The Mare Read online

  Which maybe isn’t as weird as it sounds. Melinda and I slept together until I was ten and she was twelve.

  Velvet

  I woke up feeling sad without knowing why. Then I realized why. I was remembering a time a long time ago when I thought my mom was a witch and I wouldn’t eat what she made me. I wouldn’t eat and at first she yelled at me and then she was worried I was sick. She stroked my hair and asked if my stomach hurt and tried to give me tea with ginger. I was too afraid to drink it, but because she was talking so nice, I told her why. I said, “Mami, I’m afraid a witch might be living in your body.” And then the witch came out. Her eyes got red flame inside them and she left the room angrily; Dante laughed and pointed at me, because I would be whipped, not him. But when she came back with the belt, he shut up and put his hands over his pee-pee. I tried to run, but she grabbed my hair and pulled up my shirt and she beat me until I bled, until Dante was screaming louder than me. Then she sat and dropped the belt, put her hands over her face, and cried. I heard Manuel; he was looking at me out his cracked-open door. I pulled my shirt down.

  I got out of bed and went to the window. Over the field across from the house, the sun was coming up. It was perfect-round and burning red. Looking at it made my feelings pull apart.

  Then I remembered: My horse lesson was today.

  Ginger

  I came downstairs and saw her sitting at the table drinking juice and playing Uno with Paul. She said, “When are we going to go to the horses?” It was eight o’clock and her lesson was at eleven. She wanted to go over anyway. I said she had to eat breakfast first and made her bacon and eggs. Then I got her to help me with the dishes, mostly because I could feel her attention going out the door, and I wanted to feel linked with her again.

  When we were all done, I said, “What are you going to do over there for two hours?”

  First she said, “I dunno,” and then, “Talk to Fugly Girl.”

  “Be careful,” I said. “You heard Pat. Stay back from the stall.”

  “I will. I want to see the other horses too.”

  I walked over with her. Pat was there leading a baby horse outside. I didn’t see any other kids. “We came early,” I said.

  “Good,” said Pat. “Want to come out to the round pen with me and Jimbo?”

  I said I would be back to watch Velvet ride and left her following Pat to the corral, smiling and looking at her feet.

  When I got back to the house, I was surprised to hear Paul speaking Spanish into the phone—or trying; he didn’t really know the language. “Qué?” he asked. He looked like he was struggling to understand what was being said—and then he held the phone away from him as angry words poured from it. He put the phone back to his ear and then hung it up. He looked at me with a baffled face. “That was Velvet’s mother,” he said. “I’m not sure what she was calling about. At first it sounded like she was saying she was in trouble. Then it sounded like she meant to say we’re in trouble. She was talking too fast for me to understand, but I’m pretty sure she called me ‘stupido’ before she hung up.”

  We laughed, but uneasily. We decided to call the office of the organization that had brought Velvet out. No one answered; we left a message that we needed a translator to speak to Velvet’s mom.

  Velvet

  We went with the horse to a fenced circle. Pat told me his name was Jimbo, and that he was only a year old. She told me to stay outside the fence and then she went in and took Jimbo off the leash. She stopped talking to me and started talking to Jimbo. I couldn’t pay attention to her, I just watched the horse. I could see he was a baby, not just for being small, he moved like a little kid. She made him come to her by walking away, and then if he moved away from her, she raised her arms and walked at him swinging the leash, like she wanted him away. Once when he wouldn’t come, she came to the fence where I was and crouched down. I said, What are you doing? She said, Shhh and told me to get down too. The baby horse just looked at us. We waited. And then he came. He came up to Pat and put his nose near her. She told him he was good. I wished he would put his nose on me, but Pat got up and clipped the leash back on him.

  When we took him back in the barn, I asked her why Fugly Girl had that name. She said, “It’s not really her name, it’s just what the girls call her. Because her head is a little too big for her body.”

