GRACE AND GRAVITY

by Monique Hayes

I smooth the newspaper photograph’s edges, making sure my image is perfectly aligned with my all-time favorite magazine cover. The subject of that Jet cover blazed the path I want to follow. In her striped and short-sleeved shirt, the majestic seventeen-year-old smiles on her mount. Cheryl White beams on her father’s steed Jetolara. She chose another lane that didn’t take her to the DMV like every car-obsessed teenager. No, she craved a different license, one that stamped her in history as the first licensed Black female jockey. Add up all her wins and she deserves every inch of that cover. I added my own praises in the Jet cover’s corners. Pioneer. Ruler of the Rails. My Champion. I purchased ten copies of the magazine, using five weeks’ allowance.

Mama could’ve been on this wall, but Beverly Ann Rose’s own riding days caused a different ruckus. The fifties weren’t kind to Black equestrians, and she limped with the proof. Twenty years later, she winces whenever she sits down too fast and wears blue jeans to the pool. I inherited her racing cap after a tearfilled conversation there. She wept softly, her usually graceful body crouched over the chlorine.

+

“That’s a lot of ladies on horses,” remarks my little sister Felicia, prancing over to peer at my gallery.

“It’s every female that’s won the last two years,” I explain. “They’re…our moment of glory.”

Clearly overhearing me, Pop strolls in and raises his gloved hands in triumph. Pop pretties things, namely horses and ponies as a groomer and trainer at Waterford Park. After Pop’s services, West Virginia’s best stake horses looked like amazing Arabians straight out of Aladdin. It was in him to boost people up too, and every stable hand stood taller after conversations with Morris Randall. 

“On to Boots and Bows 1972!” exclaims Pop.

“First you’re racing for a thousand-dollar purse, and now Boots and Bows?” says Felicia. 

I remind myself that she’s only seven and just learned the difference between “bridle” and “bridal.”

“Boots and Bows is a top horse race for female jockeys,” I share. “That’s where the victory money’s going. To pay for the trip to Atlantic City.” “And rumor has it Cheryl will be there,” says Pop.

“No pressure,” I mutter over the sawdust.

“You got this, Millie,” says Pop. “I’ll get Mint Julep from the vet. You grab your gear.”

I wrest off my Wellingtons, grin at the photographed Cheryl smiling under her racing goggles, and retrieve my riding cap from the top of the hay bale. I leave the cap off. Mama, a hairdresser since she was sixteen, would never forgive me if I didn’t let my scalp breathe sometimes. 

The brim’s hot to the touch, but that’s not what gets me heated. I do my best not to touch the bold scrawl with my sweaty thumbs. The six-letter word is deeply drawn, with sharp slashes, impossible to ignore. 

In the faded light, I mourn the black velvet I enjoyed for two years before someone carved into it. I recall the hugs the strap gave my chin, but now it hangs without purpose. I practice excuses to give to Mama and choke on them while glancing at the stall entrance.

Felicia bounds in, proceeding to open my stall door.

“Mint Julep’s healthy as a horse and trotting this way!”

I blink at the bale, wondering if I could hide the helmet behind the stack.

“You got tears or sweat on your face?” asks Felicia.

“Get out of here!” I roar.

“Why did somebody ruin your hat?” says Felicia. “Or is that a name you put there yourself?”

I yank her by her jumper’s plaid sleeve, as gently as possible, and steer her out of the stall. Her small Afro moves back and forth, sun motes swirling around her kinks. She’s so innocent I want to scream but I can’t explain this to her either. Pop enters with my chestnut mare, Mint Julep, ending the exchange anyway.

“I heard y’all from halfway across the yard,” says Pop. “What’s wrong, 

Milly-Filly?”

A chorus of sobs bursts out of me. The soft murmur of my childhood nickname was the bell that opened the gates.

Pop comes into the stall, takes the cap tenderly, and reads what’s on the helmet. I bend over the bale. Pop massages my back and then clutches me like he used to do after every loss.

+

I didn’t utter one word about the ugliness to Mama, but Pop did and I understood. He took the helmet away, and I was sure I wouldn’t see it after Pop’s silent retreat. Pop handled most problems in this way—take action, clean out the ugliness, and be prepared for the next beautiful thing. He has the heart of a thoroughbred, especially when the rest of us can barely manage a slow gait.

