The Mare

by Mary Gaitskill

  Finally I called Ms. Rodriguez, who told me that Velvet had stopped doing any homework at all. She said her discipline problems had escalated too. I could hear the irritation in her voice; she sounded irritated with me as well as the girl. “You have to understand, you can only have a very limited impact. It’s really up to her, and if she doesn’t want to, there’s nothing you can do. Ma’am, this girl has a lot of problems.”

  “But she’s doing the work,” I said.

  “I’m not seeing it.”

  I talked to Velvet and she said the same thing she’d said before, that the teacher hated her and lost her papers. She continued to do work with me on the phone, good work. So after a few weeks, I called the teacher again.

  “You need to understand something,” she said. “This is a very manipulative kid.”

  Velvet

  When Ginger called me, I told her I did give Rodriguez my papers. I wasn’t lying, because I did them, I did the papers and I took them to school. Besides it was true, the other thing I said; Rodriguez hated me and I knew my report card would not be good. So did my mom. She said, “You’re a dumb girl trying to be smart. You don’t think I tried too? I worked, and I still got failed and you will too. You’ll see. That kind of smart won’t help you anyway.”

  We were watching her favorite show, and I was kneeling on the floor rubbing her legs and her feet while she told me how shitty everything was, especially me. She gets what she deserves, Carmencita. Just you wait!

  “Ginger is nice, but she’s foolish. She doesn’t know where you live. She doesn’t even know what it’s like to get up in the morning and take the bus to work—ah, there he goes again!” She meant the cheat Santiago, he was giving this girl a flower and saying, Walk across a piece of paradise with me. Beautiful music played; he was engaged to be married, but the music was on his side. My mom said, “More on the other foot,” and the scene changed to Santiago’s girlfriend’s mom taking painkillers. For a while I just rubbed and we watched, then my mom started again. “She’s got no kids and has to borrow somebody else’s and I don’t know why she picked you. Probably she feels sorry for you. Well, I feel sorry for her. So be nice to her. Show her manners, respect her house. Don’t let her see what you’re really like. If she wants to buy you things, let her. Give you money, even better. Make her happy, maybe one day you’ll get an inheritance. A woman like that—ow! Not so hard, idiot!”

  “I’m sorry, Mami.” I rubbed her foot like I rubbed my mare and I felt her soften, like scared little hairs coming alive one by one.

  “A woman like that, what kind of woman?”

  “Aren’t you listening? I’m telling you what she’s like! She has money, but she’s empty inside.” I would’ve loved to have known Papa—what was he like, Sylvie? Was he affectionate? “Well, bless her, at least she’s trying. At least she’s trying.”

  I rubbed and we watched, not talking for a while.

  Ginger

  I let her come again anyway. What could I do? I wanted it so badly, and also it seemed wrong to punish her when I knew she had been doing actual work. A casual acquaintance backed me up on that, a woman named Robin, Kayla’s friend, a single mother who’d adopted a three-year-old Romanian child she’d named Jewel, a girl who was half out of her mind when she’d arrived and who, at five, had revealed herself to be preternaturally bright. “You need to give her something to hope for,” said Robin. “Even if she can only meet you halfway, she’s got to know you’re always there, believing she can do it.”

  We had the conversation at a dinner at Kayla’s house, a big spread on her long wooden table. It was me and Paul, Robin and the five-year-old Jewel, plus Kayla’s grouchy sixteen-year-old, Jenny. It was festive and lovely. There was music on, and I thought, We could have this, too: children at the table. We could have Velvet’s friend up. We could have maybe her mother and brother. Jewel looked up suddenly, and fixed me with penetrating adult eyes. I had seen this look on her before; it was curiously natural on the little girl. “Why do you like this girl from another family to come see you?” she asked.

  “Because she makes me feel part of life,” I said.

  Paul looked down and I thought he was annoyed—but then he looked up with soft eyes, and put his hand on my leg.

