The Mare (21 page)

The woman called my cell phone Saturday morning when I was at the grocery. Her voice was friendly and hopeful but with a push behind it; she wanted to know if I was Velvet's godmother. I had no idea where
that
came from, but I said, Yes, who's this? Lydia, she said, down the block from Velvet. The girl had come to her, crying 'cause her mother was abusing her, and she had taken her in. I put down my wire basket and went out into the lot. There were orange and yellow paper turkeys in the windows and little evergreens. There was a Humvee with a sticker over its windshield saying
GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY
. “Does she have bruises?” I asked.

“No,” said Lydia. “But I don't think she's making it up; she's too upset. Some girl at school is saying Velvet tried to steal her boyfriend, and they're following her home from school. Somebody threw a glass bottle at her. Velvet says the girl's lying, but the mother believes the one she doesn't know over her own child, and she's been hitting the child and calling her a
ho
in front of her brother.”

“Where is Velvet now?”

“She's in the other room sleeping still. She spent the night; I didn't have the heart to send her back.”

“How do you know her?”

“Just from the block. She sits out on her front stoop like a little
puppy,
trying to talk to whoever talks back, and a lot do because that girl is
pretty
and she needs the attention. Last night while we were looking at the TV? She just leaned on me the same way, like a
puppy,
like way younger than fifteen. I hate to see her treated this way, and when she told me about you—”

“Wait,” I said. “She
is
way younger than fifteen. She's twelve.”

There was a silence on the other end. “Maybe I'm mistaken.” The voice was harder, the friendly hope gone stiff and artificial. “But everybody thinks that's how old she is. I don't know why she would lie.”

“She
looks
older than twelve. Maybe people just assume—”

“Well, whateva. I got my own family to consider.” She said she was going to take Velvet back home as soon as the girl woke up so that her mother would know she hadn't been doing anything wrong. She was going to see the situation for herself. She said she couldn't really get involved because she had her own problems with the state system. But me being the godmother, she thought I should know.

I thanked Lydia. She gave me her phone number. I put my cell away and stood in the lot.
Why she would lie.
Because she lies all the time. Because it's the only way life is bearable. A big, angry-looking woman with gray hair came out of the store with a full cart of groceries plus a bag hanging off her arm. She went to the car that said “Get the Fuck out of My Way,” unloaded her groceries in it, and drove off.

I listened to Lydia talking about me like I was a telenovela that she cried over and got mad at.
I got my own family to consider.
I thought about walking with Ginger in warm dark full of smells and fireflies past houses with decorations in their yards and sounds of children in them. I rubbed the Ginger-doll key chain with my thumb, down its sharp nose, checked coat, one leg and back. Now Ginger would know it wasn't just me talking. An adult had told her and she would have to believe.

Later that night I tried to call Velvet's house. Mrs. Vargas answered, spoke angry-normal Spanish, then sad-brightly said, “Okay?” It was the first English word she'd ever said to me. It was also the first time I'd heard any sadness in her voice. Or brightness.

I called Lydia. She said as soon as she walked in, the mother started crying and thanking her, and that Velvet did nothing but curse and yell. She said, “I told her, if you talked to me that way, I'd hit you too.”

When I got Velvet on the phone, she said, “She acts so nice in front of everybody else! I am so sick of her bullshit!”

Paul said, “And you want them to move up here? Really?”

When I went back up there it was night and there were white Christmas lights in all the little trees on the main street of the town. But the next day it was rainy and cold with mud. I went to the barn. Horses stood outside, wet and streaked with mud, bony like dinosaurs, their heads like dinosaur birds with wings. Inside, they felt angry and bored. Fiery Girl felt worse. Fiery Girl would not even talk to me. She stood away from me like she didn't know me. I said, Hey, don't you remember when I brought you out? And she didn't look.

I walked through the barn to the office and I saw two more horses were gone: Rocki's stall didn't have his name on it anymore, or Officer Murphy's. Their toys and ribbons were gone too. I looked for Pat, but I didn't find her; this girl I didn't know told me she wasn't there but that Beverly was schooling a horse in the indoor ring. I went there and saw she had the horse on long lines, and a whip in her hand, and she was talking in her hard voice. “When I say whoa, I mean whoa! I don't mean let's talk it over, I mean you stop and no backing up, no nothin'! No! Don't move, don't think it!” But the horse did back up and Beverly whipped it and it ran and she dropped the lines and laughed. It ran around her and then it ran
at
her, but she raised up the whip and it ran in a circle on the outside of the ring while she followed it from the inside, shaking the whip at it. “You think running is a good option? Now it's
my
option. This is my option!” She struck at the air, again and again.

The horse's coat was dark with sweat and its eyes were scared.

