Wild Girl

by Patricia Reilly Giff

  “I don’t need math,” I said, my mouth full. “Thank you. I really know—”

  “Can you divide?” he asked. It was as if I hadn’t spoken.

  I didn’t answer. All I could think of was that terrible morning in school.

  “So,” he said, “if you were to divide seventy-two by twelve—”

  “Six. Mrs. Figueiredo gave me the class medal for math last year.”

  He began with other numbers then, easy enough for a baby. What was the matter with everyone? I didn’t want to listen.

  I opened the window of the truck to a blast of wind, shutting out the sound of his voice. Papers and the sandwich wrappers flew over the seats. Rafael scrambled for them, then reached over me to close the window again.

  What had made me do that? Was I was turning into a girl who looked just like the one in my passport? I stared out the window, pretending I was back in Jales.

  Pai started the truck again as Rafael leaned forward to turn on the radio. The music was Brazilian, and Rafael hummed along with it. After a while, I could feel my muscles begin to unclench. I was almost ready to say I was sorry when we bumped to a stop.

  “This is the Bullington Farm,” the Horseman said, as if the ride had been pleasant and no one had thought about dividing twelves and sixes.

  The afternoon sun cast its light across a long red barn in a back field. Spread out in front of us were white fences and fields that that looked like pale green Titia Luisa quilts.

  We slid out of the truck, and the wind blew my hair across my face and into my eyes. Two men came from the house to greet us, cups of coffee steaming in their hands, and a woman with streaked hair pulled open the barn doors, smiling.

  She led us to a horse’s stall. “We brought her in from South Carolina a couple of weeks ago. She’s saddle broken and ready to go.”

  I stood there looking over the half door, caught by the filly’s beauty. She was the color of the sky in Jales just before it stormed, a wonderful wild mix of black and white and gray. This horse had been born in the warmth of the South last year and brought here to this cold world, just as I had.

  The horse turned to look at us—no, she looked at me. Her skin rippled, and then she moved uneasily as I stretched out my hand.

  Her great dark eyes should have been shining, but they seemed dull to me; no, not dull. She was sad.

  I drew in my breath. Wasn’t that the look I’d seen in Rafael’s eyes, even though he was always smiling, always laughing?

  I raised my hand to my face. Maybe I had that same look in my own eyes.

  I reached out again and managed to touch her this time. But touching her gleaming side wasn’t nearly enough. I wanted to put both my arms around her; I wanted to lean my head on her heavy mane. I couldn’t believe we were taking her home, that I’d see her every day….

  And ride her.

  Of course, I’d ride her.

  I had a picture of the two of us in Jales: going through the high grass of the fields, over the rocks, and splashing through the rio.

  “Shall we go to the other barn?” the woman was saying. “Don’t you want to show your daughter …”

  I followed them, looking back over my shoulder as the filly kicked at the stall wall.

  “What’s her name?” I asked the woman as I caught up with them.

  “Wild Girl,” she said.

  I had a sudden pain in my chest, remembering Mamãe. She’d been watching me dance to a samba on television in her bedroom. I must have been five or six, making it all up as I went along.

  My wild girl, she’d said.

  And this horse—Wild Girl, too.

  The Horseman stopped me just before we reached the doors of the red barn. “Lidie,” he said, “school will work out. I don’t want this moment spoiled—” He broke off. “This is for you. Rafael and I planned it. We’ve bought the perfect horse.”

  The woman swung back the heavy doors. Inside were several stalls, but all were empty except the one nearest to us.

  Looking over the half door was a bay, her color almost the same as the mud on the track yesterday. Her ears were pricked forward: she was happy to see us.

  I went closer and saw that she was swaybacked, her mane and forelocks sparse. Not a Thoroughbred, not a race horse, and ancient. Tio Paulo would have called her a backyard horse.

  “She’s yours, Lidie,” the Horseman said.

  I opened my mouth and closed it again. For a moment, laughter bubbled up inside my throat. This poor old horse for me.

