Wild Girl (10 page)

Another dinner, and again we hardly spoke; there was only the clink of knives and forks against the plates. Rafael did try, talking about a new horse Mrs. Januário had bought, and an exercise boy who would begin work next week.

I barely listened. I was thinking of arguments I’d had with Tio in Jales. He would stamp both feet, pulling at his mustache until he winced. I would yell, my voice as loud as his, and once I threw a book at the wall. Even Titia Luisa would slam the drawers in the kitchen so hard that everything in the house seemed to vibrate.

I remember how satisfying it all was, because after it was over, we’d sit in the three chairs on the porch, rocking, and one of us would start to laugh, setting the other two off.

But not here. Here was silence.

Echoing in my mind was Mamãe’s voice:
You’ll make a family
.

I hadn’t done that, not even close.

But never mind that. There was something else I wanted to do. Would I dare? Yes, because the Horseman would do nothing, say nothing, no matter what I did.

I set my clock for four thirty the next morning so I’d be out of the house before Pai and Rafael were awake. I wanted to be in the barn before five, when they’d begin to exercise the horses.

But I didn’t even need the alarm. I was wide awake by the time it rang. I threw on my clothes and went down to the kitchen to grab a banana out of the bowl, and another roll of peppermints from the drawer.

I was out of the house long before five. It was chilly, so I dipped my chin deep into my jacket.

José and an exercise boy were out on the track already, but a sliver of a girl was opening Wild Girl’s stall, ready to exercise her. She grinned at me. “I’m Sara,” she said in my own Portuguese. “I work here with the horses. Haven’t seen you.”

I nodded. “My father—” I began, and broke off.

“Our boss,” she said. “He’s a wonderful trainer. How well he knows horses!”

I broke in, barely breathing, trying to sound calm. “I’ll be working with Wild Girl this morning. You want to exercise Love You instead?”

She shrugged. “Sure,” she said, and moved down the aisle toward the end stall. I didn’t look after her. I went inside,
leaning against the wall to catch my breath. Then I realized I didn’t even have the saddle.

I poked my head out the stall door, but the girl was gone, and no one else was paying attention to me. I went into the tack room, brought out what I needed to ride, and was back a moment later.

I reached for the peppermints in my pocket and fed one to Wild Girl and one to myself. “Remember me?” I asked her, touching that soft muzzle. “The girl with the candy?”

I put another peppermint on the ledge, and she reached for it. I buckled on a helmet, then saddled her, my hands remembering doing this so many times in Jales.

“A good taste, right?” I whispered. “I have more, and I can get tons of them. What do you say? Friends?”

She chewed with thick teeth, then curled her large tongue over them, watching me.

I reached out to her, raising my hand to run it over her neck, her silky skin rippling under my fingers. I leaned my head against her. “I haven’t ridden in so long,” I said. “Let me ride you. Let me pretend that you’re Cavalo and we’re home in Jales and heading across the field.”

I pushed the stall door open with one hand and held the lead with the other. We walked along the aisle toward the high, open double doors in the back.

Wild Girl’s head went up as she sniffed the outside air, and I smelled it, too. Spring! A slight mist was rising above the ground in wisps, and the overhead lights were still on. I could hear the faintest sound of music coming from the barn,
and the clump of hooves on the oval. I pushed open the gate with my foot and clutched her black mane. Wild Girl never moved. She stood there quietly, her ears forward as if she was curious about me. She must have heard the sound of my breath, as I heard hers….

Then I was up in the saddle, the fingers of one hand twisted in her wonderful wiry mane for a moment. I clicked my teeth, and it was as if we’d done this before, as if we’d done it a hundred times.

Three horses were up ahead, and I could just about see the girl on Love You.

Wild Girl started slowly along the track, and I let her lead me, let her decide. She came to a stop and looked around, almost as if we were in a field and not on that oval track.

She began to move. “How fast do you want to go?” I asked. “I won’t hold you back.”

Then she was galloping …

And by the turn, we were flying.

