quasi-famous, and, according to my new boss, royalty. My teachers and tutors defer to me, but there’s something about their manner that tells me I’m not going to be top dog for long.
Perhaps it’s only the jetlag, but the etiquette coach reminds me of The Trunchbull of my niece’s storybooks. She’s petulant, compulsive, and persnickety—all words I have learned in the days since I arrived at The Academy to be tutored inHow to Behave,or, more properly,How Not to Behavewhen in the presence of the all-important (but not yet manifested) royal personage.
We are to teach this minor royal—as well as the lesser mortals who have onlypaidroyally to joinThrills, Spills, & Kills—to ride, hold a mallet, and perhaps attempt to do those two things at the same time. No one sayshowminor, but the British royal family is vast, thanks to the prodigious loins of HRH Vicky; this I learn from my fellow student, Pippa.
Our dear students will also learn to juggle knives (or fire), cook what they’ve bagged during the pheasant drive, ride with the drag hunt, attend a ball, produce a ‘professional play, attended by local dignitaries,’ and close out theTS&Kexperience with a polo match hosted by none other than my own teamtheGolden Horseshoes,who will be arriving in the UK for the start of the summer polo season.
It’s a deluxe holiday experience package, of that’s there’s no doubt, but if I’m costing Gwen millions of dollars—and the other instructors command similar fees—I can only imagine what the price tag to attend must be like.
Our instructor’s bark interrupts my musings. “I do not care if they have renounced their titles. Or not. I couldn’t say either way.” The Trunchbull has a genuine-willow pointing stick tucked under her arm, which she uses to punctuate her speech. Usually with a thwack to the desk closest to her. “You will speak when spoken to. Use no first names. Enter and leave all rooms in strict rank order. And relinquish your pony should this esteemed guest express an interest in your mount.”
“That’s going to be a blast, all of us falling off our horses just because HRHWhatever We Call Hercompliments their gait.” Pippa Klaushoffer has decided I’m her project for the duration of the training program. She latched onto me as soon as we entered the classroom. I think it was, perhaps, my look of horror when The Trunchbull told us that we had three whole weeks of preparation before we’d even be allowed to enter the ring withThe Nameless Royal.
“Mr. Arias. What are three foods that will never be prepared for a Royal Visit?” She punches the world Royal and rolls the R.
“Seafood.”Why I must know this when I have absolutely nothing to do with food preparation is beyond me.
The Trunchbull brings her baton up and whips it over my head, missing my skull but not my hair by a whisker. “Good, why?”
“We do not wish to chance the possibility that their rrrrroyal personages will have the food poisoning.” That gets me a laugh from Pippa, but a light rap on the knuckles from The Trunchbull.
“This is no laughing matter, Mr. Arias. I expect better from you. According to my brief, you’re to be the head riding coach. That being the case, I expect more, not less, from you.” The woman is a bully and a joke, but my contract stipulates that I will prepare for the job, “undertaking training as directed by…” and then there’s a list of the directors of the firm. Seems everyone and their dog is my boss now.
Except the one boss and the one dog I wish for.
I will perform even better than expected in order to get back to Florida, my team, and the one place I’m certain Lolly must still be, even if she has moved to a new club. Whatever expression my face assumes at this thought seems to reassure Miss Trunchbull that I am deadly serious about my brief.
I must over-deliver. And so I do. “In addition to seafood, there will be no garlic or pasta.”
“Correct.”
“We will eat when our most esteemed guest eats, ending when they do.”
Pippa gives me an enthusiastic thumbs up.
“If one needs to use the restroom during a meal, one does not announce it.”
