The Love Song of Ivy K. Harlowe

by Hannah Moskowitz

  Losing her means losing the club. It means losing my family’s everything. I can’t think about what that would do to my parents. My dad.

  I don’t even know what I would do.

  She sighs and puts her hand on my cheek.

  “I’m not a fairy godmother,” she says. “You have to rescue yourself.”

  But I don’t know how.

  I never have, really.

  I walk to the back office in a daze. I can hear Catherine and Max arguing before I’ve even reached the closed door.

  “We’re not changing the whole fucking spirit of this place,” Catherine’s saying.

  “For this place to even have a spirit, it needs to exist, and at this rate—”

  “I’m not working at some fucking Girl Dungeon knockoff! That is not what I signed up for! That’s not what any of us signed up for!”

  “Without Niya—”

  “She’s one girl!”

  “It’s not just—”

  “Just because she’s the one you were fucking doesn’t mean she’s God’s gift to strippers, Max!”

  Oh.

  Whoa.

  I can’t make out words after that, just their quiet voices. They both sound pretty calm now. Max is being soothing, but Catherine doesn’t sound like nearly what my romance novels have taught me is an appropriate amount of dramatic for these situations. I’m guessing Max sleeping with Niya is news only to me.

  I watch the clock on my phone for three minutes before I knock. Catherine opens the door. She doesn’t look like she’s been crying. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a clip, and she’s wearing a T-shirt with our logo on it. My grandmother designed it.

  She says, “Honey, you’re off tonight. Go home.”

  “I was out with Melody. Niya texted her.”

  Catherine sighs. “Yeah.”

  Max is sitting at the desk, his tie loose and his chin in his hand. “Hey, Andie.”

  I have no idea what to say to him. He’s my brother, but I love Catherine. And I thought I loved Niya.

  So I just say, “I want to take the books home. Try to figure out where we can make cuts to keep our doors open.”

  “That’s not your responsibility,” Max says.

  “It’s our responsibility. Gimme the books. I’ll run my ideas past Dad.”

  He opens the top drawer of his desk. “And me.”

  “Fine.”

  I don’t really want to wait for Max to bring me home anymore, so I walk to a coffee shop nearby and sit there and pore over the numbers for a while, doing calculations on my phone and writing notes on napkins. Once they start to close, I pack everything up and walk to the bus stop. The house is dark when I get home and set myself up at the kitchen table with some coffee and my laptop. My parents go to sleep early, and Ivy’s either still out or already in bed.

  Turns out it’s the second one. At around one a.m., I hear footsteps coming down the stairs and into the kitchen. It’s Dot, wearing one of Max’s T-shirts and nothing else. “Hi,” she says, pulling it lower on her legs.

  I roll my eyes and turn back to the books.

  “You know, at some point you’re going to start liking me,” she says. “You won’t even notice it’s happening and then poof.”

  I so don’t have time for this right now. But I can’t help myself. “Is that how it worked with Ivy?”

  “Ivy always liked me.”

  It’s extremely annoying that at this point I don’t know if I can argue with that. God, what is Ivy doing bringing her back here over and over? What the fuck kind of alternate dimension is this where a girl Ivy’s slept with multiple times comes down the stairs in the middle of the night in my brother’s clothes and I don’t even find it surprising?

  “What are you doing here?” I ask her.

  “Hungry,” she says, I guess assuming that I meant here in the kitchen. She crosses the room and opens the fridge like it’s hers. “What about you?”

  “Work.”

  “Wow. I hope they pay you overtime for this.”

  “Not really how it works.”

  “Hhhhhow come?”

  How did I get roped into a conversation with this girl in the middle of the goddamn night? “It’s the family business,” I say. Or it was, my mind supplies darkly. Thanks. “It doesn’t really have hours.”

  “Wow,” Dot says again. “You’re, like, a really good daughter.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Seriously. Your family’s really lucky to have you. You’re like my brothers. They really want to work our family business, which is awesome for my parents. And them. And me, since I don’t want to.”

