“So did you know he was different right away?” Leah asked.
“Of course. But it took me a long time to admit that to myself—much less anyone else. I kept telling myself this was completely other from my real life. That none of it counted because it wasn’t reality.”
“And did you think of Michael?”
Her eyes filled with unexpected tears at the thought of how much she hurt Michael. “All the time,” she managed. So much for maintaining an emotional distance from the story.
“Done!” Leah pronounced suddenly, stepping aside so Ivy could admire her handiwork.
Ivy walked closer so she could get a good look. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. Leah couldn’t make an ugly cake if she tried, but this one was particularly spectacular. As Ivy studied it, she couldn’t help but think that it looked just like a cake she might’ve chosen for her and Michael’s wedding, had it happened.
Leah called Lester in to snap photos of it for the bakery website. (Elliott had designed the site in a failed effort to get in good with the family, back when he still tried.) Somewhere in all the excitement over the cake and packaging it up for delivery, her story ended. She left off with her and Elliott still sitting at that table in the lodge restaurant, talking long after the restaurant closed, the staff making little jokes as they left them there and Elliott promised he’d lock up. In the wee hours he’d made them coffee so they could keep talking. But she didn’t tell Leah any of that. She just thought about it as she finished her shift and drove back to 40th Street, her thoughts a mixture of the beginning of her and Elliott and the ending of her and Michael.
But she was getting ahead of herself. And the story was over. That was, if she could stop thinking about it.
After work she stopped at a garden center to buy a new pot for the wishing tree. Back home, she was standing over the pot, trying to make the branches stand up, when her phone rang. April. “I was just thinking about you earlier,” she said to her best friend, who felt very far away at that moment.
“Look, I know I said I wouldn’t bother you,” April said. “But have you looked at his tweets today? I checked and I see you’re still not following him.”
“Nor will I ever follow him. Feel free to tell him that.” She poured in some more marbles to try to shore up one side. She would neither affirm nor deny that she had looked at his tweets.
“Well, you ought to go check out what’s happening over there. People are starting to respond. Like, a lot of people.”
She sat down at the table and put her head down with a sigh, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. She either needed to nap or take one of Shea’s power walks. “Okay,” she mumbled.
“What are you doing?”
“Working on the wishing tree.”
April laughed. “Feel qualified to be in charge of wishes yet?”
Ivy looked over at the tree, which had listed to one side again. “I’m feeling less and less qualified with each passing day.”
“Talk to your ex yet?”
“Briefly.”
“And?”
“And … it’s complicated. He’s my childhood, my past. We share a lot.”
“Does he see it that way?”
“He’s … understandably guarded.”
This time it was April’s turn to sigh. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re trying to talk him out of being guarded?”
She laughed. “Because you know me.”
“You’re my best friend. Elliott’s my cousin. He screwed up. You left. Understand I love you both and I’m torn. He’s sorry, though, Ivy. You’re really going to turn away from someone who wants forgiveness?”
“I can forgive him without letting him back into my life.” She said it, but even as she looked around the house she had run back to, she thought about the way she’d needed to make things right with her family. She wasn’t sure the two could be mutually exclusive like she said. Sometimes to forgive is to let someone back into your life. She’d not started feeling forgiven by her family—or feeling like forgiving them—until she’d been in their midst these past few days. But she didn’t say any of that to April.
“Just read his tweets. At least then I know you’re listening somehow. I mean, what he’s doing for you? I’d give anything to have someone stick his neck out for me like that.”
“Okay,” Ivy said again. She knew that April was still hurting over the pastor’s speedy departure to Michigan, how easily he’d given up. And for just a moment, she wondered if Elliott’s tenacity was saying more than she was hearing.
“And one more thing,” April added. “Just remember what you used to say: Michael’s your past, but Elliott’s your future.”
She had no comeback for that, except that that might’ve been true once. But she wasn’t sure it was true anymore. She hung up the phone and thought about going to check his account like April wanted. But then Margot and Shea walked in arguing over the “hideous flowers” Shea had picked out for the wedding, and Ivy got caught up in the argument. She had to admit it was easier to listen to them than to deal with her own stuff. As long as wedding plans were swirling around her, she could stay distracted. She could ignore Elliott and his plan to get her back, leaving her more time to focus on Michael. Going back to where she started to determine how she got to where she was.
It was no coincidence that her walk that afternoon took her by the house Michael was restoring. She tried to look nonchalant as she passed, but secretly she was praying he would see her and call her name. But she walked all the way by, and there was no sign of him. Just her luck.
She continued on, thinking about Mrs. McCoy and her tea parties, feeling sad that the old woman had died without her knowing. That fall after her parents split, Mrs. McCoy had been one of the few neighbors still there after the summer crowds left. Ivy and Shea rode their bikes endlessly up and down the street, killing time and trying to stay out of the house so they didn’t hear Margot crying. With each loop around the island, Ivy became more resolved that men couldn’t be trusted. Maybe not even Michael. An anger against men—him included—began to burn in her heart. How dare they hurt women like that? How dare they walk away without a backward glance? The pure love she’d once held for her father was tainted by this mistrust that had seeped in, chemicals leaching into the ground water.
