The Mare (11 page)

I didn't need permission to go to Strawberry's. I never went home after school anyway. My mom didn't get off work until five o'clock, so I had to walk around till it was time to pick up Dante at day care, then we went home and waited for my mom there. Last year I was in day care too; I had my birthday there and they had a cake with my name on it and even my mom came for the party. There's a picture of her smiling with her eyes closed and a paper hat on her head. But I'm too old now, so I just walk around for two hours. I can't go home and wait to pick Dante up because my mom says if they find out she's leaving us at home by ourselves she'll be in trouble. I don't know why nobody thinks it's bad that I'm walking around by myself, but I guess they don't. And I'm not always alone. I see people I used to know, like these men who sit out on their folding chairs, and they say, “Hey, Velvet! Velveteen from the block!” And sometimes Mrs. Vasquez, this old lady who lives in our old building, brings me up for some flavored tea with canned milk in it. But until Strawberry nobody from school invited me over yet.

Strawberry's house was on South Third in a old building with the name Venus on it. The ceiling in the lobby was like a frosted cake with dust on it, with waves and lumpy flower-shapes painted red and green. And there were lamps hanging down and a plant that looked cool even though it was dead. It looked like a place where beautiful, strange people would live, but the lady Strawberry stayed with and the little girl, they were both normal and fat. Strawberry slept in the room with the little girl. She slept in a corner on a sleeping bag on a cot, and there was a big cardboard box unfolded and propped up by old cans of food and a chair, keeping her cot private from the girl's bed. It was spray-painted silver and had Strawberry's name on it in red. There was also a upside-down box by the cot with a silky scarf on it for Strawberry's things, like lipsticks and a rose made of glass and the shell I gave her and pictures of people in special frames. It was cool. I was expecting to feel sorry for her, but really her cot and her silver box were better than a normal room.

Except that, when we got the little girl to stop bothering us, Strawberry wanted to take the pictures of her friends and go in the closet. It was a big closet with a light in it, but still. She made us go in there and pull winter coats off the hangers and get under them. We were so close. She looked even more beautiful that close. Her eyes were strong and bright, but her skin was so soft and her mouth was shaped soft, too, not like in school. Her breast was touching my arm under the coats, and that made me want to touch her, which made me feel funny.

She started showing me the pictures of her New Orleans friends and telling me stories about them. Mostly it was stories like who she smoked with for the first time, and partied with or fought with. But then there was this one girl with big eyes, and Strawberry said, “This is Miranda. She told me she saw a deer swimming in the water by her house.” And I said, “What, in a pool?” And Strawberry said, no, when this girl was on the roof of her house, she saw a deer in the water. This girl said he had horns, and he looked right at her and she saw he couldn't swim anymore, and he was going to die. The water must've carried him far. I asked where Miranda was and she said she didn't know. And we were just quiet, looking at the picture of Miranda.

I talked to her about Fiery Girl, too, how she only liked me, and how because she was abused she might still lash out at me with her hooves, like Scorpio had kicked at Pat so she thought they'd have to put her face back together. Strawberry said, “I'm sorry they did that to her, but if she tried that with me, I'd slap the shit outta her.” I said, “Trust me, you wouldn't do that,” and she said, “Trust
me,
I would. I don't care how big she is, I don't take that shit from nobody.” And then she talked about somebody else from New Orleans.

I wanted to tell her more about the horse, but I didn't like her saying she would slap my mare. It was just stupid and almost made me really mad. So I just listened to her and thought about the book Ginger read to me, where the little girl went to hide in the closet and came out in a pretend world. Because that's what it was like; Strawberry's voice was like a pretend voice. She was talking like a little kid and using kid words. Which would've been weird anyway, but was really weird because she was talking about the most real things and she was older than me.

We didn't always do that; we at least a couple of times went to Grand Street, and she showed me how to shoplift from Rainbow and the Gem superstore. I would go in by myself wearing a big coat and walk slowly, leaning on the displays, and the store people would follow staring the crap out of me—and she would walk out with makeup or a manicure set and once even a purse. The one time I tried I only took a nail file, but still they almost caught me. I just got away because I ran into the traffic and the man chasing me almost got hit, and when Strawberry caught up with me, we walked to her house singing “Pon de Replay.” That was fun.

