“Not really,” Ivy said. “Not in this case.”
“How can you say that?” Ramona thought of her own mother, the way she’d avoided coming to see her until it was too late. Ivy must not understand the breadth of her regret, a regret as wide and empty as the desert. But how could she? Ivy’s mother was the one who had left, not the other way around. “I’d give anything for the chance to talk to my mom one more time.”
Ivy looked up from her hands and furrowed her brow with concern. “But she didn’t want to talk to you.”
Ramona considered this. It was true, of course, but also not true. Something about the line her mother etched between them had never felt absolutely solid or uncrossable. Ramona had just chosen to view it that way. She could feel herself slipping into a dark, ruminating mood now—her knot of anxiety turning harder and brighter, glowing from the depths of her chest like a radioactive stone—when Jane reappeared at the table with two fresh drinks.
Ivy began to tease Jane about the man in black glasses at the bar, and the rhythm among the three of them grew looser and varied as they joked, so that after a while it was almost possible for Ramona to ignore the stone that had taken up residence in her chest.
JEREMY
He was just finishing up with his gig at the Rotary Club when he remembered it was Gretchen’s birthday. It was past nine o’clock already, and by the time he got all these trays and leftovers loaded up in his car and on the road it would be close to ten, but he guessed a store somewhere would still be open. This was Las Vegas, after all.
A man from the club walked back to the kitchen and handed him a check. Jeremy shoved it into his back pocket and thanked him. The man wore a dark suit and had a kind face, but Jeremy could not, for the life of him, remember his name. Doug, possibly. Or Dirk. He wasn’t the man who’d hired him, but he was the one who had requested chocolate mousse. Jeremy did remember that.
“Did you like the mousse?” he asked the man. Like every event, this one could lead to other contacts, and forgetting the guy’s name wasn’t going to help.
He nodded and smiled. “So what’s the secret ingredient? There was a bit of an extra zing—am I right?”
“A little lemon zest,” Jeremy told him.
“That was nice. Different, but nice.”
“Thanks.”
“I’d tone it down just a bit next time though. It was a little too lemony.”
Jeremy nodded. “I’ll make a note of that.” So he was essentially here to criticize. The mousse had been perfect, and they both knew it. This man should stick to what he knew—being in the Rotary Club, whatever the fuck that was—and let Jeremy handle the food.
Outside in the parking lot, a circle of men stood smoking under a streetlight. A hearty laugh carried across the lot to Jeremy, and it felt specifically aimed at him, though he knew that was unlikely. Something about these people made him feel inadequate. That man in the kitchen, Doug or Dirk, reminded him of his younger brother, Ben, who was now an accountant for a firm in Los Angeles. He’d been the smart, focused one, and Jeremy, according to his mother, had been the late bloomer. He wondered if she would now consider him to be in bloom, but both of his parents had died years ago in a car accident on the Baker Grade, so there was no way of finding out, ever.
His old Subaru was parked just beyond this group of men, so Jeremy had to trudge past them, carrying his stack of silver trays and backpack of Tupperware containers.
“Let’s hear it for the chef,” one of them called out as he passed, and a brief bout of hearty clapping and whooping ensued. Jeremy pretended to tip his invisible hat, then waved good-bye, deciding he’d been wrong to judge these people so quickly. The applause had felt genuine and added a lift to his step that had been missing since the book club the evening before.
On his way home, he stopped by Target and roamed the aisles for half an hour, trying to figure out what he could possibly buy this woman he was dating whom he barely knew. He was only aware it was her birthday because she’d been reminding him of the fact for the past five days. That’s what people did in their twenties, Jeremy recalled, advertised their birthdays for the whole world to hear. She was twenty-nine today and out with a group of her girlfriends right now, but Jeremy was supposed to show up at her place around eleven, and he’d better arrive with a gift or it was likely he wouldn’t be let in. He could just not show up at all, he thought, eyeing a long row of colorful scarves, but then he’d be sleeping alone again, and he’d been alive long enough to know that he hated that.
