The Mare

Ginger

I asked her what kind of grades she was getting on her papers. I asked her if she’d ever given Ms. Rodriguez her paper on the African-American family. And she said, Um, can I tell you what happened today with my friend Alicia? I said, Okay. And she told me that Alicia, who used to be her real friend but who was now only a little bit her friend, choked herself with her scarf in the bathroom. She said she walked in the bathroom with a hall pass and saw Alicia in there choking herself in front of the mirror. She was doing it because her mom was mad at her because she got a 2 on a paper. I said, That’s horrible. At least your mom’s not like that. But what about your paper? And she said it must’ve gotten lost.

So I called Ms. Rodriguez and eventually she called back. She said she’d never seen the paper about the African-American family, but that Velvet was doing the homework and behaving in class — still fighting, but not so much. I asked what did she mean, “fighting”? Physically? The teacher said no, it was verbal. The other girls teased her because they knew she would get excited and they liked to see her blow up. But it was getting better.

I hung up feeling mostly good. Except that all of a sudden I couldn’t stop picturing a little girl in the bathroom choking herself.