The Mare

Velvet

The train ride to the city was boring. It was better than the bus — there was a river outside the window instead of just a road with cars, there was more than one bathroom, and there was a place you could buy soda and chips. There were older white boys with big jackets and Converse on, their feet out in the aisle, and they cut their eyes all over my body when I went past, and one of them whispered “Rihanna.”

But it was just mostly white people talking on their cell phones about boring things or people playing music on their iPods so nobody else could hear it; it was the sound of the train going and going and going. Ginger said, “Look out the window. You might see something you never saw before.” But there was just water and trees and sky. For a second there was a broken-down castle in the middle of the river, but we went past it too quick to see anything. Ginger said, “When I used to tell my mother I was bored, she would say, ‘If you are bored, it’s your own fault.’ ” And she handed me the book about the witch.

I opened the book and thought about what would happen when my mom met Ginger. She would look at Ginger’s Barbie hair and her pink toenail polish and her sandals with jewels on them. She would see how Ginger smiled, and how soft her voice was. She would see how Ginger liked me. She would see that I was wearing the same sandals as Ginger, that were better than anything she ever got me, and she would realize she never bought anything nice for me. She would feel like I did when she called me stupid and ugly.

There’s a limit to what you can be to each other and you are—

The book fell out of my hand into my lap. My mother would feel stupid and ugly. I was glad she would feel it. Except it was me feeling it now. I looked outside.

They come up and they see this big house and all these nice things and—

Suddenly I wanted Ginger to feel it. The sun was hitting the water white-hot and putting silver on the waves. I thought of Ginger trying to make my mom like her while my mom told her she was stupid and ugly and worthless until Ginger cried. I thought of my mom scratching Ginger’s face and slapping Ginger hard. The water and the light and the tree shapes kept going by and by. In my mind, I laughed while my mom smacked Ginger. But also I tried to make her hold back. I tried to protect Ginger too. Because she had been nice to me. She had smiled and taken my picture while I made Joker go to her. She had fought for me to stay. Under the water, the hitting and the smiling ran together. In my mind, my mother hugged Ginger and thanked her. I rode Joker out of the round pen, out into the field. Ginger and my mom watched me together.