The Mare (3 page)

The bus came late. We waited in a hot schoolyard for an hour because we didn't get the message. We figured it out when we saw nobody else was there, but we were afraid to go get a cold drink because we weren't sure how early we were. Paul sat in the car with the door open listening to the radio. I got out and paced up and down the asphalt. I didn't like the look of it, this dry flat line between earth and sky—who would want somebody else's empty schoolyard to be the first thing they saw in a new place? I thought about the girl's voice on the phone. Velvet—she sounded so full and round, sweet and fresh.

I wanted to give that voice sweet, fresh things, to gather up everything good and give it. The night before, we had gone out and bought food for her—boxes of cereal and fruit to put on it, eggs in case she didn't want cereal, orange juice and bacon and white bread, sliced ham and cheese, chicken for barbecue, chocolate milk, carrots. “Did your daughter like carrots when she was little?” I asked Paul. “I don't remember,” he said. “I think so.” “All kids eat carrots,” I said, and put them in the shopping cart. “Ginger, don't worry so much,” he said. “Kids are simple. As long as you're nice to them and take care of them, they'll like you. Okay?”

I paced the asphalt. Other cars driven by middle-aged white people pulled into the lot. The problem was, I didn't know if I had everything good to give. Or even anything. “Yourself,” Paul had said, holding me one night. “The real self is the best thing anyone can give to anybody.” And I believed that. But I did not think it would be an easy thing to give.

Paul got out of the car. “Look,” he said. “They're here.” And there were the buses, two of them huffing into the yard. I thought, Act normal. The buses stopped; doors jerked open and rumpled, hot-looking adults poured out, intense smiles on their faces. Last names and numbers were shouted out. Kids jumped out of the buses, some of them blinking eagerly in the sunlight, some looking down like they were embarrassed or scared. And then there was this little beauty. Her round head was too big for her skinny body, and her long kinky hair made it seem even bigger. But her skin was a rich brown; her lips were full, her cheekbones strong. She had a broad, gentle forehead, a broad nose, and enormous heavy-lashed eyes with intense brows. But it wasn't only or even mainly her features that made her beautiful; she had a purity of expression that stunned my heart.

I heard Paul's name. We came forward. The child turned her eyes fully on us. I had an impulse to cover my stunned heart with my hand, and a stronger impulse to touch the girl's face. “This is Velveteen Vargas,” said a nondescript someone with a smile in her voice. “Velveteen, this is Mr. and Mrs. Roberts.” She was ours!

The place they let us off at was a school, but empty, with trees around it. Like dreams I have about school sometimes, where it's deserted and I'm the only one there—or everybody's there, everything's normal, except that I'm invisible. When I got off the bus, this smiling lady was standing there. Her hair was white-blond and her eyes were blue. There was a man there too, wearing shorts that showed the blond-hairiest legs I ever saw. But it was her I looked at most. She didn't look like the lady in the booklet at all. She was wearing white pants and a white top with sparkles on it. She was smiling, but something else in her face was almost crying. It was okay though. I don't know why. I smiled back. She smiled like she was seeing heaven. I got shy and looked down.

“Velveteen,” she said. “That's a pretty name.”

“Velvet,” I said. “That's what people call me.”

They said they were Ginger and Paul. They took me to their car. We drove past lots of houses with flowers and bushes in front of them. In the city when the sky is bright it makes everything harder on the edges; here everything was soft and shiny too, like a picture book of Easter eggs and rabbits I read in third grade when I was sick on the nurse's station cot. I loved that book so much I stole it from the nurse's station, and the next time I was sick I took it out and looked at it and it made me feel better even though by then I was too old for it. I don't have it anymore; probably my mom threw it out when we moved.

The man turned around in the driver's seat and asked me if I liked school. I said, “Yes.” The lady turned around, smiling with no crying anywhere now. She said, “Really, you like school? I didn't think anybody actually liked school. I hated school!” She smiled like this lady in a movie I saw about a girl who everybody realizes is actually a princess. The girl gets discovered, and this lady with blond hair and blue eyes takes her into a room where all her jewels are waiting. The girl tries on her jewels while the lady smiles.

I said, “I like school because I see my friends there.”

