Dinner with Flash

“You picking up your daughter?”

“No.”

“Your son”

“No.”

She looks at me quizzically.

“No,” I say. “I’m here for me. I’m taking riding lessons.” It feels funny to even say it. Let alone be doing it, still. But I am here for me.

I feel good saying that.

“Oh good for you!” she says condescendingly. “I rode for many years, we had horses, once even an Arabian, and of course a farm. Asheville North Carolina, are familiar with it?”

“Yes,” I say. “I’m from Vernon, Connecticut. We had a dog and shed in the backyard.”

“Ahhh,” she says. Like I just quoted Shakespeare. What an idiot. Her daughter comes around the corner. She is flush- faced and sweet. I am sorry that she has to go home with this pretentious ninny of a mother.

“Well,” she says to me. “I guess we’ll be seeing you again.”

Not if I see you first, I think. “Yes, I hope so,” I say. “Have a good day.”

I tell myself for the millionth time that I’m going straight to hell when I die.

I have come down to the barn to see if I can take an additional lesson this week. I have some extra time off from work with the holiday. Pam schedules me in and I ask her if I can go and say hi to Flash. I tell Pam I’ve bought the yoga ball, been doing squats (God help me) and have been bouncing on it. I look out my windows while I do this, bounce, realizing people can easily see me, being well, me, which is, at any given time, nuts.

The bouncing is a lot more difficult than I think. My husband times me. I ask him if I’m done after one minute. “No, you’ve got four more minutes,” he says.

“What? Jesus,” I say. He smiles. He waves out the window to one of our neighbors who has come to a complete stop in front of our house. He looks in our window. I wave, and continue to bounce. Our neighbor moves on.

But today I am visiting my new boyfriend Flash, and I am as goofy with him as I was in middle school, high school, and college, for that matter, when it comes to males.
“Hi Flash, remember me?” I ask coyly.

Flash is circling his stall nervously. He’s ignoring me. I remember this feeling from way back when, way before anybody wrote a book about him ‘not being that into me.’

“He seems nervous,” I say to the girl who’s working in the barn today.
“Well, yeah,” she says not looking at me, “I’m feeding the horses; he knows the food is coming”

I am relieved. Flash does not hate me. He wants to eat, not have a silly, gushy chat with me.

“Can I feed him?” I ask.

“Sure,” she says, “there's hay’s in the wagon over there.” She nods her head over to the wagon. She is about my daughter’s age. Maybe a little younger. She gives me little regard, which is fine. I’ve heard horse people can be weird. Having just since encountered the Stepford mom, I’m beginning to believe it. I grab a huge armful of hay; it spills all over my tweed topcoat. I sneeze loudly. I toss it into Flash’s stall and he goes right to it. The girl working here, who I’ve deemed weird, brings a bucket over to me filled with what looks like dog kibble. “Here, give him this,” she says. I inwardly chastise myself for judging, once again in my life. She’s a nice kid, who gets it that I want to get to know the horse. She’s relaxed and cool, even generous about it. I deem her as weird. I’m the one who’s weird. She disappears around the corner.

Flash is saddled up with an English saddle. He is all business and continues to eat. I try to reach out and pet him. He jerks back. I jerk back. Self doubt rushes in like high tide.

Big time middle/high school flashback.

I decide that if I were hungry I would not want some annoying woman petting my head while I try to eat. I stand back, but stay there. I realize that when he jerks back and snorts that I am still well afraid of him.

I provide dinner conversation then.

“Well, it seems I’ll be riding you twice this week,” I say with warm enthusiasm. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

Flash eats, stomps his foot, with a loud assuredness. It’s about the food I know, but I gave him the food, and okay in my convoluted mind, I decide it’s about me too.

Maybe.

I try again to pet his head. Big jerk back again. I want to tell him ‘hey, it’s me. We rode last week. I brushed you—you pissed on my new boots. I thought we had a moment there.’

He continues to eat.

It is a cold rainy day. I’ve got to get home to make dinner for two, but I will connect with this horse. I will get over my fear of him.

I’ve got time, I wait him out. His feed goes down. He lopes his head over the stall door. I pet him, and he does not jerk back.

I look around the barn. It seems empty. I begin to talk.

“Okay boy,” I say, “I don’t know anything about you, and you don’t know anything about me, but let’s try and be friends, anyway. I want to be your friend, but you are one big guy, and you scare me a little bit. Okay, you scare me a lot, way more than I would like after meeting you three times and riding you. But I want to be friends.”

His head comes over the stall door. I pet his neck. I marvel at the softness of this huge creature. I pet him more; he eats his hay. I think he likes his mane scratched and I continue.

A girl of about twelve comes in with a helmet and a rain coat on. She is thin and small, but goes right into Flash’s stall. Does not inquire as to whether he has finished his dinner. With an ease that I envy, she slips a bridle and bit over his head. She pulls the rein in front. She puts her fingers in Flash’s mouth like it was nothing. She can’t be more than twelve, if that.

’Wow,” I say to her. “You do that so well.”

“I have to, for competitions,” she says matter-of-factly. She is all confidence, but I can tell she appreciates my comment.

“Can I walk with you and Flash down to the ring?” I ask.

“Sure,” she says. She pulls the animal behind her like he was a feather. Flash follows her without protest. I still watch his feet, and his head, and his large body, lest he trample me or this brave girl.

I continue to pet his back as we walk. She pulls open the large door to the ring, says something I can’t make out to Flash, and starts to walk into the ring. I watch the girl and think about myself when I was twelve.

All 75 pounds and five feet seven inches of me.

I was a freak on two feet.

My saving graces: clear skin, a badass older sister, and the ability to run fast.

Here I am years later, over fifty pounds heavier and shy height wise about an eighth of an inch. Still, never too far from dorkville. But I care less about it now, and I guess that’s the trade-off for the wrinkles.

I wish I could have been here thirty-eight years ago, but I’m here now and hoping it’s never too late.



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