“I’m not talking about people. I’m talking about me.”
“God, your ego needs to go on fucking keto or some shit.”
“It’s been five months,” Dot says. “I don’t think it’s ridiculous for me to wonder this.”
“What’s been five months?” Ivy says. “Since I brought you home and fucked you? What are we measuring here?”
“Do you really have to put on a show right now? There’s no one else here.”
Whoops.
“We’re never going to be some married couple,” Ivy says. “We’re not going to be Melody and Diana.”
“Okay, I just had my tongue down Melody’s throat, so I don’t see how they’re some scary example of the heterosexual agenda.”
“This is what I’m saying,” Ivy says. “This is it. You’re trying to trap me.” She sounds upset.
“That’s bullshit. Why would I want to trap you? Why are you so sure that I want all that shit you’re afraid that I want? When have I ever even indicated that?”
“When you try to get me to have a talk with you like we’re in some kind of relationship.”
“All I want is for you to give me an answer to a question that has to do with me and not whatever crap you’re projecting on me. It’s just me.” Dot sounds older than I’m used to, and her voice is a little less high-pitched. She’s composed, while Ivy’s the one getting agitated.
There’s a long pause, and finally Ivy speaks.
“I’m going to keep going where I’m going,” she says, and now she sounds calm, too. “And you can come with me for as long as you want. That’s what I have to offer.”
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
Ivy Harlowe just told a girl she could be with her for as long as she wants.
Oh God. Dot’s not the one who needs to be embarrassed. I am. I’m the punch line.
And my feet still won’t move.
I’m pretty sure I couldn’t possibly be more stunned until Dot says, “That is such crap,” and nope, turns out I was not at my threshold.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ivy says.
“Telling me oh, you can come if you want to,” Dot says. “I’m not some kid tagging along.”
“I never said you were,” Ivy says firmly.
“I want to be wanted,” Dot says. “Not tolerated.”
“I don’t tolerate very many people,” Ivy says. “This is a big deal for me.”
“Okay, well, it’s not enough,” Dot says. “I’m happy for you and everything but it’s not enough for me.”
After a few seconds of silence, Ivy says, “So what, are you ending this?”
I hold my breath.
But Dot just laughs a little. “I can’t believe I just got you to admit there’s something to end,” she says. “And no, obviously I’m not fucking ending this. I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing since September.”
“What part exactly.”
“The part where I hang around until you realize you can’t live without me.”
I cannot imagine having that kind of confidence to say that to anyone. Let alone to Ivy, who’s always been just fine without anyone.
There’s quiet after that, and at first I think Ivy’s trying to figure out how the hell to respond to that, and then I hear soft kissing noises, so…what.
I think a part of me is giving up on trying to understand them, and on the one hand that’s a relief.
On the other hand, it literally, physically hurts that Ivy just told someone else that they can come with her, and that I have once again made a complete fool out of myself, at least this time only in my own mind, by thinking I have any damn clue what’s going on between Ivy and Dot.
And I just…
I have waited for God knows how many years for Ivy to be ready. I’ve crept up to her like she’s some scared little woodland creature, because I knew she wasn’t ready for a relationship; I knew she had all this baggage about it that Dot’s calling her out on. And while I was being thoughtful and sensitive and patient, some cocky little shit is going to waltz in, right in the middle of my hard work, in all I’ve done making her comfortable with her life, and break through Ivy’s walls with persistence and persistence alone?
Apparently yeah, and I hate that I’m starting to get what Ivy sees in her, that Dot is bold and fearless and yeah, a goddamn missile, and it feels like being squeezed.
What if all this time, all I had to do was say, You have to give it a shot, I’m not backing down, and she would have fallen in love with me?
Would it even matter? Am I the kind of person who can do that?
I think I’m not. I think I’m the kind of person who reads love stories and doesn’t live them.
Except oh my God, I have a girlfriend. Just throw me into the river without a wet suit.
I’m halfway up the stairs when there’s a sudden and very insistent knocking at my front door.
“What the hell?” I hear Ivy say. “It’s three in the goddamn morning.” And because she’s Ivy, instead of ignoring it or checking through the window or generally showing any caution whatsoever, she’s immediately up and crossing through the living room to answer the door.
From where I am on the stairs, I can see Ivy’s back but not the person at the door, but I don’t need to see her to know that voice. Flinty, strong. Familiar and disorienting at once.
“Ivy Kaitlin. Can you tell me where our house is?”
Ivy’s mom is back.
February
“Stay,” Elizabeth says.
“I caaaaan’t.”
We’re in the living room of her small apartment, sprawled out on the floor with a bunch of nail polish and a tray of fancy cheese. It’s so warm here, and the cheese is good enough to be a meal, and Elizabeth is wearing this blue sweater that makes her eyes sparkle.
“Sure you can.” She stretches, tangling her legs up with mine. “You don’t have to go to this lunch.”
“I promised Ivy I’d be there.”
“She can’t have lunch with her mom by herself?”
“They have a…complicated relationship.”
