The Mare (40 page)

Right before she came, I saw Becca with Edie at the store. That never happened before, not both of them together. It was pretty awkward; usually when we saw each other, we'd nod only if she couldn't avoid it. If Edie hadn't been there this time I don't even think it would've been that polite. But she
was
there, in the checkout line, meaning Becca was trapped, her body automatically doing its big and important thing while her head looked away, like it was for some reason dawning on her what a gross bitch she'd been all her life. Part of me wanted to make nice; part of me wanted to insult her for real. Since I could do neither, I was prepared to stroll on by, but Edie popped out and said, “Hi! Is Velvet here?”

Was she
furious
at her mom? Or did she just not know what had happened? “Yeah,” I said. “She's riding in a competition at Grace Meadow tomorrow.” I saw Becca's head come up slightly at the mention of the place.

“Awesome! I was so sorry I missed the other one, this time I'll come; when is it?”

“Tomorrow, starting noon. It would mean so much for her to see you.”

“Awww!”

The skinny old cashier (gentle faded eyes, big moles) looked up mid-bag, smiling at the affectionate sound. Becca loaded the belt.

“I even think her mom is coming.”

Edie did the
awww
again. Finally her mother turned to look at me, her expression unreadable. Her daughter said, “You should come too, Mom. It'll be fun.”

She hit me with her shoe, panting so hard spit flew. I hit too, I cried and hit wild, just to keep her off, to keep her words out of me with knife words of my own.

“Why are you so proud? Why do you think you're so special?”

“Because I don't think I'm shit? Because I don't want to think I'm shit? Ginger doesn't think I'm shit, Pat doesn't think it, only you, my own mother!”

“Ginger?”
She laughed and instead of hitting me, she hit herself, both hands on her face, then me, and then herself again. “Maldita, malcriada! What did I do to make you like this? God help me, what do I need to do to stop you?”

“You've already stopped me, you don't do anything but stop me!”

“Maybe when you're crippled by that horse you'll learn!”

Like a machine that cried tears, I closed my bag up. Crying machine tears, I dragged it down the hall. My mom shouted after me, “At least when you're in a wheelchair, you'll—”

But I was gone.

Awww!
How do people make this simple noise into such a repulsive mix of real and false, the false mocking the real for the two seconds they rub together, throwing it into high relief that way?

Still, it affected me, the way Becca looked at me; she had never looked at me that way. And then the cashier, smiling to hear that
someone's
mom was coming, that she was “even” coming, meaning that she usually wouldn't, but that now,
now
—

“I don't think she's coming,” said Velvet.

“You don't
think
?” I asked.

“She said she might, but I don't think so.”

“Why not?” asked Paul, glancing in the rearview.

“She has to work,” said Velvet.

I said, “On
Sunday
?”

“That's what she told me to tell you.” There was no smile/lie in her voice; she spoke as if a little stunned. “She said she's sorry. She said she'll call me if she can come.”

We got home and she went upstairs to settle in.

Paul said, “You know her mother could sue us if we do this without her say-so. Are you sure she gave permission?”

“She signed the form. She knew what it was for.”

He didn't say anything.

We had sandwiches for lunch and then Velvet went to practice. I went upstairs and went into her room the way I usually do when she first comes. There was her open bag, her toiletries. There, on the dresser, was a torn, taped-up, wrinkled picture of a beautiful young boy in a costume, holding his arms out and smiling like a lover; there was a real almost completely dried-out sea horse and something I couldn't identify until I picked it up and felt it: a piece of blue seashell. I held it and thought: Her mom has to come. She has to.

I went to call the translator.

Pat said we'd walk the course the day of the show, but she wanted me to see it the day before so I'd “have a basic visual.” So I was expecting something scary or at least a little big. But it was just a place like Spindletop called Grace Meadow. I wanted to say,
This is it? It's so small!
But I didn't want Pat to know I'd been someplace else. Especially when I saw how she was with the Grace Meadow people. Or even how she was walking from the car to the Grace Meadow office: nervous, in her eyes and hands. I never saw her nervous before. Outside the building, a Mexican guy pushed a wheelbarrow of shavings—he saw Pat and they said hi, they knew each other's names, and I could tell he didn't know what she was even doing there, especially with me. Then she went into the office and introduced me to this lady Grace, who had a face like a muscle and spooky eyes, like if I was a dog and she looked at me, I'd whine or I'd growl. She talked polite to Pat, and to me she said, “What a romantic name”—but she looked like she
did
know what we were doing there and that it was something little and funny.