  People said my head was too big too. This girl I hate calls me “Flat-Ass Fathead” and “Velveeta Cheese.”

  “Her ear too—one of ’em looks like somebody might’ve twisted it.”

  “What’s her real name?”

  “Funny Girl. Which doesn’t suit her.”

  I agreed, it did not.

  “Not much funny about the mare’s background. She’s an Appendix quarter horse—that’s a quarter horse–thoroughbred mix—but I don’t know the mix on her, and I can see both in how she’s put together. Her last owners—or rather, the owners before last—brought her up from down south, where she was bush-track racing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Rough-type racing, basically to train jockeys. Hardly any rules. People get hurt all the time.”

  “She ran races?”

  “Back in the day.”

  “Can I ride her?”

  “No one rides that horse. Remember the sign? It’s there for a reason. Don’t even touch that horse.”

  I thought, I already touched her. She already touched me. And you saw it.

  Pat showed me the horse I would ride; she was just plain white and a little fat. But she was nice. Her name was Reesa. Pat put a halter on her face and brought her out of her cage—her stall—and “cross-tied” her, that meant she was tied by her face to both walls. And then she gave me a brush to clean her with. I brushed her whole hard body; Pat showed me the place on her back where she specially liked it, and I did it there a lot. Then we put the saddle on her; when I strapped it on with this thing called a “girth,” Reesa puffed out her stomach like to push it away, but Pat said it was okay. Then Pat put a helmet on my head, meaning my head might break, and I got scared. But she gave me the end of the leash (the “lead rope”) and I had to lead Reesa out into the circle. In the circle there was a wooden step-thing called a “mounting block,” and Pat put it next to Reesa. “Okay,” she said. “Ready?”

  I stood still and breathed. Pat waited. Reesa waited. I climbed up on the top step and put my hand on her. “Keep the reins in your left hand. That’s your control,” said Pat. “But take hold of her mane with the same hand—it’s okay, you won’t hurt her—and slip your left foot in the stirrup.” I took the mane; Reesa seemed like she was saying, It’s okay, but I was scared. “Go on,” said Pat. “Foot in the stirrup, take hold of that saddle, and get on your horse!” So I held the saddle and swung my leg and then I was on top of her. And then I felt her. I felt her say things, deep things; mostly I felt that she was strong, that she didn’t have to let me on her, or do anything I told her. But she did and she would.

  “She accepts you,” said Pat. “She doesn’t care who you are, how much money you have, where you’re from. She accepts you.”

  I thought, I know.

  “She can feel your head move; she can feel your stomach tense or relax. Her skin is so sensitive she can feel a mosquito land on her before it bites. To make her move, you tap with your calves, you don’t kick. Kicking her is like screaming at her, and you don’t need to do that. She can hear you.”

  I smiled so hard it made tears come. Pat just kept talking. With my legs, I asked Reesa to go. And she did.

  Ginger

  They must’ve started early; she was already on the horse when I got there. Pat had the horse on a lead, and she was talking to Velvet, making corny jokes, telling her to sit up straight and stick her chest out “like Dolly Parton.” But when Pat led the horse around, and I saw the girl’s face, I could see it didn’t matter; she was in a state of joy. When she saw me and the camera I’d brought, she smiled even bigger.

  Pat got her to move t
he horse forward, backward, then in a wide circle. She got her to trot. She got her to stand up and sit down in time with the horse. Velvet did it all, now and then giving me a movie-star smile so I could take a picture of it.

  It felt so good, I completely forgot about my private radio signal, whether it was there or not. That was a metaphor that did not have any meaning in this situation. This situation was something else entirely.

  Velvet

  When I saw Ginger there I felt the same as when I first got in the car with her and Paul: that she was a strange nice lady with a mixed face who didn’t have anything to do with me. I liked her taking my picture, I liked it that I was going to have some pictures to take back home with me. But it was strange.

