Night Tide

by Anna Burke

  “I’ve never seen you with a hickey,” said Angie in delight.

  “Nor will you.” She slipped her hands free of theirs and pulled out her makeup case. Flipping open a mirror, she dabbed more liquid cover-up on her jaw and neck, embarrassment painting her cheeks. She snapped the mirror shut.

  “Are we talking a seven? Nine?”

  “Also, how did you not freeze to death?” asked Stormy.

  “There was a fireplace and a woodstove.”

  Angie passed a hand over her brow in an imitation of a swoon. “That’s legit romantic.”

  “There is nothing romantic about me and Ivy.”

  “Just cozying up together in front of a fire, on an island, in the middle of a snowstorm, with only each other for warmth? You do realize people write fanfic about things like that, right?”

  “I don’t read fanfiction.”

  “Your loss,” said Angie. “Clearly.”

  “Are you going to keep seeing her?”

  “I have to, don’t I?” she said to Stormy. “We work together.”

  “Are you going to keep sleeping with her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to?” Angie asked.

  She hesitated, the words I don’t know refusing to leave her lips. She did know. She knew without a shred of doubt she wanted to sleep with Ivy again. Not just fuck her, but sleep with her, her arms around Ivy’s waist and their breath falling into rhythm.

  Which is a very, very bad sign.

  Perhaps sensing she was either unwilling—or unable—to answer, Stormy cleared her throat. “Okay. Let me get this straight. You were rivals in vet school, but you’re both doctors now, and mature, intelligent, professional women. Does the past matter?”

  Waking in Ivy’s apartment. The cool cotton of Ivy’s duvet against her cheek. The way the pillow smelled like Ivy’s shampoo. And Ivy, sitting up in bed, her arms around her knees, staring straight ahead. Her hair fell in a rumpled wave down her naked back. A lock curled around the blade of her shoulder, while another brushed the channel of her spine. So vulnerable. So different than the Ivy who tormented her across a lab table.

  “You’re perfect, Lee,” Ivy had whispered late last night, her hand deep enough inside Lillian to brush her soul, while snow drifted past a streetlight out the window. She’d felt perfect. She’d felt whole. She’d felt, in other words, like someone else, because those women couldn’t be Ivy Holden and Lillian Lee. They were sworn enemies. They were not . . . whatever this was.

  Except her body called her bluff. Two years of obsessive hatred had memorized every inch of Ivy. She could pick her footfalls out of a crowd, knew the many timbres of her laugh and what each meant, knew the feeling of Ivy’s breath on her ear, whispering an insult, standing too close. Knew what Ivy smelled like after a shower, after the gym, after an exam when stress-sweat defeated her perfume. Those weren’t things you knew about someone you wanted hit by a bus. Those were things you knew about someone you wanted.

  And now, here she was in Ivy’s bed, and there Ivy was, haloed by the rising sun. She sat up. Ivy stiffened. Swallowing her trepidation, she reached to lay a hand on Ivy’s cool shoulder.

  Ivy’s voice cut the hope out of her with all the surgical finesse of a chainsaw.

  “Get the fuck out of my house, Lee.”

  “The past always matters,” said Angie.

  “Yeah, but—”

  She cut Stormy off. “We work together. It’s a bad idea.”

  “Why, because things could get worse than they already are?”

  Their food arrived on the bar, sparing her the need to answer. She rose before either of them could object and retrieved her salad and Angie’s grilled cheese. Her friends had their heads together when she returned.

  “We’ve decided,” Angie announced.

  “What have you decided?”

  “That you should quit while you’re ahead. Tell Ivy it was fun while it lasted and go back to being weird and bitchy about her all the time.”

  She sensed a trap.

  “Yes. And then I’ll date her,” said Stormy. “Because she is fine.”

  “Since when are you into femmes?” asked Angie.

  “Since whenever I feel like it.”

  “Please do not date Ivy Holden,” said Lillian.

  “Why not?”