When we walked out to the main arena, I couldn't help it, I said, “I thought it would be bigger,” and Pat said, “Compared to what? This is a schooling show.” I didn't say anything. Mexican guys were turning out beautiful horses with thick shiny coats; the horses were moving like they knew they were perfect and the men were their servants. I looked at them and felt like I did at EQUAL, that they were part of some giant
thing
that I didn't know or want to know. I was thinking, It's so small. Why bother?

Until we walked back to Pat's truck and I saw Lexy getting out of her car with I guess her mom. She looked right at me and at Pat too, running her eyes up and down on us. “Hi,” she said, meaning,
You're here?

“Where you know that girl from?” asked Pat.

“Just around,” I answered.

Pat didn't say anything. Neither did I. But I was thinking: Yeah. I'm here.

It took over an hour for the translator to get back to me and then another hour before she had time to make the call—and then Silvia wasn't home. We tried off and on for almost the whole afternoon; if she really
was
working all weekend, how obnoxious of me to make this call. But still, we made it once more—and she picked up. “Tell her thank you,” I said to the translator, “for letting her daughter come.” Silvia responded as if she were being nice to an idiot, and then asked, “Is she behaving?” “Yes,” I said. “She's sad you can't be here, but I think she's going to make you proud. I am confident she'll win.” The translator inflated her voice with “awww” crap; Silvia's silence went dark and hard. I said, “She's practiced so much and gotten so good and it would mean the world to her if you could be here.” The translator coughed and tried and—Silvia exploded. She did that thing where she talked so fast it was more sound than words, sound and jagged laughter. “What is she saying?” I asked. “What is she saying?” “I don't know,” said the translator. “I can't get her to slow down.” And then Silvia was gone. The translator said she couldn't tell if she'd said anything about a contest or permission, all she could really make out was something about “a can of whup-ass.”

I felt my phone ring in my pocket right before I jumped. I
knew
it was my mom and that snagged my brain and my brain snagged the mare; she started to refuse, but I basically
brained
her forward so she jumped at the last minute, landing too hard in front and throwing me forward then back into the saddle. I didn't care, I had to look, and right after the next jump I did, taking the reins in my one hand and digging for my phone with the other.

Pat went, “You're looking at your phone?
You?
I don't believe it!”

I rode around the next jump, slowing to a trot, then a walk. I said, “It's my mom.”

“I don't care if it's President Obama. You don't text while driving or while on horseback, you know that!”

“I wasn't texting, I was just—”

She didn't listen. She came to us and said
Whoa
so strong the mare stopped and let Pat take hold of her. “Give me that phone,” she said.

I didn't. I don't know why. I felt mad and Fiery Girl could feel me—she tossed her head and pawed the ground. I don't know if Pat said, Be quiet,
now
or if the words just came off her body. I could feel the mare thinking up at me,
What do I do?

“Give me that thing or get down and go home.”

I thought, I could make Fiery Girl rear up on Pat if I wanted to. I could—

Very low, Pat said, “You need to stop this mess,
now.
”

I sat the mare firm and told her, Whoa. I gave Pat the phone and told her I was sorry.

“You should be. You could've hurt yourself and your horse. Now show me that you're sorry. Do it right. Collect yourself, and by that I mean take whatever crap that's going on in you and get it under you and get it by the reins. And take these jumps without doing anything stupid. Now.”

I did what she said. Not just with the horse, but with myself. It took a few trips around the arena, to get it under me. But when I did, it was like I was riding a bullet instead of a horse. Or me and her both were riding it. On the bullet, I counted out the steps like Jeanne told me, rushed seven, slow seven. I released big on the high jumps, small on the lower ones. I stopped her exactly. I did it all in front of Pat, who didn't teach me any of it.