“Whoa!” said Beverly. The horse stopped, trembling and panting. “That's right, whoa! Good girl!” She went to the horse and touched it. “Look at this poor thing, she's scared to death. It's okay, sweet pea. That's nice, that's nice, that's a pretty girl. Thank you. I'm gonna thank you.” She looked at me. “Always remember to say thank you. Always remember your manners.”

I left, but I did not go back to the house. I walked around the block, breathing hard. It felt like I was in an ocean looking at lights on a shore a long way away.

The next day Gare told me that before I came, Heather's horse, Totally, kicked this girl Jessie and broke her ribs. I said, “Why?”

Gare went, “I don't know, maybe because Jessie's a bitch? I didn't see it. I heard Jessie came up behind Totally too fast while Heather was giving the horse a hard time about something. I was like, way to go, Totally.”

I thought, If I was a horse, I'd kick too. I'd kick whenever I could and even trample.

On the phone I said, “Listen. I want to invite your mom and brother up along with you around Christmas. I'm acting in a play and I think it would be fun if you all came to see it. It's a children's theater.”

“Why are you acting in a theater for children?”

“Because it's fun. Do you think you would want to act in it if you could?”

“I dunno.”

“Could you ask your mom if she'd like to come?”

She didn't answer. I felt her like she was next to me breathing.

I said, “I'm thinking if she had a chance to look around up here, it might make her think about coming here to live.”

I felt her, but I didn't know what she felt.

“Just a minute,” she said. I heard her talking to her mother, her mother answering back. They talked awhile. There was no anger or cursing. Velvet came back.

“She says yes.”

I picked them up at the station because Ginger was getting ready for the show. They were standing there like a bundle, outwardly ragged but powerfully linked inside: the woman holding the boy close to her, the boy tensely looking down with his fist by his mouth, Velvet trying to pull his jacket down and pants up so his butt-crack didn't show. The platform was crowded with people walking quickly past them, but the mother looked straight ahead as though she were alone.

When I got closer, I saw why. She looked exhausted, too tired to smile, though her eyes saw me with pleased relief. She took my outstretched hand, but when Velvet came to hug me, Mrs. Vargas snapped at her and pointed at the little boy's feet; his shoe was untied and though he looked at least seven years old, Velvet knelt to tie it.

I took them straight to get dinner before the play. It was a big casual place with pictures of the owner's pit bulls on the wall; as we waited to be seated, Mrs. Vargas stood with her arms across her chest and viewed it harshly with her brow pulled down like a cap. She and Velvet exchanged hard/entreating words. We were seated; Mrs. Vargas sat with an incredibly erect posture and snapped her napkin open on her lap. I conferred with the boy and decided we should both get burgers. Velvet got mac and cheese. Mrs. Vargas ordered the chicken by pointing at the menu imperiously.

The boy and I talked about the dogs on the wall; he wanted to know if maybe they'd come out and walk around. His voice was sweeter than I'd heard before. He said he liked fighting dogs. Velvet and her mother fought in a low furious mumble. Her mother glanced at me with a laughing string of words meant to link us as adults. Dante said, “This man's dog where I live acted bad and the man made the dog scream.” I said that was wrong; the boy looked rebuked and confused.

When the chicken came, Mrs. Vargas took one bite and grimaced. “She says it's disgusting,” said Velvet. Mrs. Vargas made them take it back and cook it some more, and even then, she cut it in two and put the bigger part on Velvet's plate. Velvet said she was too full, but she made the girl eat it, all of it, hectoring her the whole time. When I took out my wallet to pay, she cut her eyes at my money, seeing just how much this lousy meal was.

We walked to the theater in silence. I thought I saw Mrs. Vargas looking approvingly at the Christmas lights. I saw she'd put lipstick on. The boy's shoe came untied again and she made Velvet stop to tie it. I asked, “Don't you know how to tie your shoes, young man?” He said, “She does it for me. I'm only seven.” I said, “A seven-year-old man needs to tie his own shoes, and before you go home, I'm going to teach you.”

The boy looked down. Mrs. Vargas gave me a sharp look, and I thought, She understands. But we were at the ticket booth by then, and there were people with their radiant children. Her sharpness deserted her; she put her hand on the boy's shoulder. The boy frankly looked the other kids up and down; Velvet led the way upstairs; she looked back and smiled at me. There was a burst of happy voices and then children running up and down a hallway in half costume, rosy families getting out of their coats, a vibrant little girl handing out programs amid papier-mâché castles and trees with brown trunks and balls of green sitting atop them. A girl recognized Velvet and spoke to her. Mrs. Vargas sank back into herself.

“Hola! Bienvenidos!” Mrs. Vargas blinked and looked up. Bearing down on us through the crowd was Ginger wearing pajamas and a bonnet with a man in blue face-paint holding out his arms and gesturing at his heart like to long-lost friends.