  “Not everyone gets to do the work they want to do,” I say. “That’s not life.”

  “Well, yeah, you have to do other stuff on the way, but that should be the goal, right? Like, I’m going to do makeup, Ivy’s gonna do fashion merchandising, and you’re going to keep the strip club going.”

  Does this girl honestly think it’s my dream in life to run a failing strip club, or is she fucking with me? I think I’d have more license to be offended if I had any idea what my dream in life was. So I just say, “Fashion merchandising wasn’t even Ivy’s dream. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “She says it’s her dream,” Dot says defensively.

  “She wanted to be a designer, but she knew it was stupid, so she’s doing merchandising instead. That’s what grown-ups do. We compromise.”

  “Ooh, there’s ice cream left,” Dot says, and I roll my eyes and turn back to the books.

  Dot’s getting out a bowl when Ivy appears in the doorway to the kitchen, half asleep, with her hair an absolute mess. She yawns and says, “Where’d you go?” to Dot.

  She holds up the ice cream carton. “Want some?” she says, and Ivy nods and drags herself to the kitchen table and slumps over it.

  “Long night, dear?” I say.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “You know you were a complete asshole to Elizabeth, so thanks for that.”

  Ivy shrugs. “Trial by fire. Gotta see if she’s good enough for my girl.”

  “Oh, that’s what that was?”

  She grins. “Can you prove it wasn’t?”

  I can’t stay mad at her. “I hate you, you know that?”

  “I know. So what’d she say about me?” Ivy turns around in her chair and says, “Spot, is there chocolate sauce?”

  “I’ll check,” Dot says.

  “She says you’re protective of me.”

  “You’re damn right,” Ivy says, and she gnashes her teeth, and I smile even though I don’t want to.

  Dot comes to the table with ice cream and chocolate sauce. I didn’t want any, but I’m still annoyed that she didn’t at least ask me. Though I guess it’s technically her ice cream.

  “You never told me you used to want to be a fashion designer,” she says to Ivy.

  Ivy waves her hand carelessly. “I haven’t told you all sorts of things.”

  “I remember one of your friends saying you almost went to RISD.”

  “Apparel design program,” Ivy says. “And almost went is a stretch.”

  “Did you get in?” Dot says.

  Ivy looks at her for a long second, then says, “Yes.”

  Hang on. “Wait,” I say. “I thought you didn’t apply.”

  Ivy shrugs and digs into her ice cream. “Didn’t seem worth mentioning. They didn’t offer money. Was never going to work.”

  “So you just don’t design anymore?” Dot says.

  “It’s not like some policy. I’m just busy. School. Now this internship.” She licks her spoon. “Sex.”

  “Yeah.” Dot leans over and kisses her cheek. “I’ve noticed.”

  Ivy rolls her eyes. “Get off me.”

  Enough. Enough lea
rning shit about my best friend because I overhear her telling some girl she barely knows. Enough of this. I gather up my shit. “I’m going to move this upstairs.”

  “We’re leaving soon,” Dot says. “Going to sleep.”

  “Or something like that,” Ivy says.

  Dot nudges her. “You have school in the morning.”

  “So do you.”

  I leave them to work out that little conundrum on their own and go up to my room and shut the door.

  Why the hell didn’t she tell me she applied to RISD?

  Why the hell did she tell Dot?

  I stare at the strip club financial records strewn over my bed and try to imagine someone thinking this is my passion. Try to imagine doing this forever.

  There’s only one thing I’ve ever thought about when I thought about forever, and she’s downstairs making eyes at a high schooler who thinks everyone can be a fucking artist.

  I know I should get back to work, but instead I open my laptop and go to YouTube. I type “Dot makeup” into the search bar and after a lot of weird polka-dot eyeliner tutorials, I finally scroll down enough to her. “Dot Does Makeup.” How clever.