“You ride like a damn dressage queen!” said Pat, and I would've thought she was mad. Except then she said, “You ride like that, you'll take points from those girls like candy.”

I said, “Can I have my phone now?”

“Can I please have my phone now?”

I smiled and said, “Please, Miss Pat.”

“After you put your horse away.”

So I walked Fiery Girl and washed her and dried her and cleaned between her legs with mint. I brushed her and combed out her tail and then took her tail in my hands and leaned back to stretch her spine. These other girls Tracy and Chelsea were getting back from trail-riding and they watched like they couldn't believe she let me do that. She not only let me, she braced her legs so she could get it all the way, and I felt her all the way, to her
eyelashes;
I could feel the soft expression in her eyes and lips without seeing them. Then I wished the day was a normal day. I wished there was no competition tomorrow. I wished my mom wasn't mad at me.

“Good job,” said Pat. She gave me my phone.

I said, “Thank you, Miss Pat,” and put the phone in my pocket.

“Everything okay at home?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

And she kissed me. She kissed me on the forehead and said it again: “Good job.”

I walked out and sat on the feedbags on the side of the barn. My mom had called me five times in two hours. The last two times she left messages. My mom did not leave messages. She called and expected you to see it and call back.

I put the phone facedown on the feedbag and watched Chelsea and Tracy get picked up by their moms. They called to each other and waved good-bye as they got in their cars. I called my voice mail.

The first message:
This is what I have to say to you. If you ride in that race, don't bother to come home, because there won't be a home for you anymore.

The second message:
And don't think your home is there. You are all alone with those people. Trust me.

I put the phone back facedown. I watched Pat come out of the barn with a wheelbarrow full of dirty bedding, dump it out, go back. I didn't feel anything. I couldn't feel anything. I just thought. I thought about this time when Ginger was driving me back from riding at Pat's: We were talking about tattoos and I said I wanted to tattoo my mom's name on my one hand and Dante's on the other. Ginger pulled over on the side of the road and said, “Don't do that.” I asked why. And she said, “Because your mom's name is already written inside you. You don't need to make it literal.” “But why?” I said. And she answered, “Because when somebody's name is written on you, that person owns you. Like you're a slave.” And I felt sorry for Ginger when she said it, that she would think like that. Now I felt sorry for me.

Pat came out with the wheelbarrow and went back in. The lights went off in the barn. Pat came out, got in her car, and drove away. I got up and went back to the house. And there was Ginger going, “Do you really have permission to compete? Because I talked to your mother and it sure didn't sound like it.”

“What did my mom say?” she asked.

“I don't know. She was talking so fast, the translator couldn't get it.”

“You got the paper, right? You saw she signed it.”

“Then why is she sounding so pissed off?”

“Because she's always pissed off, Ginger. After all this time, don't you get what she's like?”

“I think we need to call her again after dinner.”

“You call her, I'm not going to. She can't even bother to come see me and all morning she yells and calls me names?”

“Listen,” I said. “Do you know what kind of trouble I could get into if I'm acting against her wishes?”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Legal trouble. She could sue me
and
the barn.”

For just a split second her eyes changed—
something
changed—then snapped back. She said, “Are you kidding me? She's not going to do that, she doesn't care about me! She told me! She told me this morning she didn't care if I was crippled!”

And she went up the stairs so fast and jerky that she slipped and fell on one knee. “Oh crap!” I said and went to her. She let me hold her. She didn't cry. But I could feel the pain beating against her body like it was too big to get out without breaking her. It made me hold her tighter, and she hardened against my grip.

“Ginger,” she said, and her calm was terrible. “I can't talk about my mom no more.”

“All right,” I said. “All right.”

I expected her to keep going upstairs to her room. Instead she said, “Ginger, do you have a Bible?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“Can I just see it?”

We went downstairs and I gave it to her and watched as she flipped through it, clearly looking for something. I asked what it was and she said, “Nothin'.” Then she found it and read it intently, moving her lips as she did.