  The Horseman was waiting to hear what I’d say. I clenched my hands as I tried to think of something. I knew this was meant to be a wonderful gift.

  “You can learn to ride on her,” Rafael said. “She’s safe, so safe….”

  “It’ll be like sitting on a rocking chair,” the woman said. “Perfect. She’s sixteen years old. She’s trained many riders.”

  They smiled as I went toward the stall. I opened the door and went inside, reaching up, feeling that soft muzzle, the bristly hairs on her chin, the veins that meandered along her flank like lines on a map.

  “I knew she’d be thrilled,” Rafael said. “This horse can live in the barn, and Lidie can take her out to the exercise track.”

  I rested my face against the horse’s neck, that horse with her dark teeth, her tired bones. Another ten pounds and I’d be too big for her.

  Ai, poor thing, I could almost hear Titia Luisa saying.

  “Her name is Love You,” the woman said.

  I ran my hand over the horse’s ears and finally found something to say. “I love you, too, horse.”

  Everyone laughed then as we led her outside to the van. But under my laughing, I wished Pai had said it to me.

  15

  NEW YORK

  There wasn’t much room in the van: hay to nibble on, water to drink, and a wall separating the filly from another horse. She could hardly see that horse, just her withers, a bit of her mane.

  It reminded the filly of something.

  Was it a field with sweet-smelling grass?

  Hadn’t there been other horses to run with?

  And warm. Hadn’t it been warm?

  She looked back and caught a glimpse of the other horse’s tail. It was long, thick.

  That reminded her of something, too.

  Was it running? Was it stretching her nose to reach the end of the field?

  Or was it a mare?

  She remembered something like that.

  Still, it was hard to think about anything but this cold world.

  16

  THE BARN

  On Sunday morning, the Horseman and Rafael sat at the kitchen table leaning over a piece of paper.

  Rafael looked up. “Pai’s giving me strategies for Doce’s race. I’ll be riding him.”

  I put myself in his place. How lucky to be riding that horse. To be racing. I leaned against the door, listening.

  “Doce’s a front runner.” Pai tapped his pencil on the paper. “He’s determined to be first, but sometimes he uses up his energy too quickly.”

  Rafael’s head was tilted; he was nodding.

  “You’ll have to hold him back. Stay behind the lead horse, maybe in third or fourth place until the stretch.” Pai looked at me. “That long, straight run before the finish.” His hands curled into fists. “Then let him out, let him go.”

  “Tio Paulo told me about horses like that,” I said. “In a short race you can give them their heads; in a longer race …”

  They turned to look at me. “Right, Lidie.” There was something in Pai’s eyes, something I liked to see. He was smiling. “Ai, Paulo. He was a great rider when he was young. Better than all of us.”

  I thought about home. Tio Paulo might be outside, bending over the dark earth, inspecting his pole beans; Titia Luisa would be in the kitchen, her cheeks pink from the oven …

  And what would I be doing?

  Riding.

  Racing Cavalo through the back roads, bringing up dust until I w
as coughing with it.

  I looked at the heads bent over the papers and took a breath. “Can he win?” I asked.

  They smiled at me, and Pai spread his hands wide. “Anything can happen in a race,” he said. “Anything. The day, the horse, the jockey, the post position. It all has to come together.”

  And Rafael: “We’ll draw for that post position before the race. Number one, next to the gate, would be a disaster for Doce. Everyone boxing us in, trying to get the lead against the rail. And just as bad would be way on the outside. We’d have to come all the way around the other horses….”

  “Seventh or eighth position,” I said, not even realizing for a moment I’d heard that from Tio. “Let the others get ahead, and come straight down …” My voice trailed off.

  Pai pushed back his chair. “Oh, Lidie. Yes.”

  And Rafael: “That’s my girl.”

  I thought of something else but was too shy to say it. We didn’t want rain; we didn’t want mud. We wanted a nice hard, dry, fast track. I grinned at them. “Is it all right if I walk to the barn?”

