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“Marvelous! You’re going to do us so proud, Your Hi…” The Trunchbull catches herself before the honorific slips out, but Pippa’s coughing over the flub, too, so if there’s a single person amongst our small group who hasn’t already worked out who Henrietta is, they’re safe from that knowledge for another five minutes. I doubt it’s going to stay a secret for longer than that. What a terrible life, to have everyone know who you are all the time. Watching your every move. Ready to catch you out and report you to the tabloids. No wonder HenriettaSmithhas tried to go incognito. As far as I can tell, even being a minor royal is a pain in the buttocks.
“Pippa? Let’s see if we have something to take the place of your rather spiffing helmet, shall we?” I haven’t heard anyone use the word ‘spiffing’—outside of a World War II series—since I was a kid, and even then I think it would have been used ironically. That’s Ye Olde English Sarcasm, and it makes my blood boil. The Trunchbull is making fun of Pippa. What does itmatterif Pippa came in wearing some brand-name gear?
A flash from the far side of the barn makes Whiskey startle, her hooves clattering and skidding on the barn aisle’s concrete.
“Ah! You’re here! Now, best foot forward, everyone!” The Trunchbull waves the photographer into the barn. “Gordon Ellington is here fromSporting Hearties.And we all know whatthatmeans.”
Henrietta backs up behind Pippa, her head dropped to her chest while Gordon eyes the horses with unbridled skepticism.
I’m sure no one other than me and Mariano know what it means to have a photographer fromSporting Heartieshere to get what The Trunchbull calls “candid shots” of “the master in action,” but the students seem duly deferent and biddable. Mummy always did know how to turn a buck. She’s going to trot Mariano out—wearing her tacky, exploitative merchandise—every chance she gets. The other glossies will follow in Gordon’s footsteps, trolling for some ‘exclusive’ angle. I can just see the headlines now.
POLO STAR REDUCED TO PIMPING TS&K MERCH –The Ragged Gutterpress
WASHED UP? WASHED OUT? YESTERDAY’S HEARTHROB BARELY HANGING ON –My Gritty Expose, by A. Hack
RIDERS ON THE STORM: How One Polo Giant Lost His Way–Pays My Bills, I Suppose
“If you could all come forward and help yourselves to a bum bag.” The students surge the merch table as instructed and help themselves to the godawful leather fanny packs. The Trunchbull fiddles with one of the lesser mortals, helping them snap the fastener behind their backs. “That’s it. Logo forward. Now, if we could all… Yes, that’s right.” She arranges the group in rows, steering Henrietta to the front of the crowd and jostling her into the middle of the picture.
Mariano’s scent overpowers me and his mouth is behind my ear. “What we do for the love of the game!” He passes me with a hand to the small of my back, fingers trailing, sending bolts of fire through me.
“Dear god, help us.” The words escape me before I can catch them and reel them back in. Just as I feared, he’s wearingTS&Kmerch and the photographer simply cannot get enough of him. Whiskey fidgets and tosses her head, her lips flapping and making a popping sound as I turn my face away from the consumeristic abomination.What we do for the love of the game.That’s what he said. And he’s right. We do what’s needed. Deep breath, go and join the commercial melee, Lolly. Don’t be a snob. There’s money to be made, and I need to make it.
TRUE GRIT
Lolly Benoit. Greenshoot Polo Ranch. Gloucestershire, England.
“The shaft of the mallet, as you see, is not perfectly round.” Mariano’s a great teacher: kind, thorough, patient—willing to show each student individually how to hold a polo mallet. “It becomes like a part of your arm.” He swings the stick with perfect hip rotation and I have to turn to hide my smile. He lines the mallet up from his shoulder, down his side and past his ankle, as if his arm has extended itself in a straight line. “You’re not gripping with your palm but your fingers.”
Pippa has her mallet sticking out from her thigh at an angle, the way most people grasp it when they first step onto the field. She has a tennis-racket grip, which uses the palm, rather than a polo mallet grip, which relies on the placement of the fingers.
Mariano takes Pippa’s hand and eases her index finger down the flat line of the mallet. “There are three joints in the finger. Here, here, and here.” He touches each of her joints and I’m suddenly wishing I was a newbie who needed him to hold my hand and slide my fingers down the shaft of the instrument. Alicia will enjoy that one. I have to remember to tell her when we talk later. I’m going to need to come up with somemetaphorsfor what has passed between Mariano and myself; the details are not for sharing. I don’t want to get too weird about it, but words like ‘forever’ and ‘always’ are merging with ‘private’ and ‘sacred’ in my head, and it’s something I need to sit and think about before I talk to her.
“The middle joint needs to lie along the flat of the handle, like so…” He shows Pippa how to grip, where to put her fingers, how the thong wraps around the base of the thumb and holds it all in place, which tendons she’s using to add power to her thrust and why. At each turn, Gordon the Photographer is in there snapping away, getting close ups, asking Mariano to smile more.
The Trunchbull steps in several times and adjusts the merchandise so that all logos are pointed toward the camera, and I have to grip my mallet and stroke the length of Sapphire’s neck to keep myself calm.Truly, Mother. This is gross. Not only the blatant consumerism, but the merch itself. No one in their right mind is going to buy ostrich or alligator. It’s just NOT THE DONE THING.She’s not even in this damned country, and my mother is under my skin like poison ivy and stinging nettles and hornets all rolled into one. It’s a good thing Velveteen’s not here. She’d pick up on my anxiety right away. As it is, this horse is a dear, calm creature who seems to be absorbing my antsiness without getting riled up herself.
“Lolly, if you will?” My name from his lips jolts me out of my jitters. “I’d like to show the backhand, if you don’t mind?”
I hand Sapphire off to the groom and join Mariano in front of the students.
“You’ve all met Charlotte Benoit?” He bows in my direction. “Lolly to her friends.”
There are some murmurs and a “Who’s that now?” from the back of the crowd.
“I’m lucky enough to play with riders from around the world.” He has his hand between my shoulders and I’m barely able to hear for the firestorm of chemical reactions that are detonating up and down my spine. “Polo is a game of skill, as well as strength and courage.” I press myself back, just a little, so he knows I’m thinking of him and cannot wait until we’re alone again. “Lolly has that rarecombinaciónof natural grace andlatenacidadfor the sport.”
Wait, what?
“To reach the top of your game in any field, you must start from here.” His hand is over my midriff.Good grief, I am going to die of heat and desire.“In the gut is where it all begins. Some call it passion. Others call it heart. I call itel aguante.Grit.”
Sheesh. It’s one thing to have the hots for someone. It’s quite another when they’re saying dreamy things about you so perfectly calibrated to your every sensitivity they might as well have read your locked diary. I wish I could record him and could get this all down.
Mariano keeps talking aboutel aguanteand why I, apparently, have it.
No one has ever been this effusive about me. Well, apart from Alicia, but she’s unfailingly kind and always trying to boost me, so that doesn’t count.
I also believed my English professor, who said I had “a penchant for understanding The Greats.” He was getting paid whether he said nice things about me or not, but he’s the only one who really counts. Butother than him,no one has said things like this about me. Certainly not in public. I wish I knew how Mariano could already understand me so well.
