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She looks like she’s considering reaching into the car and ripping my head off. Then her fury turns to a pout. A coquettish gesture I wouldn’t have guessed was in her repertoire.

“Come on, get in,” I say.

She stands pouting a moment longer then comes around to the passenger side and gets in.

“Why were you such a jerk to me?” she asks.

“I’m sorry, Lucinda, I wasn’t trying to be a jerk.”

“Well, you were!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” she says. Her eyes are so sad.

“Come back to the apartment with me while I get ready then I’ll give you a ride to the track?”

“Yeah,” she says, “okay.”

I pull the car back onto the road, make a U-turn, and head back to my apartment.

A HALF HOUR later I’ve showered and dressed and fed Cat. Lucinda has spent the whole time at the kitchen table, reading the Racing Form.

“You ready?” I ask her, picking my car keys up off the table.

“Yeah,” she says darkly.

I feel like if I try talking to her she’ll reach in the kitchen drawer, get a knife, and stab me. So I say nothing.

She is quiet during the ride to the track. As we pull into the backside, I ask her again about giving Mike’s Mohawk a workout later that morning.

“Yeah, I said I’d do it,” she answers bitterly.

“Okay then.”

“I’ll be ready for him around nine,” she says.

I drop her near Jack Jenkins’s office, where she’s meeting with the trainer to talk over a few horses he wants her working. She looks at me briefly, says nothing, and walks away.

Lucinda’s hoopla has put me behind schedule. I’m half an hour late feeding my three horses and they look depressed. I think of the horse joke: A horse walks into a bar. Bartender says, “Why the long face?”

My horses’ faces all look longer than usual.

I go into the feed room and prepare their grain.

I let them finish eating then I muck the stalls, clean the waterers and feed tubs, and start grooming Mike.

I’ve long finished wrapping and tacking up Mike’s Mohawk and there’s still no sign of Lucinda. It would probably be a good idea to find a new rider for my string but I’ve already made the poor girl feel like shit, no need to add to it. Particularly since she’s hypersensitive about her riding skills.

By the time nine-thirty rolls around, I’m feeling frustrated. My horse needs his work and the girl did say she’d ride him. I go walking off to look for her and am storming around, eliciting curious looks from grooms as I poke my head in at various shedrows. I’m about to turn and head back to my barn when I see Sebastian Ives, a groom who worked for me in my previous incarnation as an assistant trainer up at Belmont. He’s walking a liver chestnut horse in front of a very well kept barn. I duck my head to avoid his noticing me. He knows I’m a Fed and though I look different, Sebastian and I worked side by side for four months and he might well recognize me just by my walk. Just as I’m passing him, he stares right at me. I quickly look away.

“Hey!” the thin black man calls after me.

I keep walking, feeling shitty about it because I liked the man a great deal. From the looks of it though, he’s doing just fine. Don’t know whose outfit he’s working for but the shedrow seemed very classy.

I go back to my barn and find Lucinda sitting in a plastic chair she’s pulled over in front of Mike’s stall. She’s a little dirtied up from riding and has her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She’s drumming her long fingers on the plastic chair.

“Hi. I was looking for you,” I say, glancing down at my watch.

“Here I am,” she shrugs.

“So. Mike. I want you to do a mile with him. I had the chiropractor work on him yesterday. His back should feel better.”

I notice that Lucinda’s giving me a skeptical look.

“What?” I ask, “plenty of people swear by it. Thought I’d try it. Seems to have helped.”

“You gonna call the animal communicator next?” she sneers, referring to the occasional “horse psychics” who circulate at the tracks.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” I reply, a little wounded because the thought had crossed my mind. “What’s the matter, Lucinda?” I ask, looking into her hardened eyes, “and don’t tell me you