Meeting her Boss (Sir Solomon)

[Andie Simone]

After leaving White Oak, Andie all but skipped over to Evening Primrose. Stopping at the door, she breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth to calm herself - a little trick she had learned from Cara, not that she would ever give the girl credit for it though. The thought of the tiny girl made her frown a little, but she brushed the thought aside as she walked into the barn.

Walking down the aisle she looked in at each of the mares who were contentedly standing or dozing in their stalls. She grinned as she looked over the door of one stall and saw a dappled grey mare with a foal. Not taking too much time to get to know the mare and baby though, she continued down to the barn manager's office and knocked on the door.

Part of her wished that she still had her job as a working pupil in the barn she had been at before, but no, she had been stupid enough to fall for her boss' charms and fallen head over heels for him after he had broken up with the girlfriend he had been with since before she had joined his staff. The man was sweet and treated her like a princess. She was suddenly allowed to ride and show his best horses. It had been after a fall at one of the shows that she had decided that she had been over-horsed. And then, to make things worse, the man she was in love with suddenly got bored of her and found someone new. Things at the barn suddenly became icy and before she knew it, her position there had finished,and now she was here.

[Sir Peter Solomon]

Peter stopped in the act of addressing an envelope as he heard a ping coming from his computer. He glanced up at the machine and wiggled the mouse, waving away the screen saver. After typing in his password, he moved to his email and checked the message that had just arrived for him. His eyes skimmed over the message from Katherine, and he nodded slightly. Minimizing the window, he left the screen open to his desktop, an picture of Mei and Knight, taken at his home in England. He left the mouse where it was and picked up his pen again, finishing the address on the envelope in his fine script. His phone lit up where it lay on the table, silent as always, but still visible. Peter glanced at the message, from the White Oak barn manager again, and hurried to send a reply that he had gotten the message.

Rising and moving around his desk to put the envelope into a basket for outgoing mail, he was startled to hear a knock on the door. He hadn't expected his new barn hand to be here quite so fast, but he moved to the door and opened it for the woman who stood outside. Stepping aside to give her the entrance, he smiled warmly, "Miss Simone, I presume? I'm Sir Peter Solomon." He paused, then continued, "Please come in, feel free to take a seat if you wish."

After the girl had come in, Peter closed his door again and moved behind his desk, sitting down easily and watching the young woman, "Would you mind telling me a little bit about your experience working with horses?" He knew most of it, from Katherine's email, but he wanted to hear it from Andie as well.

[Andie Simone]

Andie was jolted back to reality as the door in front of her opened and she squeaked as she jumped backward. Shaking her head, she gave the man in front of her a brilliant smile. "Hello, Sir Solomon." She said.

Following the man into his office, she held back the urge to roll her eyes as she was offered a seat, if she wanted to sit down - obviously the man had Cara in his office too often. She lifted an eyebrow at the thought and quickly banished it away with a shake of her head as she settled herself down into a chair on the opposite side of the desk to the barn manager.

She sat back in the chair as she thought about her answer. "Well, I spent the past two years here as a student." She began. "During my time at Blue Ridge, I owned and brought on two eventers, one of who I have brought back with me. Upon my graduation, I went to Connecticut to accept the position as a working pupil at Simon West's barn. There I groomed and exercised his horses along with the other riders. I also spent some time with the two pregnant mares he had." She didn't want to talk about her past, not before attending Blue Ridge, when her life with horses began and ended before it started again.

She gave the barn manager a bright smile. "I will honestly tell you that I have no real experience with working with pregnant mares, but I would love to learn. Any of the teachers here will tell you I'm a quick study. I was also thinking about breeding my own mare." She shrugged. "But I still need to think about that."

[Sir Peter Solomon]

Peter smiled softly as the girl jumped backwards, obviously startled by his appearance, but he didn't say anything as he moved away from the door.

As the girl launched into her equine résumé, Peter sat and listened, making notes in his head as he heard a few points that he liked. Most of the things weren't new to him, although he hadn't been told quite what her student position in the barn had entailed. When he heard that the girl had, in her words, no experience with pregnant mares, he nodded slightly, only slightly bothered by the fact. His other barn hand, Cortney, hadn't had any experience with mares or foals either, but she had proven herself well when Charmander went into labor, and he knew that, if the girl wanted to work on her experience, someone had to give her that first chance. He smiled at the girl, "Well, we can rectify that soon enough, don't worry about that." He shrugged, "Most of what we do here is the same anyway, skipping out the stalls, pastures, making sure everything is neat and works right, but we have the added bonus of keeping an extra eye on the mares, especially right around now." The mares were starting to come to term, and everyone about the barn knew to keep an eye out for anything that might signal the start of the end.

As the girl spoke about breeding her mare, Peter listened intently, "There's plenty of time to think about it." Pausing for a moment, he ventured, "Would you care for a brief tour and introductory narrative?"

