MANA: The Big Picture

Shown: Santa "The Saint" Castillo-Reyes is led by a paramedic to the back room. Martin (a groom) with "Altissima"

Name: "Altissima"
Barn Name: “Flowers”
Gender: Filly
Projected Height: 16.1hh
Colour: Dark Red Chestnut
Markings: small star, OH/NH/OF/NF white coronets
Build: Her head tilts slightly to the triangular profile with a tapering muzzle and broad forehead. This filly has a slightly upright shoulder. She’s also rather well, weedy for lack of a better word. Apparently, as Dean of Mirkwood tells us, Andy was the same as a yearling so there is a good chance that once she fills out and matures she’ll take on her sire’s appearance.
Breed: Thoroughbred
Sire: Andúril
Dam: Starter
Discipline: Flat racing
Genes: ee Aa
Temperament: An absolute spitfire, with a powerful hatred for saddles, starters, and balls. And especially her trainer, Cornelius. Altissima decides the moment she sees you from far off whether she likes you or not, and nothing will change her mind once it’s made up, even if her first impression of you is false. Luckily, she enjoys running, even though she’ll try to knock the brains out of anyone near her she’s decided she doesn’t like.
Breeder: Mirkwood Acres

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It is highly recommended that you be up-to-date with the current Mana Farms storyline before reading.


Maggie had never had a more surreal night than the one in which she found herself sitting with a billionaire and a King at a dirty table in a loud honky tonk bar in the middle of Los Angeles the same night they lost the Breeders Cup Juvenile. Eating pie with them only months earlier was second, but this particular evening topped it. It was open mike night and Randy was sitting on the stage with a guitar slung across his lap, his long thin fingers strumming back and forth across the strings with a level of skill she couldn’t have imagined before, and a large black cowboy hat on top of his head. He was wearing a pair of blue denim jeans that hung well on him and a black long sleeve collared shirt that was open at the neck and the wrists. No one seemed to bat an eye that the man beneath the hat had almond shaped eyes, long black hair and two earrings in his left ear. No one seemed to raise an eyebrow at how his soft Asian voice told a story of gravel and grit and spit truer to the West than to the East. When he finished, a smile spread across his face, they applauded his telling of the tale and in reply he bought the house drinks and basked in their cheers and toasts.

All of this, however, was not what made this particular evening so unreal. Maggie had known for weeks that Randy was very much the “Paniolo” he was called. The Hawaiian cowboy frequently sang to her, so she knew about his soft voice and his gift for storytelling too. What surprised her was what took place when the evening drew to a close.

She had expected the King to act more disappointed by the loss of race than he did, but he was from the moment they picked him up at his hotel to the moment they returned him to it a brilliant white smile flashing against a mountain of bronze skin. He’d spent his entire weekend shaking hands with the titans of horseracing, of Hollywood, of banking, of the music industry, and others. He was so pleased to be there, he told them, and from the sparkle in his eyes they gathered in return that he was simply tickled to be congratulated on having such a beautiful well-bred animal in “Thisismyboomstick”. The significant monetary return despite the last two losses seemed entirely lost to him; all he seemed consumed with was the fact that for the last two days they had treated him as a fellow king among kings.

She had expected Randy on that evening to show up with a sheet of cardstock between those long, deft, intelligent fingers. Fingers she knew that shuffled, organized, typed, scanned, listened, prepared, played, translated, and read. She expected those fingers to feed her her own claim slip for “C’est Impossible”. She knew it was coming. He had to have figured it out by now. He’d spoken to Ramon. Ramon would know. Ramon would say something. So she waited all evening, barely able to enjoy his singing and the King’s laughter, and the beer, and the peanuts, and the French fries. Instead, as they left the bar, Randy removed a pen from his breast pocket and pulled her towards him writing a number across her right palm: 207.

She blanched a little at that and Randy, his eyes downcast and hidden beneath his hat, explained, “No one likes being number two hundred and seven, Maggie. No one wants to feel alone, to feel like they mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. To feel erased from the world’s collective conscience. When you’ve made someone turn around and notice you…nothing was a waste.”

Yes. Two Hundred and Seven…Tonga’s ranking in the world’s gross national product.

That was all he had said. All he had done. She had expected him to alpha roll her; to grip her in his hands and scream or threaten her the way other men had done to her. When he didn’t, when he did nothing more but write two hundred and seven into the palm of her right hand she felt so ashamed she cried in the car all the way back to his home.

Randy had told her all this before in his temperate way and she should have understood it earlier. One, he wasn’t going to hurt her. He wasn’t even going to yell at her. She’d just sold one of their most valuable fillies because she was angry. She had done something so stupid, so petty, and he had every right, her conservative mother would say, to strike back. But he wasn’t going to and he wasn’t going to let anyone else. Maybe months ago he would have, when she was an employee and he the employer, but not now. Not now that he knew every inch of her. His response to her had simply been “Trust me.”

