“Yes, that body awareness, it’s part of everything,” said the beautiful dancer. “It translates into every single aspect—”
It was lovely conversation; its loveliness was so shaped and perfect that I could not touch it. Probably there was soft feeling inside, but the outward expression was so shaped and perfect that I could not feel it. It was so shaped and perfect that it hurt, and I thought I must be very ugly to be hurt by something so lovely. I wondered what Velvet felt. Did it hurt her too? She was standing there like her mother: alone in her tank, looking like a fighter when there is no fight—or at least no fight she could understand.
“She has really blossomed in tap, the way she moves! It is so different from ballet, she’s so serious in ballet! In tap it’s like she becomes a runway model; she vogues! It’s dazzling, her personality comes out in such an inventive way!”
“Velvet rides,” I said. “She handles a very difficult horse that nobody else can manage.”
“Oh!” said the dance instructor. “So then you know what we mean about body awareness!”
Willed goodness showed in every muscle of the woman’s smiling face. Velvet looked at her and said nothing. I looked for Paul. I did not see him or the woman he’d been talking to.
“How has riding affected the other parts of your life?” said the dancer.
Velvet dropped her eyes. “Ahh dunno.” Her words said, I’m too stupid to say; her tone said, Your question is too stupid to answer.
I looked for Paul again and still did not see him. Or the redhead.
Velvet
On the day after the party, Ginger and Paul took me to the county fair. It was so hot the air was fat and you could smell everything, not just the people and the food but the greasy machines that made the rides go. Paul’s forehead looked like one thick wrinkle melting into the other and Ginger was sweating herself practically invisible. People were still eating warm food and ice cream that dripped down them, and throwing balls or shooting plastic guns to win toys. There was this one guy shooting at worn-out green balloons; I even remember his hot eyes and purple pimples and his shirt wet under his arms, the way he glared through his sweat and shot like he was in hell and had to do it forever. We were there to see girls racing horses around barrels and boys on bulls, but I just kept thinking about Paul standing with that red-haired woman and then they went down a hall and I didn’t see them no more.
People were waiting for the barrel race on bleachers, eating and talking while music played like teeth biting at the air. Paul and Ginger sat like they were drawn in pencil; the other people on the bleachers ate and yelled and moved like they were drawn with big pens and colored in. The night before, when we got home, I expected to hear fighting—I even listened for it. But there was nothin’. I didn’t get it; Ginger had to see him with her. Then a fat-assed silky voice came on the loudspeaker to make us stand up and say the Pledge of Allegiance and sing that song nobody knows and then shit happened: The bulls in deep pens banged around and this boy I’m sure was Mexican straddled the wall and looked up at the crowd like he wanted somebody to look back at him. Music came on, that song with stamping feet: “We Will Rock You.” People shouted and a bull ran out with a boy on it, one arm holding, the other waving, the bull’s head down, its legs mad-dancing its back up into a fist that right away punched the boy on the ground, running for the fence as soon as he hit, the bull chasing, but not really, it was like they were friends, clowns came out and pretended to bother the bull, and the bull pretended to care. The fat-ass speaker voice said these brave riders could take a cash prize back to their families in Mexico or Texas, but when the Mexican boy came playing sharp-dressed man, and he stayed on longer than anybody, they said he couldn’t win the prize even though he didn’t even get punched off, he jumped off and grabbed the fence.
“That’s why,” said Paul. “I think that’s why. He took advantage of the fence.”
If I could see it happening between him and Redhead, probably everybody saw it. Maybe that’s why those women didn’t respect Ginger. The ones that talked to us first.
Girls came out in flowered blouses and cowboy hats, on horses with huge muscles. I saw that one of them was Beth. I remembered how when I first saw her, I thought she had a chin like a pit bull’s—her chin had basically taken over, and on her horse she was like the biggest bitch in the world. Woman-music came on and she paraded in a circle with the others while Ass-Voice said how pretty they were. That body awareness translates into every aspect—
And Ginger had to know—she had to—but instead of being mad at Paul, she was mad at the women that talked to us, the nice ones. On the way home from the party, she was telling Paul what a bitch the dancer lady was, and then he was annoyed at her.
Beth and her horse ran around barrels nearly sideways and sprayed dirt, the horse’s eyes cold-hard and its legs crazy, and I was glad when her leg flew out and smacked the barrel and then her hat fell off.
Ginger said, “Do you think you’d like to do that?” I said, “No,” and she said, “Why not?” I said, “I just don’t.” And then I said, “Remember that lady that said I could come to the other barn? Could I do that?”
Ginger didn’t answer, but Paul did. He said, “I think that’s a good idea. It would be interesting to see what another barn is like.”
