Wild Girl (9 page)

At home, I dropped my books in the doorway. I knew Pai and Rafael would be at the track. I went outside, calling,
“Here, kitty kitty; here, orange cat,”
stopping to see if she’d appear.

In front of the barn, José slept on a three-legged stool,
his mouth open. I gave Love You a carrot, and she grazed my shoulder with her muzzle. “I’ll be back to see you later,” I told her.

I gave one to Wild Girl as well. “This is the day that will change your life.”

I went outside again, and there, at last, was the cat, walking along the exercise track on her fat orange paws, her tail held high. I called to her again.

She stopped and I went toward her, scooping her up, my face to her rough fur.

I walked inside the barn and saw Wild Girl’s head over the top of her half door. I knew what it was like to feel alone. I knew that terrible ache.

The horse and cat would be together in that warm hay that smelled sweetly of the outdoors. I imagined Wild Girl on the track with the cat perched on the railing.

I listened to the cat purr as we reached the stall.

But only for a moment.

There was an explosion of sound as Wild Girl threw back her head and kicked out.

The other horses in their stalls sensed her fear. They whinnied, kicked. A pail went over with a clatter, and José came running back.

The cat flew out of my arms, leaving scratches on my wrist as she shot down the aisle and out the barn doors.

Before I could take a breath, Pai was standing in the doorway.
“What have you done?”

My mouth was so dry, I couldn’t begin to think of an answer.

Instead, I ran. I followed the cat down the driveway past Mrs. Januário’s house and turned into the road.

The filly’s heart was pounding
.

The small creature with sharp teeth and claws that ripped had come into her space!

The filly screamed. She kicked out, kicked and missed the creature. She felt the fear begin in the others around her, heard their movement, their sounds
.

If she could have run she would have, but she was trapped inside
.

Then the creature was gone, and there was only the sound of her own whinnying and the noise of the others as they moved in their stalls
.

She trembled, trying to quiet herself
.

I saw the truck coming slowly along the avenue; then Rafael pulled up next to me. He leaned over and opened the door. In a voice that reminded me of Mamãe, he said, “It’s really not so much of a thing, Lidie.”

I shook my head.

“Come on,” he said. “Get in.”

I slid in, barely glancing at him.

He put his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know why that horse spooked, but horses have long memories, really long, stronger than their hearing, and much stronger than their vision.” He spread his hands wide. “So who knows? But listen, the horses have calmed down. We gave all of them treats….”

I sat there, head bent, not answering.

“I want to go home.” My voice was so low I was surprised that he heard me.

“Sure.”

I shook my head. “I mean—”

“You mean you’d like to stop at the diner first for an English muffin? A Danish? A hot chocolate?” His head was tilted, his smile crooked. “Maybe with a marshmallow or whipped cream on top?”

It was hard not to smile back at him, but I looked away. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I remember what you looked like the day Pai and I left Jales. You were sitting on the steps crying….” He waved his hand in front of his face. “You were wearing pink overalls. You loved those overalls.”

I hadn’t thought about those overalls in years. I’d wait on the laundry room steps for them to come out of the wash. I closed my eyes: pale pink buttons that looked like flowers, a scroll of rosebuds around the bottoms of the legs.

I’d never worn those overalls again after that day. I’d watched the car drive away, and I’d gone down to the
rio
, splashing through the water all the way to the rocks. By the time Titia Luisa found me, I was covered with mud and had lost one of those flower buttons.

Ah, child
, she’d said,
it’s not that he doesn’t love you. How could he take care of such a little girl like you?

I never believed her.

“You loved pink,” Rafael said now.

I looked up at him, and he nodded. Another pain in my chest. “The pink silks.” I took a breath. “And that’s why you
painted the bedroom pink.” How disappointed he must have been when I hardly said two words about it. “I’m sorry, Rafael, I didn’t remember.”

“And Snow White and her dwarfs,” he said. “You had a book you read over and over.”

It was even harder to remember that. A fat little book? Snow White with her hand outstretched, a bluebird on her fingers? Was that it?

