Finding a distance is the riding term for placement of the horse at the correct takeoff point for a jump. Expert jumping requires exceptional timing. Taking off for a jump too early means the horse has to reach to get across the obstacle, potentially resulting in a knockdown or a crash. Getting too deep makes it hard for the horse to get off of the ground before running into the fence. The bigger the jump, the less forgiving it is of mistakes. Optimal distances vary from jump to jump: oxers with wide gaps between the rails require deeper takeoff points so the horse can clear the spread, whereas verticals permit an earlier launch. The horse’s arc, or bascule, should be centered over the fence. To find a good distance, horse and rider must develop a gallop with enough energy to compensate for the amount of energy the obstacle demands. The approach should be perpendicular to the center of the fence, and the horse must be held perfectly straight and balanced in a rhythm to, over, and away from the jump. These seemingly simple concepts require an exacting attentiveness to every momentary adjustment of terrain, environment, and the mental and physical states of both horse and rider.
I was riding a tiny Shetland pony with a poufy mane and fuzzy winter coat and I had to hold my feet up so they didn’t drag on the ground then the pony morphed into a big roan stallion who refused to turn even though I leaned on the reins with all my strength as it ran away with me, around and around the arena, while the buzzer kept sounding that I was off course and everyone pointed and laughed. My mother was sitting in the grandstand shaking her head. The buzzer blared again and again—
My hand slapped at the alarm clock and finally the noise stopped. By then I remembered why my clock was going off even though it was still dark outside. The dream dissolved as I stumbled out of bed. Today was the riding clinic with Franklin de la Cruz, one of the few equestrians ever to compete internationally in multiple disciplines of equestrian sport: eventing, jumping and dressage. My stomach twirled. Maybe it was still galloping those nightmare laps. I ate a handful of chalky pink Pepto Bismals for breakfast while I yanked on a clean polo shirt and breeches, then hooked my boot pulls into the tabs inside my tall boots, pulling them up and lacing the ankles. I strapped on a short pair of Tom Thumb spurs since I didn’t know anything about the horse I was riding. I didn’t see why I couldn’t use Coppertone, or for that matter any of the new equitation horses could have benefitted from the schooling. But Rosey didn’t want me to, and if she was paying for the clinic I wasn’t about to turn down the chance. I knew she had signed me up in the advanced group, but it was impossible to guess how advanced the section was actually going to be. I just prayed I didn’t end up reliving my nightmare. At least I knew my Mom wouldn’t be there.
After driving forever up the 101 and then snaking across the sheer cliff edge of Las Virgenes Canyon, my stomach was even dizzier. I pulled into the stable with only
about thirty minutes left to find the horse and warm up. The barn was nice but not as fancy as I expected, more rustic than grandiose. Then again, Malibu Barbie’s bikini covered about all I knew about Malibu. I wrestled my hair into a hairnet. I had recently cut it myself with a razor to look short and choppy like Meg Ryan’s, not realizing how hard that was going to make it to do the hunter swoop under my helmet. I bent over to carefully put on my helmet upside down so the hairnet wouldn’t get pushed out of place. Then I called the number Rosey had given me. A weathered old woman’s voice answered and told me she was parked in the back with a blue stock trailer.
The woman was smoking a cigarette with one hand while she held the cotton lead rope of a jittery, wide-eyed thoroughbred in the other. She coughed what sounded like a death rattle. It was even worse than I had imagined. The poor horse was bleached-out, unclipped and ewe-necked with jutting ribs. “I’ll be back for him at 5:00” she said.
Rosey had sworn she was leasing me a seasoned jumper. Maybe ten years ago, I thought, swinging into the saddle, but it didn’t take but a few minutes of warming up to know the horse had never been a show jumper. I couldn’t ride in the clinic on this horse. I dismounted and ran up my stirrups, and led the horse over to the little clump of people surrounding the handsome grey haired Olympian.
Franklin shook hands with a man wearing one of those little Irish flat caps. He laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, releasing him and turning toward me. I fumbled. “Hi Mr. de la Cruz, I’m sorry, this is embarrassing. My name is Lauren and I just want to apologize and tell you that I think I am going to have to withdraw from the clinic.” His eyebrows shot up and I hurried to explain, “my employer signed me up in the advanced section and she leased this random horse for the day and he is just totally
not capable of going in the jumper ring, I think we would be a disruption more than anything. I’m really disappointed but I just think it’ll ruin everyone’s day if I can’t get this horse to do the work.”