  And then it wasn’t. I can’t explain it. Just all of a sudden, it made sense, her being there, me being with her. I still don’t know why. But I got it. It was like I was looking at puzzle pieces all over the floor that magically got snapped into place and I went, Oh, okay. I still couldn’t say what the picture was. But it made sense.

  Ginger

  That night after dinner, instead of a movie, I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk; she said yes. It was a beautiful night, with light still in the sky, the moon glowing behind slow-moving clouds. We could see the outlines of huge old trees against the soft-lit night, and the tall grass of the field moving gently, the fireflies. The road looked pale and glowing against the dense summer foliage. I could feel her taking all this in. I could feel her enjoying the lights of the houses set back from the road, the mystery of other people’s lives. At least I thought she enjoyed it the way I did, and I loved it that we could feel that together.

  She talked about the horses. She didn’t say much in words—she liked them because they were nice—but her voice said so much else. I told her my sister had loved horses, but that I was afraid of them. She asked why I was afraid. I said I didn’t know. She asked if she could meet my sister. I told her my sister was dead. She said, “Oh,” and we walked quietly for a while. Then she told me her grandfather was dead. I felt my mother sigh through me.

  We were almost home when she asked me why I didn’t have kids. I told her it was because I was an artist. I told her that if I’d had kids I didn’t think I could do art. I thought art was what I did best, and I should try to do it even if I never made any money.

  She was quiet a long time after I said this. I felt her puzzlement and then her acceptance.

  That night I read to her again—we read to her. Paul sat on the bed with me, and we passed the book, reading different characters: Paul the troll, me the witch. Her eyes were golden and shining, like she was in a scene from something on TV, which is how I felt too, like this was the good thing I had always wanted and never quite got.

  Which is strange because I did get that. Our mother read to us when we were little.

  Velvet

  I couldn’t have another lesson right away because Pat didn’t have room in her book. But I came to visit the horses the next day. I saw those other girls in the barn, but I didn’t talk to them and at first they didn’t talk to me. I watched the quiet one, the one with the long brown hair; I saw she didn’t talk to the purple-hair boy-face or the one with the glasses either. She knew I was watching her though. I could tell by the way she moved. It seemed like she liked it that I watched, and that made me think she was a jackass, like she thought she was somebody to watch.

  Still, I did watch: the way she led the horses in and out, how she brushed them, the way they moved with her and stood still for her. When she cleaned the stalls, she used the pitchfork like she was important, like she was saying, If you want to be around horses, you’ve got to clean a lot of horse shit. And when she went to this paper bag where the horse cookies were kept, it was like she was showing me, Here’s where the cookies are. Finally I said, “My name is Velvet.” And she put out her hand and said, “I’m Beth.” She nodded down the barn at the purple-haired girl. “That’s Gare Ann. She’s kind of dumb, in case you didn’t notice.”

  Pat came in and out, pushing her wheelbarrow, talking and joking. Cats walked around. There was this boy too. I don’t know what he was doing; I think he was a little bit retarded. Even though it was Gare that Pat did the “brain monster” to: She put her hand on Gare’s head and said, “I’m starvin’ to death!” Gare ducked and turned red, and Pat wiggled her hand and went, “I’m the brain monster! I’m hungry. Where’s some brains?”

  I didn’t care; I just paid attention to the horses. Graylie was like a old gangster with a nice personality. Diamond Chip Jim was the handsome one. Officer Murphy was like a little kid who likes dumb jokes. Little Tina knew she was beautiful. Rocki was sad, like he was when I first saw him. I asked Pat why he was sad. And she said, “Because his owner doesn’t like him. Because she wants him to be perfect and nobody’s perfect.”

  “I like him,” I said.

  “And he knows it,” said Pat.

  I smiled and I thought, So does she. Fugly Girl—so-called. I didn’t go up to her when the other people were around. But I could hear her making that biting-grunt sound and sometimes kicking, and when I walked past, she got quiet. I could feel her watching me, and sometimes I would watch her back, quickly.