  So I got my church-y lady to get Velvet’s mother on the phone and ask if she could come again. Mrs. Vargas laughed jaggedly and said something the translator couldn’t understand, though she did get the word donkey. And then she said, sure, Velvet could come. If I wanted her.

  Velvet

  When we walked at night, it was cold and I had to borrow Ginger’s jacket because my mom didn’t buy one for me yet. There were no more bug noises and the smells were deeper and secreter.

  While we walked, Ginger talked to me about self-destruction. She said she was afraid I was destroying myself by not turning in my papers. She said it made her feel bad because it reminded her of her sister who died, because her sister failed her classes even though she was smart. I didn’t say anything. I just pictured Fiery Girl running out in the open, her sides shining and thick white sweat between her legs. I pictured her up on her hind legs, kicking with her front. Ginger said she was sad because if my grades weren’t good Strawberry couldn’t come, and it was almost the end of the semester.

  “Does it mean you don’t want me to come up?” I asked.

  And she said, “No.” She put her arm around me. “I want you to come up. But you can’t bring anyone else—that’s a privilege. That has to be earned.”

  That was the time when Joker bucked off Beverly. She was in the round pen working with him on his “manners,” and as soon as I saw them I could see they were not getting along. I could see it in Joker’s skin, in the way his body was under Beverly’s legs and in the things Beverly was saying without words, angry things she said with her legs and her hands. I had the funny feeling she didn’t even know what she was saying, but I could see it and I know he felt it; when they passed me at the fence and I saw his eyes, I felt scared—and it was two seconds after that he bucked and Beverly flew and hit the ground so bad her head bounced. Joker bucked again and kicked, I put my hand on my mouth because I felt a scream coming, and Beverly—she sat up and smiled. She got on her feet and shook her head and I saw her helmet was cracked. She looked at the horse and he looked at her, head up like he’s proud of himself. She said, “Why, you little snot!” And he let her get back on.

  The next day she was showing her cracked helmet to Pat and Gare and laughing about it, bragging about herself and the horse. “The little SOB. He threw me high, wide, and handsome, I’ll tell you! He has got one nasty sense of humor, mean and sloppy like his owner.” Then her voice came down so that I could barely hear it. “You know what they say about her in town? Any man could have her and who would want to!” Pat laughed—nervous, not happy—and then she said something that Beverly didn’t answer.

  Maybe they thought I wouldn’t hear because I was grooming Spirit on the other side of the barn. I didn’t want them to know I heard because it was so ugly it was embarrassing.

  I was also a little scared of Spirit; he was pissed off because his friends were outside and he wanted to be out too. He was pawing at the ground, and he even stamped his foot. I was telling him to “stand like a gentleman” like Beth told him, but he was not listening to me. I talked soft and put my hand on him, and he stamped both his feet. That’s when I heard Beverly go, “Shut the fuck up and settle down!” And she was right in his face like his hooves were nothin’ to her and she grabbed his halter, going, “Shut the fuck up and settle down!”

  She wasn’t yelling, but there was something in her voice that made it like yelling. Spirit’s eyes rolled and he moved to the side, but not like with attitude. He didn’t have no attitude now. I remembered that when I first met Beverly, she was talking about Spirit when she said, “I hurt him worse than he hurt me.”

  “I know you’re not supposed to curse,” she said. “But when you need a horse to back off a
nd settle down, it helps if you say curse words. You make your voice deep and say curse words. Not because they understand the words, but because your voice will right away say those words different. And he’ll know you mean it.”

  “I think he just wants to go out, Miss Beverly.”

  “I know he wants to go out. He wants a lot of things. He wants to go to a horse show where they have great big flags. Just because he wants it, doesn’t mean he gets it.” And then she grabbed his halter again, but not hard this time, and said, “Right?” Then she petted him and said, “That’s right.”

  And she moved around him, scratching him with her nails, in a nice way. When she got to his butt, she stopped.