Body and eyes, Mrs. Vargas rose to the welcome instinctively. And then she sagged back, bewildered. The blue-faced guy put his arm around her shoulders and began talking to her in Spanish. She talked back, but her body still sagged. Ginger was talking to somebody else in a bonnet. Dante was slowly wandering forward, looking with great interest at plastic knight's armor, assorted masks and weaponry.

He said, I hear you might be moving up here, is that true? I said, It looks too expensive for me. That depends where you go, he said. You can live simply here. Me and my wife moved up here from the city and at first she cleaned houses. I painted houses, she cleaned. I'm not somebody who needs to live fancy. I can have a simple meal of beans with a little meat and be happy. I said, The place we just ate was simple for a lot of money. He said, Ah well, I don't know where you went. I have to perform, but let's talk later.

Everything he said was a boast and he wanted me to join him. But I couldn't. I didn't sleep the night before, and in the morning I accidentally dropped this old lady on the floor and she broke her ribs. I called 911. I told her, You know, I have children. I said, Please. But I don't know what she's going to say.

I went backstage and I said, “Listen! There's some people here who came all the way from the city to see this. I want you to act your guts out for them!” And somebody said, “Okay.”

It was something I used to see on the old movie channel, except it was done ridiculous funny, people painted blue and wearing pajamas underneath dresses and hats. Ginger came out in a old-timey hat being a dumb nice woman who wants this mean old man to give money. Little kids ran out and sang Christmas songs; one of the little kids messed up and started crying, which made me on her side. I looked at my mom; her eyes were soft, her lips coming open like she's dreaming. This guy who looked like the science teacher everybody bugs on came out wrapped in bike chains, groaning and yelling. My mom's mouth was still open, her eyes closed. Dante whispered, “He's going to say, ‘You're nothing but a bit of undigested beef or a piece of cheese!' ” That's when I realized it was that story about the mean old man who hated poor people until ghosts came to him on Christmas Eve.

Painted people came out onstage; Ginger led little girls around making faces, singing, like weird prayer cards come to life. A little one forgot to sing, just looked at us, smiling—sweet. The old lady I dropped on the floor has whole walls covered with prayer cards, pictures of grandkids, crayon drawings, and presidents, yellowing away or bright as Easter. St. Clare with full ruby lips, St. Lucy with her eyes on a plate, a snowman drawn in orange, a boy, a dog. I close my eyes and disappear in the wall of pictures. “Mami!” Velvet jabs me, and I jab back. Boring; an old man is on the stage eating from a bowl. The pretend clock is striking. This lady keeps her dishes in the oven and her refrigerator full of disgusting dry cakes like they sell from the food truck at work. I scold Velvet and pinch her. The old man looks up; someone is moaning, rattling around. I pinch myself, wake up. The old man shouts, Who's there? The old lady thinks the neighbor boys are coming to steal her panty hose, but she's got her purse open on the table. She wants to know, What kind of person would take your panty hose? I hold my tongue, wash her scabby ass. Easy, easy, she whines. The old man clutches the other man in pretend-chains, begging. She says the same thing every time: came to New York, job at the candle factory, lost her husband, had a child, lost the child. The stage goes dark. Music starts. I feel my head drooping. There's music on the subway, people singing and begging. Velvet jabs me. A girl stands in the spotlight, holding a doll and crying out, trying to sound unhappy, but she obviously has no idea what it is. People, singing and crying in rags, crawl from behind the black curtains. The subway beggars tell their stories, play guitars; one man has cats riding his shoulders. They do tricks, their faces smart like people…wait, that's Ginger's face, she's on the floor, crawling, making a face that is—well, that is funny, worth coming to see. Now she's holding up play money, they're all giving play money to the girl with the doll, but she won't take it, doesn't see it. She screams, “Help, help!” but doesn't take the money—what in hell is this thing about? In the subway I saw a man with no legs stuck in the door. Somebody took him here to beg and now he's stuck in the door, how did he get there? I try to turn around and help him but it's crowded; they push me in. I look again and he's not there. The stage goes dark again. Velvet and Dante press near me. A lot of people
do
steal from the old ladies. But I don't. Not unless they leave it right out on the table. That's just stupid. The light goes out; the subway goes into the tunnel. I speed along on my belly. Above me, they carry crosses and dollar signs. Above me there are songs of love; the ugly woman is transformed by love. I speed on my belly down the side of the road. Leave it on the table, that's not even stealing. That's— Suddenly I am lifted up. My love is here, our hands are about to touch—that's not even—but I don't remember who he is.

“Mami, you snore!” Dante pokes and I sit up among strangers. The old man is singing alone in his pajamas. As he sings, he turns the crank on a little music box; his voice is beautiful and broken. Three young girls in white gowns turn with the music like they are inside the box; they face each other, turn away, face each other, step away.

I looked at Velvet, shining with her eyes, picking at her nose. My poor daughter. My poor worthless girl.