Wild Swans

by Jessica Spotswood

  When I can’t stand the silence another minute, I look at Alex. His jaw is clenched; his brown eyes are narrowed. “For somebody who’s worked so hard to be nothing like your mom, you’re sure acting a lot like her.”

  I shrink away as though he’s slapped me. That’s the problem with fighting with your best friends. They know the words that will hurt you most.

  You hurt him first, my conscience needles. But that doesn’t justify what he said.

  Or is Alex telling the truth? Drinking, making out with someone I barely know—those are the kind of reckless, impulsive choices I’ve been warned against all my life. They’re the choices my mother made. That a Milbourn girl would make.

  Connor made me feel pretty and smart and wanted. Is that so wrong?

  “What the fuck did you just say to her?”

  Claire sails between us like an avenging goddess. Her sundress is short and fire-engine red, her gold platform wedges are a good four inches high, and the look on her face says she’s about two seconds from throwing her drink in his face.

  “Stay out of it. This is between Ivy and me,” Alex mutters.

  “Not anymore.” Claire stands tall, without wobbling, and as a girl of flip-flops and ballet flats and sneakers, this impresses me. She props one hand on her hip and stares at Alex with her big, unblinking brown eyes. Waiting for an explanation.

  He falters beneath that gaze. Most people do.

  “She was kissing some guy. Some college guy. And she’s drunk,” he says.

  “And?” Claire retorts. “You’ve never gotten drunk and hooked up with somebody? What about Ginny West last Fourth of July? Or Madison’s cousin on Labor Day weekend? Or Charlotte Wu at Dave’s Halloween party?”

  “Wait, Charlotte Wu?” I ask. I heard the gossip about the girls Alex hooked up with last summer. Everybody heard about Ginny. She was a just-graduated senior, two years older than us, and the guys on the baseball team were gross about Alex “scoring a triple” until Claire overheard and shut them down. She and Alex have been sniping at each other ever since.

  But Charlotte is on the swim team with me. We used to be friends. This could explain why she froze me out all last season. I thought she was mad because I kept beating her in the one-hundred-meter freestyle, but maybe she was mad that Alex hooked up with her and then never pursued anything. Maybe she thought he wasn’t pursuing her because of me.

  “Didn’t know you were keeping score, Claire,” Alex says.

  She rolls her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. I don’t care who you hook up with. I’m just making a point. How come what’s good for the gander isn’t good for the goose?”

  Alex squints at her. “What the hell is a gander?”

  “A male goose, asshole!” Claire throws up her hands, sloshing white wine out of her cup. “My point is, you’re saying it’s not okay for Ivy to hook up because she’s a girl, and that’s some sexist bullshit.”

  “No, I’m saying it’s not okay for Ivy to hook up because it’s Ivy!”

  “Ivy gets to make her own decisions, Alex. Just because she hurt your feelings making out with some other guy doesn’t mean you get to be all judgy.”

  Ouch. People see Claire’s short skirts and long legs and they assume she’s dumb, but she can suss out in two minutes what it took me an entire conversation to see.

  “You know how Ivy feels about her mom. You owe her an apology.”

  “Forget it,” Alex says, red faced, and stalks off.

  I sigh. “Claire. That wasn’t very nice.”

  She flips her long, dark hair over her shoulder. “I don’t give a shit about being nice.”

  She really doesn’t. I envy that sometimes.

  “I know you can defend yourself,” she continues. “But I heard what he said about your mom and I saw the look on your face. That was not a cool thing for him to say. Today of all days. You know it’s not true, right?”

  I bite my lip. “Right.”

  Claire raises one eyebrow. I’ve always been jealous she can do that. “Did you have sex with this guy?” she asks.

  “No! Jesus! We were just kissing!” Having sex would be skipping several steps for me.

  “And he wasn’t pressuring you? You were into it?”

  I think about Connor’s hand on my thigh and his mouth on mine, and a shiver runs down the back of my neck that has nothing to do with the breeze coming off the Bay. “Um. Yes. Very.”

