"Yes."
"That's where my wife keeps hers, too." He remembered Greta for the first time since leaving the house that morning.
"They have a new trainer who recently came to the States to start a new polo club. He's fabulous."
"Maybe that's Greta's trainer."
"It is," Laurence said, then, quickly: "I mean, he knows her, mentions her horse. He said Mighty Boy is the most beautiful horse he's ever seen."
"He's something, all right," Matthew said, changing lanes.
"I'm happy to be riding again. I've missed it so. In school I rarely got home to see my parents in Los Angeles. My father sponsors polo players, did I already mention that? I'm sorry, I'm rambling."
"Not at all. I want to know more."
"Well, a couple of years ago my father spent a year in North Carolina, opening a new company. While he was there he got hooked on polo. That was just when I had gone east for school. I felt like I needed a break from La-La Land, and Philadelphia seemed like as good a place as any, and the school was one of the best for liberal arts. Anyway, I'd fly down to see dad every now and then while he was in the South. We went to a couple polo tournaments together. By the time he went back home he was a member of the Equestrian Center in Griffith Park, in LA. I was quite taken with the game myself, the valiance."
Her enthusiasm was infectious, and Matthew was enjoying himself immensely. In the distance the city came into sight. Seeing the tall buildings, the two magnificent bridges, the bay, he experienced a sense of newfound being. He thought of Greta, and how, in all the time they had lived here and she had had her horse, Matthew had never been the least bit interested in her hobby. Yet when Laurence spoke of it, he was intrigued. The Valley felt well behind him now. Before him lay a completely different world, and his insides stirred with the same excited nervousness a schoolboy feels on a class trip. "I don't come to the city often," he said, "so I'm at your mercy."