[Andie Simone]

There was something about the nod that the man had given that set alarm bells off in Andie's head. She went through what she had said and her eyebrows flew up, realising her mistake. "Due to Simon's mare's being in foal, we were all given a crash course on what to look out for, and we were put on a foal-watch roster when they were due. I don't have any experience about working in a broodmare barn, is what I was trying to say." She smiled and shrugged. "Sure, I'll be the first to blow my own trumpet, but I don't want you to think that I've worked in a barn like this before."

She listened as he went through what her jobs would be in the barn. She couldn't help herself when he mentioned skipping out stalls. She gave a dramatic shudder as she looked at her nails. She looked up at the manager through her eyelashes and giggled. "Sorry, I couldn't help myself." She had very nice nails and worked hard to keep them that way. "My nails are made out of steel." She held her hands up to show manicured nails. "They may look nice, but please don't think I don't like getting them dirty."

She nodded at the offer for a tour. "I'd love to get to know the mares, and that beautiful foal I saw on the way in!"

[Sir Peter Solomon]

Peter listened as the girl added on to what she had said, noticing that she was trying to reassure him that she would be fine working in the job. He nodded as she told him what she had meant, "Just multiply your experience by about six, and you'll have an idea." He frowned, "I suppose five, now." There were only nine mares in foal still, since Suede had miscarried, Charmander had given birth, and Float hadn't been inseminated.

He couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the girl's reaction to being told that she would be skipping out stalls. However, as she giggled, he felt that he had been taken in by a practical joke. As she assured him that she didn't mind getting her nails dirty, he nodded, "I would hope so, otherwise I'd have to find some basic task." If she had been doing that in all honesty, he would have asked Katherine to reassign her, but since that wasn't the case, he wasn't worried. Perhaps some levity in the barn would be a good thing.

As she agreed to a tour, Peter rose, smiling at her mention of the filly, "Don't worry, you'll get plenty of chance for that." He held open the door for her, then closed it behind him and led the way down the barn aisle. He stopped at the feed room and opened the door briefly, "Feed room, the mare's feed schedules are on a whiteboard on the wall. Students aren't to be in here, unless it's Cortney, whom you will be working with." He nodded at the door across the hall, "The tack room, and then next to it is the classroom." He pointedly kept the business part of the tour short, next moving on to the mares' stalls. He stopped next to Charmander's stall, knowing that Andie had noticed her before, "This is Gotta Catch 'Em All, Char around here, and her filly is Tess, hopefully soon to be registered under the name Damsel in Distress." Since the paperwork was not yet sent, he couldn't presume that the filly would be registered under that name, but he sincerely hoped so.

[Andie Simone]

Andie had a bounce in her step as she followed the barn manager out of his office. She took in a mental map of the barn - even though she had attended the school for two years, she'd never taken part of the repro class so had had no need to have been in this barn before - she was just glad that he set up was pretty much the same as the other barns.

"Cortney..." She repeated, a hint of a question in her tone. "Adult or student?" She was hoping for the latter as it would be nice to have someone she could boss around, whereas if this Cortney was another adult, then she would more than likely find that she was the one being ordered around.

She looked over the door of the thoroughbred mare and her foal. "Hello, Char." She greeted the mare warmly as she offered the animal her hand. "Cute name for the foal." She looked at the alert filly. "I do hope though that you don't live up to your name, or else we might have to call you Daphne." She commented, thinking of one of the female's in ScoobyDoo who always seemed to take on the damsel in distress position.

She look back up at the barn manager. "Now, I'm sure you have work to get back to so I won't hold you up any longer. What's my first point of call?" Sure, she could take a little more time to settle in, but she would rather get right into work.

[Sir Peter Solomon]

Peter led the way down the aisle, "Cortney is a student, a freshman." He thought he understood the question, since Andie would be the one trying to figure out what duties she should do, and which ones Cortney would do, until the barn had an actual 'head' barn hand.

He watched Andie interact with the mare and the little filly, raising an eyebrow at the comment, "I doubt she'll mind whatever we call her, as long as it's nice enough." He didn't know which 'Daphne' the girl was referring to, but didn't feel like he needed to know. The mare's name had fit together with Knight's nicely, which was why he had thought of it, and Tess had been the name of one of the mares he had learned to ride on, hence its choice in the first place.

As Andie guessed that he had some work, Peter nodded, thinking of the paperwork that seemed to always fill up his time. He looked around the barn, thinking about what hadn't been done yet. He had already had some of the barn hands who had been finished with their own duties help him skip out the stalls for the morning, because he hadn't suspected getting help, and the evening cleaning wasn't due to start for another few hours. He shook his head, "We're really in between things right now, in about two hours, you can help out with the evening skipping, so before then, you can acquaint yourself with the horses." He paused, "Be careful of Float, the Rocky Mountain mare, she's rather nippy." He smiled, "Any questions?"