Without noticing where his meandering path was leading, Jeremy ended up in the baby section staring down at a shelf of blankets and bright, miniature socks. He picked up a pair of sky blue booties embroidered with tiny green grasshoppers and fingered the stitching. A memory rose out of the socks in his hand: sitting in the clinic waiting room with Ivy, sweating with fear. During their junior year, she had been three weeks late getting her period and they had finally gone to a clinic for a test. The stress of those weeks and then that final twenty minutes in the waiting room had been heavy, a steady pulsing of fear in his skull. He had almost cried with relief when he found out he was not going to be a father.
His own parents had still been alive then, and would have punished him severely. They also would have made him keep the baby and propose marriage. He had high hopes back then of his band’s punk rock stardom. He’d be too busy touring the country to take care of a wife and kid.
But if Ivy had been pregnant, if they had married and had the baby, at least he would have something to show for his life right now. He would have a twenty-year-old son or daughter to keep tabs on, to worry about, to help out when they were broke or stranded. He would have saved some money and be helping them with college right now. He would cook them meals and teach them to play the bass. Instead, he had only a Subaru full of silver trays and a girlfriend he didn’t love and likely never would.
He finally decided on a lavender nightgown for Gretchen, very short with a lacy bodice, but somehow classy, better than the things she usually wore to tempt him to bed: leopard print teddies and skimpy black garter belt contraptions that seemed better suited for bad porn movies. In the checkout aisle, he realized he still clutched the baby socks in his left hand, that he’d been holding them the entire time he was looking for a present for Gretchen, so he paid for those too. He would wrap them up for Ivy’s kid, Lucky.
At eleven o’clock, he arrived at Gretchen’s apartment, but she wasn’t there. He’d already gone home, showered and changed, neatly stacked his catering trays in the kitchen cupboard, and stored the leftover mousse in the fridge. He’d wrapped Gretchen’s present in yesterday’s Las Vegas Sun, then wrapped the baby socks, too, in the comics section of the paper and set them on the coffee table, pleased with himself. Buying a present for Ivy’s child felt like a step in the right direction. It was the action of a reliable, thoughtful adult.
He sat on the stairs beside Gretchen’s apartment for five minutes, then decided to get up and walk. He had gone three blocks when he realized how close he was to Ivy and Ramona’s old building. He took a right, then another right onto Bonneville, and halfway down the block there it was, the U-shaped building with the fountain in its center where he’d spent so many afternoons during high school he couldn’t count them if he tried. How had he not noticed the proximity of Gretchen’s place to this one?
Lights were on behind three windows, but the rest of the units were dark. The white, tiered fountain was dry and gave off an eerie green glow as if it were emitting a poison of some sort. Jeremy had been standing exactly where he was right now—across the street—when he witnessed Ivy’s mother leaving in May of their junior year.
He’d snuck out of Ivy’s bedroom after ten at night, left her sleeping soundly, and crept through her window, hanging from the second-floor ledge by his fingertips, then using the lip of the window below him as a foothold down to the green Dumpster, before he took one last leap onto the graveled lot behind the building. It
was a maneuver he’d perfected over the past year.
On the sidewalk, across the street, something had made him turn for a last look. He couldn’t say what it was—a dog had barked so that might have been it, or he may have heard the door clicking closed—but he’d felt the hair on the back of his neck rise, and turned around.
He was hidden in shadows in front of a dark house, so he’d been able to watch the figure emerge from Ivy’s apartment and walk down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairwell, she stepped into the light of the hallway, and Jeremy saw it was Ivy’s mother. Her blonde hair, usually swept up in a bun, had been loose around her face, giving her a more youthful appearance, though she looked young either way. She was only thirty-five at the time of her departure, a year younger than he was now. She was wearing an outfit he’d never seen before, a straight beige skirt and matching jacket over a white shirt, as if she were off to a business meeting. Her heels clicked as she walked to the sidewalk, then around the side of the building. Jeremy stepped further back, his feet touching dry lawn, hoping she wouldn’t notice him watching her, wouldn’t find out that he’d just snuck out of her daughter’s bedroom. Of course, if he’d known that Ivy’s mother was leaving for good, he wouldn’t have worried about being caught. Could a mother who left her family be bothered to care if her teenage daughter was having sex?
