Mary Gaitskill - The Mare

I stop on the edge of the graveyard, paralyzed with sadness and loss. It’s dead now, my adolescent longing, and even so I can’t help but press it against my cheek one more time, hoping to bring it alive again. Paul is flawed but alive and here I am still rubbing this dead thing on my face — why? How did this dead thing come up out of the past and eat my happiness? Why did I allow it?

I walk out onto the parking lot. People pass me and our eyes do not meet. What will I tell my friend? Nothing. Just that Paul and I are having trouble. It doesn’t matter why I allowed it; I did, and so did he, and now nothing will be good again. I am finished. Except for Velvet. Velvet and the horse. Even though she is so aloof now and doesn’t tell me anything. Even though Paul is right, everyone is right, the whole coarse world is right: I can’t even be her pretend mother. I give in. I agree. I’m over. It is what it is. But I can still get her on that fucking horse. I can help her win.

For my birthday my mom made asopao with chicken, which she knows I love, and we don’t have hardly ever. But that night the delicious taste hurt, like it was love that wanted to protect me but could not and could be torn away like nothing. It doesn’t make sense, but that’s what it felt like in my mouth and in the way my mom watched me chew.

“What’s wrong with you?” she said. “Don’t you like it?”

“I like it.”

“You’re eating it like a robot,” she said, and Dante did lame robot arms.

I wanted to be with them, to hide from the world with them. But I couldn’t. We were separated even in the same room. Ginger and Pat and Fiery Girl were even further away. The only thing close was Dominic, and he did not want me. He didn’t even respect me.

“So,” said my mother, “what’s this about your riding in a race?”

She looked at me; Dante put his head down. He put his fork down too.

“I’m not riding in a race,” I said.

“Dante told me about a race.”

“There’s a competition, but I’m not in it.” As soon as I said it, it was true.

“No? The great horsewoman isn’t riding in the competition ?”

Dante’s eyes came up to look at me.

“Why not?” asked my mom.

“I don’t want to,” I said.

They both stared at me. Dante’s eyes lost their brightness.

I shrugged. “You don’t want me to, Mami.”

Dante’s eyes said Liar. My mom said, “Huh. You finally stopped being stupid.”

Dante pushed his food around but did not eat.

“I’m glad,” said my mom. “Here.” And she dished more asopao onto my plate.

Velvet of course needed her mother’s permission to enter the competition; there was a form to sign. If I forged the signature and Velvet fell off or something, it would be a legal disaster, not just for me but for Paul, and even he didn’t deserve that.

“Be openhearted,” said Kayla. “Talk to the woman from your heart. She’s accepted so much so far—”

“She beats her daughter, Kayla.”

“Do it for the girl’s sake.” She said it like she didn’t even hear me. “Give the mom a chance. Let her know you’d love her to come up and watch her daughter shine.”

“She doesn’t want her daughter to shine.”

“Give her a chance. Make her feel respected.”

But how could I make her feel respected? I’d lied from the beginning — really, why stop now?

I picked up a pen and held it poised over the paper that declared that I, as her parent or legal guardian, understood and accepted that there was a chance of serious bodily injury or even death. Because Velvet was not going to die, she was going to win. Even if something did happen, and she broke her arm or her leg or something, her mother might not even realize she could sue us.

Judas. I put down the pen, then picked it up. I tried to open my heart. I prayed; I begged the air. I put down the pen. I got on a conference call with the churchy-voiced translator and told her to invite Mrs. Vargas up to see her daughter shine. The ignorant woman sailed forward under the bright banner of her voice, and was cut to pieces before she even got three full sentences out.

“She says no,” said the translator. “She says her daughter doesn’t want to do it. She’s going to put her on so she can tell you herself.”

She asked why. I said, “I don’t want to because my mom doesn’t want me to.” And I could feel her trembling, like, through the phone, and I thought how my mother said, “Shut up or I’ll give you something to cry about!” Because the trembling was like crying, like how Ginger’s face would look when she had nothing to cry about, and I was glad to fuck with her like that, to refuse what she gave, my mother beside me with her hand on my shoulder.

But when I hung up I could still hear what Dominic said. I would hear it for the rest of my life. If I went to Williamsburg I would see him and Brianna and their baby and he wouldn’t even talk to me. I didn’t have him and now maybe I didn’t have my horse. Ginger loved me and I disappointed her. Why would she let me keep coming there? I disappointed her all the time. And then I had bad thoughts about her.

I said, “I’m going to sit outside”; my mom said, “Don’t go far.”

And I didn’t mean to go. I only started walking because moving with people, hearing them say shit back and forth, held me down, took the bad thoughts out of my mind. Men’s eyes on me made me feel better too, though I don’t know why. Because I knew what my mom meant about them now. I knew why she’d been so mean. It was true what my grandfather said when he was still alive, that she said what she did out of love. I felt love for her. I didn’t want to make her mad.

But I wanted to see Gaby. That’s why I went to find the street she lived on, in case I might find her there. It was where Cookie lived, where my mom told me to stay away from, and I never had a reason to go there anyway. Really, it looked better to me than where we were, with more stores and places to eat and churches, and this store-church had a red electrical sign that said “Mercy Time, 7:00–8:00.” I kept going, past the project yard where people were out drinking from bags and little kids were chasing each other, this girl riding on a boy’s back.

When I got to Gaby’s street I guessed the building and went to find her name on the buzzers. I was just going to find it and go home, but when I did find it, these boys came out the door, almost men, and their eyes were all over me and I went to get in the building past them, mostly just to move, and they blocked me, going, “You coming to see me, beautiful?” “I ain’t ever seen you before.” “Damn, what I could do with you!” So I pressed the buzzer like I’ve got business, and one of them said, “Hey, you the little Dominican girl, ain’t you? From St. Marks Avenue?” I didn’t know him, but I said, “Yea-ah,” like, So what? And he smiled like I was eleven years old and said, “You and your lil’ brother used to know Cookie, right?” I smiled and Gaby’s voice came out the intercom; I said who I was but she didn’t answer, instead he went, “Cookie said you and him used to talk! He said he gonna wait till you turn sixteen and till then—” Gaby said, “The buzzer doesn’t work!” like she was shouting through fuzzballs. “I got it!” said the man, going for the door. “What floor?” I said. I didn’t hear what she said. He said, “She on the third floor, number ten” and let me in.

I didn’t wait for the elevator because I could hear more people coming from somewhere and I didn’t like their voices, so I went for the stairs. I was sorry right away because a light was out and it smelled like a nasty bathroom with disinfectant on top. But it was just the third floor, so I went up anyway.