Two, he’d once told her that actions enacted for seemingly selfish reasons can, by design, intended or otherwise, have global consequences….necessary global consequences. In other words, this is my job, this is what I do and I do it well, “trust me.”

When she woke up the next morning, there was a large manila envelope on the pillow next to her with a note that read : “I had to depart for Sydney. Please refrain from unloading my stock in Dynagen before discussing it with me while I’m away.” She would have chuckled at his attempt at humour if it didn’t hurt so much. She took the heavy envelope up into her hands and pulled at the rubber tie with her fingers withdrawing the colossal manuscript and staring wide-eyed at its girth. The first thing she noticed after that was the letterhead for an Australian biotechnology company known as Dynagen. She pulled it onto her lap and began reading.

Within five minutes she regretted never graduating from high school. What was this? What did it mean? Who was Lopeti Senituli? Akilisi Pohiva? What about Greg Collier? Joseph Gutnick or Benjamin Netanyahu or Bob Hawke? They sounded familiar, but she couldn’t say that any of them were on her speed dial. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she deposited the papers back into the envelope tossed it onto the nightstand and flopped back onto Randy’s side of the bed, burying her face in his pillow and breathing him in. Randy’s message was clear. I don’t discuss these things with you because you have no place in them, my love. He was once a high profile arbitrator, a man who prevented wars, a man who moved the world. She was a horse trainer…and a newly minted trainer at that. He wasn’t being an asshole, she apologized on his absent behalf, he just didn’t think politics and genetics and transactions with several zeroes behind them required hers or Eddie’s, for that matter, uneducated input or immature provocations. He could and would be open with her, but he couldn’t promise her she’d understand a sentence of it. Feeling the gun he kept under his pillow she realized he couldn’t necessarily guarantee her security either if she did. His world was a dangerous world, she considered, ignorance was bliss. With that she fell back asleep.

Minutes later, however, the phone rang her back into consciousness. The Mexican cantina tune alerted her to just who it was. Groaning, she rolled back to her side, fumbled around for her cell phone and picked it up.

“Ramon?”

His voice was quiet, sincere, and sober on the other end. Maggie sat up.

“A favor?” she translated. She kicked the covers off of her legs and walked over to the dresser where she’d already moved in a working wardrobe. She pulled on jeans and a t-shirt and pulled her hair into a ponytail as Ramon continued to explain on the other end. She smiled to herself as he did. He was a good man.

“Haré algunas llamadas de teléfono, pero, sí, entiendo,” she replied to him.

She hung up. With her hands on her hips she glanced over her shoulder at the stack still sitting inside the manila envelope on the edge of the nightstand. It’s the big picture, not the details, in which you see others, she decided. Five hundred printouts would not tell her who Randy was. Five hundred horses did not tell her who Ramon was. This particular horse, this move, told her who Ramon was. He was a man who loved his friends. They were his family now. He would die for them, take heat for them, and he did not like bullshit anymore than the rest of them did. This action, she thought, glancing down at the palm of her hand where the number 207 was nearly sweated away, told her who Randy was. He was extraordinarily forgiving. And he loved her. She placed her hand on her chest and took a deep breath.

****

Watching a brilliant strong woman intentionally dehydrate herself to near death was yet another surreal experience for the weekend. Maggie was no stranger to the unforgiving nature of the jockey’s profession, no stranger to the amount of water a woman’s body blessed her with during the month, though birth control definitely diminished much of it.

Eddie was there with them. He was introducing her to a jockey she would never admit to him or Ramon that she was very very intimidated by. Santa Castillo-Reyes didn’t just have good looks; she had Hollywood tough girl good looks. Her prone state on the hospital-style bed in the backroom and the IV drip hanging from her arm did not diminish this woman’s fierce appearance or attitude. If not for the exhausted look in her eyes it would seem very dreamlike and untrue that she should ever be this vulnerable.

Maggie caught the dark look in Ramon’s eyes as he studied Santa’s diluted state and found herself taken aback and impressed with his sudden strength for Santa. She had not seen it since he’d admitted to his past, since they’d fallen in bed with one another so many years ago. Eddie was buried in guilt. Guilt for being a jockey. For having been in the same bed before. For not being the man that Ramon was. Maggie surprised them all by adding the filly “Altissima” to the offer on the table. Santa seemed a little overwhelmed by the generosity, but she accepted the deal and with that Maggie realized she had better learn how to be a little less intimidated by the Saint.

