The Love Song of Ivy K. Harlowe

by Hannah Moskowitz

  My mom pats my knee and stands up. “That,” she says, “is exactly my point.”

  …

  I get a night off work the next Friday and Elizabeth has a light day of classes, so we end up meeting at this café by the URI vet school. There’s a bookstore nearby that she loves, and she’s showing me secondhand copies of something by someone that are apparently really rare—I don’t know, but I like the way her eyes light up and her voice gets fast when she talks about it, and I think about what she said about passion itself being more important than the subject, and I think I’m getting it now—when my phone rings.

  I check the screen, and of course Elizabeth sees it, too, so of course it’s Ivy, complete with the picture that pops up whenever she calls, one of the two of us looking really hot before we went out one night, making goofy sexy faces at the camera.

  “One second,” I say to Elizabeth. “Sorry.”

  “You’re fine,” she says.

  Ivy is excited in a very undignified, very un-Ivy sort of way. “Andie. Andie.”

  “Um…yeah?”

  “I got it.”

  “Got what?”

  She gives this aggrieved sigh; that’s more like it. “The internship.”

  “Ivy! Holy shit. Holy shit! I thought you weren’t finding out until next week.”

  “Yeah, so did I. Then they called.”

  “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  “I’m getting paid. I’m getting my own fucking place without your parents’ sex noises through the wall or the sketchy people my mom brings home.”

  “Just the sketchy people you bring home.”

  “Exactly. I’m actually doing it. I did it.”

  “You’re amazing.” I look over at Elizabeth and say, “Hang on,” then lower the phone. “Ivy got this internship she applied for.”

  “That’s cool,” Elizabeth says. “Doing what?”

  “Working as a buyer at Nordstrom,” I say. “She’s going to help choose what they sell, what goes on display, what’s on sale…everything.” I shrug. “It’s totally her dream job.”

  “I thought you said she wanted to be a designer.”

  “No, she used to when she was a kid, but she’s way too practical.” And right now she’s yelling my name into the phone. “Sorry,” I say to Ivy. “I’m back.”

  “Are you with someone?” she singsongs.

  “It’s fine. Sorry.”

  “No, no, don’t apologize.” She sighs theatrically. “Thing is, I was about to invite you out to Kinetic for a very special night of celebration, but I would hate to interrupt…”

  “No, you’re not…” I glance at Elizabeth and turn away from her as subtly as I can. “Of course you’re not interrupting.”

  “Andie. Are you on a date?”

  “Shut up.”

  “And this is how you talk to me, on the day of my internship. It’s fine. The party will continue without you. Somehow I’ll survive without my best friend in the world.”

  “God, shut the fuck up. What time?”

  “Nine,” she says. I can hear her smiling. “Think the vet will still be awake, or will she have taken her teeth out by then?”

  I hang up the phone and turn back around to Elizabeth, who’s leafing through a poetry book.

  “Everything okay?” she says. I must look as nervous as I feel.

  “So I know we were going to go to your friend’s restaurant tonight—”

  “We can reschedule,” she says. “You want to go out with your friends; it’s okay.”

  “Come with me,” I say. Without even thinking.

  …

  I’ve been coming to Kinetic since I was old enough for the bouncers to at least pretend they thought I could possibly be the age on my fake ID. I know this place like I know my own house. Every nook where no one will bother you, which stall in the bathroom is tacitly agreed to be for hooking up, what drink to bring the DJ to get her to play the song you want. In high school, I brought a few girls here for the first time, mostly bi-curious ones who wanted to see what it was like, but maybe because I meet most of the meager number of girls I hook up with here, it’s been a long, long time since I met someone who didn’t know Kinetic just as well as I do.

  “Seriously, never?” I say to Elizabeth in the car.

  “Never.”

  “You’ve never been to Kinetic. Not even when you were in college? It’s practically all college kids.”

  “I’m really not a club person.”

  “I know, but I figured you discovered that by going to clubs.”

