Wild Girl

by Patricia Reilly Giff

  She shrugged. “Sure,” she said, and moved down the aisle toward the end stall. I didn’t look after her. I went inside, leaning against the wall to catch my breath. Then I realized I didn’t even have the saddle.

  I poked my head out the stall door, but the girl was gone, and no one else was paying attention to me. I went into the tack room, brought out what I needed to ride, and was back a moment later.

  I reached for the peppermints in my pocket and fed one to Wild Girl and one to myself. “Remember me?” I asked her, touching that soft muzzle. “The girl with the candy?”

  I put another peppermint on the ledge, and she reached for it. I buckled on a helmet, then saddled her, my hands remembering doing this so many times in Jales.

  “A good taste, right?” I whispered. “I have more, and I can get tons of them. What do you say? Friends?”

  She chewed with thick teeth, then curled her large tongue over them, watching me.

  I reached out to her, raising my hand to run it over her neck, her silky skin rippling under my fingers. I leaned my head against her. “I haven’t ridden in so long,” I said. “Let me ride you. Let me pretend that you’re Cavalo and we’re home in Jales and heading across the field.”

  I pushed the stall door open with one hand and held the lead with the other. We walked along the aisle toward the high, open double doors in the back.

  Wild Girl’s head went up as she sniffed the outside air, and I smelled it, too. Spring! A slight mist was rising above the ground in wisps, and the overhead lights were still on. I could hear the faintest sound of music coming from the barn, and the clump of hooves on the oval. I pushed open the gate with my foot and clutched her black mane. Wild Girl never moved. She stood there quietly, her ears forward as if she was curious about me. She must have heard the sound of my breath, as I heard hers….

  Then I was up in the saddle, the fingers of one hand twisted in her wonderful wiry mane for a moment. I clicked my teeth, and it was as if we’d done this before, as if we’d done it a hundred times.

  Three horses were up ahead, and I could just about see the girl on Love You.

  Wild Girl started slowly along the track, and I let her lead me, let her decide. She came to a stop and looked around, almost as if we were in a field and not on that oval track.

  She began to move. “How fast do you want to go?” I asked. “I won’t hold you back.”

  Then she was galloping …

  And by the turn, we were flying.

  She was faster than Cavalo had ever been, faster than I could imagine. The wind was in my face, against my chest, my arms. The mist bathed my eyes, my cheeks.

  She passed the other horses easily but slowed up behind Love You, letting the old mare lead before she began to race again. Something flitted through my mind, but it was gone in a moment because I was shouting to the wind, “I love you, Wild Girl, love you, love you….”

  This horse was mine, and as long as I had her to ride, I was home.

  I turned my head slightly, glancing toward the fence. Pai stood there, his hands on his hips, but we were going fast enough that I couldn’t get a clear look at his face.

  But I could imagine what he was thinking.

  It was too bad I couldn’t jump the fence with Wild Girl and just keep going.

  Keep going forever.

  28

  THE BARN

  Running.

  Sweat cooling her back, her sides, sweat on her muzzle, a good feeling.

  Water cascading over her, cleaning her, cooling her further.

  The creature with the food, with the soft voice, in front of her.

  But something else.

  Something she had looked for all this time.

  A mare.

  A mare with a long tail running just in front of her.

  A memory.

  29

  THE BEACH

  Pai stood there, hands on his hips, watching me as I washed down Wild Girl. Instead of looking back at him, I tried to concentrate on the soapy rivers that ran down the horse’s sides and legs.

  Around us the barn was alive: pails were banging, José was turning up forkfuls of fresh-smelling hay, and Rafael was singing. I tried to concentrate on those noises, tried to keep my head close to Wild Girl.

  I had about ten minutes to get out of there and get to school on time. How was I going to do that?

  Quickly I rubbed Wild Girl down with soft dry cloths; I made sure there was plenty of mash in her pail. I felt a quick burst of happiness, thinking about our ride: a fast ride on a horse I loved, a horse that, like me, had come from far away. I wasn’t one bit sorry about what I had done, no matter what Pai would say.

