|  Author | Topic: Real Friendship - Hotel - 3/22/07 - Closed (Read 224 times) |
Robby Beckham
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|  | Real Friendship - Hotel - 3/22/07 - Closed
« Thread Started on Mar 19, 2007, 5:27pm » | |
It was turning out to be a very quiet Thursday evening, much to Robby’s surprise. He hadn’t really known what to expect when it came to his initiation into the Jim Rice Show Group, or at least his first show with them, but it was turning out to be decidedly less scary, decidedly less interesting, and decidedly less different than he’d been expecting.
That was not to say, though, that it was exactly the same as it always had been at Agota, though.
They’d driven straight through, a concept that was not foreign to Robby though he’d never actually known anyone who did so. Jim drove the rig easily, though, and Robby alternated with Ilene when it came to following the trailer in the little rental car. They pulled onto the grounds at a little bit after one in the morning on Thursday, drove past the sleeping guard located at the entrance, and drove around the their barn assignment. They were, surprisingly, not the only ones on the premise, though the other trailers had obviously just arrived as well and were in the process of unloading horses and tack.
It didn’t take them too long to unload themselves, and before long, they were all piled into the sports car and headed to the hotel. They managed about four hours of sleep before once again heading back out to the showgrounds, though his job there proved slightly more cushy than he was used to. Jim slipped a couple of hundred dollars into the hand of a greasy looking kid lounging outside of the barn, pointing out the stalls with his horses in them, and while Robby was both confused and intrigued at first, especially when the kid simply disappeared from sight moments later with Jim’s money still clutched in his hand, he was instantaneously given orders to saddle up and get out to the arena. By the time he’d gotten on Bee some twenty minutes later, Blaise and Ilene both mounted by his side, he’d forgotten all about it. When they were through training and back in the barn, though, Robby became quickly aware of what was going on.
Jim’s jumper mount, Anton, was already washed and braided, munching on his hay in a rather bored manner, and Flip was in the crossties with the same kid from before hovering over his half-braided mane on a stepstool. Robby watched in amazement at how quickly the kid was doing up the braids before noticing Jim pausing outside of Anton’s stall and inspecting the work. The kid noticed too, peering over his shoulder at Jim in a very alarmed manner, before Jim eventually shrugged and commented, “That’s decent.”
The kid breathed a visible sigh of relief before turning back to Flip’s neck, pulling another knot of hair into place, and beginning to tie off the yarn.
The rest of the afternoon continued to be very low stress. All of the horses that were going to be showing the next day were washed and braided by around three, and Robby had spent most of the afternoon with Blaise, first looking through the few booths of vendors setting up on the walkways and then exploring the other barns in an activity that Blaise referred to as “looking at all the different horses” but that Robby thought would be more accurately deemed “terrorizing the other competitors”. After refusing to crash through the Agota stabling area, they’d both made their way back to Jim’s area, where Jim was setting up evening feed and proceeding to take care of the last few odds and ends. He dropped a few more dollars into the washer and braider kid’s hand, telling him to drop feed at around seven, that everything was labeled, and that he’d know if it didn’t get done, before ushering them all out and back to the hotel at half past four.
Robby wondered how Jim had known about the little stablehand, which was what Robby called him by default since he didn’t know what he was really called and Blaise’s names for him were all fairly derogatory, though he figured that Jim must have just known about this sort of thing. It was oddly relieving to not have to spent an hour and a half trying to come up with his own somewhat clumsy looking braids. They said horsemen were the only men that could do anything with hair, a fact that Robby defied and found highly ironic.
Eight o’clock that night found him showered and fed and propped up in the bed with his Business Finances textbook, though it was proving as more of a distraction from the nerves rather than being anything productive. Blaise sat on his own bed nearby, clicking away at his laptop, and though Robby still found him supremely irritating at times and had been worried upon first realizing that they’d be rooming together, he had to admit that he was happy for the companionship, especially considering that Blaise was being remarkably well-behaved.
