I felt a little nervous when my editor assigned me this project. Her exact words were, “Go and interview one of those centaur people and do whatever it takes to get the scoop”.
So, here I was, driving down a long, idyllic road, passing Luna Lake, coming up to a sign that read: “Town of Red Leaf, 30 miles”
Well, at least I was nearly there.
The town turned out to be a bustle of activity, clashing horribly with the peaceful surrounding countryside. Great construction cranes were putting up new, modern buildings and parking lots, interspersed occasionally with charming, red brick buildings that showed signs of being scorched, despite the scrubbed-looking exteriors.
I constantly checked the street signs, searching for the landmark I’d been told to look for.
“Ah!” I said to myself. “There it is!”
I pulled into the parking lot of a small shop with its enormous billboard that had to be half the size of the building proclaiming “Harry’s Tasty Freeze!”
Inside I found Taryn Grogan, one of the pair of centaurs that shocked the world when they appeared. She was standing peacefully next to one of the tables, gently spooning a lime sorbet into her mouth.
“It’s my favorite.” She explained as I introduced myself and sat comfortably in the booth.
We sat regarding each other for some moments. She was pretty, in a strange, exotic way. Her classical features and warm brown eyes fit a face that could be called remote, except for the sad smile on her red lips. She was dressed in what I had heard to be her costume, a Native American dress. It had some fringe on it, and bright colors around the collar; lots of beads strung on in such a way as to clack loudly when twirled, or make no sound if the wearer needed stealth; and a short cut-off where her horse body met her human half. The horse part of her seemed a splendid mustang of almost conquistador stock, dun in color, and with a tail that matched the color of her long, brown hair.
“It is good of you to see me, Miss Grogan.” I said politely.
“Thank you.” She said graciously. “But I really don’t see what you could want with this interview; your friends have interviewed me more times than I can count.”
“I’ve read some of the stories.” I told her. “And, if you don’t mind my saying so, I found them bordering on the fanciful. The fact that you’ve accomplished so much is, of course, very interesting but no one, I’ve noticed, has tried to do a story on the real you.”
“What?” she asked, startled.
I smiled. “They’ve talked and talked and talked some more about your adventures, but no one’s asked you what you like to do, what you’d wanted to be, and who the real you is, buried underneath that persona you’ve adopted for the world, am I right?”
I could see by the look on her face that I’d come uncomfortably close to the mark.
To ease her mind, I pulled out my trusty tape recorder as well as my notepad and pencil and placed them on the table, the recorder between us and the notepad on my lap.
“So Taryn,” I said, smiling gently. “Perhaps you could tell me what’s your favorite color?”
She looked at me for a moment and then threw her head back and laughed. “If I tell you wrong, will you launch me off the bridge?” she asked.
I, of course, got the Monty Python reference at once and replied in kind.
“So long as you don’t ask me about swallows.”
She giggled. “Lavender.” She said.
“Excellent.” I jotted down the note.
“Now, you were working on finishing your high school, but what had you planned to do afterwards?” I asked.
She took a deep breath.
“Well, I’d hoped to take college or university classes online, so I could stay at home and help mom, she was suffering from illness that made it impossible for her to walk, and it attacked her nervous system.”
“I see. And what did you want to study?”
“I was looking at the medical field.” She explained. “I’d dreamed of someday finding a cure for mom, before all this.” She gestured down at herself ruefully.
I nodded with sympathy; how little I could understand her plight!
“How about your sports, did you have any?”
“Oh yes, I was part of the swim team for years. Sylvie, Sara and I were the top three on the team, with Sylvie being the fastest.”
“Did you participate in any competitions?”
“State, and once we actually made it to the nationals, held in DC. That was seriously cool, they had one of the largest swimming pools that I had ever seen! It had to have been Olympic level. There were fifty teams; of course, since it was the nationals, right? Anyway, they’d come to watch the teams compete, and ours almost won! We were fifth on the stand, with only Alaska, Washington state, Maryland, and Mississippi beating us.”
“How close was the race?”
Let’s see, Alaska came in the lead with thirty and a half seconds even, Washington came in at thirty and a half and two hundredths of a second, Maryland and Mississippi were nearly neck and neck at thirty and seventy eight hundredths of a second and seventy nine, respectively, and we came in at thirty and eighty one hundredths of a second.”
“It sounds as if the pace was blistering.” I commented.
“It was.” Taryn nodded. “We would have been higher, but poor Mary developed a cramp halfway through her part of the relay run and really struggled through, but it was Sylvie and Sara that saved us, both of them ran through their legs faster than anyone on the other teams.”
“What about yourself?” I asked, picking up on what had been left unsaid.
“Oh, well,” she fumbled a bit, “I swam the final leg, but could only bring us to fifth place.”
I smiled a little; our sports reporter had covered that meet, and had mentioned a team with three strong swimmers who’d been nearly dead last thanks to one of their members developing a cramp, but had managed to come nearly to the lead thanks to their efforts, with the last one starting from no less than four body lengths behind.
“Well, that sounds very impressive.” I said non-committedly. “But, forgive the question, are you still competing? I don’t necessarily mean in swimming, but did you also do track?”