  “I know what clubs are like; I’ve seen Euphoria. Where the hell do I park?”

  We park, finally, and make the hike to the club, which is simultaneously more and less annoying than usual—less because I’m not in my club clothes and therefore not wearing heels, more because I haven’t pregamed and therefore am not drunk—and show our IDs and sweep into Kinetic along with a pair of very nervous-looking boys.

  Elizabeth looks around without saying anything, and I’m suddenly so self-conscious of this place, like it’s mine or something. I’m embarrassed by the pink lights around the drink specials and the way-too-young guys making out on a pillar next to us, like I put them there.

  It’s stupid, because it’s not like she’s insulting it, but I guess some part of me remembered the first time Ivy and I came here and we looked around like Dorothy entering the Emerald City. I wanted Elizabeth to be enchanted by this dirty, magical little place.

  But it’s fine.

  I point to the bar. “Those are my friends.”

  Melody and Diana are making out against the bar while Ivy laughs at something Alyssa says, a glass hanging carelessly from her hand. She’s done a good job replenishing her wardrobe since the fire, and she’s wearing these incredible spike heels we found for eighteen dollars at Sloan’s. Her hair’s teased up and her eye makeup is kind of smudged heroin-chic to match, and I suddenly very, very much regret bringing the girl I’m dating to see the two of us together when I’m in jeans and sneakers. What the fuck was I thinking? Girls have come with me and left with Ivy over a lot less.

  God, she looks beautiful.

  Ivy sees me and holds her arms up like ta-da, and I go over and hug her. “You’re incredible,” I say.

  She grins and sips her drink. “And someone besides you finally sees it.” She studies Elizabeth over the rim of the glass.

  “Hi,” Alyssa says, and I hug her, too.

  “This is Alyssa,” I say to Elizabeth. “She’s basically our moral compass.”

  “Which means I spend a lot of time roasting Ivy,” Alyssa says.

  I say, “Well, someone has to.” And Lord knows it won’t be me. “And that’s Diana and Melody, if they ever come up for air. And this is Ivy.”

  Ivy offers her hand limply, and the dread in my stomach gathers some additional force.

  “Congratulations,” Elizabeth says to her.

  “Hmm.” Ivy slings her arm around my neck. “To you, too. Andie’s amazing, isn’t she?”

  “Cut it out,” I say, batting her off.

  Ivy sighs. “Just doing my job.”

  “Where’s the president of your fan club tonight?” I ask her, to change the subject.

  “Who?”

  Elizabeth orders a glass of wine, which makes Ivy stifle a snort of laughter into her wrist, and I chew on my thumbnail and shake my head when Elizabeth asks what I want, because suddenly anything seems like taking sides. Ivy finishes her whiskey and smoothly buys a drink for a hot girl who’s come up next to us and strikes up a conversation, her back to the rest of us, and Elizabeth raises her eyebrows at me.

  “Yeah, she comes here for business, not pleasure,” I say. “Or I guess, business and pleasure.”

  “I’ve heard you’re not supposed to mix them.”
r />   “It’s working okay for her.”

  “God, I can’t hear anything in here.” She slips her arm around my waist, and my heart flutters.

  “Do you want to dance?” I ask her, but before she can answer, Melody and Diana split apart and they’re all over us like I’ve never dated anyone before, but it’s cute how excited they are and they’re being sweet. Alyssa’s being nice, too, asking Elizabeth questions about vet school and complimenting her jean jacket. Coming from anyone else, I might think she was being flirty, but this is just Alyssa. Honest and unafraid. I think that’s what scares girls off, honestly. Lesbians aren’t known for being straightforward when they like each other. Alyssa will tell you unprompted.

  Ivy’s still talking to the hot girl. And Elizabeth keeps glancing at her and then back to me. I should have known Ivy would take the opportunity to be extra bratty, extra her, but part of me thought she’d be on her best behavior for meeting my girlfriend for the first time. Part of me is deluded.

