by Anna Burke
Heat sometimes helped. Other times it made things worse, but at least it provided a different sensation. Besides, baths were her happy place. The hot water slowly worked some of the knots from her muscles. She rubbed her thighs with the heels of her hands. Darwin leapt onto the tile rim of the tub, trotted around it, and curled up on the towel she’d laid out for herself.
Well, she thought as the perfume from the bath salts suffused her senses, if nothing else, today had proven she was still an idiot over Lillian Lee.
It had also been a reminder of how much Lillian still hated her.
She let her hands float on the surface, holding the fizzing bath bomb between them and letting the chemical reaction buzz against her skin. It soothed her angry nerves. She wished it could soothe the turmoil running beneath.
She’d given Lillian many reasons to dislike her over the years, from taunts to deeper acts of cruelty and humiliation, favors Lillian had returned in kind, but she knew she was responsible for tipping the scales from dislike to deepest loathing. The memory still scalded. Too late, she realized the jasmine-scented steam from her bath smelled like the perfume Lillian had worn the night their second year when Ivy had broken everything. There had been snow and music and then—
“Get the fuck out of my house, Lee.”
She had hoped time would erase those words and the person she’d been when she said them. Today, when she’d seen Lillian jogging toward her, she’d realized how foolish that hope had been.
I have to apologize. But what could she even say? She’d promised herself she would play nice, but that had devolved almost instantly into their old rivalry. All her Colorado vows to put the past behind her seemed impossibly distant. The past had played too much of a role in shaping the person she was now. The doctor she was now.
Her body flared with a new burst of pain. She would pay for today, but even as she whimpered, causing Darwin to lick her face in worry, she remembered the total concentration on Lillian’s face as they flew down the road beneath the October sky, and the sharp, crystalline edge Lillian’s presence brought to her world.
• • •
“Well, that was intense,” said Emilia as they stretched in the kitchen of the big white farmhouse where Morgan, Lillian, Stevie, and Angie lived.
“What was intense?” asked Morgan, who leaned against the counter and watched Emilia with reverent eyes.
“We just had a good workout.” Lillian had hoped to forestall Emilia from mentioning their encounter with Ivy, but luck, as ever, was against her.
“You’ll never guess who we ran into. Literally,” said Emilia.
Morgan tore her eyes away from Emilia and glanced at Lillian. “Ivy Holden.”
“How did you know?”
“Lil’s face. She looks like she swallowed a lemon.”
“Love you too.”
“What, exactly, is the deal with you?” asked Emilia. “I know you hated her in vet school, but she seems nice—just a bit competitive.”
“She’s not nice.”
“You two definitely have some weird energy.”
“And that,” said Morgan as she wrapped an arm around Emilia’s waist, “is the understatement of the new century.”
Lillian focused on releasing tension from her calves. Morgan knew almost every detail of her enmity with Ivy, save for the ones that mattered most. The shame of those—Ivy, smiling; Ivy, mercurial and cruel and gorgeous in the morning light—still burned.
“At least we got a good workout. I’ve never seen you move so fast, Lil.”
“Remind me it was my fault tomorrow when I’m sore and grumpy.” She tried to keep her tone light. They didn’t need to know her heart rate still raced despite her cooldown, or that a part of her wished she was still running, her feet hitting the pavement in time with Ivy’s, and all the world a road.
She excused herself after a few minutes of idle chatter and headed for her greenhouse. She needed peace and quiet and the sharp sap-infused scent of growing things to clear her head. Once she was safely ensconced in her glass castle, she settled onto the folded mat she kept tucked in a corner amid her potted citrus trees, closed her eyes, and attempted to clear her mind. Hermione promptly hopped into her lap. Muffin sprawled on the floor and gathered dirt in her shaggy coat.
Breathe sunlight in, darkness out.
Breathe clean air in, toxic out.
She tried several of her usual mantras. Ivy’s smirk disturbed them all. Circe bumped against her leg and she stroked her shell without opening her eyes. The animal comfort of Circe’s sun-warmed carapace and the weight of Hermione in her lap grounded her. She knew she needed to find a healthier way of dealing with Ivy’s presence in her life. Challenging her to footraces wasn’t the worst approach, but she’d run the soles off her shoes within the month without intervention. Surely, at thirty-one, she was above Ivy’s games. Her breathing slowed at last, and she concentrated on her inhales and exhales.
I can be the bigger person.
Maybe there was an upside somewhere in this mess. She tilted her face to the sunlight. Ivy pushed her. There had been times during her residency where she had almost missed the intensity of their competition, as it had been an extra spur to stay up that much later to study that much harder. Perhaps she could benefit from that again.
Or not.
She was a board-certified exotics specialist. She had nothing to prove to Ivy. Tomorrow was her day off. She would spend it gardening and reading and cuddling with her dogs, and she wouldn’t think about Ivy at all.
“Lil?”
Morgan. So much for the sanctity of her greenhouse. Morgan let herself in and settled onto her heels.
“Want to meditate with me?”
“No thanks,” said Morgan.
“She’s not getting to me.”
Morgan raised both her eyebrows. “You’re letting her get to you.”