  “Oh,” she said. “So that’s why he’s got his nose open.” And she pointed at these sores on his butt. “Poor fella.” And she went and got this cream and she put it on him, massaging it in with her fingers and scratching his itchiness. She said, “Sweet man! Who loves ya, sweet man? Who’s ya daddy?” And he turned around with his lips trembly.

  I thought, Pat is nice, but Beverly is cool. Her fingernails were all broken and still she was scratching him so hard she was getting dirty all up in them. But why did she think a horse cared about big flags?

  “This is how the alpha horse grooms,” she said. “You can always tell who dominates by who grooms who first and how. Want to try it?”

  And I did. And Spirit did his lips at me, too.

  “FYI,” she said, “it’s right to discipline a horse. It’s necessary. You see those big tears and cuts on their body when they come in from the field? That’s what they do, kicking and biting each other. That’s their idea of playing. It’s really almost impossible for a human being to hurt a horse, unless it’s with a nasty bit in the mouth.”

  “But Miss Beverly, then why do they care if you hit them with a whip?”

  She tapped her head. “It’s all psychological. It doesn’t really hurt, but it hurts a little. They’re sensitive. That means they get all messed-up easy. They figure if you can do that, something worse might be coming.” She looked at Spirit. “And it might be, right? You control them from inside their heads. The physical is backup. Mostly.”

  Paul

  I couldn’t believe Ginger wanted to have the kid up for Christmas. It was clearly inappropriate, and I wanted—needed—quiet during the holiday. I didn’t think I’d have to argue about it though. I expected the mother to unequivocally lower the boom—how could she not, when Ginger was trying to take her child away on the most important holiday of the year. Meanwhile, I was occupied with tension at school: a thesis student had threatened to kill herself; a colleague, a sad person who’d been kicked out of his house for having an affair, which then promptly ended, was camping out in his office, even eating there and sleeping on the floor. I would’ve liked to have had him for Christmas Eve.

  But one day when Edie was visiting, I went out to do an errand and came back to find her talking with Ginger about Velvet. I recognized my wife’s tone before I even understood her words; it was that fevered, too-quick voice she always used when talking about the girl. The next thing I saw was that Edie was responding. It took me a second to react to this; out of loyalty to her mother, Edie was barely polite to Ginger most of the time. Before I’d left for my errand, that’s how it was. Now she was seemingly enthralled with my wife. I thought, Oh Christ—and that’s when my daughter turned to me and said, “You’re having the Fresh Air girl up for Christmas? Can I hang out with her?”

  “Sure,” I said, “if her mom lets her come stay with us on the most important holiday of the year, which I doubt.”

  “I’m not talking about actual Christmas Day,” said Ginger. “I’m asking about the day after.”

  I said, “I still doubt it.” But I was wrong.

  Velvet

  So I had to tell Strawberry she could not come see the horses. I told her at recess when she came to see me in the cafeteria. She was quiet and then she said, “It’s okay. I won’t be here anyway. My mama found a place. I’m going back on Easter break.” And she went to be with the others.

  —

  Then they invited me for the day after Christmas. They were going to have a tree. We never had a tree. In school we had one, my cousin Donna had a pretend one, and there was a silver and gold one at the restaurant where we went last New Year’s. But my mom never got a tree. At first Dante acted like he didn’t care. He said, “Yea! You won’t be here!” Then at dinner he acted like a brat, sticking out his tongue with food on it. So I stuck my tongue out too. My mom was so busy slamming dishes down on the table and talking so loud about somebody at work who criticized her that she didn’t notice. Until he kicked me under the table and I said, “Mami, make him stop!” And she slapped my head and said, “It’s your fault.” And he kicked me and I shoved his food in his lap and he fake-cried and my mom hit the side of my head and told me to go in the bedroom, no food.

  I didn’t care. I just closed the bedroom door and opened the window and looked out. Outside, it was raining hard and cold. You could see the rain hitting the dirty sill and pouring in the streetlight. You could smell the wet street and see some dirty snow from before. The only thing that was Christmas was colored lights in the window across the street. I couldn’t see the people that lived there, but I could see their shadows moving on the ceiling. I could feel my grandfather there saying, She doesn’t mean it. She loves you. She’s letting you go have the tree.