But mostly she just wanted to go to her room and talk about what her friends in New Orleans said or did while we looked at magazines with stars in them. Either that or she wanted to put makeup on—except it was mostly her putting makeup on me. She put makeup on me like her friend Maciella used to wear. She did it over and over, like she was trying to make it perfect. I asked when I could do her, and she just said I didn't even know how. She let me brush her hair and then she plucked my eyebrows, which made my mom really mad when I got home. The next time, I said, “Strawberry, stop. I'm not Maciella.” And she said, “Could you just pretend to be?”

And I did. It was not fun. In school Strawberry acted like she barely knew me. Even on the days I went to see her, I had to wait and meet her at a bus stop and she would look around like she was making sure nobody saw we were together. Then she'd get in the closet with me and put makeup on my face. If I didn't say the right things, Strawberry would stop me and say, “No, that's not what she was like.” It was not fun. But I kept on doing it. I don't know why.

I started calling the school, but nobody would return my calls. Finally I was told that they weren't allowed to talk to me unless Velvet's mother gave me written permission. And so I found somebody who could speak Spanish and I figured out how to make a conference call. But the call was near impossible. The translator was Kayla's aunt, who'd learned Spanish in the Peace Corps. She was religious and churchy-voiced, and worse, her Spanish was apparently too crude for her to understand Mrs. Vargas's rapid-fire style of speech. I hadn't wanted to involve Velvet because I knew she was sick of having to read and translate for her mom. But we had to get her on the phone finally. And I don't know why, but that seemed to help; Mrs. Vargas was clearly amused by the translator's ineptitude. She laughed; she said she'd sign the permission letter if I wrote it, even though it wouldn't matter because Velvet was always doing bad.

But she wasn't doing bad. When Ms. Rodriguez finally called me back, she said that while Velvet still had “discipline issues,” she was definitely behaving better than she had last year. She was even turning in some homework and it looked like she was doing the reading.

“What about the book report about the African-American family?” I asked.

“The what? Oh, right. I haven't assigned a book report on that. They were supposed to write on another book. Which she didn't do. But still, I'm happy with her progress.”

I was thrown only for a second. I told the teacher that Velvet had done a beautiful job on the African-American family and that she should ask her to show it to her. And I asked her to be sure that Velvet's mother knew about how well she was doing. Ms. Rodriguez promised that she would.

So I told Strawberry I was going to the horses. I told her in front of people. Maybe I shouldn't've, but she was pretending she didn't know me and it was making me mad. The other girls got quiet and all she said was “So?” But then in the bathroom she said, “You gonna ask her?” And I said, “Yeah” like what a dumb question. Also like I might not really do it. And she did not talk back.

I went on Friday night after my mom got off work. She yelled at me the whole time, even on the subway. The people on the subway looked at us because my mom sounded crazy yelling at me about what an idiot Ginger must be and saying I stole out of her purse and I eat too much and I wore her nightgown, dragging Dante along while he talked to himself about killing some people he made up in his head. When we came up out of the train, the wind was blowing trash all over and we had to walk into it. At least that made my mom shut up. Crazy people were all over the place by then though, so nobody would've noticed her. “Look,” said Dante, “there's your stupid woman.”

And there was Ginger, in white leather pants and a white puffy jacket, and her white-blond hair blowing around, shading her eyes with her hand and her legs apart, so she looked powerful, like the White Witch in her book. Except that then she saw us and she dropped her hand and smiled with her sad eyes and was Ginger again. And I went to hug her.

She was strange on the train, like she didn't quite know me. I felt awkward, too; I didn't know what to talk about with her. She was restless in her seat, asked me twice how long it was going to take to get there, was saying she was bored before we were even out of the station. I thought,
An easy way to play at being a parent;
my heart felt cold.

Then she said an amazing thing. We were leaving the city and she was looking out the window at the buildings across the water. Her lips were parted slightly and she had that dreamy look on her face. Then her expression changed abruptly and she turned to me and asked if it was true that they were planning to put a new building at Ground Zero that was even taller than the World Trade Center. And I said yes, that's what they were talking about. She said, “That is the stupidest thing I ever heard. That will just make them want to knock it down again.” So I said, “But that's why they want to do it. To show we're not afraid of being knocked down.” And she said, “Are you kidding me? Everybody in New York City is afraid. You should not build to be what you are not.”

And I was so proud of her. I didn't care what that asshole Becca said. I was just proud to be with her, and I told her so. She smiled huge and then, shyly, looked out the window again. She was still quiet, and it was still awkward—but it was the awkwardness of people who love each other and don't know how to show it yet.