  I reached for my backpack, grabbed my jacket off the hook, and hesitated. There was something I should have remembered about that run. What was it?

  But Pai blocked my way.

  “I have to go to school,” I said.

  “Maybe you could miss this one day.”

  I looked at him, shocked, then nodded uncertainly. I followed him around the side of the house toward the truck. The big house was in front of us, and Mrs. Januário had opened her window. “Great ride,” she called, waving down at me.

  Pai muttered something under his breath, then opened the truck door. We pulled out onto the avenue, both of us silent. I was determined not to talk, but I was so curious about where we were going, it was hard not to ask.

  Then he spoke. “Meadowbrook Parkway will take us to Jones Beach.”

  “A beach?” I said, in spite of myself. “It’s only spring.”

  “Ai.” He glanced at me. “You’re just like my brother, Paulo.”

  I sputtered. “Look to yourself.”

  “We’re all alike.” He smiled a little. “But that’s not such a bad thing.”

  I shook my head. He was wrong, of course. I wasn’t a bit like either of them. Again we were silent. I found my fingers going to my upper lip, a thing Pai and Tio did. I pulled my hand away and leaned my forehead against the window.

  Marshes stretched out on each side of us now, their beige and gray somehow soothing. Birds flew up, one after another, dark against the sky. And in the distance was a water tower, tall and pointed, that appeared and disappeared as the truck curved around the parkway.

  Then, spread out before us, was the sand, a carpet leading to water that stretched out forever. Waves curled over on themselves, sending geysers of spray into the air.

  “The ocean,” I whispered.

  Pai nodded; then he parked the truck. We walked toward the water on sand that blew up miniature whirlwinds in front of us.

  Seagulls followed, heads back, beaks open, screeching. I pictured Mamãe walking with us, her long hair blowing away from her face.

  The Horseman pointed, and we went up on a boardwalk to tables in front of a cafeteria. “We’ll have clam chowder,” he said, “a warm soup on this cool day.”

  I sat on a bench out of the wind and waited while he went inside to get the soup, my face in the sun, listening to the crash of the waves. I couldn’t get enough of the sea.

  When the soup came, I couldn’t get enough of that, either. It was hot and salty, and I felt it going all the way down.

  “I have so much to say to you, Lidie,” the Horseman said after a while.

  Was he going to send me back to Jales? Now that I didn’t want to leave Rafael, or school, or Wild Girl?

  I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. Did I want to leave him?

  “Maybe we’ll begin with Paulo,” the Horseman said.

  “Paulo?”

  He reached into his pocket for a folded paper. “This letter came the other day; usually we just e-mail, a quick bit of this or that. Most of it is about horses, and the track, but this part is about you.”

  I took the letter from him, and he leaned over, his finger running along the words he wanted me to see: “She looks like her mother, but she acts like us. Have you seen her ride yet? She rides like no one I’ve ever seen. She’s tough
and strong, that girl, and as difficult as we are. I miss her. I wish I could be the one to show her the sea.”

  Now I was crying. Crying again. What was the matter with me? And the shock of it, seeing that Pai had tears in his eyes, too.

  “Paulo was right,” he said, and I waited for him to say You were born to ride. But instead, he sighed. “You are difficult.”

  I blurted out, “I’m not the difficult one.”

  “Really? You paid no attention to the room Rafael took days to paint. You ran away from school. You brought in a miserable stray cat that managed to spook a horse and cause an uproar in the barn. And this morning, without asking—”

  “I—I don’t pay attention to my brother?” I cut in, stuttering a little. “He’s going through a terrible time. He’s too big to ride. Do you know that? Did you help him with that? He’s so worried—” I broke off; I’d said more than Rafael would have wanted me to say.

  I took a breath. “There’s no talking in our house, no dogs barking, no cats, no birds singing, no laughing….” I couldn’t look at him. “There’s nothing but silence in that house.” I frowned. “Except for Rafael.”