We suspected April. She mysteriously switched her training schedule so she’d come in after me. But she was friendly to everyone, the golden girl of Waterford Park. The “blue-ribbon belle” of Chester had twelve wins and I was the groom’s daughter. Besides, there was no evidence, and her supporters might ruin Pop’s great career and my rising one. Maybe I should leave and let her be the grinning victor they had set in their minds.

It’s the day after and now Mama’s pacing in front of the eight thousand–seat Waterford grandstand. I don’t believe she ever saw the damaged hat, only the damage left on me. She fluffs her mahogany curls and resituates her low heels, more elegant than any of the ticket buyers’ shoes. Mama leads me to sit in the stand’s front row, her lotioned arm around my lean shoulders.

“Whoever did this wants me to stop,” I whisper.

“We need to know what you want to do,” says Mama.

After the heartbreak, I felt like an odd duck in an octagon, the shape of Waterford Park’s paddock. I was more acquainted with this paddock sand than any sandbox and fingered the reins long before I learned to tie my shoelaces. Manure failed to wrinkle my nose once I moved to kindergarten. I read Black Beauty in an actual stall, bragging about it, but told nobody I devoured Clifford the Red Dogbooks when Pop mucked them out. The paddock was home, a library, a training school, and now darker than I remembered. 

“I need to know why you left,” I reply.

“I’m right here, Millie,” says Mama. “Always will be…”

“I mean…why you left the racing circuit when you loved it so much,” I interrupt. 

Mama pulls at her apron, resulting in a slight tear.

“Was it only because of the injury?” I ask.

“’Cause…it was hard,” stammers Mama. “Segregated locker rooms. Nobody gave me mounts. The riders never talked to me on the track. Then…at that turn, before I could dodge it, there was that crop cutting into my leg.” I shudder as she smacks both of her knees.

“No woman should get whipped in 1952,” says Mama. “But they’ve been doing that type of stuff to Black riders since the late 1800s. I wasn’t that special.” “I think you were, Mama, or else they wouldn’t have noticed you,” I say.

“Maybe you’re a little too noticed here, Milly-Filly,” whispers Mama. 

Before my latest wins, I was consistently alongside April, and it elicited plenty of eye pops and murmurs. They often commented that I came out of nowhere but I grew up with Pop and the other grooms on that very dust. Those folks just never saw me coming, and I never saw so much grief in my mother’s gaze.

“You gave me your cap, Mama,” I say.

“Not expecting this!” cries Mama. “It was supposed to be easier for you. Especially with your father training you… look, you’re sixteen. I can’t force you to do anything. But is this how you imagined it would be?”

I remember being on the edge of Rock Lake Pool that August day, not forcing Mama to speak about the mark I’d seen in the locker room. She knew I caught a glimpse anyway, confirming it was the injury that got her out of the horse stalls and into the hair salon. We left Rock Lake early not because Mama started to cry but because we were the only Black family at the facility. It was tough to be noticed by the gaping swimmers, but I hated every step I took towards the exit.

“No, but you’ve gotta have guts at the starting gate,” I say to Mama before leaving the grandstand.

+

April Kelley is drenched in sunlight when I patter into the paddock after leaving the stand. Her Wellingtons gleam while she sits on a crate, her mother Lynn brushing her auburn hair into an updo. I wait to see if she gives me her customary wave, wonder if guilt will keep her hand still or clenched. Her fingers wiggle in my direction. I nod and head over to Mint Julep, the quarter horse who had more than a quarter trust in me. Pop, Mama, and I made a compromise that I’d suspend training for the week. I couldn’t walk off without parting words for Mint Julep, though, who looked at me as if she was wondering why I wasn’t readying the saddle.

“Hello Millicent!” greets Mrs. Kelley. “We didn’t see you on the track this morning.”

I stroke Mint Julep’s snout. “Something came up.”

April flinches when Mrs. Kelley tucks her locks in tight with a tortoiseshell pin, placing a cap atop her head.

“I hope it was nothing serious,” says Mrs. Kelley. “Do you think you and Mint 

Julep will be at Boots and Bows?” “Maybe not,” I reply.

“Oh, darling,” sighs Mrs. Kelley. “I understand. The cost you…” “Well, we just won the purse, so we can afford…” I begin to explain.

“Certainly,” says Mrs. Kelley. “I mean what it could cost you on an emotional and physical level. They did so much to chase you all out of this sport. Riding you into the rails, hitting you with crops, injuring your horses. I imagine it’s so brutal for black girls. Especially one who’s just trying to keep up.”