  “Because—” She paused. Both Stormy and Angie waited, their gazes predatory. “Because she has a mean streak, and I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  The memory of that distant morning was too fresh. Ivy could be all sweetness when she wanted to be, which was clearly the side she’d chosen to show Stormy, but that didn’t change what lay beneath. Poison coated the luster of her leaves. It was one thing for Lillian to touch her, knowing she was poison, but she would not let her friends.

  “That’s definitely the reason,” said Angie in mock seriousness. “Don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely. It has nothing to do with the fact that she can’t stand the thought of me and Ivy boning—”

  “Stop.” She stabbed her fork into a fat slice of radish and glared.

  Stormy held her hands up in surrender. “Relax. You’re right. She’s not my type.”

  “What we really decided,” said Angie in a gentler tone, “is you’ve been messed up since Ivy got here, and everything makes much more sense now.”

  “What part of this makes any sense?”

  “You’re repressing some serious emotional shit about that girl.”

  “What Angie means, in case ‘emotional shit’ isn’t clear enough, is you have feelings for Ivy. Very complicated feelings. And if they haven’t gone away in the last six years, they are certainly not going to go away now that you’ve slept together. You don’t get an easy out from this.”

  Her salad wilted in her stomach. She eyed the radish still speared on her fork and felt just as impaled. “I know. I just don’t know what to do about it.”

  “What if you gave her a chance?”

  She looked at Stormy, some of the anger from the night at the club still lingering. They didn’t know Ivy like she did. People didn’t change that drastically in just a few years. Stormy, however, was right about one thing: she was in it now, and there was no easy way out.

  “How do I give her a chance?”

  “Some people do dinner,” said Angie. “Instead of nearly freezing to death.”

  “I need something that doesn’t involve money so she can’t lord it over me.”

  “What about a concert? Something fancy and classical that requires you to wear a black dress. And you could buy the tickets ahead of time. Or you could take her to the Boothbay botanical gardens, or for a sleigh ride, or . . . hot tubs! Sleigh ride then hot tubs!”

  “So, like . . .date her?”

  Angie patted her consolingly. “For a doctor, sometimes you’re surprisingly thick.”

  “If I do that, I’ll have to tell Morgan eventually.”

  “Yes?” said Stormy, drawing the word out into a question.

  “And she is not going to like it.”

  “She’s not your mothers.”

  Lillian could feel all the blood draining from her face. “Oh no. I forgot about them. They’ll kill her. Like, actually kill her and bury her body in a bog if they find out I’m seeing her.”

  Angie and Stormy blinked.

  “Why do I feel like there’s more to this story than you’ve told us?” asked Angie.

  “There isn’t,” she said too quickly to be believable. “Whatever. I’ll deal with Morgan and my moms when there is something to deal with. Right now I need to eat and get back before I’m late for my next appointment.”

  • • •

  “Well, well, well,” said Stormy when Ivy took a seat at what was beginning to feel like her stool at the bar. “What can I get you?”

  “Something decaf. I need to sleep tonight.”

  “Any chance that’s because you didn’t get enough sleep last night?”

  “I ha
ve no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, adopting an airy tone.

  “Mhmm. Something to eat?”

  She ordered a bagel and lox and rested her elbows on the bar to watch Stormy work. Stormy did her best to please her customers, and it was clear who were regulars from the jokes they exchanged. Ivy was lucky the town had a place like this. She’d noted a few of the other bars, which seemed to cater to very different clientele.

  “It’s funny,” Stormy said as she circled back around with a frothy beverage. “Don’t you think? You and Lil crossing paths again.”

  “Yes, my abs are sore from laughing.”

  “I’m sure that’s the reason they’re sore.” Stormy winked.

  “Talk to her recently?”

  “Had lunch with her today.”

  The room felt hot and close suddenly, and the soft music jarred her ears. “Oh.”

  “We had a fascinating conversation.”

  Do not ask what it was about. Do not ask what it was about. Do not— “What did you talk about?”

  “Plants.”

  “Plants?” She sipped her drink, not tasting it.

  “Yes.” Stormy flipped a cloth from her apron and scrubbed at a circle of condensation on the bar. “Lilies. Types of ivies. Whether or not the two could grow in the same garden.”