Sometimes Mrs. McCoy was in her yard, watering plants, when the girls rode by. She would wave them over and offer them lemonade. Mrs. McCoy made the real thing, squeezing the lemons as Shea and Ivy sat at her table and watched. She always wanted to know if the lemonade was good enough, sweet enough, cold enough, and they would give her a thumbs-up or thumbs-down accordingly. Once when she and Michael walked by Mrs. McCoy’s house holding hands, the old woman caught her eye and gave her the thumbs-up sign with a coy little smile. Ivy had walked away wondering if Mrs. McCoy was right about Michael. What had happened between her parents had caused her to question everything.
She thought that meeting Elliott had ended her questions, that it was him she’d been looking for, his absence she’d been feeling until the moment he took the seat across from her. But it turned out that the questions were only hibernating, awakened by Elliott’s distance, mobilized by his confession. She’d been holding her breath, waiting for him to be like all men, waiting for him to show his true colors. When he had, it had almost been a relief.
Still, she didn’t know what to do about those tweets of his. He didn’t appear to be chasing skirts in her absence, based on how much he was tweeting and what he was tweeting. She had to admit that he seemed to be truly sorry and truly trying to change. This morning when she checked Twitter, he’d said he was going to see the counselor at their church. Men who just wanted to chase skirts didn’t do that, did they?
And yet, she saw comments from women who were following him, women who thought he was wonderful and that she was stupid and weren’t afraid to say so. Something in her seethed as she read the words—and not just because they were calling her stupid without
even hearing her side. The mere thought of him being followed by women—even if he didn’t initiate it—was enough to bring all the trust issues right back up. What if he was secretly communicating with one or more of them? What if he was going to find someone who responded to him in the way he was looking for while she ignored him? She didn’t want to admit it, but that thought scared her. Deep down, she liked him tweeting to her. She liked the thought of him pining away, filled with remorse. Part of her just wanted to freeze him like that for a long, long time. Keep him lonely and miserable as punishment.
The yellow Jeep caught her attention as she headed back toward home. She saw movement on the scaffolding and her heart quickened. She looked for the blond hair that meant it was Michael up there, hope propelling her forward. As she got closer, she saw the blond hair, the height, the stance that told her it was him.
“Hey!” she called out impulsively. “Whatcha doin’?”
He turned around to see who was calling him, his brows furrowed as he squinted into the sun. She expected a big smile to fill his face when he recognized her. Instead he merely said, “Oh, hey, Ivy,” and turned back around to keep working.
Undeterred, she crossed the yard and paused beside the scaffolding, looking up at him and the blue, cloudless sky beyond. “Whatcha doin’?” she repeated.
“Working,” he said. He sounded tired. Or just unhappy she was there. She hoped it wasn’t the latter.
“Oh, well, don’t let me keep you from your work. I was just on a walk. I’ve been going on these long walks to figure out life, and stuff. Ever do that?” In an effort to create a conversation, she was making herself sound like an idiot.
“Not lately,” he said. He continued to pull siding off the house, the wood making cracking and splintering noises of resistance. He had pieces of wood in his hair. She resisted the urge to climb up there and pull them out. She could still remember how soft his hair was, how it would tickle her nose when she whispered in his ear. “I love you,” she would say. And for a time, she meant it.
He pulled another piece of siding off the house, speaking over the noise. “As you can see, I’ve got quite a bit of work to do. So I don’t have time to get into some discussion right now.” He swept his arm out to indicate the rest of the house and the many, many boards that needed to be removed. He was right, he had a lot of work to do.
“You could teach me how to do that, and I could help you.”
His back was to her, so she couldn’t see his reaction. She wanted him to sound happy that she asked. She wanted him to welcome her presence. Even if she had to get dirty and sweaty and do manual labor, she’d find a way to spend time with him, to work her way into the conversation they’d needed to have for five years. Not that he was acting like he wanted that to happen.
He glanced back down at her and—there! She saw it!—a flicker of a smile crossed his face. “You’re hardly the construction-worker type,” he observed. She knew he was taking in her designer denim shorts paired with a T-shirt with the name of another designer proudly scripted across the front. She hadn’t just dressed for walking; she’d dressed for an encounter with him.
“You might be surprised,” she said. Her tone was flirtatious, promising. She was teasing him and she suspected he knew it. He remembered that tone just as well as she did. She only felt a little bit guilty for using it with someone besides Elliott. She wasn’t the one who’d broken their vows. And a tiny bit of flirting never hurt anyone.
He shrugged. “I won’t turn down help.” It wasn’t begging. It wasn’t even interest. But it was an opening. A tiny crack in the door that she could use her feminine wiles to throw wide open if she played it smart. She reminded herself that this was not a game.
“Okay, I have to be at the bakery tomorrow morning, but I can come tomorrow afternoon if you’d like?” She sounded too eager. She needed to dial it down a bit. Men liked a challenge and all.
He gazed down at her with those blue eyes she used to hope their kids would get, a more brilliant blue than hers. He crossed his arms so that his biceps bulged and his pecs showed through the threadbare T-shirt he had on. Had Michael always been this … buff? Maybe it was the manual labor. She shivered in spite of the sweat trickling down her back.