I glance at Cheryl’s cover. We both dug our heels into the stirrups, maneuvered those tricky turns, and were crowned champions within months of each other just beyond this door.

“I’m not keeping up,” I say, facing Mrs. Kelley. “I’m winning.”

Mrs. Kelley puts her head to the side. “Good for you.”

She dusts her hands and indicates for April to roll her shoulders, an exercise she’s been doing ever since April began her competition days.

“But I can’t recall ever seeing a Black female jockey win the Kentucky Derby,” sighs Mrs. Kelley, smoothing out her daughter’s cream blouse. 

“Neither…neither has a woman,” stammers April.

“Well, Barbara Jo Rubin would’ve won the Derby if the stars aligned,” says Mrs. Kelley. “It’s a crying shame her horse was scratched. But that just means you’ll be the first, buttercup.”

Mrs. Kelley opens up her makeup kit to put in a couple unused hairpins. Sun rays hit the gold top of the box, the miniature mirror inside, and one bent pin with smooth black flecks. I stare as she locks it with ease, grabs April’s arm, and guides her to stand erect.

“You know, it might be for the best, Millicent,” says Mrs. Kelley. “You not going. Then nobody has to worry about you.”

+

Mama meandered to the stall when I didn’t come back from my meeting with Mint Julep. She finds me lacing fingers through a bridle, sifting through thoughts, weighing how much my words could do. Mama pushes back both ponytails to get a look at my face.

“I’m glad I never put April on my wall,” I say.

“It was her?” guesses Mama.

“Because it would’ve given her mother too much satisfaction,” I continue. Mama sighs. “That woman’s sly. Bet her daughter has no idea.” She pats my back and scans the surface beyond my shoulder. 

“How many of them are still racing?” questions Mama.

“Most all of them,” I reply. “Of course, Cheryl. Then that’s Barbara Jo. She almost got to the Derby.”

Mama closes her eyes. “Almost.”

I’d been so caught up in collecting those images that I didn’t think much about how Mama would feel if she viewed them. To me, they were uplifting, but perhaps they were thoughtless.

“You deserve more than almost,” says Mama.

I hold the bridle with a tighter grip.

“Milly-Filly, tell the truth,” says Mama. “There’s nothing I can say to get you out of this stall, is there?”

“I don’t want to leave,” I admit. “I want to linger.”

Mama lifts her apron, tracing where the wound was, the part of her we seldom discussed. Sections of the bruise were as dark as a horseshoe, and maybe she covered the scars for my benefit. Mostly though, I was sure she hid it because it was a mark that stayed when she hadn’t stayed and that hurt. I couldn’t imagine living with it or being as strong as her after it.

“Then I’m personally driving you up to Boots and Bows,” states Mama. “And 

I can certainly deliver dagger eyes to another mother.” I laugh so hard it startles Mint Julep.

Mama holds up her finger and digs her other hand into her apron. She removes a few five-dollar bills.

“Tips from recent customers,” shares Mama. “Get the best cap you can.”

As we embrace, Pop shouts our names, Felicia keeping pace with him. I’m aching to tell Pop I’m ready for training today. I don’t get the chance to because Felicia speaks first.

“Cheryl’s confirmed for Boots and Bows!” cries Felicia.

“Baby, we weren’t going to tell her unless…” begins Pop.

“I was ready for a showdown?” I interrupt. “I am. I just hope she is.”

Pop’s surprised glances go between Mama and me, but his eyes stop eventually and glisten with delight.

April appears less enthusiastic as she walks past us with Over Yonder. She pauses, taking in our mutual joy. I can tell Mama’s hesitant, but she lets me go right up to April.

“I’ll be joining you in Atlantic City.”

April looks from my family’s warm smiles to the affixed photo of Cheryl, the amazing adolescent we were up against. She nods at me. “I figured.”

---

Monique Hayes is a fiction author, poet, and screenwriter from suburban Maryland. A Callaloo and Hurston/Wright fellow, she received her MFA from the University of Maryland College Park. She’s the recipient of an American Antiquarian Fellowship, an Eccles Visiting Fellowship (British Library), a Rubenstein Library/John Hope Franklin Center Travel Grant, a Ruth Stone House BIPOC Scholarship, and a Maryland Independent Artist Award. She was an inaugural winner of the Courage to Write Grant (the deGroot Foundation). Her work has been short-listed for the Historical Writers Association Dorothy Dunnett Story Award, the Alexander and Dora Raynes Poetry Prize, and the Eyelands International Prize.