“I’m not, I’m— She’s such a bitch.”
“She’s actually been quite pleasant.”
“To you, maybe.”
“Emilia said you were the one who was rude today.”
“She’s the one who moved here! This is my home. What am I supposed to do, bring her cookies and say, ‘Welcome to the neighborhood?’” She hated how her voice quavered.
“Nah. You can make me cookies, though.”
She swatted Morgan’s arm.
“Try giving her a chance. For your sake—anger isn’t good for you.”
“I’m not—”
“Your cortisol levels are through the roof.” Worry creased Morgan’s brow, and Lillian softened.
“I’ll try. I’m not making any promises, though.”
Morgan tousled her hair. She pushed the mussed strands out of her eyes and glared, then tossed a leaf in Morgan’s direction. Too light, it fluttered back to earth. Morgan caught it before it hit the ground. Late evening sunlight caught the sere leaf. Three points. Clearly delineated veins. A pale border. Her breath caught as her mind cataloged the species.
“Fitting,” Morgan said as she examined the leaf. “It’s ivy.”
Chapter Three
Ivy stepped off the ferry and into her mother’s arms. Prudence Holden was a classic example of New England gentility. Blond, blue-eyed, athletic, and gracious, she kissed Ivy’s cheek, wafting perfume with every motion, and then frowned.
“You look tired.” She brushed her thumb across the tender skin beneath Ivy’s eyes.
“I just moved across the country.”
Prudence accepted the reply and launched into a lengthy update about the residents of Rabbit Island while Darwin made threatening eyes at a nearby golden retriever.
Autumn was Ivy’s favorite time of year on the island. Birch trees shed yellow leaves while the grass turned golden and the hardwoods glowed red and orange against the fierce blue of the October sky. The wind blew cold, briny air off the water. She breathed it in gratefully as she navigated the sidewalks and listened to her mother rattle off all the things that still ne
eded to be done before they closed the house up for the season.
Summer cottages with large porches and shuttered windows lined the paths. She ran her hand carefully over the Rosa rugosa, touching the rosehips and plucking a ripe one. The tart flesh cleared the bitterness from her mouth as she contemplated the reason for her visit. She couldn’t put it off any longer.
Their cottage sat on a granite hill overlooking the Atlantic. Smaller islands broke the expanse of horizon in soft brushstrokes of green, and whitecaps dotted the sea. The porch wrapped around the house for a 180-degree view of the water. Wicker furniture stood sentinel before window boxes full of dying flowers, and as she passed through the creaking wooden door, she pictured the porch in winter, snow mounting on its railings, the wind from the ocean driving ice against the windowpanes.
Her mother settled into an armchair in the living room and faced her, framed by a driftwood sculpture and the large stone fireplace. Silence stretched between them. Her mother wasn’t dumb. Ivy’s refusal to discuss why she was moving had set off alarm bells Ivy could practically hear in her mother’s voice every time they spoke. At one point she’d even asked if Ivy was pregnant, which had made for a good joke with Madison. She settled onto the sofa and pulled a wool blanket around her shoulders.
“Talk to me, Ives,” her mother said. “I still don’t understand why you broke up with Kara. She was perfect!”
“Mom.”
“I just don’t get it. The move, the breakup—it’s not like you.”
She’d imagined this conversation a hundred times over the past year. It never went well. She considered beating around the bush, but that would mean talking about Kara, which she had no desire to do.
I’ll tell her.
Her mouth opened. Words queued behind her teeth. It was such a short sentence. Three words. Four, if she spelled out her condition instead of using the abbreviation. A few words, and her mother would never look at her the same way again.
“Things with Kara didn’t work out.”
Her mother’s eyes softened as the lie trickled from Ivy’s lips. “Oh, sweetie. But why?”
“I—” I lied to her about everything? I left without giving her a chance? She deserved better? She couldn’t say any of those things, and so she reached for something—anything—that would convince her mother to drop the subject. “She cheated on me.”
Prudence sucked in a breath and pursed her lips in outrage. “She what?”
“Yeah. It sucked. Can we not talk about it?”
“Of course.” Anger lined her mother’s face, but she saw relief, too, that there wasn’t a more sinister reason for her departure. “Something to drink? Your father should be back soon. He took the boat out with John Fisher.”
“Sure. I’ll get it, though.”
She fled to the kitchen, where the lights assaulted her with knowing brightness, and she leaned her head against the sleek black fridge, letting its hum dull the ache of the lie. Kara hadn’t cheated on her. Kara was blameless, perfect, and this was proof she was better off with someone else. Someone who, unlike Ivy, was whole.
I’m such a coward.
The promise she’d made to herself, that she’d tell Prudence everything once she was in Maine, pressed in on her from all sides. She wanted to call Madison, but her sister would be working, and what would she say? I can’t do it. I’m scared she’ll look at me with pity. I’m scared she’ll think I’m weak. I’m scared, so fucking scared, this will change everything.