  Her concentration does finally get broken, though, but not because of Elizabeth. We’ve only been here for a blessed twenty uninterrupted minutes when in comes: you guessed it.

  Dot saunters right up to our group and leans across the bar with a smile. Her hair’s blown out and wavy and she has on the tightest, tiniest jeans I’ve ever seen. “Whiskey lemonade?” she says.

  “The fuck are you doing here?” Ivy drawls. “I thought you had basketball practice.”

  Melody laughs a little and gives Dot a hug. A hug, like they’re friends! They’ve only met, like, five times, on nights when Dot pops up just like this. Jesus Christ. “Basketball?” Melody says, sizing Dot up, or what there is of her.

  “It’s a small school,” she says. “They take what they can get.” She turns back to Ivy. “And that ended hours ago.”

  “Mmm,” Ivy says.

  Dot tilts her head, looking at Elizabeth. I roll my eyes.

  “Elizabeth, Dot,” I say. “Dot, Elizabeth.”

  “You weren’t kidding about them not checking those IDs carefully, huh?” Elizabeth says.

  “No one comes to clubs like this after they’re actually twenty-one,” Dot says, like she’s some sort of expert, and twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth and I exchange looks.

  “Dot’s very enthusiastic about Ivy,” I explain.

  “Yeah.” Elizabeth raises her drink a bit, toward Ivy. “Who isn’t?”

  Ivy shows her teeth in something like a smile.

  Alyssa tugs on my arm and shows me some texts from this girl she’s been pursuing. This girl is so not interested. Honey.

  “Oh shit,” Diana says. She grabs Melody’s arm and points her chin toward the door. “She’s here.”

  Dot says, “Ooh, who?”

  “This girl Diana’s obsessed with,” Melody says.

  “Oooh, yeah,” Dot says. “I’ve seen her before.”

  “She’s in my hot yoga class,” Diana says. “She is…very bendy.”

  “So you’ve got an opening!” Melody nudges her. “Go see if she can help you downward dog.”

  Diana whines.

  “Oh my God, I am not going home with you again and listening to you lament that you didn’t go for it. Again.” Melody kisses her. “Go have fun.”

  “Getting rejected is not fun.”

  “You sound like me,” Alyssa says.

  “Oof. That’ll get me off my ass,” Diana says, and she heads over to the hot-yoga girl while Alyssa tries to make her pouting look ironic. I give her a squeeze around the waist.

  “I’m confused,” Elizabeth says.

  “About what?” Ivy looks after Diana. “Damn. Hot yoga is right.” Dot flicks her, and Ivy knocks her hand away without looking at her.

  Elizabeth turns to Melody. “Aren’t you two together?”

  “Yeah! For years.”

  “But she…”

  Melody shrugs. “Well, yeah. We’re open,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Wow,” Elizabeth says. “That’s…very bold of you.”

  Ivy’s finally found something that interests her. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Are you surprised by non-monogamy? At a queer club?”

  “I don’t like that word, first of all,” Elizabeth says.

  Ivy laughs. “Oh my God.”

  “But yeah, I think the goal eventually is to find a person who you want at the exclusion of anyone else. There’s a reason that’s been the standard for centuries.”

  “Yeah,” Ivy says. “And the reason is straight people.”

  “Gay people are just as capable of committed, loving relationships as straight people,” Elizabeth says.

  “Amen,” Alyssa says.

  “I’m capable of jumping off a bridge,” Ivy says. “Doesn’t mean I should.”

  “Isn’t the point that we can be as good as straight people?” Elizabeth says.

  Ivy looks at her like she’s an unfamiliar species. “No,” she says, nice and slowly. “The point is that we’re better than straight people.”

  “And not being monogamous is better,” Elizabeth says.

  “Yeah. Than just about anything.”