She was faster than Cavalo had ever been, faster than I could imagine. The wind was in my face, against my chest, my arms. The mist bathed my eyes, my cheeks.

She passed the other horses easily but slowed up behind Love You, letting the old mare lead before she began to race again. Something flitted through my mind, but it was gone in a moment because I was shouting to the wind, “I love you, Wild Girl, love you, love you….”

This horse was mine, and as long as I had her to ride, I was home.

I turned my head slightly, glancing toward the fence. Pai
stood there, his hands on his hips, but we were going fast enough that I couldn’t get a clear look at his face.

But I could imagine what he was thinking.

It was too bad I couldn’t jump the fence with Wild Girl and just keep going.

Keep going forever.

Running
.

Sweat cooling her back, her sides, sweat on her muzzle, a good feeling
.

Water cascading over her, cleaning her, cooling her further
.

The creature with the food, with the soft voice, in front of her
.

But something else
.

Something she had looked for all this time
.

A mare
.

A mare with a long tail running just in front of her
.

A memory
.

Pai stood there, hands on his hips, watching me as I washed down Wild Girl. Instead of looking back at him, I tried to concentrate on the soapy rivers that ran down the horse’s sides and legs.

Around us the barn was alive: pails were banging, José was turning up forkfuls of fresh-smelling hay, and Rafael was singing. I tried to concentrate on those noises, tried to keep my head close to Wild Girl.

I had about ten minutes to get out of there and get to school on time. How was I going to do that?

Quickly I rubbed Wild Girl down with soft dry cloths; I made sure there was plenty of mash in her pail. I felt a quick burst of happiness, thinking about our ride: a fast ride on a horse I loved, a horse that, like me, had come from far away.
I wasn’t one bit sorry about what I had done, no matter what Pai would say.

I reached for my backpack, grabbed my jacket off the hook, and hesitated. There was something I should have remembered about that run. What was it?

But Pai blocked my way.

“I have to go to school,” I said.

“Maybe you could miss this one day.”

I looked at him, shocked, then nodded uncertainly. I followed him around the side of the house toward the truck. The big house was in front of us, and Mrs. Januário had opened her window. “Great ride,” she called, waving down at me.

Pai muttered something under his breath, then opened the truck door. We pulled out onto the avenue, both of us silent. I was determined not to talk, but I was so curious about where we were going, it was hard not to ask.

Then he spoke. “Meadowbrook Parkway will take us to Jones Beach.”

“A beach?” I said, in spite of myself. “It’s only spring.”

“Ai.”
He glanced at me. “You’re just like my brother, Paulo.”

I sputtered. “Look to yourself.”

“We’re all alike.” He smiled a little. “But that’s not such a bad thing.”

I shook my head. He was wrong, of course. I wasn’t a bit like either of them. Again we were silent. I found my fingers going to my upper lip, a thing Pai and Tio did. I pulled my hand away and leaned my forehead against the window.

Marshes stretched out on each side of us now, their beige
and gray somehow soothing. Birds flew up, one after another, dark against the sky. And in the distance was a water tower, tall and pointed, that appeared and disappeared as the truck curved around the parkway.

Then, spread out before us, was the sand, a carpet leading to water that stretched out forever. Waves curled over on themselves, sending geysers of spray into the air.

“The ocean,” I whispered.

Pai nodded; then he parked the truck. We walked toward the water on sand that blew up miniature whirlwinds in front of us.

Seagulls followed, heads back, beaks open, screeching. I pictured Mamãe walking with us, her long hair blowing away from her face.

The Horseman pointed, and we went up on a boardwalk to tables in front of a cafeteria. “We’ll have clam chowder,” he said, “a warm soup on this cool day.”

I sat on a bench out of the wind and waited while he went inside to get the soup, my face in the sun, listening to the crash of the waves. I couldn’t get enough of the sea.

When the soup came, I couldn’t get enough of that, either. It was hot and salty, and I felt it going all the way down.

“I have so much to say to you, Lidie,” the Horseman said after a while.

Was he going to send me back to Jales? Now that I didn’t want to leave Rafael, or school, or Wild Girl?