Soon. She’d tell her mother soon. Opening the fridge, she pulled out a bottle of Latour Chardonnay and poured two glasses. The amber-tinted liquid sparkled in the sunlight filtering through the window, and she looked out over the ocean to the low, treeless islands that were all that separated sea from sky. Wind whipped whitecaps up over the rocks. She imagined the spray of the waves on her face instead of tears and returned to the living room and her mother and the lies she’d spun to cover up a truth she knew she needed to face soon.
• • •
Lillian finished explaining to Jacqueline O’Malley that excessive handling was the reason for her bird’s condition. It was always an uncomfortable conversation for the client. Loving owners, unaware that too much physical contact created a state of near-constant arousal in birds, lavished affection on their pets. She didn’t fault them. Animals were easy to love. Much easier than people. But the hormones stimulated by those innocent touches took its toll on avian bodies—and inevitably on the client’s psyche once they realized what was happening. No one wanted to think about their animals that way. Sure enough, the woman’s face flushed, and she stared at her bird in horror.
“I had no idea,” she kept repeating.
“It’s a common problem. I see it all the time,” Lillian said with as much gentleness as she could. “You can still interact with him.”
She demonstrated the proper way to handle the parakeet and suggested the woman get a second parakeet for the bird to bond with. Birds were social creatures. Who could blame them for responding to touch. Didn’t the same thing happen to humans?
Don’t go there.
She hadn’t seen Brian for several months before they split. Shame coiled in her belly. She didn’t want to think about Brian, but her body had recently started reminding her of its needs. As she excused herself from the room, she wondered if she should consider dating—not that there were many options in Seal Cove, and not that she particularly wanted to deal with the complications associated with meeting new people. And what was the point? Eventually they would realize she wasn’t good enough, and they would discard her, just like everyone else.
“Good morning,” said the last person she wanted to see in her current state of mind. Or ever. Ivy stood before her, impeccably dressed in a pale pink button-down, white coat, and navy chinos.
“Good morning,” she said cautiously. Ivy was supposed to be on large animal today, monitoring inpatients and taking appointments for people who preferred trailering their animals to the clinic to paying the farm visit fee.
“I have one of your clients. Their horse is here with a melting ulcer, but they had some questions about your treatment plan for Mabel.”
“The bearded dragon?”
“Yes. Would you mind taking a look at her chart? I can also tell them to leave a message.”
“What were their questions?”
As Ivy talked, Lillian studied her. Ivy’s face had thinned slightly in the intervening years, but other than that she looked almost the same as the girl she’d traded barbs with across a lab table. Her tone today, however, was coolly professional instead of needling, and for several brief moments she managed to pretend this was like any other conversation with a colleague.
“Thank you.” Ivy held her eyes. The pause stretched, and with it Lillian’s held breath. Vines curled in the corner of her vision. She thought of the bird from earlier; like him, she’d once mistaken attention for something else.
“No problem,” she said, and tore her eyes away. It was harder than it should have been.
Still, Ivy had been almost pleasant. That in itself was remarkable enough for comment.
• • •
She told Angie about the interaction later that evening as they sat around the fireplace.
“Maybe she’s matured,” said Angie. It was easy to forget Angie owned the house. With her hair piled messily on top of her head and one leg flung over the back of her chair, she looked more like the manager of a kombucha stand than the owner and operator of 16 Bay Road, the house where they lived, and the site of the doggy day care and boarding facility associated with Seal Cove Veterinary Clinic.
“I doubt it. People like her are too entitled to change.”
“When do I get to meet her? For research purposes. I mean I’ve obviously stalked her online, but that’s not the same thing.”
“I don’t know. The holidays probably.”
“I think you’re letting her get to you too much.” Angie’s cat, James, purred on he
r lap. Angie stroked his large, blocky head.
“She’s not getting to me.”
“She’s all you’ve talked about since she started.”
“That isn’t true.” Lillian paused. “Is it?”
Angie’s silence was answer enough.
“She made my life hell for four years. I can’t just let that go.”
“She can’t make your life hell anymore, though.”
“Yes, she can.” Her very presence was enough to undermine everything she valued: logic, sanity, and self-preservation.
“How? She can’t take your job. You said yourself you only see her a few times during the week, and she doesn’t hang out with us. If she starts something at work, Danielle will sort her out.”
“Haven’t you ever met someone who just angers you by existing?”
“Yes. My exes.”
The comparison between Ivy and Angie’s exes, who had all taken more from Angie than Ivy had ever taken from Lillian, unsettled her. Ivy could be a bitch; she wasn’t a sadist. She also wasn’t an ex, because to be someone’s ex meant meaning something to them in the first place. Ivy didn’t deserve that much from her.
“Okay, she’s not quite that bad.”
“Forget Ivy.” Angie’s eyes brightened. “We should go out.”
“What?”
“We should go to Portland. Find a club or something. Get your mind in a different place.”
“Angie, I haven’t been to a club in years.”
“Okay, then we should go to Stormy’s.”
That sounded like a decent suggestion. She hadn’t seen their friend in a few weeks. “Right now?”
“Why not?” Angie gently dislodged a displeased James and stood, stretching as luxuriously as her cat.
“I’ll get changed.”
“Just wear your sweatpants.”