  Claire laughs her full, throaty laugh. “Oh my God, you’re blushing! Ivy! Okay, I want to hear more about this in a minute. But look, you actually had fun for once! That’s okay. Don’t let Alex make you feel bad about it.”

  I frown, a little stung. “Are you saying I’m not usually fun?”

  “No, I’m saying you’d usually rather be home reading a book than at one of these parties,” she says, and she is not wrong. She links an arm through mine. “Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

  I look down at her gold platform wedges. “You’re going to walk a mile in those shoes?”

  “I’d walk ten miles in these shoes for you. Besides,” she says, shimmying a little, “they make my ass look fabulous.”

  • • •

  It’s almost midnight. Most of the old colonial houses along Water Street are dark. My flip-flops thwack on the uneven brick sidewalks. We’re halfway through the park, crossing a wooden bridge over a marshy inlet, when Claire lets out a yelp and yanks me to a stop. She points into the marsh, where a big blue heron stands, its eyes glinting in the moonlight.

  “Ivy!” Claire whimpers, gripping my forearm with pinching fingers as the bird turns its head to stare at us. She’s terrified of birds, even Abby’s sisters’ parakeet.

  It takes several minutes for me to convince her that this four-foot-tall blue heron is not going to peck us with its long bill or chase us with its long legs, and then she literally runs across the bridge like there might be trolls beneath.

  I laugh. It’s weirdly reassuring to know that Claire is scared of something, even if it is waterfowl. She’s so brave most of the time. Like last January when Logan McIntyre told everyone that she gave him head on New Year’s Eve. When she realized why everyone was whispering, she didn’t go home sick or cry in the girls’ bathroom. She went right up to him between chem and English and announced that at least she’d had the class to keep it to herself that the good Lord only gave him two inches.

  Then this past spring, she revived the dormant Gay-Straight Alliance at school and came out as bisexual. That earned her a lot of shit about how she’s a slut who’s down for anything. She said their ignorance only made her more passionate about sex education, so this summer she’s volunteering at the women’s clinic outside town, even though it means getting insulted and having to walk past posters of fetuses coming and going.

  It sucks that Claire had to deal with any of that. But sometimes I envy that she knows what she wants. Sometimes it feels like everybody knows but me. Claire wants to get the hell out of Cecil, to go to American University in DC and major in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. Spend a year abroad in London or Paris or Rome. Abby wants to go to the University of Maryland and study elementary education while Ty gets his degree in business. Then they’ll get married and come back to Cecil, where he’ll help run his dad’s hardware store and she’ll teach first grade and they’ll have three kids. She even has the names picked out! Alex doesn’t have his future quite as mapped out, but he wants to stay in Cecil and play baseball.

  And Connor—I remember how passionate Connor was as he recited the Millay poem.

  The only thing that turns me on that much is him.

  • • •

  When I fit my key into the back door, it’s ten minutes after twelve. The only sounds are the cicadas in the trees and the soft lap of waves against the shore. The house is dark and quiet, and I’m relieved that no one’s waited up for me.

  Inside, I kick off my flip-flops and pour a glass of water by the light of the stove.

  “You’re
late.” Granddad’s voice floats out of the darkness.

  Startled, I smack my hip on the counter and cuss, then walk down the hall into the library. The lights are all off and I can barely make him out in the gloom, his white polo shirt stark against his leather recliner. I lean over and switch on the lamp. “You waited up for me?” He’s hardly a night owl, and by the end of last summer, I thought he trusted me.

  “Wanted to make sure you were all right. We didn’t get a chance to talk, just the two of us, before you left.” A book is propped open on his chest, like he drifted off at some point. He’s still wearing his reading glasses.

  “I’m fine. Sorry I’m late.” It’s not like I rolled in at dawn, but Granddad’s a stickler for curfew. “Claire walked me home and we ran into a heron. You know how she is about birds.”

  Granddad returns the recliner to its upright position and sets his book on the end table. “Claire? Where’s Alex?”

  “Still at the party.” I lean against the doorjamb, arms crossed over my chest.