“I was waiting for that girl to get off the plane,” he said. “Somehow I was expecting that little kid we’d left on the steps in Jales.”

Was I going to cry again?

“I’m going to paint something else on your wall,” he said. “It’ll be a surprise. You’ll be able to live with it for years.”

“Never mind,” I said, and wiped my eyes and my cheeks, trying to stop the tears. “I like Snow White, I do. Really.”

“That’s what Pai said.”

Before I could say anything else, he began to drive. “Home is here with us,” he said. “Nowhere else. It’s where you belong. And right now we’re going to the diner.”

“All right.”

“We’ll get ourselves a snack because it’s Pai’s turn to cook tonight, and you know his dinners are much worse than mine.”

I reached for a tissue, then realized I was starving.

“And it will give him a little time to calm down,” Rafael said.

It was almost dinnertime, so the diner was filled with people, but we found a booth next to the window.

With the sweet tea and buttery English muffins we’d ordered, I began to feel better.
It’s not so much of a thing, Lidie
.

“I’ll tell you something,” I said, “if you tell me something back.”

“It depends,” he said.

“Say yes.”

“All right, yes.”

“I can ride,” I said, the words spilling out. “I can really ride. Maybe not as well as you, but still…”

I took a sip of that warm tea to slow myself down. “I rode all over Jales on the farmer’s horse, Cavalo. Sometimes I saddled him; sometimes I rode bareback. We climbed the steep rocks on the other side of the
rio
all the time—”

I broke off and began again. “Tio Paulo said I was born to ride.”

“Who can believe Tio Paulo?” Rafael said, but I knew he was teasing me.

“It’s true,” I said. “I’m small enough, and in a few years I’m going to be a jockey. I’m going to ride horses like Big Brown and Rags to Riches. You’ll see. In the meantime, I’ll ride Wild Girl if she ever perks up.”

For a moment, I saw sadness in Rafael’s face, but then he raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t need to learn on Love You?” He sat back, shaking his head, smiling.

“That poor old horse,” I said, and we laughed together.

I looked down at my cup, trying to think of how I’d ask him what I wanted to know. Then I blurted it out. “Tell me what’s wrong, Rafael.”

He shook his head. “What could be wrong? The tea’s not too hot, the English muffin’s not too cold….”

I held up my hand. “Stop.” But he wasn’t looking at me. His head was bent, the cup up to his mouth.

“You haven’t touched the English muffin anyway. Rafael, I know there’s something.”

He put down the cup. He was trying to smile. “I was born to ride, too.”

“I know that. I could see it.”

“I’m too big,” he said. “Pai doesn’t know it yet, or if he does, he doesn’t want to think about it.”

I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

“The good jockeys are all about a hundred pounds, maybe just a little more.” He put the cup down. “I weigh more than that now, and even though I’m starving myself, my bones are getting heavier, I’m too tall….”

He looked out the window. “I have this season. But by the fall, it’ll be too late.”

“No,” I said, but I saw his wrists and his shoulders. He was right. You could see how wide he was, bigger than anyone in our family.

We sat there, not talking for a while.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I’m going to ride now,” he said. “Tomorrow, and the rest of this meet. I can do that that. Pai is so proud, I feel …”

“Then?”

He raised his shoulders. “Who knows?” He was trying to smile.

I held my warm cup to my mouth.

“Sometimes,” he said, “when you’ve been dreaming about something for a long time, and it doesn’t turn out the way you expected …” He stopped.

I nodded. I knew what he meant. Of course I did. Wasn’t that what was happening to me?

Rafael left money on the table, and we drove home together, not saying a word.

The next morning, I hurried down the hall toward my classroom. Before school, I’d been up early, and outside. I’d stood at the track watching Rafael and the others exercise the horses. I caught a glimpse of Wild Girl at the far end, José working her easily, and Mrs. Januário riding Doce, her hair down, her head up to the morning breeze.

I suddenly realized I was late. I ran, knowing I couldn’t make school by the bell, and was the last one in the door.

