The Mare (5 page)

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 the 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 thought, 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.

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?”

Before I could answer, the weird boy said, “So why does a Mexican kid walk around like she owns the place?”

“It's in the Caribbean next to Haiti.”

“So why does a Mexican—”

“Would you shut up?” said Beth.

He said, “It's a joke, and she isn't even Mexican!” But he shut up like he knew he was retarded, which made me feel sorry for him instead of mad.

The next time I saw Beverly, she was leading Blue Boy. The way Blue Boy followed her was different from how he followed Pat. With Pat, he walked normal; with Beverly he walked
sharp
—like a kid who knows he better not do
nothin'
wrong. I thought, That's how I want a horse to walk with
me.

While I was watching, she stopped to talk to Gare Ann, who was cleaning the stall of a horse called Spirit. She was cleaning with Spirit standing in the stall with her. When I got closer I heard Beverly say, “You want to watch that one. He kicked Beth on the cross-ties last week.”

That girl usually ran her mouth, but not to Beverly; she kept her head down, said, “Yes, ma'am.”

“He kicked me once. Then we had a little conversation about it and he never did it again.”

“What did you say to him?” I asked.

Everything stopped. Beverly turned like in slow motion and stared the crap out of me. Her strong red face had thin lips and small deep eyes. It was a face that could make you do things just by looking. “I hurt him,” she said. “I hurt him more than he hurt me.”

Gare was looking at me too, probably because that was the first time she heard me say anything. She wasn't gonna crack on me though. Not with this lady there. Even though she was turning around and taking Blue Boy away.

Sometimes the three of us would do things together; sometimes Velvet would go off alone with Paul and work in the garden with him, or just do an errand, like accompany him to the hardware store. But mostly it was her and me together. We would go to the mall, make dinner together, see movies, take long walks at night and talk about “private things.” I tried to get her to draw, but she was too scared of doing something wrong; reluctantly, she made cliché cats (ovals with tails and ears) and pigs, a few dull, dutiful flowers. They were the drawings of a five-year-old trying not to be messy. But I told her they were beautiful and although she probably knew that wasn't really what I thought, she smiled. At night Paul and I would both sit on her bed and read to her and her eyes would go from alert to enchanted to blurred, sweet and private as she slowly stepped down into sleep.

Her presence made everything special: a cheese sandwich cut into four pieces, carrots sliced the way my mother used to serve them, her special towel with pink flowers on it, the soap I got for her with a plastic horse in it, her favorite radio station when we drove to the store. The glow on her face when I served her breakfast and said, “There you go, Princess.” The order of the house, which before I took for granted, now looked to me like something alive and full of goodness when I got up every morning and found the dishes she and I had washed in the drainer, the fruit in the bowl, the cereal and bacon ready to be cooked and eaten by somebody besides me and Paul.

It was like we were both living a dream we had known from television and advertisements and children's books, a dream that neither of us had believed in yet had both longed for without knowing it. A dream in which love and happiness were the norm.

I know this was a dream for her, because of the way she responded to idealized movies and songs. I know because I found out she'd lied to create an ideal picture for me—or at least a nice one. I found out because she told me one night when we were walking in the neighborhood behind the campus, listening to the sounds of crickets and frogs, of kids playing in the street and families in their homes. It was just dark, and I couldn't see her face, but I heard the embarrassment in her voice; I heard the trust. She reminded me of the time we'd first met, and she told me what her grades were.

“I don't really get 3's and 4's,” she said. “I just told you that.”

“What do you get?”

“Ones and 2's. Ones mostly.”

I remembered how she'd said “1, you got nothing.” We walked quietly for a moment and then, in a lower voice, she said, “I even got held behind in third grade. I should be going into middle school in the fall and I'm not.”

“Do you want to do better?” I asked. “Do you want to go to middle school next fall?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like me to help you? Work with you on the phone with your homework?”

She said yes again. I could hear that she was smiling in her voice.

I didn't tell her about the conversation I'd had with her mother. I saw no reason to.