  Granddad doesn’t let it go. “You two have a fight?”

  “Sort of. It was nice of you to wait up, but I’m tired. Can we talk tomorrow?” I am skirting the edge of politeness, but I cannot bear another confrontation or another discussion about my mother.

  Granddad stands, stretches, and strides toward me. “I know this wasn’t an easy day, Ivy. It will get better. Erica just needs some time to settle in, feel accepted.”

  I bite my lip, stung by the implied criticism. “I’m trying.”

  “Not you, honey. That’s not what I meant. It’s me. She feels I’m still treating her like a child, and here she is with children of her own. She doesn’t want me coming between her and the girls. So she’s trying to assert herself.”

  “Assert herself?” I let out a little laugh. “She was a straight-up bitch to everyone.”

  “Language, Ivy,” Granddad chides. “I’m not asking you to like her or even respect her. But we need to keep things civil, at least in front of the girls. She’s their mother and… Well, I really do think she’s doing her best.”

  “What if her best isn’t good enough?” I ask. “What if they’d be better off with her ex?”

  Granddad runs a tired hand over his chin. “I don’t know. I think we owe her a little time.”

  “I don’t owe her anything,” I snap.

  He sighs. “You’re right. I misspoke. I owe her this. And I’m sorry if that seems unfair to you.” He pulls me into a hug. I lean on his shoulder and let out a sigh. I can give him this, this chance at a reunion. It’s just a few months. I can be selfless that long. Can’t I?

  Granddad stiffens and pulls back, his blue eyes narrowing. “Have you been drinking?”

  There’s no point in lying. “Little bit.” I lift my chin. “Nothing for you to worry about, I promise.”

  “I do worry. That’s my job.” He glances out the french doors toward the carriage house. “Is that what you and Alex were arguing about?”

  “No, that was—” What am I supposed to say? That was because I was making out with your work-study student and Alex got jealous. I can hardly tell him that. “The fight Alex and I had tonight… It was a long time coming. I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  I blink away sudden tears. I was stupid to think things could stay the same, Ivy and Alex, Alex and Ivy. I knew how he felt. Keeping him at arm’s length was only going to keep him there for so long.

  Granddad frowns. “Well, you know how I feel about you drinking. I suppose it might not be realistic, expecting a girl your age not to have a drink now and again, but your mother… A lot of the poor choices she’s made were because she was abusing alcohol. She didn’t come right out and say it, but I gather that was part of the reason she was fired from her last job. Milbourn women never do things in moderation. So there’s a history there.”

  He sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. “I know this is a lot to handle. Having your mother here, and your sisters, and her telling them what she did. I thought I’d made it clear, but Erica—she never was very good at following directions. If this is all too much for you—”

  “It’s not. I’m fine.” I don’t know how many other ways I can say it. “Really. We’ll get through this. It’s just for the summer, right?”

  “You’re a good girl, Ivy. Got a good head on your shoulders. But this is asking a lot of you. Maybe too much. I don’t know.” Granddad stares at the portrait of Dorothea like she might offer some advice. “You never did like to ask me for help. Even when you were little, you were always determined to do everything on your own. I’d hate to see Erica’s visit throw you off track. Maybe we should set up some plans for you. Keep you busy. Focused.”

  I open my mouth to protest, then snap it shut. I want to prove I’m nothing like Erica, don’t I? That I can handle responsibility without running away from it?

  “What did you have in mind?”

  Granddad steeples his fingers together. “How would you feel about a part-time job? You’d get paid, and you could work your hours around your time at the library and the pool.”

  My mind goes straight to the English department. To Amelia. Maybe she needs help with something Austen or Bronte related, a research assistant to read through dusty old documents on interlibrary loan. I am intrigued. “Tell me more.”

  “Well, next spring is the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Second Kiss.” Second Kiss was Dorothea’s sixth collection of poems, the one that won her the Pulitzer Prize. “I’m putting together a festival up at the college, but it’s coming together more slowly than I’d like. Not much money in the budget, unfortunately. One of the big projects is transcribing all her journals to add them to the online archives.”