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. Did I want to leave
him
?

“Maybe we’ll begin with Paulo,” the Horseman said.

“Paulo?”

He reached into his pocket for a folded paper. “This letter came the other day; usually we just e-mail, a quick bit of this or that. Most of it is about horses, and the track, but this part is about you.”

I took the letter from him, and he leaned over, his finger running along the words he wanted me to see: “She looks like her mother, but she acts like us. Have you seen her ride yet? She rides like no one I’ve ever seen. She’s tough and strong, that girl, and as difficult as we are. I miss her. I wish I could be the one to show her the sea.”

Now I was crying. Crying again. What was the matter with me? And the shock of it, seeing that Pai had tears in his eyes, too.

“Paulo was right,” he said, and I waited for him to say
You were born to ride
. But instead, he sighed. “You
are
difficult.”

I blurted out, “I’m not the difficult one.”

“Really? You paid no attention to the room Rafael took days to paint. You ran away from school. You brought in a miserable stray cat that managed to spook a horse and cause an uproar in the barn. And this morning, without asking—”

“I—I don’t pay attention to my brother?” I cut in, stuttering a little. “He’s going through a terrible time. He’s too big to ride. Do you know that? Did you help him with that? He’s so worried—” I broke off; I’d said more than Rafael would have wanted me to say.

I took a breath. “There’s no talking in our house, no dogs
barking, no cats, no birds singing, no laughing….” I couldn’t look at him. “There’s nothing but silence in that house.” I frowned. “Except for Rafael.”

He nodded slowly. “That’s true; I find it hard to say what’s on my mind. But Rafael…”

“Yes, Rafael,” I said.

He sighed. “I’ve been waiting for him to discover what he wants to do with himself. It can’t be riding, I know that. But there are so many things he might do. There’s his painting. Have you noticed the painting in the living room, the one in the hall…?”

So Rafael
had
painted them. “Beautiful.”

“Maybe that will be what he’ll do,” Pai said, “but I don’t think so. He’s a fine student. I think he’ll go to college, and become a veterinarian.”

Where did that come from? Then I remembered Rafael out on the track taking care of Storm Cloud after that spill. I nodded. “Yes, I can see that.”

Pai nodded. “But he’s the one who has to see it.”

My tears had stopped, but they were still as salty on my lips as the chowder. I tore open a pack of small crackers that had come with the soup and began to throw them, one by one, to a circle of hungry seagulls on the boardwalk.

Before I could think further, I felt his hand over mine. “Do you think I wanted to leave you? Rafael was older. I was taking him to an apartment that had one room. I had almost no money….”

Two seagulls swooped down in front of me, and then two more.

“In a few minutes you’ll have an army of gulls waiting to be fed.” He pushed his pack of crackers toward me.

I opened the bag with my teeth. In front of me was a speckled gull with a curved yellow beak. I tossed the first cracker to him.

“When Mrs. Januário asked me to be her trainer, I knew a house went with it. I knew I could send for you,” he said. “Rafael and I stood in front of that house, arms around each other. ‘Lidie,’ we said at the same moment. It was what we longed for all these years.”

Salt was on my tongue, on my lips. I wasn’t sure if it was from the crackers, or my tears, or the sea air.

“Before this, I saved, training horses, working early, working late, and Rafael, too. He went to school and exercised horses part-time. We managed to buy Doce, then every cent went into the bank so we could bring you here. There wasn’t even enough money to go back to Jales more than once. But the house! It meant we could have you, and even buy the two horses.”

Years of saving every cent, as I sat on the porch waiting
. I heard the sound of my crying again over the birds; I felt his love for me for the first time since I came.

“About the horse,” he said. “About Wild Girl. When I heard her name, when I heard she was for sale, I couldn’t resist.” He shook his head. “It’s what Mamãe called you.”

I looked at him now, this stern man whose face I suddenly recognized, my father, who had laughed as he held me up to the tree in the lemon grove.

Now the lemon seemed so unimportant, that he hadn’t remembered it. But ah, Wild Girl.