Mary Gaitskill - The Mare

She said it was her mom who said no, but I still thought it had to do with that big fancy barn and big show. Courtesy of Becca’s friend Joan who had generously gotten Velvet invited to Spindletop, where her confidence was hurt. Though that was surely not the intention; the woman just wanted to be kind, if ostentatiously so.

Which is exactly what Becca was accusing me of when she said I was “playing at being a parent,” not to mention exactly why her friend Laura had talked down to me that time outside the drugstore for being — unlike her! — a white person who was “messing with” this non-white woman’s child. Judging me like I’m an ignorant racist or just a childless neurotic fool — and now they are proven right, and can smugly nod their heads. The big barn, the big show that a kid from up here would take in stride was too much for Velvet and could only hurt her. Naturally her mother didn’t want her to compete because of course it would be threatening to her to see her daughter do something she herself could never do, something only I could offer her. And Becca’s friends plus Becca herself felt the offense of that right away because after all, they’re moms like her. I couldn’t blame Silvia; she was just protecting her daughter, and even herself, but them —how hateful, if I really am so clueless and bereft, to rub it in like that. “Playing at being a parent”—God, I wish I’d said something and not just sat there accepting it like I always do. I wish I’d said, “What are you playing at, you mad cow? Being the wounded wife? Is that your reason for acting out the aggression you’re so obviously proud of? It’s bullshit, you kicked him out before I even met him. You don’t care about that except what people think of you, the usual stupid shit: Oh, poor Becca. She’s so humiliated.”

Of course it did occur to me that Becca was not “playing” any more than I was. That she actually had been humiliated. That she was lonely and sad even now. Even with Edie, even with all those big women around her. Of course I knew it was natural for her to dislike me; it was almost her job. But that still didn’t stop the cattywampus conversation in my head, back and forth, blaming Becca and then myself, in the house or the gym locker room or driving in the car, sometimes making me smack the steering wheel at the light. I would catch myself doing it and feel crazy and then keep doing it. Until one day I saw her alone in the diner and did it at her.

I went down halls full of noise and warm food smell to her door. I knocked and when she came she was wearing a bathrobe and these big glasses all crooked on her face, but still she smiled at me and said, “Hello, child. Come in.” I did, and a cat ran out of the room; there was another skinny cat with a bad eye on the couch. “Sit down,” said Gaby. “I only have ginger ale, you want some?” I said yes, even though I don’t like ginger ale. She went out of the room and I heard a old voice asking a question and Gaby saying, “A friend, Mama.”

I sat on the edge of the couch. The cat stared the hell out of me with its one eye. It was little like a kitten, but its face was old — its jaw was old — and both its eyes cried old greasy tears. There were no lights on and the room was getting dark, but I could see there were pictures of saints on the walls and a picture of Martin Luther King with a white president from a long time ago, their faces pressed together sideways, like they were also saints or old movie stars. Gaby came back in clothes (not her bathrobe), and carrying two big cups of ginger ale. She sat next to me and told me the electric was off, and that she would light the candles soon. I saw the candles, like the ones my mom brought home from work, they were half burned down. My mom would be missing me now.

“You came to see me,” she said. “I’m glad. Tell me, how are you?”

I said I was fine. The cat looked at Gaby with love in its one greasy eye.

“I found him on the street,” she said. “Both his eyes were shut up so he was going blind, and he was looking up at people and crying on the sidewalk. I don’t know why I picked him up, but I did. I cleaned him and fed him and the one eye got better.” The old mother’s voice talked from the other room; Gaby talked back in Haitian. “My mother didn’t even want the one cat. To her animals are just dirty. So I told her I would put him out again when he got better, but I don’t have the heart. Look at his little face.”

I thought of my mom, looking out the window and seeing I’m not there. It was already darker. I said, “Do you remember the dream you told me you had? That you told me about, where something good happened to me?”

She looked for a minute like she didn’t know what I was talking about, but then she smiled and said she did remember. I was hoping she would talk more, but she didn’t, she just drank her ginger ale. I asked, “What was going to happen? In your dream?”

“Child,” she said, “it was a dream. I told it to you in goodwill so you would know I wish you well from my heart. And because dreams come for a reason, even if we don’t know what it is.” She got up and began to light the candles. With her back to me she said, “Why do you ask?”

I tried to answer, but the answer felt too big to get out in words.

She sat down again, her eyes soft. “What is it you hope for?”

My heart beat too fast. I said, “There’s this boy.”

She moved her head; candle flame burned in her glasses. “Yes, a boy?”

“He used to love me.” I put my head down to let tears run. But none came. “He used to love me and he don’t no more.” Her arm went around me. I said, “A long time ago, he stopped this other boy from…and now he—” My body went tight like I was crying but still there were no tears, only a numb thing grabbing inside, grabbing and loosing, like I was sick but with no sick coming up. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay. Let it go.”

Finally I cried, and I told her. She asked me if I let him have my body and I said no, but I would if he wanted it. She shook her head and said, “It’s too soon.” She said, “He knew that and he respected your precious body.” My tears stopped and I said, “No he didn’t. He didn’t respect nothin’. ” She said, “In his actions, he did. Think how much worse you would feel now if it had been the other way.”

I didn’t answer back to her because I didn’t want to tell her what happened. But I didn’t think I would feel worse if I’d done more. Because that way I would’ve been really with him at least.

“He respected you,” she said. “Now you have to respect him. What he said today, put it behind you. He needs to care for this pregnant girl as best he can. Leave it be.”

She sat back, candlelight shining from her glasses. Her cat stretched its paws to her and she touched its head. “Tell me,” she said more softly. “Is there something else that you hope?”

I didn’t have time to tell her about the horses, and I didn’t feel like it either. So I just said there was a competition I wanted to be in but I couldn’t because my mom didn’t want me to. She said then I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t disobey my mother. I said, “I know,” and then I remembered my mom and said, “I have to go.” She said she would walk me to St. Marks. We were at her door when she asked me, “Is there a man who wants you to enter this contest? An uncle or a teacher, an older brother who might talk to your mother?” I said no, and then her mom yelled at her. She stepped away and yelled back and my phone texted at me, so I looked at it.

It was Dominic.