  He gestures to the bookshelves that hold Dorothea’s seven collections of poetry, their foreign translations, and—on the bottom two rows—almost four dozen leather-bound journals filled with her spidery handwriting. She started keeping a diary when she was sixteen, right after the accident that killed her mother and sisters, and the last entry is dated the day she was murdered.

  “I’d hoped to transcribe them myself, but with this arthritis—” Granddad flexes his swollen fingers with a pained grimace. “And you know I hate that dictation software. What do you think?”

  “I think I’d love to help, actually. I can already read her handwriting.” Three summers ago, I spent most of July reading through the journals. Granddad wouldn’t let me take them out of the library, much less outside the house, so I lay on the cool hardwood floor, with the ceiling fan spinning lazily overhead, and read them one right after the other, taking breaks only for iced tea and cherry Popsicles.

  “That will certainly be an asset.” Granddad grins. “I’ll have Connor come over Monday morning to discuss how the two of you will divide the work.”

  “Connor?” I echo stupidly. I don’t see the net until it’s fallen neatly around me.

  “It’s one of his projects for the summer, but I think he’d appreciate the help.” Granddad looks downright delighted. If I didn’t know better, between this and last week’s lunch, I’d suspect he was playing matchmaker.

  He probably just wants Connor to inspire me to greatness.

  This means Connor will be here. In my house. A couple times a week.

  I blush, irrationally worried that Granddad can see the lustful thoughts written across my face. “I… Uh, I…”

  Granddad puts his hand on my shoulder. “That’s not a problem, is it? I know you two didn’t exactly hit it off last week, but—”

  “No! Nope. Not a problem.” I look up at the portrait of Dorothea. Even in death, she manages to stir up trouble. Bet she’d get a kick out of that.

  “Good.” Granddad practically claps. “I’ll give him a call and ask him to come here Monday morning instead of going to the office. Ten o’clock okay? That should give you time to get to the pool first.”

  Trust him to notice, even in the midst of all this family drama, that I have
been slacking on my training. He’s right though. I don’t want Charlotte Wu sneaking past me in the one-hundred-meter freestyle. “Yeah, that’s perfect. I’m usually back by nine.” That’ll give me time to wash the chlorine out of my hair and maybe put on some makeup and—

  It’s not a date, Ivy. Keep it together!

  “All right. You better get on to bed then.”

  “Okay. ’Night, Granddad. Love you.”

  As I head upstairs, padding barefoot past the closed doors where my sisters and Erica sleep, my brain’s conjuring up images of Connor and me. Working together. Sitting side by side on the buttery leather couch, hips and shoulders pressed together, heads bent as we puzzle out Dorothea’s handwriting. I decipher a word, maybe say something clever, and Connor catches my hand. Holds it. Turns to me, his pretty, gold eyes full of admiration, and leans in and—

  No way. Granddad will probably chaperone us the whole damn time.

  But Granddad hates to run the central air, and even with the french doors open and the fan on, it gets stuffy in the library in the afternoons. He couldn’t begrudge us a break. A swim, maybe. I picture Connor shucking off his shirt, and maybe his shorts too, standing on the dock wearing nothing but his blue-plaid boxers and his tattoos.

  I groan and throw myself facedown on my bed.

  What will I say when I see him? What will he say? Should I pretend nothing happened? Like he’s just my…I don’t know, my coworker? My coworker whom I daydream about seeing half-naked and making out with?

  Oh no. What if he thinks I wheedled my way into this project as an excuse to see him again because I’m into him?

  I’ve had a few hookups, a few kisses here and there, but I was never as into it as I was tonight with Connor. The boys were cute enough and nice enough and wanted to kiss me, so I let them. Two of them asked me out later, but I was too busy for a boyfriend—or so I told myself. I had swimming and studying and extra classes. I had Abby and Claire and Alex. That felt like enough.

  But this is different. I am into Connor. And tonight it seemed like he was into me.