The Mare

Ginger

We took her to a party that night, to celebrate bringing the horse to Pat’s. It was a faculty party and normally those are terrible, but this was supposed to be for kids. There was going to be music, and Velvet wanted to go.

When we entered, the room was full of music and laughter, but the first people we saw were Becca and her editor friend, Joan. They greeted Paul, not me. My attention was pulled away by singing; in the corner, a young professor’s wife was playing a guitar while a tiny, charming child sang a pop song for a circle of children. Joan was saying, “I hear you ride horses. You should come to the barn where my daughter rides.” Velvet looked down, maybe confused by the friendly unfriendliness. Oblivious, Joan continued, “Edie could bring you over sometime. Would you like that?” and Velvet said, “Yea-uh,” with a tinge of mockery only I heard. Becca’s face softened on the girl like she was actually about to speak when there was a burst of energy and a gang of kids ran around us like happy water, pushing us a little apart. They were all younger than Velvet, much younger, with quick, animated faces, confident that they belonged and were loved above all, and they flashed around Velvet like she was a rock while right in front of me she became one. My heart sank. A writing teacher I was actually friendly with started talking to me, her smiling eyes on Velvet, trying to get a smile back. Joan touched my shoulder and said, “Let’s talk about it”; Becca turned away and Joan floated after her. Paul saw someone and abruptly excused himself; Velvet’s eyes followed him. “Let’s get some food,” said the teacher, and we did, but Velvet’s face disturbed me; her expression reminded me of her mother when I first met her in the Fresh Air Fund office, sitting in her body like it was a tank. We loaded our plates and sat down with a beautiful dance instructor who seemed to be friends with the writer. I listened while they talked, and Velvet sat silently beside me, her attention elsewhere. In another part of the room, a man was somehow playing a classical song on a garden hose. Children were laughing with delight. I followed Velvet’s eyes and saw she was looking at Paul, who was talking to a woman with red hair. I hadn’t seen her before. She looked old to be a student; was she a new instructor? The writing teacher was saying: “My kids are taking synchronized swimming and ballet and tap while all the other kids are taking soccer and basketball. Laurel so excels in swimming that it affects everything else she does, and the ballet, that has given her body a special awareness as a swimmer—”

“Yes, that body awareness, it’s part of everything,” said the beautiful dancer. “It translates into every single aspect—”

It was lovely conversation; its loveliness was so shaped and perfect that I could not touch it. Probably there was soft feeling inside, but the outward expression was so shaped and perfect that I could not feel it. It was so shaped and perfect that it hurt, and I thought I must be very ugly to be hurt by something so lovely. I wondered what Velvet felt. Did it hurt her too? She was standing there like her mother: alone in her tank, looking like a fighter when there is no fight — or at least no fight she could understand.

“She has really blossomed in tap, the way she moves! It is so different from ballet, she’s so serious in ballet! In tap it’s like she becomes a runway model; she vogues! It’s dazzling, her personality comes out in such an inventive way!”

“Velvet rides,” I said. “She handles a very difficult horse that nobody else can manage.”

“Oh!” said the dance instructor. “So then you know what we mean about body awareness!”

Willed goodness showed in every muscle of the woman’s smiling face. Velvet looked at her and said nothing. I looked for Paul. I did not see him or the woman he’d been talking to.

“How has riding affected the other parts of your life?” said the dancer.

Velvet dropped her eyes. “Ahh dunno.” Her words said, I’m too stupid to say; her tone said, Your question is too stupid to answer.

I looked for Paul again and still did not see him. Or the redhead.