“What about the work?” asked the man.

“I like it because I get all 3's and 4's.”

“Is that A's and B's?”

“Four means you're perfect, 3 means you're good, 2 means not good—1, you got nothing.”

“That's great you get 3's and 4's,” said the lady, and she smiled like she'd put a crown on my head.

The smile was nice, but it was starting to be creepy too. Because she was smiling like she knew me and she did not. But my face kept smiling back.

“Did Ginger tell you we have horses right next door?” said the man. “A stable?”

“Yes,” I said. And then we pulled into the driveway of a red house with a big spread-out tree in front. I was surprised. It did not look like the house of rich people.

Inside it wasn't rich either. It wasn't even as clean as our house—there were papers and books on the floor, and clothes hanging on chairs. The floor was painted a big white and blue diamond pattern and there were pictures on the walls of cartoon animals and a devil smoking a cigarette. There was a deep-blue bowl on the table with apples and oranges in it. The dining room window had curtains that were blue on one side and bright purple on the other. The bowl was my favorite; I sat down and touched the shining side of it.

“Are you hungry?” said the lady.

I was, but I was too embarrassed to eat something like an apple or an orange that you tear apart, so I said no.

“Do you want some cookies?”

I did, but I didn't want her to think I was the kind of pig who starting eating first thing, so I said, “Can I see my room?”

They both came up to show it to me, the man carrying my suitcase. It was a little room, with a pink cover on the bed and a painting of a sleeping girl hanging on the wall over it. I decided I liked this house; it was so quiet, but all the pictures and bright things made it seem like something fun was happening invisibly. I thought about my mom; I wished she could be here. Then the lady said, “Do you want to call your mom?” And I started liking her.

She was so beautiful, so solid in her body, but so shy in the way she took things. I felt excited and scared about how to act—I couldn't even respond properly to my own family, so how could I take care of a needy child from another culture? It was a cliché to think that way, but I could feel her difference. At the same time, I could feel her child's goodness, her willingness to help us, and that was more compelling. We gave her privacy to talk to her mother and when we got downstairs, I whispered to Paul, “What do you think?”

“She's a sweetheart,” he said. “It's going to be fine.”

She came downstairs almost immediately. Her face was sad, and the shift of emotion was profound—for a moment I thought something terrible had happened. But she just said her mom wasn't home. I got her to eat some cookies, and asked her what she wanted to do. I said we could go to see the town or to the lake or the bowling alley or for a walk around the neighborhood. Or we could walk over and visit the horses in the stables across the road from us. “The horses,” she said, some cookie in her mouth. “We could see the horses?”

I said we could go to the horses, but I didn't really care. I just said that because I knew they were close—I
did
want to see horses, but I didn't feel like it right then. Because my mom was gone when I called and I felt alone, like she was
really
gone, and I was stuck here with a devil on the wall and nice people who didn't have anything to do with me.

But I went with the lady, Ginger. She talked about something, I don't know what. I was trying to count the hours in the days I had left and trying to subtract how much time I'd been there, starting from the bus. We passed through a gate with a sign that said “Wildwood”; suddenly there was too much space around us—green and green and green with some little fences and in the distance a big building with a giant hole for a door. I wanted to reach for Ginger's hand, and that made me mad at myself because I was too old for that. Then she said, “They give riding lessons for kids here. That's something we could do if you want to.”

I didn't say anything.

And then we came to the building with the giant door.

“Here's the stable,” said Ginger.

It looked scary from the distance, but inside it was not. It was dark and warm. It was all wooden. The smell of it was deep. You could feel it, like it was breathing all around you, but it wasn't scary, it was the opposite. And there was a horse, looking at me from an opening in his cage. A sign over him said “Graylie,” and there were pictures and a dirty red teddy bear next to his face. And then there was another one and another one: “Diamond Chip Jim” (he had a purple fish toy and a bunch of fake flowers); “Blue Boy” (he had a bunch of plastic bottles); “Baby” (she had a doll); “Officer Murphy” (he had a bunch of stuff written on some papers and a blue ribbon); “Little Tina” (she didn't have nothin'). There were some people too, walking around, but I didn't notice them. The horses were all looking at me and Ginger, and some of them were saying things:
Who are you? Come over here! Have you got something for me? I'm lonely. Don't bother me!

