Girl Next Door - Alyssa Brugman [9]
'Round the bend Pageantry, the showy chestnut, takes the lead, followed by My Delight and Esca's Foxtrotter.'
'Run, you bastard!' from Jughandles.
'. . . Berry Blessing bursts out wide and she's too good for them. Berry Blessing followed by Pageantry. My Delight and then Esca's Foxtrotter comes in fourth.'
I don't think you get any money for fourth.
Bryce Cole heads back to the booth, and when he turns away he stuffs a roll of notes into his breast pocket. Everything returns to quiet. The blokes shuffle papers. The barmaid wipes down the beer taps. Other fellows step outside for another smoke.
Maybe Jasmina or Tanner will ring me tonight to tell me what happened. I don't think so though, since they've been freezing me out like they did with Sapph.
Unless I turn out to be someone's love child. That would be tops. It would also explain why my dad left. Who was really big in 1994? Maybe Tex Perkins. That would be cool. It would be great if he had a studio in the house, and then all these famous musicians would come to our place all the time. John Mayer would be over one day and fall completely in love with me, and keep pestering me to marry him, and I would be like, John, just back off will you? You know Daniel Johns and I only just broke up.
Except Tex isn't really my mum's style. That guy who plays Niles Crane on Frasier would be more her cup of tea, but I think I read somewhere that he was gay. Actually, Declan's dad reminds me of Niles Crane a little bit.
I watch a harness race on the television. On another screen two presenters are talking about a drug scandal in Hong Kong. They introduce a vet who talks forever about different hormones and how long they last in the bloodstream. Bryce Cole seems to care. He's made a note in his little book.
'Who do you like in race two?' he asks me.
I peruse the list. Thinking of Berry Blessing, I'm looking for one that sounds like a yoghurt. There are none, so I pick one that sounds as though it should win.
'Mr Perfect.' How can I lose?
'Ten dollars on the nose?' he asks.
I nod again.
Mr Perfect comes in sixth of nine horses. There's another long interval where there's much talking on the television about the Hong Kong horse and the hormones. One of the presenters describes it as a 'tragedy', although from what I can gather the horse is still alive. It's not even sick – it's just not allowed to run in the race today. I guess tragedies are relative.
Races three and four, I lose again.
'Who do you like in race five?' Bryce Cole asks me.
I study the race guide for a moment and then I hand it back to him. 'Who would you pick?'
He rubs his chin. 'I'd put my money on Luxury Kasten. Or maybe Travlin.'
'Why?'
He points to the page. 'This figure here shows you how many starts the horse has had, how many wins and places. You can see he's had six wins from eight starts, but that's not enough, because he might have beaten a goat in someone's backyard, so we look at this number, which shows how much money they've won. You can see he's won some dollars. Here are the track conditions in which he's won. Horses favour different conditions. There's the trainer's name. You get to know who's who after a while. Then you look at who's riding him. Luxury Kasten has won more races in the past, but this guy riding Travlin is a very experienced jockey.'
I nod, feeling stupid for having only looked at their names before.
'So we've picked number three and number five. Now we go and have a look at them.' Bryce Cole leads me across to the lawn, where we can see the horses parading at the front of the building. 'Have a good hard look at them and tell me which horse wants to run today.'
I stare at them. They're all brown, skinny and leggy.
'They all look the same.'
'Are you sure?' he asks me.
I narrow my eyes, staring at them. I'm waiting for one of them to call me telepathically – to say, 'Pick me! Pick me!' They don't, but then Travlin turns his head my way. He's not looking at me exactly, but it's a sign.
'Number five,' I say decisively.
'On the nose?'