The Mare

Velvet

I felt my phone ring in my pocket right before I jumped. I knew it was my mom and that snagged my brain and my brain snagged the mare; she started to refuse, but I basically brained her forward so she jumped at the last minute, landing too hard in front and throwing me forward then back into the saddle. I didn’t care, I had to look, and right after the next jump I did, taking the reins in my one hand and digging for my phone with the other.

Pat went, “You’re looking at your phone? You? I don’t believe it!”

I rode around the next jump, slowing to a trot, then a walk. I said, “It’s my mom.”

“I don’t care if it’s President Obama. You don’t text while driving or while on horseback, you know that!”

“I wasn’t texting, I was just—”

She didn’t listen. She came to us and said Whoa so strong the mare stopped and let Pat take hold of her. “Give me that phone,” she said.

I didn’t. I don’t know why. I felt mad and Fiery Girl could feel me — she tossed her head and pawed the ground. I don’t know if Pat said, Be quiet, now or if the words just came off her body. I could feel the mare thinking up at me, What do I do?

“Give me that thing or get down and go home.”

I thought, I could make Fiery Girl rear up on Pat if I wanted to. I could—

Very low, Pat said, “You need to stop this mess, now.”

I sat the mare firm and told her, Whoa. I gave Pat the phone and told her I was sorry.

“You should be. You could’ve hurt yourself and your horse. Now show me that you’re sorry. Do it right. Collect yourself, and by that I mean take whatever crap that’s going on in you and get it under you and get it by the reins. And take these jumps without doing anything stupid. Now.”

I did what she said. Not just with the horse, but with myself. It took a few trips around the arena, to get it under me. But when I did, it was like I was riding a bullet instead of a horse. Or me and her both were riding it. On the bullet, I counted out the steps like Jeanne told me, rushed seven, slow seven. I released big on the high jumps, small on the lower ones. I stopped her exactly. I did it all in front of Pat, who didn’t teach me any of it.

“You ride like a damn dressage queen!” said Pat, and I would’ve thought she was mad. Except then she said, “You ride like that, you’ll take points from those girls like candy.”

I said, “Can I have my phone now?”

“Can I please have my phone now?”

I smiled and said, “Please, Miss Pat.”

“After you put your horse away.”

So I walked Fiery Girl and washed her and dried her and cleaned between her legs with mint. I brushed her and combed out her tail and then took her tail in my hands and leaned back to stretch her spine. These other girls Tracy and Chelsea were getting back from trail-riding and they watched like they couldn’t believe she let me do that. She not only let me, she braced her legs so she could get it all the way, and I felt her all the way, to her eyelashes; I could feel the soft expression in her eyes and lips without seeing them. Then I wished the day was a normal day. I wished there was no competition tomorrow. I wished my mom wasn’t mad at me.

“Good job,” said Pat. She gave me my phone.

I said, “Thank you, Miss Pat,” and put the phone in my pocket.

“Everything okay at home?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

And she kissed me. She kissed me on the forehead and said it again: “Good job.”

I walked out and sat on the feedbags on the side of the barn. My mom had called me five times in two hours. The last two times she left messages. My mom did not leave messages. She called and expected you to see it and call back.

I put the phone facedown on the feedbag and watched Chelsea and Tracy get picked up by their moms. They called to each other and waved good-bye as they got in their cars. I called my voice mail.

The first message: This is what I have to say to you. If you ride in that race, don’t bother to come home, because there won’t be a home for you anymore.

The second message: And don’t think your home is there. You are all alone with those people. Trust me.

I put the phone back facedown. I watched Pat come out of the barn with a wheelbarrow full of dirty bedding, dump it out, go back. I didn’t feel anything. I couldn’t feel anything. I just thought. I thought about this time when Ginger was driving me back from riding at Pat’s: We were talking about tattoos and I said I wanted to tattoo my mom’s name on my one hand and Dante’s on the other. Ginger pulled over on the side of the road and said, “Don’t do that.” I asked why. And she said, “Because your mom’s name is already written inside you. You don’t need to make it literal.” “But why?” I said. And she answered, “Because when somebody’s name is written on you, that person owns you. Like you’re a slave.” And I felt sorry for Ginger when she said it, that she would think like that. Now I felt sorry for me.

Pat came out with the wheelbarrow and went back in. The lights went off in the barn. Pat came out, got in her car, and drove away. I got up and went back to the house. And there was Ginger going, “Do you really have permission to compete? Because I talked to your mother and it sure didn’t sound like it.”