The Mare

Velvet

We drove there slow on curved roads with trees and bushes growing almost into the road; it was light but darkish anyway because of wet mist coming up. It took almost an hour to get there, and it seemed like the whole time Lorrie and Lexy talked about their boots, Lorrie said some boots called Tuff Riders had a knockoff that looked just like Parlantis, but Lexy didn’t believe it, she would never buy Tuff Riders. Jeanne tried to talk to me about Brooklyn, where she used to live, but it was hard to pay attention because I didn’t know any of the places she talked about. We turned onto a road with just one big gray building on it and then nothing, like somebody tore a hole in the trees to make it that way. It was the place. It wasn’t twice the size of Spindletop, it was five times the size of Spindletop, and we were just in the parking lot, which was full of cars and trailers and big curtained places for horses, and horses being walked, and also people speeding around in tiny carts.

We parked at the end of the lot next to a place where people were lunging horses. We got out and all three of them started putting black polish on their boots; Jeanne talked on her phone with one hand and polished with the other. I just stood there noticing Lexy’s manicure and jewelry. Nobody at my barn had a manicure, not even that bitch Heather. Lorrie smiled at me and said, “Is Velvet your real name? Because—” But Jeanne started talking to her too quiet for me to hear, and then Lexy was taking Alpha out and suddenly Jeanne got on a bicycle that was lying in the grass and rode away going, “Meet me at Hunter Ring 3!” Lexy pulled out her phone and told Lorrie to lunge Alpha, and got on her phone with her back to me. A lady with big earrings and bigger lips went by on a cart with a little dog in her lap. I watched Lorrie exercise Alpha next to a woman whose horse was lunging with a brat-ass attitude and even rearing up on her. I could hear her say, “Oh, stop it!”

“Excuse me?” said Lexy. “Maybe you could tack up Spectacular?” She didn’t even wait for me to answer, she just turned her back and talked on the phone. I did it, but I had to work to keep my hands soft and let Spectacular know I wasn’t mad at him. Which I wasn’t. He seemed like a nice horse who didn’t understand why people sometimes all of a sudden wanted to run a electric thing on his ears so bad they had to clothespin his face. When Lexy got off the phone she thanked me, but her voice was more petting itself down the middle than saying anything nice to me. Or even anything to me. Which made me feel pissed off, like sick pissed off. Even when she said she had to be on the phone because of a personal crisis, which she said mostly to Lorrie, who lunged her horse for her.

Anyway, she got on Alpha and rode him to where we were going, and Lorrie led Spectacular and walked with me. She told me Jeanne had left the bicycle there the day before so she could ride on it today, that Jeanne had to ride fast to find out when Lexy’s event was, because sometimes they changed them. She told me she wasn’t competing; she was just there to help and to ride in the practice arena. Her parents couldn’t afford to pay the entry fee for her to compete, it cost them two hundred dollars just for her to practice. I asked her why this was called EQUAL. And she said it stood for something, she could never remember what it was, though. We went over a little stone bridge to a place like the fair, with buildings made of flat walls that sold food and also horse things; there was a sign that said “European Fashion Horze” next to a sign for pizza. Horses walked and people rode them, and there were more women with little dogs. We turned and instead of stuff for sale, there were rings with people riding horses, and the jumps in the rings were all bright colors and covered with flowers. I saw a lady holding a little dog up to a horse’s nose like it was a bunch of flowers.

We came to Hunter Ring 3, but I didn’t see Jeanne or Lexy. Lorrie said Lexy was warming up, and she was going to warm up Spectacular. She said I could come watch, and I went over with her, but I only stood by the fence for a few minutes watching this gray horse with beautiful spots curving his neck against the bit while his rider made him canter around the same jump again and again. Then I walked down the path and sat on some empty bleachers in front of a empty ring. Because I did not want to be here. There were horses all around me and I did not feel them at all, it was like they were part of machinery that I didn’t know how to work, and they were controlled by this machinery. All of them were beautiful, more beautiful than any horse at Pat’s or at Estella’s, like models compared to people you see on the subway. But I couldn’t feel them. Horses usually make me feel calm, and these were making me feel something else.

Voices started coming into the air, people were talking into speakers. A girl rode into the ring in front of me and a voice said, “Miss Mumble Mlech from New Jersey!” and she rode like hell even though nobody was watching her but me and I didn’t care about her. And I was going to have to be here all day.