  I know I should step in here, because Elizabeth and Ivy are looking at each other like they’re about to spring on each other wild-animal style, but that would require having some idea of whose side I’m on—I don’t love everything Elizabeth’s implying, and objecting to the word “queer” feels very…dated, but I’m not with Ivy on her staunch brigade against monogamy, either. Dot, of all people, catches my eye, and she looks…sympathetic? She’s probably just sad at yet another reminder that she’s never going to be Ivy’s one and only. Not that I need one of Ivy’s hookups feeling bad for me, yikes.

  Luckily I’m saved from having to think of anything to say, because Melody checks her phone and grabs me by the sleeve. “Niya’s doing it,” she says.

  My stomach goes cold. “She’s not.”

  “She is. Says she’s doing it right now.”

  Shit. Shit. Niya’s easily the most popular dancer we have, brings in the closest thing we have to crowds every time she’s in, and she’s been cutting back her hours more and more each month to take more shifts at other clubs that bring in more money. And she keeps saying she’s going to leave for good.

  We cannot lose her.

  “You need to get down there,” Melody says. I’m Niya’s favorite and she’s told me a bunch of times I’m the only reason she’s stayed as long as she has. “You gotta do something.”

  “Like what, write her a fucking check? There’s nothing I can do.” But of course I have to try. I turn to Elizabeth and wrap two fingers around her wrist. “I have to go.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Strip club crisis,” I say. “I can take an Uber—”

  “No, I can bring you,” Elizabeth says, which is sweet but also I kind of expected it, because it doesn’t exactly seem like she’s hitting it off with my friends. Still, she tells everyone it was nice meeting them and Ivy shakes her hand again, even more limply than before. I shoot Ivy a look to show her how very much I don’t appreciate how firmly she did not stay on her best behavior, but she just smiles at me. I feel kind of bad for bailing on her celebration, but hey, getting in a fight with someone about monogamy has got to be one of Ivy’s top five ways to commemorate an occasion.

  The streets are loud and we’re walking fast, so I’m saved from having to talk until after we pull out of the parking lot. At which point Elizabeth immediately says, “So.”

  “I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea,” I say.

  She glances at me. “What was a good idea?”

  “You meeting my friends.”

  “Hey.” She puts her fingers around my wrist, like I did back in the club. “I like your friends.”

  “Oh, bullsh
it. You and Ivy were about to have a duel.”

  Elizabeth’s quiet for a minute, then says softly, “She’s protective of you,” which is not what I was expecting.

  So I laugh. “What?”

  “Ivy. She was being…possessive, I guess.”

  I squirm. “We’ve been best friends for, like, ever.”

  “You’re sure that’s it?”

  “What? Come on.”

  “The way she looks at you…”

  “Ivy Harlowe is not interested in me,” I say. “Trust me.”

  “But you want her to be,” Elizabeth says.

  I can feel my heartbeat in my ears. “This is ridiculous,” I say. “I’m with you.”

  She nods a little, staring straight through the windshield, and I put my hand over hers on the gearshift.

  “For the record,” I say. “I’m not on the same page as her. About the monogamy stuff. I’m not, like, completely against it.”

  “So, uh, what page are you on, exactly?”

  “I’ve never really had to think about it,” I admit. “I’ve never really—”

  And Elizabeth just takes that and says, “Okay. We’ll go slow.” Like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

  She doesn’t need to know what I think right away. She doesn’t demand a quick, snappy answer. We can just sit here, in her car, and be unsure together.

  The radio switches to a new song, and her fingers move under mine a little.

  And for just a minute, I’m not thinking about Ivy at all.

  …

  I tell Elizabeth not to wait—I don’t know how long this will be, and I’ll just make Max bring me home—and as soon as I walk in the front door, I run into Niya. She’s got her big faux-fur coat on and a cardboard box with her makeup bag and some outfits inside. She’s older than most of our girls, but it doesn’t matter. She has the it factor.

  “I’m sorry, pumpkin,” she says to me.

  “At least weeknights. Something.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You said we were like home.”

  “The tips aren’t coming in, angel,” she says. “People aren’t coming here anymore.”

  “We’re going to turn it around,” I say. “But we need you. We can’t do it without you.”