In the days following, he tried to remember if she’d been carrying a suitcase or a large bag, but he didn’t think so, and he told Ivy over and over, “She’ll be back soon. I’m sure she will. She can’t be gone for long.”
“How do you know?” Ivy would ask, tears streaking her fair, smooth skin.
“I just have a feeling.” He worried that telling would somehow make him an accomplice, so he kept quiet.
A light came on now in the apartment that used to be Ivy’s, and he stood for a while watching a shadow move behind the blinds, then turned and walked back to Gretchen’s.
IVY
When Ivy and Jane got home around eleven thirty, climbing out of the cab with an awkwardness brought on by several cocktails, Lucky was still awake, sitting on Frank’s lap outside by the pool playing with a straw, presumably one that had been inside Frank’s empty drink. The glass still sat on the table beside him, its melting cubes of ice catching the moonlight and creating a strange effect, as if he’d been drinking a poisonous potion that still bubbled and sparked beside him.
“I couldn’t do it,” he told Ivy, lifting Lucky off his lap. “He wants you.”
Ivy slipped off her sandals and crossed the deck, then scooped Lucky up and held him against her chest. “Hi, baby,” she whispered and kissed the warm top of his head, then sat down in one of the chairs across the table from Frank.
“My kids are asleep?” Jane asked, sitting down between them.
“Soundly,” Frank said. “I just checked.”
“You deserve a medal,” Jane told him.
“Yeah, thanks sweetheart,” Ivy said, attaching Lucky to her breast and letting him drink himself to sleep in her arms. Across the table, her husband looked tired. Ivy couldn’t help but recall Jeremy sitting in the exact same chair earlier today, looking a lot more vibrant than Frank did right now.
It was difficult, she realized, to watch Frank age, since they had known each other as teenagers. She thought that would make it easier because his face and body would always hold the memory of those days when they’d been young together, but instead she was more aware of what she was missing. His boyish, handsome features sank further away every year into his softening jaw and body, and there was nothing she could do to retrieve them.
“Fun night?” Frank asked, tilting a chip of ice into his mouth and crunching down.
Ivy nodded. “I wish Ramona were staying here though.”
“You have Jane,” Frank said, then turned to her friend. “You need to move back here. We miss you.”
“This part is pretty nice,” Jane said, gesturing to the backyard—its lit-up pool and palm trees, the pot of lantana spilling a long trail of orange and yellow flowers at her feet. “But the neighborhood is a little scary. Sort of like a maze. Or a hall of mirrors—made with stucco. I’ve been meaning to ask you if you painted your door so you wouldn’t get lost.” Jane asked Ivy with a smile.
“I painted my door because I drank too much one night last week and it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“It’s really a great door,” Jane said. “There’s no way I could have managed something that creative right after having a baby. Fern seemed to suck out my soul for a few months. I think I have it back now, but I’m not sure.”
Ivy shrugged. “Lucky inspires me.”
“Did he inspire the painting of the skull or the vodka bottle with wings?” Frank asked, his eyebrows raised.
“I meant he just inspired the general creative impulse.”
“The impulse to deface our door?” Frank asked. He was smiling, but Ivy sensed his irritation. He wanted the old beige door back.
“Don’t be such a drag,” Jane told him with a smile. “You should feel lucky to have such an artistic wife.”
“I do,” he nodded. “Don’t worry, I do.”
“He wants me to go back to work,” Ivy told Jane.
“Not until Lucky turns one,” Frank said, raising his palms as if in surrender.
“He’ll still need me when he’s one.”
“And you’ll still be here for him. You’ll just be gone during the day.”