He eventually shut his textbook, though, aware that he was not so much reading it anymore as just staring at the words, and Blaise glanced over at him as he laid the book down on the nightstand. “Let me just finish this paper and email it in,” Blaise said, motioning towards the computer, “then I’m turning it off and going to bed.”
“Don’t worry about it. Take your time,” he said, not having even realized that Blaise was doing schoolwork, though the lack of rambunctiousness was now completely understandable. “That’s nice that they’re letting you do the stuff and turn it in online so you don’t get behind. I always have to be careful about leaving even for just a few days like this. They’re really weird about attendance…”
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Blaise Corentin
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| | Re: Real Friendship - Hotel - 3/22/07 - Closed
« Reply #1 on Mar 22, 2007, 5:43pm » | |
Blaise shrugged, typing in a few more sentences to make a concluding paragraph on his poetry analysis with the fluent and flourished ease that came with four years of practice in the art of writing. “L’Accademia doesn’t really care about attendance. As long as you make the grades, they go along with it. Honestly, I rarely ever go to class. I’ll go for the first couple of weeks of the term, make some friends who will call me before the tests and keep me updated on what’s going on, and then just show up on test days or turn-in days. It works out beautifully. Leaves me more time for riding and hanging out with people,” he commented, proceeding to save the document and bring up an email to his professor.
“Yeah. I guess that’s sort of like at any large university. It’s not like that at community colleges, though. The classes are small, and they know who’s there and who’s not,” Robby answered, sitting up on the bed and absently brushing his hair out of his face. “What do you do about taking tests, though, if you’re over here?”
“Ah, most of them they set up for me on the Webcourse program they use. I mean, I’m excused because I’m on a school function of sorts, so they can’t fail me just because I’m not there. And of course the papers,” he said, pausing to click the send tab on the email and send his paper buzzing out over the internet to his professor, “I can send via email. I have to sit the final exams, but they aren’t until the first week in May, and I’ll be back home by then anyway. So it all works.”
Robby nodded, obviously thinking in that infuriating way he had. “So, when are you guys leaving anyway?”
Understanding where he was going, Blaise nodded. “Last week in April. Don’t worry, though. You’ve got a month still. Things might blow over on your side of the barn and Olga will decide she wants her baby boy back,” he said with a bit of a sneer, sending Robby into a high blush. He continued on, though, aware by now that this wouldn’t be the case. “If not, though, I’m sure Jim will handle it. I mean, I know he’s a pisspot. Hell, I of all people know that. But I have to admit that he’s never let me down, and I’ve never seen him let anyone else down either, not after he’s put this much time and energy into it. He’ll figure something out.”
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Robby Beckham
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| | Re: Real Friendship - Hotel - 3/22/07 - Closed
« Reply #2 on Mar 26, 2007, 9:24pm » | |
Robby found that he couldn’t exactly argue with him, though he knew inherently that three weeks ago he probably could have but simply wouldn’t have. He was beginning the understand the people around him, though, and was beginning to see Blaise for who he really was and, to an even deeper degree, see Jim for who he was. Blaise was just Blaise, young and stupid and drunk on the power and success and vitality that was his life. Though he caused plenty of it, he didn’t mean any real harm, and when you were twenty-two, the end to that road paved with good intentions seemed so far away. And as far as Jim went, he had a funny way of ending up with a positive outcome after a whole list of dastardly deeds had been committed. He was sort of like that character in a novel who you think the whole time is the bad guy, a horrific antagonist, but then the story unfolds and you find yourself admiring him in a weird sort of way because, really, he was cunning and intelligent and not that bad after all.
Sure, he’d gotten Robby into a righteous mess, but he’d simultaneously given Robby an opportunity that he most likely, or really, never would have received otherwise. People drifted in and out of your life, and though Robby wasn’t sure he was ready to leave the Agota family behind, he had, and Jim and company had stepped up in their stead. And even if the rest of his horse career was shot to hell after Jim left, he would have these three months that he’d trained under the man and experienced a different kind of instruction and a different kind of horse and a whole different kind of riding, if he was going to be honest with himself, and the memories would have to be enough.
