Mary Gaitskill - The Mare

It happened after I walked to her house with her and told her what Ginger said. But I don’t think that was why. It wasn’t the horses, it was the boys. These boys that came up on either side of us. But first it was Helena; at lunch that day, Strawberry almost fought Helena. I was walking by with my tray, but I woulda seen it if I was across the room — Helena got in Strawberry’s face, she knocked her soda off the table by pretend accident, and said she didn’t care if Strawberry was up on no roof, she better stay away from Chris. Strawberry smiled, ice-cold, and she stood up and suddenly looked big enough to kill Helena even though she’s smaller. “It’s Chris won’t stay away from me,” she said. “I wouldn’t touch anybody who touch you.” And right then I walked slam into Helena, and my food spilled on her, and I cursed her and she cursed back and there was detention, and having to sit in the room with Helena. Who was older than me, but still, only twelve, and why was she fighting with somebody like Strawberry over a boy?

It was a few days later I was walking with Strawberry and I told her about the horses, and she looked at me really happy. And right then these three boys came up alongside of us. I didn’t know them; they were older than us. First they were only by her, and they were saying things that were nice but sounded nasty. She said, “Chris, I’m walking with my friend. Maybe you can call me later.” And then she didn’t answer no more. And I could suddenly feel her like I feel a horse. Scary strong, and with her skin feeling everything.

The boys were still next to us, talking about us like we couldn’t hear. And we were on her block but nobody was around us and her house is far down. I looked at the one she called “Chris”; he even had hair on his face. And this tall boy came around to my side and started with me.

Except his voice didn’t sound nasty. It was nice and he said, “How you doing, shawty?” I looked at him. He had soft eyes that went with his voice and a little dent in his nose. So I said, “I’m fine.” And he said, “I can see that.” And I smiled and he said, “Aw, you sweet. What’s your name?” And I told him. And I thought he was gonna say somethin’ stupid about it, but he just said, “I’m Dominic.” And all of a sudden I noticed his lips. They were soft too, and something else that was the opposite. I felt confused. I looked at Strawberry and she looked at me, like for the first time. And even though her house was closer now, it was as far away as the grassy field where the horses were.

Then Dominic said, “How old are you?” And I told him and his face jumped back. For a minute there was just the sound of all our feet and the pavement suddenly looking weird bumpy in a way I never noticed. Then Dominic said, “Chris, the girl says call her later. Man, I gotta go.” And he didn’t wait for Chris to answer, he just stopped walking with us and Chris stopped with him. And they said, “Ima call you” (Chris) and “Be good, shawty” (Dominic) and were gone.

Strawberry and me walked quiet for a while, and her body went back to normal. She said, “Sometimes I hate boys, they bring so much trouble.” I could feel my body going back to normal. She said, “My first host family make me leave ’cause they say I ask their boy into my bed, but I never asked, he just come anyway.”

Which was basically the same thing she said to Helena — and it was a lie because she told Chris he could call her. But right then I didn’t care about that. Because I was thinking about something that happened with my father’s friend Manuel, who lived in my house before Mr. Diaz, and so I said, “I know. There was this man staying at our house when I was like nine or ten, and he give me trouble even then.” And she looked at me so deep she didn’t have to say anything. Her eyes, her whole body, said, I know. Like that first time in detention.

When we got to her house, we didn’t go into her closet. Instead we watched a movie about a girl who’s really a princess. Not the same one from Ginger’s, a different one, where she’s normal in America but a princess in this other country. Us and the little fat girl all sat on the couch under a blanket, like a family. And her fat lady host, Mrs. Henry, put her warm hand on my shoulder and asked Strawberry if she wanted me to stay over for dinner.

But I had to go get Dante, and I was already late, and he was crying and mad at me. On the street, he said, “You don’t care about your own family, you like those nonfiction ugly people better. You’re even ashamed of us!”

I told him to be quiet, and at least those people didn’t yell at me all the time. But really, I felt bad. I said, “I wasn’t late because of them, I just got in a fight with this girl who’s a bitch to me.”

“That lady you know is a nonfiction bitch.”

“You don’t even know her,” I said. “You don’t know what nonfiction means either.”

“I don’t care what it means,” he said and he smiled all Chester Cheetah at me.

The next time we talked on the phone, she asked me why I still had a doll. I said, “Oh, she’s from when I was like, five.”

“It’s not a ‘she,’ ” said Velvet. “It’s a it. Why do you have it now ?”

“I have it because my sister kept it. I didn’t even know she had it all these years. I didn’t find it until she died and Paul and I went to clean out her place. She had every doll and toy we ever had all piled up in a box.”

There was a long moment of television noise. She said, “That’s sad.” Except her voice said, That’s funny.

“Yeah, I know. I threw most of the stuff away. But I wanted to keep something that Melinda kept. My friend Kayla made the clothes for her — they’re cute, don’t you think?”

She didn’t say anything. A sarcastic feeling came through the phone. Along with television noise.

I never even had one doll except for the broken key chain I found on the street — Ginger and her sister had a whole box? And I’m supposed to feel bad about that? I thought, Dante’s right: She is a bitch. Or just dumb.

Then my mom said, “Come here. Your hair is a mess — let me braid it for you.” I went to her and said, “Mami, you know something crazy? Ginger said she likes my hair natural.” And she laughed and said, “Likes it! That’s funny! I’ll believe she likes it when she goes to the shop and pays somebody to make her hair like yours!” She worked on me with love in her quick hands; making fun of Ginger put her in a good mood. She said, “This black woman I know says she hates white women saying, Oh, your hair is so beautiful. She wishes she could slap some knowledge into them!” And she laughed deep in her body, working my hair so that my scalp tingled all the way down into my neck. It made me feel so soft that I thought soft about Ginger again, how her voice on the phone had a bruise on it when she told about her sister. And about the mare, looking at me with her ears up. Saying she was sorry and I didn’t even say good-bye to her.

I knew about the box of half-rotted dolls and toys for years before my sister died; she had shown them to me the last time I’d seen her. She was nearly forty then and making one of her failed attempts to get sober, and she was wondering if maybe I wanted my dolls back. The visit hadn’t been going very well and when she held up the moldy and bald (I’d torn her hair out) Glinda, I lost my temper and said I thought it was crazy to keep these things, that she ought to just throw them out. And my biker-chick sister put her face in her hands and left the room, crying. I sat there for a moment, stunned. Then I got up and went to her. She’d stopped crying by then and when I said, “Sorry,” she said, “No, you’re right.” And I helped her take the falling-apart box out to the Dumpster just before I left for the airport.