  She clutched the warm mug. “Lil’s a gardener, right? What does she think?”

  “She’s worried,” said Stormy.

  Ivy looked at her hands and tried to sound nonchalant. “She should be. They’re both poisonous to dogs and cats.”

  “The urge to make a terrible joke about pussies and bitches is strong, but I’ll have you know that I, a mature adult, have overcome it.”

  “I’m not sure that counts as overcoming,” said Ivy.

  “Little victories. How are you liking Seal Cove? You’ve been here almost two months.”

  “It’s nice.”

  “Not exactly a ringing endorsement,” said Stormy.

  “It’s November in Maine.”

  “I actually love November.” Stormy gestured at the dark sky beyond the café windows—only a few lights in the harbor breaking the black. “It’s so melancholy and bleak and moody.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You never had a goth phase, did you.”

  Ivy laughed. “No. Prep school uniforms made it rather difficult.”

  “I’m sure you could have found a way.”

  “I could have, but investigators would still be looking for my body after my mother murdered me. Goth daughters are harder to show off to conservative senators.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “And you?”

  “The darkness in my soul shines through no matter what I wear,” said Stormy. “Are you sticking around for the winter holidays?”

  “No. My family takes Christmas seriously.”

  “You know,” said Stormy, pausing her work to concentrate fully on Ivy. “We usually hold a Holiday Thing. I’m an atheistic Jew and none of the rest of us are religious, so it’s very chill, plus Lil’s mom will make moon cakes for the Lunar New Year. You should come.”

  “Didn’t you get in trouble the last time you invited me out?”

  “Hazard of the job.”

  “I don’t think Lil wants me crashing something like that.”

  “Well, I happen to like you, so I’m inviting you as my friend. Fair?”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “You should be. I don’t pick up just any strays.”

  Ivy had never been called a stray in her life, but as she felt the warmth of Stormy’s smile soothe the ache in her chest, she decided the term fit. She’d fled Colorado with her tail between her legs and had wound up here, sniffing around Stormy’s bar for human connection.

  “Thanks,” she said, embarrassed and grateful in equal parts.

  “I’ll text you the details.”

  It wasn’t Stormy who texted her the next day, however, as she worked up a case of colic on a nearby farm. She checked her messages when she got back in the truck, fingers stiff with cold and snow spitting down from a leaden sky.

  LL: I have two tickets for the Portland Philharmonic Orchestra. Interested?

  Her chapped lips split in the wake of her grin. She recognized the challenge. Classical music wasn’t something she particularly enjoyed, which Lillian knew. If she accepted, it would show Lillian she cared enough to sit through something she didn’t love. If she refused, or suggested a different event, she’d show Lillian she wanted to spend time with her, but not make sacrifices to do so.

  Clever, Lee.

  IH: Can I buy you dinner first?

  Lillian’s response came later that day.

  LL: Yes, but I get to choose the restaurant.

  IH: It has to have napkins on the table.

  LL: Paper, or cloth?

  IH: The fact you have to ask is embarrassing for you.

  LL: Because you’re a snob?

  IH: Because cloth is better for the environment, and I thought you cared about the Earth.

  LL: Cute. I’ll pick you up at 5 on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

  IH: Have my schedule memorized?

  LL: Don’t flatter yourself. It’s on the hospital calendar.

  IH: Sure.

  LL: See you then, Holden.

  • • •

  Lillian’s family celebrated Thanksgiving passively. Daiyu didn’t like turkey, so they cooked two Cornish game hens instead: one each for Daiyu and June, and a tofurkey for her. The tofurkey was more of a joke than a sincere attempt at celebrating genocide, but, smothered in vegetable gravy, it wasn’t half bad.

  “You seem happier,” Daiyu said as she passed a basket full of warm pumpkin bread. Muffin raised her snout from beneath the table to sniff the baked goods, true to her namesake.

  “Work is going well.” She tried to keep her voice level so she didn’t betray the giddiness she felt every time she thought of Ivy. “As much as I hate to admit it, having another vet on the staff again is helpful.”