“Sure. Tomorrow would be fine. I’ll see you then.”
She smiled up at him for all she was worth, knowing that he used to love her smile. Said he found his tomorrows there. And she’d known he wasn’t just being cheesy. He’d meant it. “Great! I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She turned and walked away. She knew he wasn’t watching her go like he used to. And that was okay. Everything had to start, or restart, somewhere.
Twelve
The next morning Ivy and Leah worked on cupcakes to stock the cases for the customers off the street who wandered in craving something sweet. Today they were making Oreo and red velvet and lemon meringue and Ivy’s favorite, caramel. She bit back a smile as she thought about Psalm 84:5, which still often came to mind. It was taking God’s strength not to just sit down with a spoon in front of the container of caramel icing.
The bakery was truly a happy place to be, and Ivy knew Leah had intended for that to be the case. When she’d made recent improvements in the store, Leah had had the floor painted blue and the walls yellow, boasting that the colors represented the sunrise and the ocean. Her aunt had wisely chosen a location with lots of natural light, perfect for aiding her vision as she labored over the more intricate cakes. She’d set up a work center right in front of a large window that faced the parking lot, and it was common for a group of tourists out enjoying an afternoon to stop and watch her, a crowd gathering in front of the window. More often than not, that led to the people becoming customers, unable to resist the temptation of butter and sugar and flour, reasoning they were on vacation after all. What could it hurt?
It didn’t take long for Leah to bring up their last conversation—cajoling her to finish her story about Elliott. “I want to know what happens!” she insisted.
“But you know what happened,” Ivy retorted good-naturedly. When it was clear Leah wasn’t going to give up, Ivy told her an abbreviated version, relaying the story like a journalist instead of a romance writer. She could tell that Leah wanted the dirt, but Ivy wasn’t willing to go there, racing instead through the short version of the story she didn’t want to tell. She just couldn’t talk about what had happened that night, or where it had led. She’d told Leah that he’d asked her out when they parted, that she’d accepted in spite of her reservations about Michael, and that doing so set the dominoes in motion that led to everything else. But there were parts she still thought of even as she left the bakery and drove home to meet Michael, memories that came to her without her consent or permission.
Elliott had walked her to her room sometime in the wee hours, the sun’s first streaks making their way across the dark sky. She hadn’t felt self-conscious about what she’d done until they were in the elevator headed to her hotel room, Elliott staring at her in a way that told her she might have just dove into the deep end headfirst. And he wasn’t going to be the one to throw her a lifeline. She bit her lip and looked away from the intensity of his stare, wondering what she was going to do if he tried to kiss her at her door. There was something between them—there was no denying that—but at that point, she was telling herself they could keep things under control. It was like hoping to put out a wildfire with a garden hose. But she hadn’t known that yet. Not really.
She’d avoided his gaze as they made their way down the hall. At the door she made a production of getting out her key card, swiping it a few times until she got the green light that would permit her to slip through the door and flee. Suddenly she just wanted the distance that would allow them both some perspective. What had happened between them that night was magical but not realistic. Apart, they could both arrive at that conclusion, but together there was no chance of that. She spun her engagement ring around on her finger, pressing the pad of her thumb dow
n on the prongs that held the diamond in place so hard they made indentations in her skin, the pain a penance.
She looked up at him as she held the door with her foot. “I had a nice time,” she said. It hurt to look at him, to think that this could possibly be the last time she would see him. Cinderella was home from the ball; the magic was over.
He laughed. “A nice time?” He crossed his arms and smirked at her. “Isn’t that an understatement?”
“Look, I …” She spun the ring faster. “There’s someone else.” She’d avoided saying that all night as they talked about everything from where they grew up to their favorite foods to memories of their grandparents to dreams for the future. Everything but Michael, even though he was at the edge of every word she said.
Elliott gestured to her left hand, the ring she was spinning round her finger faster and faster. “I’m not blind.” He dropped his hands to his sides, the affront gone, his posture vulnerable, open. She could walk right into his arms, and they would go around her, a reflex. And she would fit there. “Besides, girls like you always come with complications.” He shrugged.
“Girls like me?” Now she was the one to cross her arms, the door weighing more heavily on her foot by the minute. But she didn’t want the moment to end, the inevitable to come any faster than it had to. She was, she realized, anxious to leave the door open, in a manner of speaking.
“Pretty girls. Smart girls. Together girls.” The cocky grin came back. “Hot girls.”
She’d been with Michael her whole dating life, belonged to him in such a way that she’d been closed off to the advances of other men, turning away when they tried to catch her eye, making terse comments if they tried to talk to her, taking her leave if anyone made it past her first line of defense. She’d been true to Michael in every sense of the word, and consequently she’d never let any man know her well enough to pay her compliments like Elliott had. She’d heard from her family she was pretty, and of course from Michael, but they didn’t count. From Elliott, unsolicited, it felt brand new. It felt amazing. She glowed under the weight of his appreciative gaze. “Thank you,” she managed.
The Wishing Tree Page 12