  She has eight thousand subscribers, and some of her videos have more than a hundred thousand views. The most popular one is about doing a cat-eye when you don’t have a lot of lid space. I have lids for days but still no idea how to do a cat-eye, so what the hell. I turn it on, making sure the volume is low as hell—the last thing I need is them coming upstairs and overhearing—and get my makeup from my desk and kneel down in front of my mirror.

  Her lighting and camera look really nice. She’s just filming in her room, but it still looks professional. She’s bare-faced and smiley, her hair up in some intricate braided bun I could never do.

  “Hi, hi, what’s up; it’s your girl Dot! So I wanted to make this video because I know a lot of people have trouble with cat-eyes if you have hooded eyelids or if you have monolids, so let’s get right into this and before you know it, you’ll have this down, okay?”

  She goes through the products she’s using, pulling each one out of a silver metal case, and I find some version of them in my stained makeup bag. She zooms in close to her eye and goes over the cat-eye step by step, lining her top lid nice and slowly.

  I mess it up immediately, wipe my eye off, rewind the video, try again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Dot beams at me from my screen, showing off her knife-sharp wings, and I throw my eyeliner across the floor.

  November

  On a very dreary Thursday, the second week of November, I’m trying to head home after a morning restocking a strip club that is blessedly still open and my fucking car won’t start. God, this thing is such a piece of shit. My parents used to pick me up from kindergarten in it. I’m amazed it still has all its doors.

  My mom’s at work and my dad’s at home, but since I have the only car, I call Ivy. “Where are you?”

  “On my way home from school,” she says. It’s about a thirty-minute drive each way for her, but she doesn’t have afternoon classes on Thursdays, so she usually comes home and marathons Project Runway on the couch. A model roommate.

  “Can you pick me up? I’m at the club and this damn thing won’t start.”

  “Which club?”

  “It’s three in the afternoon—what club do you think?”

  “Okay, but I…” She sounds funny. Nervous.

  “You what?”

  “Nothing,” she says. “I just have this thing I’m supposed to do.”

  “Pick me up first, I’m freezing my fucking tits off and if I go back inside, they’re going to make me work the front desk.”

  She laughs. “Not with no tits, they’re not.”

  “Get over here.”

  Ivy pulls up about ten minutes later, right before I’m about to give up and wait it out inside. I hurry into her passenger seat and blow on my hands. “Thank you. I love you.”

  “I know, I know.” She still seems weird. She’s flicking the windshield wipers on and off even though it’s not raining, and she keeps checking the rearview mirror.

  “Are we on the run?” I say.

  She pulls out of the parking lot. “Yes, always.”

  “That’s exciting.”

  “I just have an errand. It’s not a big deal.”

  “Where is it?” I ask.

  She doesn’t answer me, just turns the music up louder. Whatever. She’s probably just being antsy about bringing me to pick up some E or something. It’s sweet. She plays the shit we used to rock out to when we were in high school, which is fun, but before I know it we’re pulling up…at a high school.

  No goddamn way.

  “You’re kidding me,” I say.

  Ivy puts on a pair of sunglasses. “Whatever.”

  It’s a freaking Catholic school, all girls from the looks of it, and they’re in these plaid uniforms, giggling and chatting on their way out of the building. I watch one girl drop all her books and lose a bunch of papers in the wind.

  “I can’t believe this,” I say.

  It hasn’t escaped me that Ivy knew exactly how to get here and where to park. Which means this is not her first time here. I briefly allow myself the hope that this isn’t Dot’s school, and Ivy is just here trolling for a fresh seventeen-year-old. What a dire world where that’s the nicer option.

  I look at Ivy as she rakes her fingers through her hair to push it back. She’s like a goddamn movie star in those sunglasses and her black T-shirt dress and leather jacket. She is not supposed to be picking anyone up at school. Waiting for someone. Ivy doesn’t wait for people. People wait for Ivy.