Today the classroom had been rearranged. The tables lined the sides of the room, and Mrs. Bogart was unrolling a purple rug in the center of the floor.

She saw me in the doorway and beckoned. I went into the room, and Liz grabbed my hand and showed me
where our seats were. “Chair,” she said, patting the back of it.

I slid into the seat and looked around. Someone was watering plants on the windowsill: a geranium that was beginning to flower, and a green vine that twirled around a trellis made of straws.

Mrs. Bogart said something and clapped her hands. It must have been
Come
, because everyone went toward her and sat on the purple rug. I went with them, sinking down next to Liz.

Mrs. Bogart was smiling at me, I could see that. And in front of her was a pile of small books. She said something then that sounded almost like my own language. I repeated it in my head, trying to figure it out.

She said it again.
“Eu quero …”

Yes. Her accent was strong, but still I understood her. “I want…,” she said.

She leaned forward, her hands out, looking at me.

Next to me, Liz was frowning.

“What?” Ian asked.

Mrs. Bogart winked at me.
“Eu quero”
—she looked up at the ceiling—
“cachorro quente.”

Hot dog?
Was that what she meant? I began to laugh.
“É
mesmo!”
I said back without thinking.
Really
.

Everyone looked at me as Mrs. Bogart gave out the books, which I saw were Portuguese-English dictionaries. There weren’t enough to go around, so we had to share.

Mrs. Bogart pointed at me.
“Tu queres …”

What did I want? Ice cream, maybe.
“Sorvete.”

Around me, everyone was paging through the books, leaning over each other’s shoulders. Everyone wanted to be the first to find what we’d said.

Then Ian had it. “Ice cream,” he said.

I tried to fit my tongue around those sounds.
I
want ice cream
.

Gradually everyone caught on. Liz wanted earrings, Ian wanted a drum, someone else wanted summer, all of them trying it in dreadful Portuguese that made me laugh, and they laughed, too.

I began to separate their faces in my mind: Ashley with the dark hair, Will with all the freckles, Kathy who sat on the other side of me.

In spite of everything, I was glad to be in that classroom with the straggly geranium on the windowsill and the puffy jackets hanging on the hooks at the side of the room. My jacket was exactly in the middle, and I thought it might be happy to be there, too, in this noisy classroom.

Mrs. Bogart made circular motions with her hands as she looked at her watch. We rushed to roll up the rug and put the little books in a pile on her desk. And then, on my way to my seat, I looked up at her. I felt tears come into my eyes and brushed them away. Crying again!

Mrs. Bogart nodded at me as if she knew I was thanking her. And then she passed out pieces of yellow paper with lines.
“Eu quero …,”
she said.

I looked around to see everyone bent over the papers,
beginning to write. An essay. We’d done those a thousand times in Jales. Mrs. Bogart came down to my desk and touched the paper with her finger. “Write in Portuguese.”

I sat there thinking about it. Whatever I’d write would be secret; no one would know what it said without a dictionary. It was almost a magic language, and I was the only one here who knew it.

I could say anything. I could even say the truth.

I picked up my pen. I wrote that I wanted everything to be the way I thought it was, all those years in Jales when I sat on the front porch thinking about America. Never mind Rafael telling me sometimes things weren’t as we expected.

I wanted Rafael to be happy; I wanted to be happy.

I grinned to myself as I thought I wanted a decent meal and a house that was noisy.

I wanted Wild Girl to love the barn and the training track.

And Pai.

I dug into the paper with my pen. I wanted this Pai to disappear and the old Pai who laughed with Mamãe to come back. I wanted a Pai who remembered the lemon.

How could he have forgotten?

Ian came around to collect the papers, and I looked at my terrible essay: the pen had followed all the angry thoughts in my head.

Ian glanced over my shoulder. “Wow,” he said, and for one quick moment, I was afraid he could read it.

But then I realized it was the Portuguese filling line after line that impressed him.

I shook my head when he reached for it, but did it in a friendly way. Instead, I folded it into quarters and put it carefully in my math book.