  He nodded slowly. “That’s true; I find it hard to say what’s on my mind. But Rafael…”

  “Yes, Rafael,” I said.

  He sighed. “I’ve been waiting for him to discover what he wants to do with himself. It can’t be riding, I know that. But there are so many things he might do. There’s his painting. Have you noticed the painting in the living room, the one in the hall…?”

  So Rafael had painted them. “Beautiful.”

  “Maybe that will be what he’ll do,” Pai said, “but I don’t think so. He’s a fine student. I think he’ll go to college, and become a veterinarian.”

  Where did that come from? Then I remembered Rafael out on the track taking care of Storm Cloud after that spill. I nodded. “Yes, I can see that.”

  Pai nodded. “But he’s the one who has to see it.”

  My tears had stopped, but they were still as salty on my lips as the chowder. I tore open a pack of small crackers that had come with the soup and began to throw them, one by one, to a circle of hungry seagulls on the boardwalk.

  Before I could think further, I felt his hand over mine. “Do you think I wanted to leave you? Rafael was older. I was taking him to an apartment that had one room. I had almost no money….”

  Two seagulls swooped down in front of me, and then two more.

  “In a few minutes you’ll have an army of gulls waiting to be fed.” He pushed his pack of crackers toward me.

  I opened the bag with my teeth. In front of me was a speckled gull with a curved yellow beak. I tossed the first cracker to him.

  “When Mrs. Januário asked me to be her trainer, I knew a house went with it. I knew I could send for you,” he said. “Rafael and I stood in front of that house, arms around each other. ‘Lidie,’ we said at the same moment. It was what we longed for all these years.”

  Salt was on my tongue, on my lips. I wasn’t sure if it was from the crackers, or my tears, or the sea air.

  “Before this, I saved, training horses, working early, working late, and Rafael, too. He went to school and exercised horses part-time. We managed to buy Doce, then every cent went into the bank so we could bring you here. There wasn’t even enough money to go back to Jales more than once. But the house! It meant we could have you, and even buy the two horses.”

  Years of saving every cent, as I sat on the porch waiting. I heard the sound of my crying again over the birds; I felt his love for me for the first time since I came.

  “About the horse,” he said. “About Wild Girl. When I heard her name, when I heard she was for sale, I couldn’t resist.” He shook his head. “It’s what Mamãe called you.”

  I looked at him now, this stern man whose face I suddenly recognized, my father, who had laughed as he held me up to the tree in the lemon grove.

  Now the lemon seemed so unimportant, that he hadn’t remembered it. But ah, Wild Girl.

  He was still smiling, watching my face and nodding. “Ai, Paulo was right.”

  “Difficult,” I said, smiling back.

  “I never saw anyone ride like you.”

  I leaned into him as I threw the rest of the crackers to the gulls and wiped my eyes.

  30

  HOME

  Pai was off looking at saddles at a tack shop, and Rafael was upstairs banging things around, whistling.

  I was in the kitchen, longing for one of Titia Luisa’s dinners, my mouth watering. At least, that was in the front of my mind. In back was what Pai was going to say when he found out what I’d done now.

  I was humming anyway, doing some banging of my own. Ai, this kitchen!

  In the refrigerator were only a few dark green leaves, four strips of bacon, and a pair of soft oranges. I’d used the last of the tuna fish an hour ago.

  Rafael clumped downstairs again, out the kitchen door, and came back with a ladder.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Secret stuff. What are you doing?”

  “Taking my turn for the cooking. About time, I guess.”

  “It depends on how well the meal turns out.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “After all, Pai and I are gourmet cooks,” he said as he went back upstairs.

  I rattled through the cabinets and came up with a box of rice, a can of white beans, and another of stewed tomatoes. Holding one can in each hand, I weighed them in my mind.

  You can make a meal out of anything, Titia Luisa would say. I thought of her clay panelas, those pots that she lined with rice and fresh cabbage and a dusting of spices. What could I do with these three things?