He got up from the bed, wandering into the bathroom for the before bed odds and ends, taking his contacts out and brushing his teeth, before padding back out into the bedroom area. While he’d been out, Blaise had grabbed the finance textbook from off of the nightstand and was thumbing through it. He glanced up as Robby stepped past him and over to the bed nearest the door, pulling down the covers while squinting at Blaise. “Interesting read, huh?” he noted sarcastically, flopping down into the bed.
“Spellbinding,” Blaise replied with a snort, shaking his head. “Seriously, how do you do this? I mean, I’m not into English literature, but it is at least usually relatively interesting. This is, just… This is as dry as a month-old biscuit!”
“Yes, I’m well aware,” he replied, shaking his head. “Most of it is just memorization, though, so I flashcard my way through it.” He paused, chewing over his next words before finally deciding to spit it out. “I really hate it. But I’ve only got one more year after this semester, and then I can just get a job and be done with it…”
“Yeah, get a job doing all of this crap,” Blaise said, snapping the book shut and chucking it across the room. It banged neatly against the wall dividing their room with Jim and Ilene’s, and there were several loud banging noises in retribution, probably from Jim’s fist. Blaise chuckled, and even Robby had to admit it was pretty funny.
“Yeah, well, the pay’s good,” Robby replied, because it was. Accountants did good, and even though Robby couldn’t really see himself as one, he rarely saw himself as much of anything, so it was no real surprise. “I can do it. It’s just math. No biggie.”
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Blaise Corentin
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| | Re: Real Friendship - Hotel - 3/22/07 - Closed
« Reply #3 on Mar 27, 2007, 9:29pm » | |
“Oh, I know you can,” Blaise answered, shaking his head as he got up. He stretched, making his back pop with the motion. Robby wrinkled his nose. “It’s just a matter of why the heck you’d want to. I mean, if you were into that and were big banker boy, that’d be one thing. But it doesn’t sound like you’re just dying to do this job.”
“I’m not,” Robby answered, pausing while clearly thinking. Blaise sighed.
“Go on, say it,” Blaise prompted.
“What exactly are you planning on doing with an English Literature degree?” he eventually asked, glancing at him uncertainly. Blaise could tell he was completely aware that he’d just called Blaise out as a hypocrite, and that infuriated the Frenchman to no end.
“Okay, don’t proceed to dictate my problems to me,” he snapped, watching as Robby recoiled a tiny bit. “I’m aware that I’m in a shitty situation. You don’t need to tell me that. However, I can’t do anything about this. What I am supposed to do with my life is unfortunately dictated by my parents. I have no choice. You’re not in that boat, though. So just change your damn major.”
“It’s really not all that cut and dried,” Robby replied quietly, but Blaise had already turned and disappeared into the bathroom. He brushed his teeth and ran his fingers through his hair a few times before marching back out into the bedroom. Robby had turned his bedside light off and had flopped over onto his side in Blaise’s absence, and the he looked up from where he’d been absently watching television as Blaise climbed into his own bed and laid down. Finally, after a long pause, Robby’s high-pitched, nasally voice spoke up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything…”
“It’s fine. Please don’t act like that,” he answered, staring across the empty space between the two beds and into Robby’s worried face. He sighed. “And I realize that it’s not that cut and dried. I know that money is an issue, and I know that time is an issue. I don’t have my head in the sand. I promise. But I know that if I had the option, I’d change in a heartbeat, and I’m a senior, I’m graduating, I’m done! And I’d still commit to three more years of school if I could get my equine science or equine management degree.”
“You were planning on barn managing, then?” Robby asked, propping himself up on his elbow. Blaise shrugged.