  I believed him. Still, I wished somebody from here could go with me. My brother. Or Strawberry. I wished Strawberry could go.

  Paul

  We both went to pick her up at the station. Without telling me, Ginger had bought Mrs. Vargas a pair of earrings and the boy a goofy toy that stuck out its tongue when you squeezed it. I swallowed my irritation, but I was embarrassed to be bringing these things, which I pictured them accepting sullenly. But Mrs. Vargas not only smiled to see us, she gave us something first, wrapped in a silver and pink gift bag. The boy was sullen, but this time he looked up when I said, “Hey there, young man,” and he mumbled something. We went to a diner to exchange the gifts and his quick, pleased glance said he was happy with the toy. Mrs. Vargas had given us a scented candle. We ate sandwiches and this time when we said good-bye to the mother and brother, we all hugged and said Merry Christmas; Mrs. Vargas kissed Ginger on both cheeks. She took my hand and gave me a look that was not flirtatious, but that nonetheless acknowledged me as a man. I thought, Well, she is polite.

  Then the boy suddenly stepped close to me and said, “Can I come too?” Ginger spoke quickly: “Maybe next year.” And Velvet frowned; I frowned too, and put my hand on the boy’s shoulder to cover it. His mother frowned also, quietly but deeply; she and Velvet exchanged words. Then, with a sideways “Good-bye” in English, Mrs. Vargas pulled her son away from me and down the street. And Velvet smiled again.

  While we walked to the train, I asked her what her mom had gotten for her. “The same thing she gets me every year,” she said flatly. “A mug with a flower on it.”

  I pictured the tree we had waiting at home, all the gifts Ginger had piled under it. And I felt uneasy, nearly ashamed.

  Until we got home and she saw the tree.

  Velvet

  I thought there would be snow up where they were and there wasn’t. I thought I would see snowmen. But it was the same cold wet with old pieces of dirty snow on the curb and the grass, except lonelier than my street. Right away when we got out the car, I asked to go see my mare, and for the first time Ginger said no, it was late, didn’t I want to see the tree? I said please and Paul said tomorrow. And I felt mad. Because it was my Christmas and I even said please.

  But then we came in the house. It was dark at first and then Ginger went in the living room and the tree went on and—it was like being in a room I never saw before. Their tree was big, much bigger than the one at the restaurant or even at school; it was like the only thing in the room. And there was all different things on it, colored balls with d
esigns on them, glass birds, candy canes, and angels and animals, and you could see they put them together in a way that was on purpose. There was tinsel hanging on every branch. And there were little white lights, but also big lights in soft colors that reminded me of the game I played at day care, Candy Land; there were wrapped presents underneath. My blood started moving really fast in my body, like music that’s too fast to dance to. I thought of Strawberry then, how she talked like a little kid, because that’s what I felt like.

  “Do you want to open them tonight or tomorrow?” asked Ginger.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How about one tonight and the rest tomorrow?”

  I picked a little one and when I opened it I found a silver ring in the shape of a blue butterfly. It was more beautiful than anything I ever had. It made my blood run faster, like something too fast for me to hold.

  Ginger

  I remember that night and the next day in a soft haze of joy; the look on her face when I turned on the tree lights, then again when she opened her first present. And Edie, acting like it really was Christmas Day, opening her present, taking part. It was slightly unreal somehow and yet at the same time more real than anything. It was like my own childhood come to life again, my memory of Christmases cleansed of the disappointment and anger, the fighting and silent unhappiness that sometimes was there. What I remembered now was the goodwill, the effort made, the cookies my mother baked from scratch, my father bringing in the tree, Melinda and I putting on the ornaments, saving the most delicate for last. I felt all that as a child, but I took it for granted as how things ought to be. Not now.