  Then I had it.

  In a little while, the tomatoes and beans were covered with bacon and bubbling in the oven. The rice was almost ready. The table was set, and the shredded salad greens and orange quarters, tossed in oil and vinegar, were in a bowl.

  At six, I heard the front door open, and Pai came down the hall. Rafael was in back of him, his hands covered in what looked like putty or paint.

  “Secret stuff,” Rafael said again as he washed his hands at the sink.

  We sat down to eat; the rice tasted like Titia Luisa’s, and the invented bean recipe was fine. I watched as they both had seconds.

  “Now,” I said, and they both looked up. “You see I can cook.”

  “I see that,” Pai said.

  “So I will take my turn from now on.”

  “Do you think we’d argue about that?” Rafael said.

  “So.” I took the last forkful of beans, and they waited while I chewed.

  “This is not a proper home,” I told them. “Not the right kind of food.”

  They were looking at each other. “There’s the fruit store, and the grocery,” Rafael said. “Don’t worry, we can—”

  “But worse,” I said, “the chairs in the living room are lined up so it seems we’re waiting for the dentist to pull out our teeth.”

  “Is that why the living room door is closed today?” Rafael asked; then Pai said, “It’s not so much of a thing to move the furniture.”

  I nodded. “There’s more.”

  “Ai,” he said.

  I pushed the salad bowl toward him. “I moved the horses in the stalls this afternoon. I put Wild Girl and Love You across from each other. They can look over their doors and say hello.” I raised my shoulders. “Or whatever horses do.”

  “Whatever,” Pai said, his finger on his upper lip. I could see he was hiding a smile.

  “It didn’t work with the cat, but I know Wild Girl needs a friend to make her happy.”

  “Like Billy, the pony who always traveled with Whirlaway,” Rafael said.

  “Exactly, yes,” I said.

  Pai piled the salad on his plate. “We do know a few things.”

  “I suppose that’s what you were trying to do with the cat,” Rafael said.

  “But do you ever ask before you do anything?” Pai sa
id.

  “I’m asking now….”

  Pai tilted his head. “All right, it’s fine.”

  “But I’m asking about something else.” I hesitated, trying to think of how to say it. “In Jales, we had a canary, and a cat, and a dog.” I spread my hands. “The bird sang in the kitchen, and sometimes the dog slept in my room.”

  Pai smiled a little. “You want a canary.”

  I took a breath and let it out. “I want a cat to begin with.”

  Pai’s fingers went to his lip again. “What would we do with a cat?”

  “I’ll take care of her, feed her. A cat’s not much work, you know.”

  “Why not?” Rafael said. “We can go down to the pet store….”

  I bit my lip. “She’s in the living room, waiting.”

  Then we were laughing, and Pai, finished eating, stood up. On his way to put the dishes in the sink, he bent down and kissed the top of my head. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said gruffly.

  Rafael piled my dishes up with his. “A family,” he said.

  Pai laughed. “With a difficult girl, and who knows what will be next!”

  In the living room, I scooped up the orange cat from the puffiest chair. Already she’d left a few marks with all those claws. I put her face up to mine. She smelled a little like the tuna fish I’d given her. “Her name is Whirlaway,” I called back to the kitchen.

  I carried her up to my bedroom and nearly fell over the ladder in the doorway. Inside, the walls were coral, the color of the shirt I’d worn the day I’d come. The Minnie Mouse rug was gone.

  “Don’t ask me where the rug went,” Rafael said, coming up the stairs.

  Opposite my bed, Snow White and her dwarfs were hidden behind tissue-paper sketches. “I’ll transfer them to the wall later,” he said.

  “Oh, Rafael.” I hugged the cat and leaned forward to see what he’d drawn. There was a field of horses with their riders. At the very end was the blur of the starting gate, and beyond that a mass of carnations.

  One horse with her jockey had paused to look at the carnations.

  “Will she win the race?”