Franklin smiled encouragingly. “Oh, I’m sure he’s not that bad. You’ll be fine, give it a try!”
“It’s that bad. I’m telling you, he’s a mess. He must be off the race track—I can’t even get him to take his right lead at the canter.”
Franklin just snorted and motioned me toward the arena. I got back on the poor old bag of bones. Well, there was no escape now. I gave the horse a pat. “We’re so screwed,” I told him.
A few minutes into the lesson Franklin said, “How about I get on him for a minute.” My face was scalding hot. I knew he thought I was incompetent. I had a vision of Franklin stepping gracefully into the saddle and instantly the horse was transformed: flexed and supple, powerful and controlled. He cantered off on the right lead and popped over a vertical and then galloped an oxer. He had me put the oxer up to five feet and the horse jumped it perfectly, folding his legs up tightly and arching into a perfect bascule.
“See Lauren?” he said, “Lauren?”
“Lauren?" Now Franklin was looking at me like I was crazy. "Ride in and I’ll get on him.”
He told the other riders to walk on the rail. I sat the trot to the center of the ring and dismounted. He quickly lengthened my stirrups four holes and bent his left leg. I knitted my fingers together and gave him a leg up. I don’t think I breathed until he started
cantering and the horse struck off on the wrong lead. And again. And again. Thank God, Franklin couldn’t do it either.
“Well,” he said, “I think you’re right. This one isn’t going to work. But I believe Jeremy said he brought an extra horse,” Franklin turned and looked to the audience and the man with the Irish cap stood up, nodding and already walking toward the barn.
“Are you willing to try another one?” he asked me. “That would be amazing! Yes, I would love that!”
Five minutes later I found myself mounted on a big, gleaming Argentinian Warmblood.
At the end of the day, after thanking Jeremy profusely for loaning me such a nice horse, I approached Franklin again. “I had an amazing time—thank you so much for everything. I just wanted you to know that my employer only paid for one day so I didn’t want you to think I didn't enjoy it when I wasn’t here tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’m glad you had fun, you’re a good rider.” He leaned in closer, “Listen, don’t say anything to anyone but you can come back and ride tomorrow if you want.”
“I can?”
“Sure, come on back.”
“Thank you! Thank you so much.”
The second day was even better than the first. The jumps went up and the turns got tighter, but the horse was more familiar and I felt more confident pushing the
in the backyard, which was green grass right up to a border of boulders where the ocean crashed rhythmically. What a perfect weekend. I couldn’t imagine how anything could be better. I sat outside, sipping a beer and chatting with Jeremy, who was flirting with me and still wearing his Irish hat. It reminded me of the Sam Savitt illustrations in old horse stories. Jeremy’s daughter had ridden in the clinic, (she was the one he had brought a backup horse for) and I wondered about her mother and if they were married or what. Then Franklin came and joined us and the two men joked around while I listened.
Jeremy went to get a burger and Franklin asked where I was from and of course then he asked if I knew Pete Chastain. I said that Pete had bought my horse before I moved out here. Franklin started telling a story about a horse show he was judging where Pete’s daughter had fallen off of her pony. “Pete ran into the ring—I thought he was going to help his daughter up—she was still lying on the ground,” Franklin said, laughing, “but he ran right past her and grabbed the pony’s reins and punched the pony right in the face!”
“Oh my God,” I said. “What did you do?”
“I told him he better put some space between himself and the steward before he got ejected from the show.” Franklin chuckled.
“Was his daughter okay?” “Oh yeah, she was fine.”
Franklin was looking at me. Appreciatively. He was definitely married.
It was Penelope. “You have to get over here right now. We’re partying at Capital. Brian wants you to come meet the lead singer!” Penelope’s husband was a recording engineer at Capital Records. She'd been telling me stories all week about the band he was working with. I knew their music—you couldn't turn on the radio for more than five minutes and not hear one of their songs, even though I didn't own any of the albums.
“I’m in Malibu still, for the clinic.” “Well leave!”