As they left the room Maggie remarked to Eddie, “I can see why you love her so much.”

Eddie grinned, “She said the same thing to me about you just now.”

“Really?”

“Yep,” Eddie replied, “That was a cool thing you did. Giving her Altissima.”

“Oh god, Eddie, I hope you don’t mind, it just sort of came out,” Maggie stuttered, recalling that Eddie had been on Altissima the last two times.

Eddie laughed and reached over to take her hand and pull her to him, “That filly and that girl are a match made in heaven. You know what I mean, baby?”

The way he looked in her eyes at that moment reminded Maggie of what she wanted to talk to him about. “Ed.”

“Yeah, girl, look at this handsome face,” he pointed to his own and grinned, “you have my complete attention. And that ain’t easy to do. I haven’t seen you all week. Alone. All week. I can’t live like this. It drives me crazy.” He was giving her that look she knew had gotten him bedded just hours earlier.

She rolled her eyes. “Eddie, I need to talk to you.”

“Sure thing, my woman, what about?”

She stopped him in the hall. Hung her head. “Ed. It’s okay.”

He looked at her and shrugged, uncomprehending.

“Randy and I. We’re okay.” She attempted a reassuring smile. His responding look told her it meant nothing to him.

“What?”

“He and I, we…”

“No!” Eddie suddenly shouted his eyes glassy, his shoulders tense. He slapped his whip against the wall.

Maggie knew his rage was coming. She didn’t wince when he struck the wall. “Ed.”

“No,” he continued, “This dude, he is fucked up, Mags. I’ve heard all sorts of shit about him. He’s going to hurt you.”

“That’s just it, Eddie, he’s not. Every time I think he’s going to, he doesn’t. He’s not who you think he is.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“He knows about C’est Impossible.”

“Well of course he does he’s Randy Fucking Harada, did you expect otherwise?” Eddie snapped. He leaned back away from her and ran his hands over his head, “I swear, Mags, this just proves me right.”

“Oh?” She put her hands on her hips and glared right back at him. She was ten years older than the narrow jock standing across from her and she shifted her weight to demonstrate that and remind him.

“You and me. We’re right for each other. Randy he’s,” Eddie murmured. He didn’t’ want to say whatever was coming out next, she could tell, but Eddie had always lacked the ability to shut up, “…smart.”

Maggie felt as though a bullet had struck in chest. Not the kind of bullet that is piercing, but the kind that when it hits a person, it rips through them with such force as to bowl them over backwards. For a moment she was back in Randy’s bedroom staring at a stack of papers she could barely interpret.

“That was low,” she whispered, pointing an angry finger at him.

“You do realize, Mags, that I’m essentially calling myself uneducated too. I am. You and me. We’re on the same level. You don’t belong with a guy like Harada. He knows he’s smarter than you. That’s why he’s not afraid of you. That’s why he doesn’t care that you know about Dynagen because he knows you don’t know what it means.”

Maggie’s face reddened at that. “You do?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said with large eyes, “I do. It means he’s a colonial capitalist bastard. An ass-kissing dick-sucking pussy-fucking rich guy who is going to use you and hurt you and I can’t just….sit around and listen to this shit coming from you. I can’t anymore, Mags, it hurts. Get it? It hurts.”

“Then stop it already, Ed!” Maggie shouted at him with sudden fierceness. Eddie grew still. “Stop it! Don’t you get it?! I don’t want a man who sees my lack of education as a basis for compatibility! I don’t want a man who gets paid for throwing up. If I did I could have been married again to any number of jocks. I know Randy is smarter than me. You think I don’t get regular reminders of just how much better at everything he is, and how much more successful he is every day? He’s rich and he’s smart and he’s powerful and that scares you because you aren’t any of those things. You don’t even know how to be. You’re intimidated by him. And I know it because I was too. But I’m not anymore. He makes me aspire for things I didn’t even know I had the potential for. He makes me feel smarter. And feel powerful. And feel….when I’m around him I’m everything I’ve ever wanted to be. Eddie, I love him.”

“You love him?!” Eddie snapped. He looked like she did just seconds earlier. Shot in the chest.

“Eddie, I’m sorry,” Maggie finished, “but you have to get this. I care for you, but it’s not ever going to be anything more than the friends we’ve always been. Randy-”

He shook his head at her, tears welled up and threatened to fall but the anger that followed dried them. He cut her off, “Just shut up, okay, I don’t want to hear anymore.”

“Eddie, I’m thirty, you’re twenty.”

Eddie shook his head, waved her off, and started walking away. As he left, he hit the wall repeatedly with his whip, and Maggie looked back into the back room and caught Santa Castillo-Reyes swinging her medallion back and forth in sync with him, listening to his whip echo off the walls.


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