“Maybe. Or just ride and train. Really, just ride and train,” he answered. “That didn’t fly with my parents, though. Horses are a hobby, not a life.”
“So,” Robby began, hesitantly choosing his words, “what are you actually going to do with your, you know, English Lit degree?”
Blaise chuckled at the uncertainty. “Oh, I have no idea. I’ve got two options, though. Either teach, or ask people if they want fries with their value meal…” Robby laughed, pressing his face into the pillow, and Blaise grinned. “I was sort of hoping I could get some sort of internship at L’Accademia, work on my masters, and keep riding Jim’s horses. I’m not sure how that will play out, but there you have it.”
Robby nodded. “That would work. People do that all the time around here, I know…”
“Yeah. It’s the same in Italy,” he answered. “Anyway, enough about me. What about you?”
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Robby Beckham
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| | Re: Real Friendship - Hotel - 3/22/07 - Closed
« Reply #4 on Mar 29, 2007, 8:26pm » | |
“What about me?” Robby asked, shaking his head. “You already know the pitiful storyline of my life.”
“I don’t know the whole story, and I’m well aware of that,” Blaise answered seriously, propped up similarly on his side. “I meant after college, though. Are you going to go for your masters?”
“I have no idea,” he stated truthfully. “I’d like to, but I’m not sure how I could work that out. I need to start working somewhere and have a decent salary once I get through my undergrad stuff. I running on about a bajillion scholarships right now, so I have enough excess money to cover food and gas for the truck and the horse stuff, but they all run out after graduation. My mom covers the rent for my apartment, but if she suddenly decided not to do that, which she mentions constantly, I’d be screwed. So I need to get a decent job when I graduate, if not before. If I can work some sort of internship out and be able to continue studying, I guess that’d be preferable, but if not I just need to be getting a solid salary.”
Blaise nodded in understanding. “If money wasn’t an issue, though, if you could do whatever you choose and know that you’d be covered financially, what would you do?”
“I’d get an internship,” Robby said, shrugging. “Like I said, that’d be opti--”
“No, no, I mean if nothing was an issue. If you could do whatever the hell you wanted to do, what would you do? Like I said, if I was allowed, I’d just go into the training business. But that’s not an option. If you could do something else, would you?” Blaise asked, sounding uncharacteristically genuine. Robby blinked, realizing that, in a strange sort of way, he’d never regarded Blaise as an actual human being. He was always Blaise, full of insanity and schemes and show, but suddenly he was Blaise, real, with hopes and worries and other real things. Blaise was real and right there, and he could be feeling happy or upset or excited, tired or thirsty or relaxed, or maybe all of the above. It was mind-boggling.
He wondered if he’d just had some sort of important breakthrough in understanding humanity, but then decided that he’d probably in reality just lost what was left of his sanity.
He had to think about what Blaise had said, though, because really, he’d never paused to think about what he would do if he could. It was always just a matter of what he could do, and that kept him plenty busy in the long run. However, if he could change, could go in a different direction, would he? It was a daunting prospect, but he supposed he probably would, if he could summon up the guts to do so. But then what? Change to what, go in what direction? He couldn’t train horses, like Blaise wanted to do. He’d like to work with them, yes, but he knew he didn’t have the horsemanship needed to pull something like that off. If one could assure that all horses coming through the doors would be like Jim’s, he supposed he probably could, but unless you were as high on the circuit as Jim himself, there was no guaranteeing that. He probably couldn’t even manage a barn, be another Troy, considering that, once again, there was the possibly of green and spirited horses involved. Troy still had to deal with clientele’s horses, and it was not always a safe situation. No, the horses were out, but there had to be something else… And then it hit him clearly and squarely.
“Computer engineering,” he replied, because it was the obvious answer, really, once he’d thought about it. “I mean, I’m sort of good with that sort of thing, and I like it. That’s probably where I would go, what I’d do…”
Blaise was grinning, black hair falling into his face. “You’re just nerd enough for that, you know,” he said, though it wasn’t spiteful in the least. In fact, it had sounded almost like a compliment. “Do you know how much money those people make? Systems administrators, people like that? You’d make more than you’d make being an accountant, and that’s saying something!”