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
I sped all the way back over Las Virgenes, down the 101, and made a quick stop at my place to tug off the breeches and boots. It was a cool night so I pulled on jeans and a light sweater, and futzed with the tiny buckles on my new wedge heels. Penelope had dragged me into Neiman Marcus, or as she called it, Needless Markup. The clothes felt like they were custom made and I ended up putting a pair of outrageously expensive jeans, a Marc Jacobs bag, and a pair of Miu Miu platform heels that cost more a month’s salary on my credit card. The amount of money I blew through in one afternoon left me with an anxiety hangover for a few days but now I felt completely justified. These were just the kind of clothes a girl wore who hung out with Olympic athletes and rock stars. There wasn’t time to do anything with my helmet hair so I just pulled it into two nubby pigtails and booked it over to Hollywood. I had never been inside the studio—a landmark building that looked like a big stack of records.
Brian met me out front, "Welcome to Crapital," he joked, punching a code to open the big wrought iron gate. I parked in the tiny lot and we walked the circular hallways down to the studio where the band he had been working with was recording
their latest album. I stared at the poster sized black and white photographs of artists who had recorded there, superstars like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday. When we got down to the studio there was only a handful of people hanging at a bar set up in the back of the darkened room. There were black instrument cases stacked everywhere, and soundboards with hundreds of buttons and dials. Brian introduced me to the guys in the band and the roadies, and all of them seemed nice, but everyone seemed to be paying attention to the lead singer, tracking him even in the middle of whatever else they were doing. I
wondered if it was because he was special or if he was unstable. Maybe both. He had deep dimples and luminous skin, and the sexiest voice I had ever heard in real life, sort of husky and warm and intimate. We all sat around and talked about music, and it wasn’t long before Johnny and I were sitting on a piano bench together talking about
songwriters.
“Well, I mean, the obvious choice would be the Beatles, I guess, but if you take them out of it, I don’t know, um, maybe Otis Redding? He wrote “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” and Aretha basically stole it from him, right? And did he write “Satisfaction? I know he recorded it.” I was trying desperately not to be boring and stupid. Why didn’t I take the time to do something with my hair?
Johnny shook his hair out of his face. “Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote Satisfaction, but that’s a cool choice,” he said. “Come here,” he held out a hand. I took it and he led me down a hallway full of amps and trunks, moving boxes until he found the one he was looking for. He flipped open the latches on a case and showed me a burnished orange hollow body guitar.
“It’s gorgeous.” I said. He picked up the guitar, tuned it a little and played a few chords. I thought I wouldn’t even mind if he sang something, although I usually hated that awkward, forced-to-sit-patiently-in-silent-admiration thing that is the only acceptable response to someone playing a song for you.
“It’s the same color as your hair,” he said, putting the guitar back down and leaning closer. “You’re beautiful.”
I was speechless. Was this a joke? One time in middle school one of the junior varsity football players passed me a note asking me if I wanted to wear his jersey, something only the cheerleaders ever got to do. I checked yes and that turned out to be a humiliating mistake. Better to be wary, I thought.
"Do you expect me to fall for this song and dance?" I rolled my eyes and tried to look tough but not scary; I was shooting for Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not, not Kathy Bates in Misery. "I'm not stupid, I bet you pick up girls like this every night."
He held my gaze. "Not at all. It's not like people think. Mostly it's just being bored and alone in random hotel rooms." Johnny took a deep breath and looked down, ran his hand through his hair, shaking his head like he was just waking up. “What a crazy night,” he said and put the guitar back in its case. The latches snapped shut.
I followed him back to the main studio and Penelope and Brian were ready to go. I would have stayed all night but I knew it wasn’t up to me. One of the roadies was driving Johnny home so we all spiraled back out of the building to the parking lot together. I lingered as long as I could but Johnny was talking to the others. Finally, I walked to my car, opened the door. I started the engine and turned back to look out the
back windshield and reverse out of my spot when there was a knock on the window. It was Johnny.
“Hey, would you—I wanted to see if I could get your number. Would you be interested in going out sometime or something?”
My heart exploded like a flock of birds. “Absolutely. I would love that.” I couldn’t believe the distance my life had travelled since yesterday morning.
The next day Penelope excitedly reported that Brian had said Johnny was really into me, that he had asked a bunch of questions about me and even that he said he couldn’t believe a girl like me would go out with a guy like him. “Yeah, a rock star is totally beneath me,” I tried to rein in my smile. Penelope said that one of the roadies had wanted to ask me out but Johnny told him he would give him one of his sisters if he would let him have me.
“When you get married, I better get to plan your wedding!” Penelope crowed. I didn’t even complain to Rosey about the clinic—I just thanked her and told her I had a fantastic time. And I kept my phone close, checking it every few minutes just in