“No,” she said with a frown. “Swimming was pretty much it, with a little gymnastics as well, but that was a long time ago. I never did track, and couldn’t do it now anyway; with four legs I’d have a huge and unfair advantage. Besides, I’ve way too much to do these days anyway to take up any kind of sport.” She added.
“Well, I guess that’s certainly true. But I am curious, what do you like to do to relax? After a stressful day, I mean.”
Taryn shrugged. “Talk to mom a bit about my day, watch TV and then go to bed, I guess.” She said, looking quizzical. “I don’t really have any hobbies anymore, except my spear craft, and learning that takes up a lot of my time as well.”
“Yes, I heard about that. Are you really Native American?”
“One-sixteenth on my father’s side.” Taryn said grimly.
I hesitated, picking up on a sensitive topic; yet I’d been able to find no report on her father at all.
“It seems that has been somewhat to your benefit, this time.” I commented cautiously.
“Hah!” She snorted, her tail swishing irritably. “About the only good thing he ever did for us.”
“Well, probably not the only good thing.” I suggested calmly. “After all, he helped create you, to an extent.”
“Yeah, and that was all he did for us.’ Her eyes flashed at me and her hoof pawed the floor, scratching the wax horribly as I shrank back a little in my seat.
“That snake abandoned us when I was three, couldn’t take the pressure of mom starting to come down sick and me just a baby. I had to learn to take care of everything when I was six years old! Six! I had some help from Sylvie’s mom, when we became friends, but that wasn’t until we were both in second grade! I had to become everything to my mom and he didn’t have the decency to send so much as a card letting us know he was alive! He never cared for us! Never! He just wanted to use my mom for his pleasure and I was an interesting diversion for him until mom became unable to take care of my fully and needed his help, and then he was gone in the night!”
She looked ready to say more, but she abruptly reined herself in and took deep breaths, seeking to calm herself.
“Next question.” She snapped after several long minutes.
Deciding to steer away now, I changed tack. “Have you any thoughts on joining the equestrian shows?” I asked.
She stared at me, caught completely flat footed.
“Not really.” She said at last. “I mean, I’ve never been to one at all when I was human, and being in one just as a centaur walking around on a track doesn’t seem all that exciting to me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I will try to keep that away from the press.” I said laughing. “For the enthusiast, there is many things that happen in those shows, from difficult dances that the horses learn to perform, to trick shooters and barrel races, to beauty pageants for both animal and rider. No, no; there is far more to an equestrian show than simply riding around in a rink and parading in front of judges, you know.”
She looked at me strangely and I felt I needed to elaborate.
“A famous personality had a passion for horses and the only time I could catch up with them was at an equestrian show. I learned a lot there, and got my story to the editor, so you could call it a win-win.”
She laughed, “Really?”
“Yes.” I smiled.
“Well, was there anything else you’d like to know?” she asked, calm again.
“Hmm, well besides salad and lime sorbet, is there anything else you like to eat?”
She grinned. “Well, you could say I like oatmeal a bit.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oatmeal, huh? Any special kind?”
“I love apple and cinnamon.” She admitted. “It’s definitely my favorite kind.”
I made the note.
“Now, for some of my fore feminine readers, I would like to ask how hard it is to clean your coat and hair, and do you like to put it up into any particular form?”
“Well, to be honest with you,” she admitted, “I don’t really do a lot with my hair except brush it or occasionally wear a headband. “
“As for cleaning,” she continued,” It isn’t so bad. I’m amazingly flexible you know, so actually being able to scrub down isn’t too bad. The difficulty is that there isn’t a shower large enough for me to use, except a livestock shower, and the one in the trailer. I use that one frequently, but most days I just stick my upper half into the downstairs shower and rinse off, standing on some towels to keep the water from spilling out onto the floor. When I want to do a full wash, I use the trailer.”
“I see.” I made a short note. “And before you got the trailer?”
She blushed furiously. “I’d rather not say,” she said vaguely.
I made another note, then glanced at the time. I’d used up most of my allotted time in the interview and would need to call it off here in a minute.
“Well, I think that should pretty much cover it, except for one last question. What are your plans now?”
She looked at me strangely, but shrugged.
“I guess continue on.” She looked out the window a trifle sadly, not seeming to notice me anymore.
“The world keeps coming against us,” she said in a faraway sort of voice, “and it will keep coming and keep coming. We’ve been lucky so far, but that isn’t going to last indefinitely.”
Her flanks heaved in a massive, neighing sigh.
“We’ll keep together,” she said at last, “And fight back, and someday, perhaps, we’ll finally have piece, and I can tell you the answer to your question.” She looked back at me, and her face was filled with determination. “And believe me, I look forward to telling you what I want to do in the future, in person.” She ended grimly.
With those words, I made my farewells, and slipped back out to my car, pondering what fate held in store for the remarkable young woman I’d just encountered. For a moment I wanted to turn back around and chronicle her life, and be there as destiny took its place, but that is for another, I think. For now, I will just let things continue as they are, and look forward to that future interview afterwards. Turning on my music, I drove slowly out of Red Leaf and headed for home, flipping the switch on the dashboard to open the portal and disappearing from the deserted, leaf-littered road.