  Late in the afternoon, when the girls were gone and Pat was out giving a lesson, I gave her a cookie. She ran up for it—she grabbed it so hard she broke it—so I gave her another one and she grabbed it again, then snapped her teeth at me and banged her hoof on the door like she was mad at me. The kind-of retarded boy put his head around the corner and stared at me. I moved away. I thought, Fuck that horse, no wonder they call her Fugly.

  But later, after dinner, I walked over again, when nobody was there. I came to her stall with some cut-up apple and a carrot. All the horses made their talking noises when I walked in. I stopped to say hello to Reesa, and I gave her a piece of apple first. Then I went to Fugly Girl. She came up really fast with her ears laid back, like she was going to snap her teeth again. But she didn’t. She stopped and looked at me, kind of bobbing her head. Then she came up to the bars and worked her nose. She turned her head to one side and then the other. Her brown eye thought; her white eye got soft. I gave her a piece of apple and she ate it. I didn’t try to pet her, I just fed her. Then I stood there with her for a while, leaning against the stall. She bit the wood, but peacefully, and for some reason it reminded me of Cookie talking, saying I was fine.

  Ginger

  I was alone in the house when the agency returned our message. They had a Spanish-speaker to do a conference call with us and Velvet’s mother. It was pure luck that Paul wasn’t there; he would never have understood what happened.

  The translator was a Latina with a young, charming voice. I said, “Tell her I’m happy she called, that she has a wonderful daughter. I love having her here.” But the mother started talking—nearly yelling—before the girl could get the nice words out. I thought, She sounds like she wants to kill me. “She says Velvet can’t ride horses,” said the young woman finally. “It’s too dangerous.”

  My heart pounded. I made my voice as nice as I could. I said, “Tell her it’s not horses she’s riding. They’re ponies, little ponies, very safe.” I flushed as I heard the lie translated. The silence that followed was probing and shrewd. Then came the furious reply and I thought, She knows.

  But she didn’t. When we got off the phone, everything was okay. I thought, How could anything be okay if she sounds that mad? The translator said, “I told her that we make sure our host families are very good people, that we know who you are and that life there is very safe. That you wouldn’t let Velvet do something that wasn’t safe.”

  I thought, She lied to the mother too. They don’t know who we are. Somebody only came out here and talked to us for five minutes before they signed us up. Still, I felt justified. I felt it especially when Velvet wanted to go to the barn again that night and give the horses cut-up apples. I felt it when she came back from her second lesson, face glowing. I thoug
ht, I will tell her mother eventually. Next week, maybe. I will tell her that Velvet has gotten so good so fast, they want to put her on a bigger horse and she will say yes. And then there will be time for a few more lessons before she goes back. And the agency will be on my side.

  Velvet

  The third day I went to the barn, somebody new came. She was old and red-skinned like Pat, but her hair was shiny brown and cut neat. She was short and she would’ve been fat except her body was square and hard instead of soft and round. She wore her pants tucked into tall black boots, and when she walked she swung her arms. She looked like she could hit—like she liked to hit—but at the same time like she would only do it if there was a reason. She had a shirt on that said “Beware the Mare.” She was cool.

  While I was watching her, Beth came over and whispered, “That’s Beverly. She’s the trainer.” She stood next to me and talked without looking at me. “She used to work at this fancy barn called Steeplechase where she trained horses so the rich girls there could jump ’em and look good at shows even if they don’t really know anything.”

  I was trying to think what to say back, but before I could she said, “They fired her. I think she did something messed-up to somebody. Or somebody’s horse.” I almost asked how she knew, but then the retarded boy piped in out of nowhere, like a retarded person will do. “They say dogs are man’s best friend,” he said. “But horses are man’s best slave.” He looked right at me. “Are you Mexican?”

  I said, “No, I’m Dominican.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Somebody from the Dominican Republic.”

  “I never heard of that,” said Beth. “Where is that?”