I looked at Ginger to see if she heard that like I did—but then everybody went “Wahhhh!” and I saw this bull was going to kill a boy for real. He was running for his life while his goofy music played Bored! Born! Bored! and he barely got over the fence—Born to be alive!—before the bull slammed its horns into the wall just under the boy’s butt, then went after the clowns. I said, “Damn!” and Ginger and Paul both smiled at me. The bull got tired and decided to go back into the pit.
Then out of nowhere, I heard Shawn’s voice, like really heard it, like in my ear, saying, Lil’ Orphan Annie. Which did make some sense because I felt alone.
Ginger
She didn’t call me when she got home that night and when I called her she didn’t really want to talk. She sounded happy to hear from me, but she was quiet. She didn’t respond when I mentioned coming to ride on the weekend.
When I called her the following week, her mother talked harshly at me and then handed the phone to her brother. He said, “She’s asleep”; he said it the same way Velvet said “Ahh dunno” at the faculty party. There was cartoon noise in the background; I pictured him in the dark with a flashing television. “Can you ask her to call me when she wakes up?” “Sure,” he said. Then he put the phone down. He didn’t hang up, he just put it down. I thought maybe he was going to wake her right then so I stayed on the line. Cartoons talked, commercials flashed in the gaps, there was running water and Mrs. Vargas talking to someone somewhere in the jumbled distance. I thought it must be Velvet until I heard the boy answer. Still, I waited several minutes before hanging up.
Velvet
The night I came home I asked my mother why I never heard from my father. Why he sent money and birthday cards, but only sometimes, and only to Dante, not me. Even though people say mothers love their sons more, but fathers love their daughters more. At least that’s what Mrs. Vasquez from our old building said when I told her my mom liked Dante better than me. I didn’t get into that with my mom, though. I just asked why I didn’t hear from him. She said, “Sit down. I’m going to tell you something.” I sat down. She said, “The man you call your father isn’t your father. He’s Dante’s father, but not yours.” I said, “But I called him Papi and he answered.” She said, “I asked him to do that.”
I said, “But he gave me the shells.”
“No he didn’t. I did. I found them on the beach at Providence while I was pregnant with you. I kept it for you.”
I couldn’t talk anymore. She came to me and put her arms around me. My head went against her; she smelled to me like she used to, like safety. My body trembled, but I didn’t cry. It felt too bad for that. She said, “I’m sorry. But you are old enough to
know the truth. I haven’t seen your father since I left DR. He said he would come for me, but he didn’t. Now you know what I mean when I say ‘bad blood.’ ”
I moved away from her and her arms came off me. I stood up. “Just because he didn’t come for you doesn’t mean I’m bad.”
She looked like she was going to slap me, but she didn’t. She looked like I slapped her; she even put her hand to her face. I was going to say I was sorry, but then she said, “Something else you need to know. I lost my job and I need to rent your room out. When I do, you’ll have to sleep on the couch.”
Ginger
I called again the first week of school and nobody answered the phone. But the next day a teacher from Velvet’s school called me. She wanted me to know that Velvet had turned in a beautiful paper about a horse; she said it was probably the most beautiful paper she’d ever seen from a student. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to call me, but she knew it would really matter to me, and she wanted to tell me. I said, “How did Velvet react when you told her?” “I haven’t yet,” said the woman. “Velvet hasn’t been in school all week and I can’t get her mother on the phone. Do you know what’s going on?”
Velvet
My first week at school they beat a old man and made him crawl on glass. If I said that to Ginger she would say, “ ‘They’? Who is ‘they’? Be specific.” And I would be thinking, What difference does it make? They beat a old man. Anyway, I didn’t know who they were; they were kids in my school a few grades above me.
But I saw them doing it. It was the morning before the school opened. Most kids stand by the door waiting to go in, but I walked away from them that day because I was missing my horse and also thinking about what my mom told me, and how she looked at me when I said I wasn’t bad just because my father didn’t want her. Or me. I walked to the side of the school and I saw these older kids in the back, way at the end of the basketball court, crowding around. Even from far away it looked like something bad. But I mind my own business, and anyway the doors were open and my homeroom teacher, Mr. Stamford, was yelling at me.
They next day the homeroom teachers yelled at all of us. They used words like vicious and decency. They said the old man was small and crazy and the boys said they would burn him and made him crawl on the glass while they kicked him; Mr. Stamford yelled about jail. Teachers have been yelling at us about jail since first grade, so somebody just said something funny in the back and people laughed. “That could’ve been your father or your grandfather!” yelled Mr. Stamford. But it couldn’t. Not mine. I didn’t have a father or grandfather anymore.