“Do you like them?” asked Ginger.

I said, “Yes,” and then, “Can I touch them?”

“Yes, but be careful. Some of them can bite.”

I went up to one named Rocki. He was cream-colored with a short mane and a black stripe down the center of it. He was beautiful but with sad, hurt eyes. He didn't have any pictures or toys. I put my hand out to him. He let me touch his nose and his strong neck.

Ginger said, “Hi, Pat.” I turned and saw a round woman with a red face and blond-gray hair sticking out everywhere. She was wearing old beat-up clothes and she was pushing a big wooden wheelbarrow like I'd seen in books about farm life; it was full of wet dirt and bits of straw. “I just brought the young lady over to see the horses.”

“Hello, young lady,” said the woman. It was funny, the way she looked at me; she looked past me, but still it felt like she was looking right at me. It was like her eyes were on the sides of her head. Like the horses. “What's your name?”

Her face was nice but her voice was strong, like she might beat your ass, so my answer came out like a whisper.

“Nice to meet you,” said Pat. “I see you met Rocki. He's a good guy.”

I wanted to ask her why he was so sad, but I just looked down instead.

“Look around all you want, just pay attention to the signs.” She picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow again and began walking the other way.

“Is she the one that gives the lessons?” I whispered to Ginger.

“Yeah.” Ginger smiled down at me, and that crying thing moved through her face really fast. “Interested?”

I was confused by Ginger's face, by everything that was happening. But Pat was moving away and I suddenly felt like I had to talk or my chance would be gone. “Yes,” I whispered.

And so we went down to the other end of the stable so that Pat could check her appointment book. I walked slowly after them so I could look at the horses. I looked at the stable too; there was cool stuff in it: leather straps hanging everywhere, metal boxes, chains, helmets, saddles—everything was old and beat-up, but somehow that was what made it cool. It all looked like it had a
reason,
even the dirt and balls of hair and straw on the floor of the stable—even that somehow was right, and didn't seem like dirt.

Ginger and Pat were in an office somewhere off to the side when I saw a girl in one of the horse-cages by herself. It was open and the horse was gone and it looked like she was cleaning the cage with a fork. She was a white girl, thin but strong-looking, with long shiny brown hair and a chin that reminded me of a pit bull. When she looked up and saw me, she didn't say anything and neither did I. She just looked, then went back to what she was doing.

And then two other white girls came in from a hallway I didn't notice. One of them had a boy-face and hair that was half blue, half purple; the other was regular. They were leading a huge horse and talking loud, like they thought they were hot. When they saw me they stopped and stared. Suddenly there was this loud, mad-pissed-off banging, and I heard a horse making angry
wanting
noises. The other horses answered like,
We hear!
The boy-girl yelled, “Shut up, Fugly Girl!” And the other said to me, “We don't mean you.” And the boy-girl laughed.

I walked away from them toward the office. One of the girls muttered, “Sorry.” The banging got louder. And then I saw where it was coming from. There was a gold-brown horse kicking and
biting
the hell out of her cage. Her eyes were rolling in her head and you could see the white around them. But she was the best one so far, not the most beautiful, the
best.
There were no ribbons or toys or even a name on her cage, just a sign that read “Do Not Touch.” I came close to her and she looked at me. That's when I saw the scars on her face, straight, deep scars around her nose and eyes. She turned her head all the way to one side and then the other. I thought, Your scars are like the thorns on Jesus's heart. She stopped biting and kicking. I could see her think in the dark part of her eye. The white part got softer. The girls behind me went quiet. The wonderful horse came up to me. I put my hand out to her. She touched it with her mouth. I whispered, “You are not fugly.”

“Hey, can't you read?” the boy-face girl yelled at me. “That horse is dangerous, get away from it!”

“She's only dangerous if she doesn't like you,” said Pat. I turned and saw her and Ginger coming out of the office. Pat came up to the horse and rubbed her on the nose. “The trouble is, she doesn't like anybody except me—and sometimes she doesn't like me.” Pat looked at me, straight on this time. “So I've got a slot open tomorrow. Does that work for you?”