Mary Gaitskill - The Mare

I lied. Why did I lie? The money was for emergencies — was the toll an emergency? Was he right not to see me again or even send anything?

“I used to feel something like that,” said Ginger. “I felt it when I painted.”

“In your legs?”

“No. In my brain. I used to think of it as a radio signal that I had to be alone to hear. I don’t hear it now, but I’m hoping it’s still there.”

“What did it sound like?”

“I didn’t actually hear it. I more felt it.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know.” There was a space between songs and I heard her breathe in, then out. The music started again.

I thought, Did my father love me but not feel it?

Ginger said, “I wonder if I can’t hear it anymore because I’m not alone?”

She said it like she was alone. That made me feel alone.

“If so, then I’m glad I don’t hear it,” she said. “I’d rather hear you.”

Does Dominic love me and not feel it?

Ginger reached over and put her hand on my leg. “What’re you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

But I was thinking, No. He feels it. He feels it.

She made good on our deal: She filled up her math notebooks and wrote her essays with a minimum of groaning. And she’d improved, no question. It was still hard for her to read and write, harder than it should’ve been, given her intelligence. The one book review she did — on Black Beauty —was stilted and showed her boredom. The essay she did on what it was like to come and visit the country was better. The one she called “My Horse” was wonderful.

I knew she still wasn’t turning her homework in. We still did it almost every week during the school year, but whenever I could actually get through to a teacher, he or she would say — with rare exceptions — that they never saw it. I stopped saying anything about it because it didn’t help and at least she was learning.

Then I talked to Edie. Velvet and Edie spent time together nearly every weekend. I was very pleased by it, even if I didn’t think they were true friends. The age difference was too big for that, and Velvet was subtly guarded around Edie; I almost had the impression that she was somehow “acting” for the older girl.

I was right. When Edie came by the house to pick Velvet up one day, she had to wait a bit for Velvet to change out of her horse clothes, and while Edie was waiting, she and I talked out on the porch. She said, “You must be so proud.”

I said, “I am.”

“For her to go from failing to the top of her grade? That’s extraordinary, and it’s because of you and my dad.”

She must’ve thought I turned my head out of modesty.

“And on top of that, she’s even competing at the county fair? I wish I could see her, but I’ll be up at school by then.”

Ginger asked me why I said I was at the top of my grade when I wasn’t even giving in my homework. I told her that I did give it in; that the teacher was lazy or just lying. She said, “ All your teachers?” I didn’t say anything. She said, “You would be at the top of your grade if you were turning it in.” I still didn’t say anything. We were sitting out in the backyard in plastic chairs. The grass smell was in our noses and the crickets were out. The neighbors were behind their fence talking about the Iraq War, how it had to happen because of the Bible. Paul was away somewhere and Ginger was drinking something, I wondered what.

She said, “Why did you tell Edie that you were going to ride at the county fair?”

“I didn’t tell her that.”

“Then why did she say you did?”

“I said I know somebody who’s riding at the fair.”

Ginger said, “If you’re going to lie, you should learn to do it better than that.” She said, “You keep lying to me, we aren’t going to stay close. Lying creates distance between people.”

“I’m not lying.”

She didn’t say anything. The crickets went, I’m a boy I’m a boy, I’m a girl I’m a girl. Ginger sipped her drink. I thought about what Shawn said, why she could be so nice. I thought about the dream of a trapdoor in her yard, and how she went down the stairs to steal treasure from hell. I thought, It’s you who’s the liar. “It all started in the Bible,” said the neighbor man. “With an Arab woman named Hajar.”

Trapdoor. I got up and walked in the back door, through the house, and out the front door. Ginger called to me, but I didn’t stop. I went directly to my mare. No one was there. I opened her stall and went in. This time she didn’t turn her back to me. I rubbed her neck and thought of when I took my paper for school and put it on the counter where water had spilled; I watched the words I wrote with Ginger melt and then I went to school. I thought about myself giving the clean, dry paper to the teacher and getting it back with a 4 on it. My horse put her head on my shoulder. I thought both things, the clean paper and the ruined one.

Pat says, “This mare tolerates no bullshit,” and she is right. It wasn’t bullshit; I was telling her the truth just standing next to her: destroying the paper but giving the teacher the paper. The county fair. Me and Fiery Girl at the county fair. It hadn’t happened. But it would. I could feel it. So could my mare.

I didn’t talk to Paul about it because of how provoked he could be about what I was “doing.” Sometimes he was so remote, it was like he was wearing a “Keep Out” sign on his back. In some ways I was grateful for it because it meant he was out of our way, but it was also painful.

Still, I respected the sign. So I tried to talk with Kayla, and a lot of other people too, whether I knew them or not. I got more advice than I wanted at the drugstore checkout from Danielle, the woman who ran the Cocoon Theater — who just happened to be there with Laura, a member of Becca’s clique, the artist. I should’ve just kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t help it: I told them about Velvet not turning in her papers even though she did them.

“What do you expect?” said Danielle. “You’re competing with her mother.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Oh, you are,” said Laura. “And you’re not going to win.”

I flushed; the conversation was now about something else. “What are you saying?”

Laura answered me with a look. Danielle said, “The message you’re giving her contradicts the message she’s getting from her mother.”

“What message do you think her mother is giving her?”

“That she wants her to fail,” said Danielle. “That’s why she doesn’t turn in her homework. She’s doing exactly what her mother wants her to do.”

I thought, She’s right. But it made me mad. Because she didn’t even know Mrs. Vargas or Velvet. I said, “I don’t think that’s what her mother wants.”

“I doubt that’s what she wants either,” said Laura. “She just may be highly ambivalent about somebody else messing around with her kid. Somebody white, with money, who doesn’t know anything about their culture.”

Danielle touched my hand. “I think you’re doing something good. I support what you’re doing. It just sounds…complicated.”

She was innocent, I was pretty sure. Laura, I wanted to kill.

When we were finished with the stall and the fence, Pat told me we could bring the mare, that I could go get her and lead her into the trailer. We hooked Pat’s car to a little trailer that looked like a toy from a machine, and I was afraid to think about my horse in that thing, with nothing but a piece of metal moving between her and the road going faster than she could understand. But Pat said not to worry about it, and we got in the car.