Ivy sighed and looked down at her baby, who had pulled away and was nuzzled against her bare skin now, almost asleep. She’d once made twice the amount of money Frank did now. They were still living off some of the riches she’d stored away working at Elysian, but that money wouldn’t last much longer.
“Let’s talk about it another time,” she told Frank.
“You brought it up.”
“True,” Ivy said.
“How’s Adam, by the way?” Frank asked Jane.
Jane shrugged. “Same as always. Party-boy naturalist.”
Frank laughed. “The perfect combination.”
“It was in college, at least,” Jane agreed.
“Move here and we’ll whip him into shape. Do you want me to get rid of the party boy part or the naturalist?” Frank grinned.
Jane laughed. “Neither.” She looked around the dark yard, then added, “I don’t think I could live here again. It’s not really home to me anymore. I’ve been gone too long. You know, I’ve now lived in Wisconsin longer than I ever lived in Las Vegas.”
“It’s just like riding a bike,” Frank said. “Give it two more days and it will feel like home again.”
“No, it won’t,” Ivy said.
“Don’t listen to her,” Frank said, rising from his seat and moving to kiss Ivy, then Lucky, on the top of the head. “I’m heading to bed,” he told them. He turned away, then back, and leaned to kiss Jane’s head as well. “I’m really happy you’re here,” he told her.
After Frank went inside, Ivy rose slowly, holding Lucky. He appeared to be deeply asleep, but the minute she was fully upright his eyes popped open and he smiled at her, struggling in an effort to switch positions. She put him over her shoulder and patted his back, swaying. He murmured against her, making all the new sounds he’d recently learned. “I can’t believe he’s still awake,” she told Jane.
“Let’s go sit on the edge of the pool. You can dangle his feet in the water and cool him off. That might help. It’s still really warm tonight.”
The water did feel good on her feet and calves, and she held Lucky on her knees so that his feet were submerged in the pool too. He kicked and laughed in delight and Jane laughed too, watching him.
“I think that’s Orion’s belt,” Jane said, pointing to the sky.
“No,” Ivy told her. “I don’t think so. It’s not straight enough. Or bright enough, but it’s hard to pick out the constellations here—too much afterglow from the casinos, so maybe you’re right.”
“I’m
probably telling my kids all the wrong constellations,” Jane said. “Then they’ll grow up to tell their kids the wrong things and it will be a never-ending vicious cycle of misinformation.”
“You hear that, Lucky?” Ivy said, kissing the top of his head. “Don’t let Auntie Jane explain the stars to you.”
“I was thinking the other day, we could tell our kids the wrong information about lots of things—history or nutrition, anything—and they would probably believe us. Then think how long it would take them to unlearn it,” Jane said.
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I don’t want to. I’m just saying it’s possible.”
“I guess I never thought about it,” Ivy said.
“I know. You wouldn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means only a fucked-up person like me would think of something like that.”
Ivy didn’t like the defeated sound of Jane’s voice. She watched as her friend looked down into the pool. A shock of blonde hair was tucked behind her ear and the sharp lines of her profile were cleanly pressed against dark sky, but her eyes were shadowy, unreadable. “So are you going to tell me what’s going on with you and Adam?”
Jane sighed. “No, I don’t think so. I can’t.”
“You mean it’s a secret, or you can’t put it into words?”
“Both, I guess.”
Ivy frowned and patted Lucky’s back, considering what to say. She had never been one to force a confession; on the other hand, she had never had to force anything out of Jane.
Lucky was almost asleep in her arms now, content with his cool, damp feet. The water lapping against her feet felt lukewarm and silky.
Ivy recalled the gigantic and freezing cold pool at a junior high school where she’d gone with her mother in the summer. She waited for Ivy, waist deep in her red one-piece, hair up in a bun, tortoiseshell sunglasses, the plump curve of her cheeks. Had her mother wanted to leave, even then?
“Do you think my mom’s still alive?” she asked Jane.
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