And yes, Robby was aware of that. “Yeah, for real,” he said, grinning himself, rolling over on his back and staring up at the ceiling. He felt wired, high on prospects, prospects that would probably never happen granted, but prospects nonetheless. Robby wasn’t used to prospects. And coupled with the show ahead of them, it was almost piercing. “I’m so wired right now,” he said, turning his head to look at Blaise again. “The show is practically right now…”
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Blaise Corentin
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| | Re: Real Friendship - Hotel - 3/22/07 - Closed
« Reply #5 on Mar 30, 2007, 8:40pm » | |
“Well, it’s not really right now,” Blaise answered, though he was smiling brightly. He was excited too, truthfully. He was always excited about showing. It was something that, no matter how often he found himself in the arena, never lost the spark of exhilaration about it. And above that, the inherent thrill of it all, was the fact that he had something to prove. He was taking Dizzy in the hunters and doing well even if it killed him, and Jim was going to realize that Blaise had been right all along. It was important, necessary, and Blaise was going to show him, even if it was a juvenile principle.
“It’s close enough,” Robby answered, smiling up at the ceiling. He had dimples when he smiled like that, Blaise noticed for the first time and then noticed that he’d never seen the other boy smile like that before. Not really smile, not like he was at that moment.
“I hope you do well,” he said, finding that he meant it with all of his being. Robby turned his head to shoot him a quizzical look, as though he wasn’t quite sure how to take that. Blaise wondered if he was really so much of a terror that when he actually had something nice to say, no one believed him. “Really, I do,” he said, nodding definitively. “You’ve been doing well during lessons, so I’m sure you’ll do well here. But yeah, I hope you clean some Agota clock…”
Robby laughed, that real smile once again smeared across his face. “Thanks,” he said eventually, a tiny bit shyly. “I hope you do well, too.”
“Oh, I will,” Blaise said with a wide grin. “I’ll clean some Agota clock even if you did take my hunter mount away from me.”
Robby’s smile fell, and Blaise instantaneously felt horrible. “I’m sorry about that, again,” Robby started.
“No, don’t be. That’s not what I meant,” he said. “Honestly. I mean, Jim did what he had to do, and that’s okay, because this is good. This… You being here and riding Bee and everything, it’s good,” he continued, never having been surer of anything in his life. The change that had occurred since he’d first met the wavering and worried Robby was undeniable. Not to say that he was a different person, no. He was still innately Robby, quiet and nervous and the first to back down when someone stood up, but he had an edge now, a spark of life that had been missing before. He talked freely now, and he wasn’t afraid to ask or be asked for help, receive criticism or compliment, or just plain “talk horse”. Though not even remotely at peace with himself or the world around him, he had at least grabbed hold of some sort of ease to get through the day with, and though to say that he was less stressed and worried would be a lie, he was indeed happier. There was no denying the happiness, not when Blaise had seen what he’d been like before.
“I - - I think so too,” Robby said quietly, as though afraid that speaking those words aloud might somehow alter the universe. “I’m still sorry about Bee, though. I hope you’re not too mad.”
“I never was mad,” Blaise said, which isn’t entirely true, and the look Robby gives him clues him into the fact that Robby is aware of that. “Well, I was mad at first because Jim threw a tantrum over the whole thing, which I realize I did too, but whatever. But, in the end, you ride Bee well, and if someone else is going to ride him, I’m glad that it’s you…”
Robby, smiling up at the ceiling again, said a quiet but happy, “Thank you.”
Blaise was good with words and people in general, and could hear the unspoken “Friends?” followed by the definitive “Friends.” And it didn’t matter who said what, who asked or who declared, because in the end, it all came out perfect.
[End Thread]
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We're damned after all
Through fortune and flame we fall
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