Mary Gaitskill - The Mare

“I have to pick up my little brother in an hour.”

“We can be quick.”

“And why you asking me about Shawn when you with that nasty ho Brianna and also with her equally nasty friend, that is some ratreria shit.”

His face was surprised, like, You funny, but soft too, his open lips and eyes and even his nose so soft they were blurry. But when he closed his lips, the shape of them was cutting. “I don’t know what friend you mean—”

“Janelle, for one.”

“Oh, she—” He smiled, like embarrassed. “She seventeen. And Brianna’s almost seventeen. I’m seventeen, and Shawn is — I mean was —older than me, and you a little girl.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You the same age as my little sister.”

“I’m not your little sister.”

He smiled and my body flashed sick-hard.

“Okay, big girl, why don’t you come eat with me?”

I thought he would take me for pizza. But instead we went blocks away to this place on Grand, with Christmas lights, where my mom took me and Dante once for New Year’s a long time ago. I got a mango drink; he got salami and cheese.

“Why do you call me complicated?” I said.

“I don’t mean nothin’ bad.” He moved his chair around so he was next to me. I was embarrassed, but the man behind the counter looked with nice eyes. Dominic said, “I just mean you diff’rent. I felt it the first time I saw you. It’s in how you carry yourself — even when you was eleven !”

“That’s why they say I’m a conceited wannabe.”

“You think I care what girls in school say? I can see you ain’t any a that. You just diff’rent. I don’t know how. But it ain’t about white people or horses neither.”

And then he kissed me on the side of my head. “But I’d like to see you on a horse!”

Ginger wasn’t even going to tell me about the boy. She wasn’t going to tell me because she thought I wouldn’t want to hear it, but it woke her in the middle of the night; I could feel her body pulling against itself as she turned and turned in place like some old animal.

“You’re helping her,” I said. “Ginger, you’re doing everything you can. It’s amazing what you’ve done. It’s amazing what she’s done, and she knows it, and that will hold her in good stead.”

I held her close and stroked her heart, and I felt her slowly become right again: fragile, strangely young, but strong, with the fanatic strength that thin girls sometimes have, more fierce nerves than muscle. I remembered that night she said, “I want to be a woman! I want to be a normal woman!” It was as if her whole body said that now, that she wanted to be a woman, she wanted to protect this girl.

I wasn’t sure I believed what Velvet had told her: that the murdered boy had done nothing wrong, that the girl didn’t know the people he’d been with when he’d died. But right then, it didn’t matter. If she’d asked about Catholic school then, I would’ve said yes.

I thought: I have a good man. What happened with Michael was a blessing. But his body has no feeling like this. Even now, even though he’s better than he was. It was wonderful to see him. But I’m not in middle school. She is and she needs me. I may not be a normal woman. But I can pretend. I can try.

When Ginger dropped me at Pat’s, Pat waited till Ginger drove away — then she took my shoulders and looked in my eyes. “What happened to you ?” she said.

“Nothin’.”

“ Nothin’ ? Then why do you look like you got hit by a truck doin’ sixty?”

I looked down and didn’t say.

She let go of me. She said, “Make that a truck doin’ eighty. C’mon, let’s get to work.”

And we went and worked on jumping Fiery Girl. Who did not want to jump. Chloe and Nut watched from their side of the paddock while we trotted around and around and I tried to make her go over the jump and she would not go. Pat yelled, “Be clear! You’re not being clear! You decide and you get your legs on her and tell what you want to do!” But I couldn’t be clear because nothing was clear. There was Dominic’s lips on me and an old man crawling on glass and Shawn dead and his eyes and Dominic’s eyes and my body burning all the time and the noise coming in all night while I lay on the couch, some idiot yelling. I kicked Fiery Girl and told her to jump, but all I wanted to do was look at my phone and see if Dominic texted, even though he hadn’t even once. The only clear thing I could feel was that Fiery Girl was scared of jumping and she was getting pissed at me, and still I couldn’t focus right. She was starting up with this crazy jog-dance when Pat yelled, “Whoa!” and came and took the rein sideways in her hand.

“What are you doing?” she said. “This poor horse looks like she’s hearing ten different things from five different riders, and she’s getting ready to say, ‘Shut the F up!’ ”

“She’s scared of the jump, Miss Pat.”

“I see that. I also see you’re doing one thing with your hands and another with your legs and your head is all over the place.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Dismount. We’re going to get focused and work on trust.”

What that meant was leading Fiery Girl where she didn’t want to go. First I walked her through mud puddles, which she did not like. Then we walked on this piece of shiny tarp that Pat brought out. She didn’t want to. I had to make her, gently. It sounds boring, but it wasn’t. Because I felt her through the line, at first just her normal mouth-self and then something that was soft and round and just starting not to be afraid. And there it was: the leg-feeling. It was in my hands, but it was the same. Dominic and the poor man and Shawn and everything else was there, but it was in the distance and this feeling was here now.

Girl, where I am now is basically a trap house. You don’t wanna come there. But give me your number. Maybe I’ll come see you one night when you’re over at what’s her name, Lydia’s? When the other girl’s got something else to do, maybe I’ll be up around your way.

I thought: He will. He hasn’t. But he will. I don’t have to worry; it’s over there in the corner, waiting to happen.

Then Pat gave me some peppermints and I got my mare to follow me without the line. We walked on the tarp again, and in the puddle, sometimes me giving her a mint. Then Pat lowered the pole on the jump so it was almost on the ground. My horse hopped over the pole and broke into a run. Across the paddock, Chloe tossed her head and ran too; Nut chased her, bucking and farting.

“Can you come next weekend?” said Pat. “Next weekend I bet she takes the jump.”

I said yes, and I meant it.

But I didn’t do it.

“You don’t need to ride a horse — you need your own feet on the ground. Take your dumb face out of the mirror and listen to me! There’s no man out there you can trust, and if you forget that, next thing you know, your belly’s out to here and you’re watching the door for somebody who never comes.”

She said, “Mami, I’m thirteen,” and put on more of that greasy lip gloss, which I grabbed away so hard I crushed off the tip. She yelled like she does, like a stupid animal, like she can’t even talk, “Na-urhhh!” like an elephant or a cow. I mocked her and laughed at her. I said, “You think I don’t know how old you are? The day I gave birth to you was the loneliest day of my life. No one was here except your aunt Maria, she was the only one, and she was already half dead.” She didn’t care, she just grabbed for the lip gloss. “Listen, you ungrateful girl, I’m trying to educate you. Watch yourself! Men are babies screaming for love. They get it, they throw it across the room until it breaks and then start screaming again. And always some dumb woman comes running. It makes no difference to them if it’s you or the one before you or the one after you or the one down the street.”