  “Fine,” the Horseman said, back to studying his notes.

  I went upstairs for my jacket and wrapped the bunny scarf around my neck so Rafael would be sure to see it. In the hall, I stopped to look at the painting of the chestnut horse and jockey. The painter had shown the horse’s powerful legs stretched out, dust swirling up under its hooves. The jockey’s arm was raised in victory.

  As I went back down the stairs, I could hear the Horseman saying, “And to find a way to perk up Wild Girl.”

  I thought about the filly, her beautiful color, her long legs. There was time. She wouldn’t race until she was two years old. Right now, I thought she might be lonesome. I knew how that was.

  Downstairs, I stopped to take a roll of peppermints I’d seen in the kitchen drawer and let myself out of the quiet house. Outside, it wasn’t as quiet: José was exercising Storm Cloud, whose hoofs pounded down the exercise track. A flock of crows cawed in the trees beyond the fence. I caught a glimpse of the orange cat, on her way somewhere, her tail high. She looked at me, then kept going.

  I went into the barn, first to see the old horse, Love You. She was contented in her stall, chewing on a clump of hay, her large jaws working as she turned to see me. I let myself inside and began to brush her, listening to the drip-drip-drip of the water in her pail.

  She was a lovely old horse, and she could live here for many years, in a stable where there was plenty to eat and cool water to drink and other horses to see. Her stall was warm and the golden hay under her feet was fresh.

  Smiling a little, I pictured her leaning over her half door when all was quiet, having conversations with the other horses. Nice exercise this morning, she might say, or What did you think of breakfast?

  I thought again about what it would be like to go back to Jales, to fly across the field calling for Cavalo. I tried to brush the thought away as I brushed the dust from Love You’s flanks and lifted her hooves to be sure there were no pebbles caught in her shoes.

  I finished with the soft brush and gave her one of the peppermints from my pocket. Cavalo’s owner, the farmer, had taught me that horses loved them. Peppermints remind the horses of the fields with the smell of mint, the taste of the leaves, he’d said once.

  She chewed it with her thick yellow teeth, then nosed my hand for another one.

  “Just one more.” I gave it to her, leaving her stall with that minty smell behind me.

  At last I went down to the end, to Wild Girl’s stall. I walked fast; I was anxious to see her. Her eyes were half closed, when I wished she’d been leaning over her door, her ears pricked with curiosity.

  “A Sunday nap,” I said to her softly. “Did they exercise you this morning?”

  She turned to look at me. I opened her door and went inside slowly, a clean currycomb in one hand and a peppermint in the other.

  I knew she could smell the mint; I saw the curious look as she brought her head around.

  “Gotcha,” I said, and opened my hand, the candy on my palm.

  She thought about it; then I felt her muzzle on my hand as she took it.

  I started with the currycomb, moving in circles against her wonderful gray body, the veins underneath like the ripples of the rio at home.

  She began to relax, to move into the comb as I went. I sang “Nana, nenê”—”Sleep, baby”—and the water dripped into her bucket as a pale sun came in the window behind us.

  And suddenly I was talking to her, really talking, not just horse talk or baby talk. “Here’s everything,” I told her. “I tried not to think of how much I wanted a family, not just to hang out at Titia Luisa and Tio Paulo’s. I wanted the Pai who had held me up to the lemon tree. I wanted to belong.” I was surprised at myself. I’d never really thought it all out before. “But I don’t feel as if this is really a family.”

  I didn’t want to think about Pai and the lemon tree now. I leaned against her. “Oh, Wild Girl,” I said, “even if I don’t belong here in America, you do.”

  I was silent then, and Wild Girl turned her head, looking at me.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out another peppermint.

  “I love the way your eyes look,” I said. “And I’d try to ride you, but can you imagine what Pai would say?”

  I told myself I didn’t care.

  I went to work on Wild Girl’s mane, and then I couldn’t help myself. I stood on a box and held on to that mane as I tossed myself up on her broad back.