  “Even if it’s Ivy?”

  “She’s a good doctor. I’m trying to overlook the rest.”

  “Working with people you don’t like is part of life,” said June. “You’ve been lucky so far at Seal Cove. Take Randall.”

  She bit into the warm bread as her mother launched into a rant about one of her coworkers. The story involved a crane, which made her shudder. It defied reason that June could work several stories in the sky while she could barely climb footstools. Thinking of heights brought her back to Ivy. Which also defied reason.

  She was going to go on a date with Ivy Holden.

  Willingly.

  After dinner and the necessary kitchen cleanse, which was difficult on loaded stomachs but eased by June’s liberal hand with the beer, they collapsed on the couch. Daiyu rested her head on June’s shoulder, and June kissed her wife’s graying hair. Lillian, who had curled up in her favorite armchair with Hermione snuggled against her, felt a pang of love and jealousy. She wanted the kind of love her parents had. Deep. Simple. Present. Ivy didn’t fit into that picture.

  On the other hand, she’d just gotten out of a four-year relationship. She deserved a chance to sleep with whomever she pleased, and dating Ivy for a while was—

  A terrible idea.

  Hermione let out a long sigh from her narrow snout and burrowed deeper into her lap. No matter how she looked at it, dating Ivy, if she could call what they were doing dating, would only end badly. Stormy and Angie may have pointed out things were already going badly, but they didn’t know the full extent of the damage Ivy Holden could inflict on her. The old wound was still there. Even as she thought this, an image of Ivy sitting beside her at the Portland symphony rose in her mind.

  “What are you smiling about?” asked Daiyu.

  “Dinner.”

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, hoping it wasn’t from the clinic, and opened an image from Angie. This time, the smile turned into a laugh. A
ngie had finished a strip of her Poison Ivy comic, and she studied the panels, admiring Angie’s skill. Poison Ivy, wrapped in noxious green leaves, fought Tiger Lily. Sentient plants rose to aid them both, vines wrapping around legs and arms and the frame of the panel itself. In the last several, the characters engaged in a wrestling match that got progressively more intimate, until Tiger Lily had Poison Ivy pinned beneath her. She zoomed in on the speech bubble.

  You don’t have the guts to kill me, said Poison Ivy.

  There’s more than one way to win, said Tiger Lily, and in the next panel—

  “Good god,” she said aloud, then typed a message to Angie.

  LL: This is straight up porn.

  AD: You liked it.

  LL: My boobs are not that big.

  AD: But hers are.

  “What do you want to watch?” June asked.

  “Whatever you want,” she said, trying to look away from the comic on her phone screen.

  Angie had a point. She remembered firelight falling over Ivy’s breasts, and, despite her distended stomach and the presence of her mothers on the couch, felt her body react.

  AD: You’re welcome.

  LL: Shut up.

  • • •

  The drive to her aunt’s house in Connecticut was uneventful. She sang along to the radio and tried not to think about the promise she’d made to herself.

  I’ll tell them.

  She pictured her mother’s ashen face; her father’s stunned expression; the horror as the realization their perfect, golden daughter had a flaw sank in.

  I have to tell them eventually.

  But did she? How long could she hold out before the disease made the decision for her? How long could she stand the loneliness eating her from the inside out?

  I am not lonely.

  That, however, was a lie too far, even for her. Madison knew, but Madison was one person. An important person, but she couldn’t ask her sister to be everything for her. She’d moved closer to home because her doctor told her she might need help, and she’d decided she’d rather have her family’s help than Kara’s.

  I’ll tell them. I will.

  But who was she explaining to? Herself? The therapist she didn’t have, though she probably needed one?

  Then there was Lillian. She skipped through her playlist, looking for something to distract her. Lillian, try though she might to convince herself otherwise, wasn’t just a rebound. Ivy might be a rebound for Lillian, though, and she couldn’t afford to lie about that to herself, either. What she felt for Lillian hadn’t dimmed in the intervening years, and now—