The Mare

Ginger

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.