The Mare

Ginger

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.