  I put my head down on her neck and crooned to her, crooned to myself.

  It was something, not everything, but the happiest moment I’d had since I’d come here to New York.

  17

  THE BARN

  The filly felt the taste of the strange food in her mouth long after she’d swallowed. It was a good taste, the taste of a field on a summer day.

  One of the creatures had come into her space. The noises it made were soft. It had brushed her side until her skin rippled with its good feeling.

  And when the creature had climbed up on her, the filly had barely felt its weight, just its warmth.

  It was something….

  It wasn’t like being in the field with other horses, but still …

  Something.

  18

  THE EXERCISE TRACK

  I stopped to e-mail Tio Paulo. I told him that America was wonderful and school was exciting. I didn’t feel one bit guilty, even though exciting wasn’t exactly the right word. Besides, Tio was the one who was always said how great it would be in America.

  Then I went up to sit on the bedroom floor, leaning against the baby-pink wall.

  “Lidie?” Rafael called, rapping on the door.

  I couldn’t open it. How could I let him see that Snow White and those seven dwarfs were mostly covered with pictures of horses? It looked as if Big Brown were dangling from Snow White’s dainty fingers.

  “I’ll be right down.”

  “Never mind right down,” he said. “How about timing me on Doce?”

  “Why not?” I opened the door just far enough to squeeze through and followed Rafael downstairs and outside along the path.

  He took my arm and began to talk about school.

  I didn’t want to hear any of it.

  “When I first came,” he said, “I knew about three words of English, and none of them were any use. Everyone laughed. I couldn’t even find the bathroom.”

  I didn’t look at him. But I told myself there was no way that he knew what had happened to me.

  “Then I began to pick up words. I didn’t even know where they came from.” He glanced at me. “And some of the kids thought it was cool that I could speak another language.”

  I didn’t answer, but he knew I was thinking about it.

  At the barn, he glanced at his watch. “Want a riding lesson on Love You before you time me?”

  I shook my head. The first time he saw me ride, it wouldn’t be on Love You. It
would be on a fast horse, a Thoroughbred. It would be Wild Girl.

  I heard him say something about not being afraid as he strapped on his helmet and saddled Doce.

  He handed me the stopwatch as I followed them along to the exercise track. The orange cat sat next to the gate, and I saw she had six toes on each of her front paws. I reached out slowly and ran my hand over her rough back.

  Rafael brought Doce around the track once; they went slowly, almost meandering. They came toward me then. He waved, and they began!

  As they galloped by, the sudden wind blew against my face, and the sound of Doce’s hooves vibrated in my chest.

  I could almost feel myself on the horse, sensing the movement with my arms and legs, Doce’s mane flying, the sound of his breathing, the feel of my own breathing. He was faster than Cavalo, much faster.

  Rafael had more grace than I would have imagined. He was almost one with the horse. It was thrilling to watch as he guided the horse close to the rail, and I forgot the stopwatch, forgot that I was supposed to be timing him.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off him. The orange cat came up to me, and I picked her up and began to work out a burr behind her ears with my fingers.

  The way Rafael rode reminded me of the painting in the hall: the horse’s legs extended, the dust in swirls under his feet. For the first time, I realized that the horse in the painting was actually Doce, and Rafael was the jockey. Had Rafael painted it? Had Rafael painted the other pictures, too? The one in the living room and the one in the barn of Native Dancer?

  Rafael turned Doce, trotting back toward me, and saw my face. “You were wonderful, really fast,” I said. I looked down at the stopwatch. “Sorry, I forgot…”

  He raised one shoulder helplessly, and of course, he laughed.

  “You were fast. So fast.” I thought of Tio Paulo. “You were born to ride.”

  His face changed, and I saw the look in his eyes. Was it a sad look? Maybe he was worried about his race coming up? His first race. Maybe he was worried about losing, and what Pai might say.

  But I forgot about that as I watched him grooming Doce back in the barn, still talking about school and how wonderful it would be for me.