Read Online A Three Day Event by Barbara Kay - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Barbara Kay
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jumper course design and building, logistical supervision–well, he appealed around the table, everyone knew there was no one in the horse business who had covered every base like Polo, so…
When it seemed as if Roch had suffered enough, Hy broke in with, “And Roch was also influenced by the fact that Polo is a personal friend of mine. I guess I felt that this was one perk I could assume as–” he made a little show of finding and adjusting his half–moon reading glasses and scanning the papers before him–“ah, yes, honorary chairman it says here, right…”
Marion unleashed fresh indignation in her return look, but Hy was by now fed up with the overlong meeting, determined to finish with this–to him–non–subject, eager to move on to lunch which they had committed to attend, and get going home, home, home, home…. he looked across to find Thea Ankstrom staring quite intensely at him. He moved firmly for adjournment.
There was a brief recess before luncheon was served. People clustered in pairs and groups to review their impressions of the meeting or cultivate personal contacts. Denise Girandoux and Roch slipped into the corridor for a smoke and a quick gossip about the Quebec show circuit. Stuart Jessop and Bill Sutherland disappeared into the offices, Bill to consult the massive FEI rulebooks concerning queries that had arisen during the meeting, although he knew his responses had been perfectly correct, Jessop to telephone Ronald March in Calgary who was awaiting news of this and other Federation business. The bathroom doors on the main floor swung briskly to and fro.
There was a private, more elegant Ladies Room on the second floor with an old–fashioned ante–room where female Federation mandarins could perch on red velvet demi–back chairs and shore up their fading charms in the flattering light of rose–tinted glass wall sconces. On one of these dainty thrones Thea Ankstrom was sitting, staring somberly into the sepia–tinted mirror, massaging hand cream into her fingers, when Marion Smy entered the room. Thea started and a barely audible hiss of annoyance escaped her lips.
“Aha! So this is where you’re hiding!” Marion chirped enthusiastically. Seeing Thea move to sweep her lipstick and hand cream into her handbag with the obvious intention of leaving, Marion slipped quickly into the adjacent chair and laid an imperious hand on the younger woman’s arm. Thea flinched imperceptibly, but acknowledged to herself the impossibility of any explicable withdrawal from Marion’s normally tolerable presence. She screened her thoughts with her civil public face as she turned a passive and apparently receptive ear to whatever it was Marion wanted to say.
“Thea dear,” Marion began, awkwardness creeping into her voice as she groped to frame her apology, “I really am sorry about that little gaffe I made in the meeting.” Thea quickly murmured the appropriate pardon and put up a hand to forestall any further inroads on the privacy of her feelings, but Marion, intent on her mission, was blind to any and all emotional moats as she galloped heedlessly across the still open drawbridge of their longstanding friendship.
“My dear, you must know how terribly I–all of us in the Federation–feel about what happened to your beautiful, talented Stephanie. We all know what a brilliant student she was, and what a great veterinarian she would have been. I thought her professor from Tufts was so eloquent at the memorial service. Please believe me. Any riding accident is a tragedy, and when it happens at an official event, well of course it’s that much worse, I’m sure you agree.”
“Worse?” Pale and trembling slightly, Thea gazed steadily and inscrutably into Marion’s exorbitant eyes. “You say it is worse that Stephanie died in an official way than if she had died out hacking, or training, for example? Worse for whom, Marion?” She spoke quietly, uninflectedly, but now it was Marion who
When it seemed as if Roch had suffered enough, Hy broke in with, “And Roch was also influenced by the fact that Polo is a personal friend of mine. I guess I felt that this was one perk I could assume as–” he made a little show of finding and adjusting his half–moon reading glasses and scanning the papers before him–“ah, yes, honorary chairman it says here, right…”
Marion unleashed fresh indignation in her return look, but Hy was by now fed up with the overlong meeting, determined to finish with this–to him–non–subject, eager to move on to lunch which they had committed to attend, and get going home, home, home, home…. he looked across to find Thea Ankstrom staring quite intensely at him. He moved firmly for adjournment.
There was a brief recess before luncheon was served. People clustered in pairs and groups to review their impressions of the meeting or cultivate personal contacts. Denise Girandoux and Roch slipped into the corridor for a smoke and a quick gossip about the Quebec show circuit. Stuart Jessop and Bill Sutherland disappeared into the offices, Bill to consult the massive FEI rulebooks concerning queries that had arisen during the meeting, although he knew his responses had been perfectly correct, Jessop to telephone Ronald March in Calgary who was awaiting news of this and other Federation business. The bathroom doors on the main floor swung briskly to and fro.
There was a private, more elegant Ladies Room on the second floor with an old–fashioned ante–room where female Federation mandarins could perch on red velvet demi–back chairs and shore up their fading charms in the flattering light of rose–tinted glass wall sconces. On one of these dainty thrones Thea Ankstrom was sitting, staring somberly into the sepia–tinted mirror, massaging hand cream into her fingers, when Marion Smy entered the room. Thea started and a barely audible hiss of annoyance escaped her lips.
“Aha! So this is where you’re hiding!” Marion chirped enthusiastically. Seeing Thea move to sweep her lipstick and hand cream into her handbag with the obvious intention of leaving, Marion slipped quickly into the adjacent chair and laid an imperious hand on the younger woman’s arm. Thea flinched imperceptibly, but acknowledged to herself the impossibility of any explicable withdrawal from Marion’s normally tolerable presence. She screened her thoughts with her civil public face as she turned a passive and apparently receptive ear to whatever it was Marion wanted to say.
“Thea dear,” Marion began, awkwardness creeping into her voice as she groped to frame her apology, “I really am sorry about that little gaffe I made in the meeting.” Thea quickly murmured the appropriate pardon and put up a hand to forestall any further inroads on the privacy of her feelings, but Marion, intent on her mission, was blind to any and all emotional moats as she galloped heedlessly across the still open drawbridge of their longstanding friendship.
“My dear, you must know how terribly I–all of us in the Federation–feel about what happened to your beautiful, talented Stephanie. We all know what a brilliant student she was, and what a great veterinarian she would have been. I thought her professor from Tufts was so eloquent at the memorial service. Please believe me. Any riding accident is a tragedy, and when it happens at an official event, well of course it’s that much worse, I’m sure you agree.”
“Worse?” Pale and trembling slightly, Thea gazed steadily and inscrutably into Marion’s exorbitant eyes. “You say it is worse that Stephanie died in an official way than if she had died out hacking, or training, for example? Worse for whom, Marion?” She spoke quietly, uninflectedly, but now it was Marion who
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