The Mare

Velvet

I put on the outfit Ginger gave me for my birthday and the butterfly ring and the red earrings shaped like flowers. I took the Ginger-doll out of the cotton-ball box and put it in my front pocket where you couldn’t see it. I put the picture of my grandfather in my back pocket. I put clothes under my blankets until it looked like maybe I was under them. I turned off the light and walked down the hall quiet. I walked quiet all the way out the house and down the block and then ran for the bus that Alicia told me to take.

I’d never walked on the street or rode the bus that late at night, and it was scary, but it got me interested. The people were mad rude but funny too. In the seat behind me these older girls were talking like: “An’ then I said to her, ‘Bitch, all that ring means is he paid too much to fuck ya waffcake ass,’ she just stand there and look stupit!” And the other one laughed and went, “That bitch best get her weight up if she want to step to you, girl, you are a bossalina next to her!” And men were talking to me, and looking, their eyes soft or hungry or both. I sat next to a older lady all the way and she talked to me like she knew me to keep them off, and she said, “You take care, sweetheart!”

And I remembered that restaurant me and Ginger were at and I thought, Everybody on this bus is a bossalina next to them, even the old lady. Because she has something in her face and her voice nobody in that place had, even if they do eat thirty-dollar olive oil.

When I got to the party, I thought it even more. There was a evil-looking dude guarding the door and people all around waiting to get in, and they were rocking the hell out of it — I never got what that meant until now: gold high heels, chain belts, brand-name skinny jeans, shining lips, dyed blond braids tight up on the head, shining ironed hair rolled up in a bun to the side, white eyeliner, nails out to here. My heart pounded. I wanted to turn around and go home, but I couldn’t stop looking: they were heaven-beautiful with a little hell added for flavor. The women like lightning hitting the ground, the men like thunder calling back. I knew somebody who called his mom “my ol’ bird.” Next to these people, Ginger in her white leather pants was a ol’ bird even if she did have a diamond ring. Next to these people I was…in middle school.

But so was Alicia, and she invited me.

I stepped up to the evil man and he checked me like What the hell? But when I checked him back, his eyes changed and he wasn’t so evil. He said, “What you doin’ here, Miss Pretty? You look like you need to be home in your twin bed.”

“Alicia invited me,” I said.

“Alicia? Alicia who?”

“And Dominic.”

“Dominic, huh.” He turned his head like he might go inside and talk to somebody — but then he saw more people coming and just scrunched his face like, Whateva. “Okay, shawty,” he said. “Slide through.”