Ginger
I finally got her on the phone. I told her how proud I was that she turned in her essay. I asked her what the teacher said to her about it. She said, “Nothin’.” I said, “What do you mean? How could she tell me it was great and tell you nothing?” She said, “Ahh dunno” and then, abruptly, asked me if I could get her into a better school. How could I do that? I asked. What kind of school? She said, This girl Marisol is going to Catholic school next year. “What kind of grades does Marisol get?” I asked, and she snapped at me. “If you can get your grades up, I’ll talk to Paul about it,” I said without hope. “And then we can talk to your mother.”
She didn’t even mention her horse.
Velvet
After school I walked around looking for Dominic. I went to the block where I first met him with Strawberry and walked around it, like, three times. These little kids were staring the crap out of me. I kept my hand on my cell, hoping he might call, even though how could he? I never gave him my number.
I kept thinking, What would he do? I knew he wouldn’t kick a old man, but would he just walk away or would he try to stop them? What would it be like to crawl on the ground while people kicked you? What would it be like to kick somebody like that, with everybody else doing it too? I went back to the school and went to look at the place. There was still glass on the ground and something that was maybe blood. I felt, but not a normal feeling that you can say what it is. It didn’t come from inside me, it came to me, like a echo, far away, but from everywhere. Except I didn’t hear it, I felt it on my skin and in my body.
What Shawn said, that Ginger could be nice because people like her got other people to do the violence for them; I didn’t understand what he meant, but it felt true. Ginger in the car, talking to me about Fiery Girl loving me and the thing she could only hear by herself—that was true too. I knew because now I was hearing it.
Paul
When Ginger mentioned sending Velvet to Catholic school I said, “We can’t take that on; it’s too much.” She said she thought something bad was happening at the school, that Velvet was acting strange. I said bad things are always happening at school at that age; bad things will happen at Catholic school too; we can’t protect her from her life. She pushed and I blew up. I didn’t say anything I hadn’t said before, but my voice was more angry than my words and I could see her shut down inside. She didn’t storm out of the room, she just got quiet and looked away. I knew I should put my arms around her, or at least touch her; if I’d done that, it would’ve been all right. But I couldn’t. Polly had broken with me just hours before. She’d gotten her degree and she was going away.
Velvet
The truth of Shawn and the truth of Ginger were both real, but I couldn’t be in them at the same time. I wanted to talk to Shawn about it, because he was the only one who might understand. So I called him. But he didn’t call back. He blew up my phone all spring, but I never called him back. Now he didn’t pick up the phone at all.
Ginger
I told her we couldn’t do Catholic school because we couldn’t afford it. She was quiet and then said, “I understand.” I don’t remember what we talked about then, just that she kept stopping to scream at her brother, who was screaming at her. I asked when she wanted to come ride. She said she didn’t know, she needed to help her mother at home. Her mother didn’t have her job anymore and they needed to get the house clean so that they could get a boarder.
I wanted to talk to Paul and I couldn’t. I couldn’t even feel him when I lay next to him that night, except distantly, like something chaotic happening somewhere far away from me.
Paul
They say that your partner always knows when you “cheat,” even if it’s unconscious knowledge. But I don’t think Ginger did. She was too focused on that damn kid. It was almost insulting.
Velvet
Shawn never answered, so I thought his phone got lost or stole. I went to his house. I knocked at the door for a long time and his grandma finally came. Her face was deep, her eyes were so deep I was scared to look at them. I saw she didn’t remember who I was and, looking at her face, I didn’t want to say.
“What you want, girl?”
“Is Shawn home?”
Her eyes remembered me; they remembered and they hurt. I said, “When will he be back?”
She said, “Baby, Shawn’s dead. You didn’t know? They shot him.”
Music played from cars driving by; supersonic, hypnotic, funky fresh. A chill went through me. This beat flows right through my chest. I said, “Who shot him? Why?”
“There is no ‘why.’ He was with a boy had a beef with some other boys. He was just there. That’s what they told me.”
I said, “Sorry,” but it didn’t come out. Still, she heard.
“It’s not your fault, baby,” she said. “Thanks for comin’ by. Now you go home.” She started to close the door.
I said, “When was it?”
“Fifteen days ago. Saturday before last.”
Saturday before last: that was the day of the county fair, when I heard Shawn in my head saying “lil’ Orphan Annie.”
Real soft she said, “You look older than you are, don’t you? You probably no more than fourteen years old.”
“I’m thirteen.”
“Thirteen,” she said, shaking her head. “Thirteen.” She closed the door.
I went away fro
m the house and sat on some steps a few doors down. Music still played from cars, different songs crossing each other. I tried to hear the song that played when I met Shawn. But it was gone. People walked by. I touched my face with my hand; my skin felt thick and numb.
I thought: I want my mare. I want to put my arms around her neck and feel her feeling me.
I didn’t have Pat’s number, so I called Ginger. She wasn’t there and Paul didn’t answer either. I called twice and then I called Ginger’s cell. She didn’t pick up. Lil’ Orphan Annie.
The Mare Page 24