“No doubt he’ll have a fit. ‘Revolution is best taken by the teaspoon, not the glass.’”
I replug the listening tube. The idea that I have created discord in the Bell household stirs an itchy restlessness in me. My socks catch against the uneven concrete floor as I trek to Old Gin’s room.
The silk lies in a neatly folded pile. He finished it. My fingers glide over the thick cloth, pausing on the chrysanthemums woven into the silk in gold thread. I lift out the garment. To my surprise, it falls into two pieces. I hold up a long-sleeved blouse, which is more of a jacket that fastens down the middle, and a pair of close-fitting pants that taper at the ankle. Strange.
Stripping down to my cotton underclothes, I step into Old Gin’s creation. My feet just fit through the tapered openings,and I cinch the waist tight. The jacket hangs looser. Five button-and-loop closures down the middle resemble gold frogs. Old Gin’s knot-tying surpasses even mine.
I consider my outfit. With a cap and from the back, I might pass for Johnny Fortune in riding silks. I strut with my nose in the air, like a puffed-up jock.
Now, who would marry a woman wearing such a peculiar getup?
I freeze so fast, my socks nearly slip out from under me.
Old Gin and I stand the same height, though he bests me in girth by an inch or two.
The outfit is not for me.
The words on the Paynes’ flyer parade through my head...Mr. and Mrs. Winston Payne invite all Atlantans to attend an eight-furlong race at Piedmont Park Racetrack, a purse of $300 to be awarded to the winner.
Three hundred dollars is the same amount Shang owed Billy Riggs.
Coincidence? Coincidence is just destiny unfolding.
Old Gin is planning to run in Mrs. Payne’s horse race.
Perhaps that is why Sweet Potato knows her way to the track. It occurs to me that Old Gin’s birdlike appetite may not have been due to sickness after all, but discipline. The less weight for Sweet Potato to carry, the faster she will be. I peel off the deceptive outfit, and the glossy weave of the silk catches on a hangnail. I suck on my finger. Even the most beautiful of fabrics has a traitorous side, and so, it seems, does Old Gin.
—
IOVERSLEEP,OWINGto a restless night, and half walk, half jog down Peachtree, frozen hands stuck under my arms. At least the nippy air clears my foggy head. My two fishtail braids whip my backside with every hurried step.
Sixty-year-old men have no business racing horses. Old Gin’s knees creak and his back seizes up when the weather is too damp. Not to mention, months of hacking must have crumpled his lungs into paper sacks. A horse race could kill him. Each beast is a thousand-and-a-half-pound engine of muscle and flesh, all stampeding down the same narrow corridor.
I shiver, and not just from the chill. It’s cracked.
Preposterous.
Unthinkable.
Yet here I am, still thinking about it.
If anyone knows how to ride a horse, it’s Old Gin. Johnny Fortune might be as steady as a bird on a fence, but Old Gin is a bird on a clothesline. He has a natural equine understanding that transcends any learned skill. In fact, it was his ability to calm a steed that had gone wild in the middle of a Shanghai marketplace that caught the eye of a wealthy American businessman. When Winston Payne offered him a job in America, Old Gin, not so old then, accepted.
And Sweet Potato is in her prime. Light on her feet with a competitive spirit. She could get the job done.
Twenty minutes later, the trim lawn of the Payne Estate spreads before me. The paved driveway, the crab apple trees, and the white columns—none appear any different fromprevious days. Still, the scene appears too orderly, the edges too crisp, the colors too sharp. Or perhaps it simply looks that way in contrast to the messiness of my own thoughts.
Though I am already a quarter of an hour late, I bypass the kitchen and hurry to the stables.
Half the horses are gone, including Sweet Potato, and there is no sign of Old Gin or Mr. Crycks. A stable boy mucks out the stalls, while Solomon scours the rust off a section of an old wheel. I had once thought Solomon a giant, but the years seem to have hollowed out the Paynes’ all-around man, who is nearly as old as Old Gin. He looks up from his work, and his neck bones crack. “Why hello, Jo. Looking for Old Gin?”
“Hello, Solomon, yes. Have you seen him?”
“He and Mr. Crycks took some of the horses for exercises. Probably be back in an hour or two. Something the matter?” He rubs a handkerchief over his red-brown skin.
“No, er, it can wait. If you see him, will you let him know I need to speak with him?”
“Sure thing.”
