The Mare

Ginger

I shouldn’t have run up to her like that, but I just wanted to be sure she was safe, to let her know somebody cared about her. But fear was on me, and my feeling was too intense; I just irritated her and the trainer, who looked at me like I was a total fool. But that in a way seemed to strengthen her; I could feel her and the trainer link together against my fluttering presence, and she got up on the horse with a resolve that seemed to calm the animal. Feeling small and worthless, and still afraid because we didn’t know what had happened to her mom, I walked back to the bleachers looking for Paul.

But I didn’t see Paul. I saw Edie and Kayla with her friend Robin and dour little Jewel. And Becca’s friend Joan and — oh my fucking God — Becca. Of course Joan would be there; her daughter rode. But Becca? They were standing there next to the bleachers, talking with casual ease that made me stumble over my feet. They saw me; Edie smiled, Joan said hi, and Kayla hugged me. With an expression I couldn’t read, Becca very quietly said, “Hello.” I blushed and mumbled. “Where is she?” asked smiling Edie. “Is her mom here?”

“She’s practicing,” I said, gesturing toward the arena. “Her mom’s not here yet.”

Joan said something about her daughter hoping to win first place this year. There was nervous quiet.

“Where’s Paul?” I said.

“He took a call,” said Kayla. “He went over there.”

She pointed toward the barn. I said, “Excuse me,” and walked off without smiling, almost running into him coming around a corner.

“Ginger,” he said. “They’re on their way. They took a taxi from Rhinecliff.”

Joy spread over my face; Paul mirrored it. “How?” I said. “Why?”

“I don’t know, they got off at Rhinecliff for some reason and then their phone went dead. They took a taxi to Pat’s barn—”

“Oh!”

“But the driver got our house phone from information and got my cell from that, and I told him how to get here.”

He put his hands on my shoulders, and I would’ve embraced him if I hadn’t caught sight of Becca looking at us as she and the others found seats on the bleachers. We joined them right as the woman in the pavilion spoke a daisy-chain of girl-names finishing with “and Velveteen Vargas from Brooklyn, New York, riding Fugly Girl!”