He didn't laugh, he told her there's an apartment up top.... adding "We leave for Florida in three weeks, and will stay for 6 months, and we need someone else to come." Jill was learning how, many folks think that if you are SERIOUS about horses you can't stay in Ontario for the winter. It's impossible to train at the required level when it is as cold and snowy as it gets in the area. He asked if she was looking for work.
Jill e-mailed afterwards, glad that she'd employed the hutzpah to "take a chance. experiment" and stop in at Stonehedge for the clinic, because not only had she learned something, and smiled, she was seriously interested in the job lead!
The reply came back right away, job description: 10 horses, daily mucking, turn out and grooming, tacking up and cooling out horses after exercise, grooming at competitions and some exercising/conditioning rides. A small but nice cottage is available, utilities included.
Roomie was thrilled to hear the news, "Do you need a job?' is one of my favourite expressions!"
*
One reason she couldn't resist yet another new job was the idea that the accomodation was a "private cottage." Jill told her friends it would feel so freeing to have like have a park-size rural landscape to sing freely to everyday, without her pesky little sister making fun of her musical efforts all the time. "Just think, my very own place!" she exclaimed, thinking to herself about the cute potential co-worker she hoped still worked there.
"What if that handsome Irish thoroughbred who caught your eye turns out to be on the equine-team you are about to work with?" her friend Matilda envied. "And I bet that cutie Jim remembers you from the show where you still had pink hair! When you were walking back and forth between Moxy at the dressage ring, Rue at the first aid tent and the activities of Bucker and the rest of the pre-training team, reporting on each to us others you went!"
Oh that day, groaned Jill, "I was so embarassed to have been running after Kelly Joe saying your dressage whip! drop the whip! in an effort to remind her what she already knew." What if he saw that?
She remembered how when they'd arrived at the show that day, and she was walking into the barn for the first time. A magnificent, spotless building made with no nails, and she'd said entranced "would somebody build ME a place like this?" and to her surprise her famous-and-esteemed-facility-survey-companion said "Well, that depends what you want to do."
When she met the stable manager, who was a partner to the rider the place was built for, she couldn't stop saying how impressed she was with the barn. "It is so clean and beautiful that I would eat off the floor. Seriously, just lay planks across the beams up there and I'll move in. I LIKE a treefort bed, that's all I need." she only half joked, smiling at guy's handsome brother, who seemed to work there too.
Not long after, they did offer her a job. Her teacher put in a good word for her with the Olympic level rider Jill was ready to sign on with, but adding "I want her back when you're done with her."
Other phrases that stuck in her head were "if you need a couple hours off every day to write, i don't have a problem with that" and "but I'd like to see you riding every day though" (talk about win win)
After she'd accepted the new position as groom, she heard some stories that unsettled her. One was that usually, while the riders stay at the Ritz, the grooms stay in a hockey arena. On cots, together in one massive room where they don't even turn off the lights most nights. "And that's where all the best parties happen anyway."
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