  At least we’re not waiting very long. Dot comes up to the car with a giggly friend with blonde hair and freckles.

  “Hi, Ivy,” the girl says.

  “Hey.”

  Dot opens the door to the back seat and climbs in. At least she didn’t try to get me to move. “Text me those Lit notes, okay?” she says to her friend. “Hi, Andie.”

  “I told you I would,” her friend says.

  “You’re the best.” Dot leans to the front seat and smacks Ivy’s cheek. “Hey, nerd.”

  “I’m not the one who wants Lit notes,” Ivy says. “Can we get out of here, please? Catholics give me the willies.”

  “Maybe you should stop fucking one, then,” Dot says, poking her in the shoulder.

  “Maybe I should.”

  “Yes, please, let’s get out of here,” I say, and Ivy sticks her tongue out at me, blows a kiss to Dot’s little friend, and starts the car.

  “This is like the fucking Twilight Zone,” I mumble to myself. Not quietly enough.

  “Oh, relax,” Ivy says. “She needed a ride. Some of us have functioning cars and have to give people rides. My burden to bear.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get the point.”

  Dot leans forward between us and waves her phone at Ivy. “Did you see this?”

  Ivy spares the phone a glance as she drives. “How many views?”

  “Hundred and six thousand. I am so close to getting sponsorships.” She puts her phone down and turns to me, all bouncy. Like always. “How’s life? Did your car break down?”

  Her backpack spills onto the floor and a bunch of watercolor paintings fall out, and I see a few as she slips them back in. Ballerinas, robots, a ship hitting an iceberg. They’re…really good. I’m surprised and pissed. Suddenly her RISD dreams make a lot more sense, and I’d rather they stayed ridiculous, like everything else about her.

  “Life’s fine,” I say.

  “How’s Elizabeth?”

  Ivy says, “Ugh, are you still dating her?” before I can respond, even though she knows very well that I am. I showed her this funny meme Elizabeth texted me at dinner last night, and my mom was charmed be
cause of her obsession with the mystique of Elizabeth or me having a love life, period, and Ivy thought it was amusing until she found out who’d sent it and then claimed she thought it was boring the whole time.

  “Elizabeth is great,” I say to Dot. “Thank you for asking.”

  “Quick question,” Ivy says. “Is she still a nun?”

  “Believing in monogamy does not make you a nun,” I say.

  She flicks on the turn signal. “You’re right. It’s worse than being a nun. It’s being a heterosexual.”

  “Quick question,” Dot says to her. “Do you ever get tired of being a complete and total gay stereotype from the nineties?”

  “The fuck do you know about the nineties?” Ivy grumbles, as if we know anything, either, while I perform an act of charity and shoot Dot a look that’s hopefully conveying that you do not do that. It’s just better for everyone not to argue with Ivy. She’s never going to change her mind. Just don’t give her any ammo and eventually she gets bored.

  Dot doesn’t catch on. “What’s wrong with monogamy for people who want it?” she says. “I’m not saying it’s for everyone, but you’re really saying no one can make it work?”

  Ivy adjusts the rearview mirror. “Exactly. No one can make it work. People make promises they can’t keep and end up hurting each other. It’s a bad situation. And queers don’t need to put themselves into bad situations. We already have our families.”

  “I think people can make it work if it’s what they really want,” Dot says. “I mean, it’s not for me, but follow your bliss or whatever.”

  “They all fucking cheat,” Ivy says. “Look at my parents.”

  I glance at her.

  “But look at Andie’s parents,” Dot counters.

  “They’ve been together for, like, thirty years,” Ivy says. “Trust me, one of them’s cheated at some point.”

  I think about Max and Niya and don’t say anything. How can I pretend I really know what’s going on in anyone’s relationship after that?

  Dot sighs like a Disney princess. “I love your parents,” she says to me.

  “I’m aware.” If she weren’t so blatantly obsessed with Ivy, I’d think she was only dating her to get to my parents.