“Why do you go up there, anyway?”
“Oh, you know.” He thought how best to explain it. “You can see a pretty long way.”
“Can I come up one day?”
It shocked him that she’d asked, but he couldn’t help starting to joke with her. “I don’t know. It’s not that easy to get up there.”
And Carey laughed; she bit the hook. “Bullshit. If you can climb it, I can, too.”
“Bullshit?”
They both half grinned.
“I won’t distract you, I promise.” But then she got the idea. “If you let me come up, I’ll bring binoculars.”
She seemed always to be thinking ahead.
* * *
—
When he was there with Carey, sometimes The Surrounds felt bigger.
The household junk stood like distant monuments.
The suburbs felt further away.
That night, after Carey’s tips and Matador, she spoke evenly, about the stables. He asked if she was due for a run on race day, and not just trackwork and barrier trials. Carey answered that McAndrew had said nothing, but knew what he was doing. If she pestered him, it would set her back months.
The whole time, of course, her head lay on his chest, or up against his neck, his favorite of favorite things. In Carey Novac, Clay had found someone who knew him, who was him, in all but one life-defining way. He also knew that if she could
have, she’d have traded anything to share that with him as well:
The reason he carried the peg.
She’d have traded her jockey’s apprenticeship for it, or her first Group One winner, let alone a ride in a listed race. She’d even have traded a mount in the Race That Stops the Nation, I’m sure, or the race she loved even more: the Cox Plate.
But she couldn’t.
What she could understand, though, without a moment’s hesitation, was the way to see him off, and quietly, she pleaded. Gentle but matter-of-fact:
“Don’t do it, Clay, don’t go, don’t leave me…but go.”
Had she been a character in one of Homer’s epics, she’d have been the clear-eyed Carey Novac, or Carey of the valuable eyes. This time she let him know exactly how much she’d miss him, but also that she expected—or more so, demanded—that he do what he had to do.
Don’t do it, Clay, don’t leave me…but go.
* * *
—
As she left back then, she realized:
In the middle of Archer Street, the girl turned.
“Hey, what’s your name?”
The boy, from in front of the porch. “It’s Clay.”