It was dark when we got there, but still, I wanted to see the horses. I asked Ginger to walk to the barn with me because I wasn't used to the kind of dark it was out there anymore. But I made her wait outside and she didn't mind because I asked her nice.

Inside the barn was warm and right away the horses moved and said hello to me all differently. I went up to them one by one and nearly all of them came to me—Joker snorted and got his spit on me and I just laughed and rubbed him. Rocki looked even happy, and Officer Murphy moved his head up and down for me to rub his head more. Then Fiery Girl came and I saw she had this thing on her face. It was leather and metal and it was wrapped around her throat and face and it made her look like a serial killer. She came up and tried to bite the wood of her stall and the metal thing seemed to choke her. I went and got Ginger and brought her in to show her and she just said there was probably a reason for it, I should ask Pat the next day. She tried to pet the mare, but Fiery Girl tossed her head and gave her a “don't mess with me” look. I realized Ginger did not know
anything
about it.

Still, when we went back out, Ginger put her arm around me and said, “Are you okay?” and I said yes, and put my arm around her and we walked like that for a while. I wondered what it would be like if Strawberry was here now.

The next day I asked Pat about the thing on my mare's face.

“It's so she won't crib,” she said. “Remember the way she bites her feed bucket and the door of her stall? It's bad for her stomach because she takes in too much air when she does it, so we're trying to break her of it. Don't worry, the strap doesn't hurt her.”

“Can she eat with it?”

“Oh yeah,” said Pat. “It's lunchtime now—you want to help feed 'em?”

I did. The horses got excited when they heard the grain coming. Fiery Girl kicked and neighed, and the others said,
Yeah yeah, give it now!
I thought she'd be glad when I came to give it, but instead she acted
mad
—her ears went flat and she snapped and kicked the door. Pat said, “Don't be afraid,” and handed me the bucket of grain.

And I went in and she ran up on me in her killer mask like she would knock me down and stomp me. I was so scared I almost dropped the bucket, but I didn't show it. I didn't even look at her, even when she bumped me with her nose. I poured the food and she went at it, and Pat said, “Good work!” But I was scared and the horse knew it.

I think Pat knew also, but she still asked me to clean the mare's stall later that afternoon. Pat moved Fiery Girl out into an empty stall and the mare went
powerfully,
making me and Gare flatten on the walls. But after I cleaned the stall, Pat asked if I wanted to put her back. I said yes, because Gare was there but also because I felt the mare looking at me like she
wanted
me to do it. Pat put the lead rope on her and handed her to me. I led her to the stall and tried to go in first. That's when she
blasted
past me so hard she threw me into the wall. Pat came between me and the mare and yelled and took the lead rope. Beverly passed by and said, “I see you're getting to know your friend better.”

Pat said, “You okay?” and I was, but still I was shaking; she threw me like a hurricane throws a house.

I wanted to tell Ginger about it, but I was embarrassed. Because this was the horse that was supposed to like me, and now she seemed to think I was crap. Also because Ginger might get worried and then decide I shouldn't see the horses and maybe even tell my mom. So I just listened to her tell me she was painting a real picture of her sister because of me.

I said, “Why because of me?”

And she said, “Because you were asking why I didn't do a real picture and I thought maybe I should.”

I asked, “Could I see?” and she took me up to her studio.

But the new painting was even more crazy than the other one. It was
ugly
too, like I wanted to say,
Did you hate your sister?
But I couldn't say that and I couldn't think of anything else to say that was nice, so I just looked around. And I saw something scary: a plastic doll like for little kids dressed in leopard-spotted clothes that looked homemade with even leopard socks and a hat. It was beat-up and it had one of its eyes rolled up in its head. It looked like it was in a Chucky movie, where a doll goes crazy and kills people. Except this doll looked too retarded to kill anybody. I thought, Is Ginger retarded?

Which for some reason—the creepy doll and Ginger's maybe-retardation—made me remember when I woke up and sneaked in the hall and heard Paul say those things about pushing the limit and the boundaries, and then Ginger mumble-hissing about birthdays. It made me remember the lady on the bus talking about giving “them” a “example.” I started listening to Paul and Ginger when they didn't know; I even pretended to be asleep and then creeped down the stairs again, to see if they were saying those things. But they just talked to each other like normal people, and the only times I heard my name, I didn't hear anything bad in their voices, I only heard good. It was a strange kind of good that made me feel strange. But it was still good.