It’s the first day of February, and Ivy’s mom has been back—and living in a motel—for the past three days. Ivy’s been mostly dodging her, pleading class and internship, but she finally pinned her down for a lunch she can’t get out of. Ivy is sure, 100 percent sure, that she’s about to be hit up for money, and she’s hoping that her mom won’t ask if I’m there. Which seems like a lot of class to expect from Bette Harlowe, but hey, miracles happen.
“I don’t think she’s ever been gone for this long before,” I say. “And she didn’t come home for the holidays, which is when Ivy’s dad died… It’s a thing.”
She sighs. “Why can’t your parents just be everyone’s parents?”
“They practically are,” I say, but it feels weird to say, because my dad’s in the hospital right now. I haven’t told Elizabeth, because it’s my dad’s business and he’s a private sort of guy, and also because I guess it would feel like a bigger deal if I said it to her, and really, it’s manageable.
He went voluntarily and he’s getting help and he’ll be home in a few days, but outsiders can blow it up into this thing that it’s not. They hear “psych ward” and think it’s some cuckoo’s nest shit. He’s just sleeping and doing a lot of therapy and getting his meds adjusted. I miss him, though, and I know it makes Ivy anxious, having him not there. She made him some cookies, and Dot did this watercolor floral painting of the rose bushes we had blooming back when she first started coming around and gave it to me to bring to him. Dad loved it so much, he cried. It was my first time really seeing her art, and, I have to say, that impression I got quickly in Ivy’s car that time was right. She’s really damn good. And I know good; I was raised on Ivy’s art, after all. She used
to make my dad cards, too, back when she still drew, but she gave that up a long time ago.
We’re missing visiting hours at the hospital today to do this lunch, which has Ivy in an even worse mood about the whole thing.
“She needs me,” I say.
Elizabeth sighs. “Why did I have to fall in love with someone who’s such a good friend?”
Hang on.
I sit up. “What did you just say?”
“What? You’re a good friend.”
“No, not… Did you just say you love me?”
I’m expecting this to be a big moment. Where she stutters and says she didn’t mean to or else comes in with some huge declaration. I expect her to act like I’ve caught her in something.
But she just smiles a little. “Yeah, of course I do. You didn’t know?”
“I, um…” Oh God. This has never happened before. I’ve forgotten how to human.
She leans forward and kisses me. “You don’t have to say it back,” she whispers, so low and sexy that in that moment, I think I’d say just about anything. “No pressure.”
So I just whisper, “Okay,” and she kisses me again.
In all honesty, though, sitting there on her floor, no one around but me and her, no complications and no bullshit and just me and her, I really think that I do love her. I really think I do.
But now I have to go to lunch.
…
Bette meets Ivy and me at this run-down diner close to the train station. The servers are all women and could be anywhere between twenty and sixty, and they’re all wearing a pound of makeup and look sassy and tired. I wonder vaguely if any of them are looking for stripper work. We definitely pay better.
Bette’s already in a booth when we get there, and she scoots out and half stands to give Ivy and me a hug at the same time, patting us on the back with the flats of her hands. She’s skinny and tan and doesn’t look anything like Ivy.
“So good to see you girls,” she says. “What a cute top, Andie.”
“Thanks. It’s Ivy’s.”
“It is so sweet of your family to let her stay with you.”
“I’m getting my own place soon,” Ivy says. She wants to save up for something that’s not a trash heap. My parents aren’t exactly the type to push her out the door, and God knows I’m in no hurry for her to leave, so she’s not really feeling any pressure to move out. She’s started paying my parents some rent and she chips in for groceries, which is welcome right now when we’re surviving on just what my mom makes from nursing.
We sit down, and Bette flags the waiter over and orders coffee instead of food. Ivy gets a Spanish omelet and I get a BLT. Ivy clicks her nails on the lacquered table.
“How was Costa Rica?” I ask.
“Mmm.” Bette sets down her water glass. “Incredible. Transcendent. Getting to explore other cultures…it’s such a blessing. And how are you, Andie, how’s school?”
“I’m not actually in—”
“Oh, right, right, of course. I was never much for school, either. Don’t know where Ivy gets those brains from! Are you seeing anyone? I asked Ivy if she has any boyfriends, but she never gives me a straight answer.”
“Stacks on stacks on stacks,” Ivy says dryly. “Like pancakes.”
I’m not sure why Ivy’s never come out to her mom. It’s not like she’d have a problem with it. I think it’s just a way Ivy keeps some power in their relationship. It’s something about her that her mother can’t touch.
“And how’s your family, Andie?” Bette says. “How are your parents?”
“They’re good,” I say. “They’re really good.”
Ivy tangles her foot up with mine under the table. I put my other foot around it, too, protectively.
We’re halfway through our food, eaten mostly in very awkward silence, when Bette claps her hands together and says, “I have something for you girls.”
“What, a Christmas present?” Ivy says, and Bette gives her a look that lets me know she noticed the snark but isn’t going to respond to it. Ivy chews her lip like she’s been scolded.
Bette takes a small plastic bag out of the pocket of her leopard-print coat and opens it and drops one bracelet into Ivy’s hand and one in mine. Ivy’s is green and mine is purple. It’s not my style, but it’s pretty enough. The beads are swirly. Maybe I’ll give it to my mom.
“Thank you,” I say. “Are these from Costa Rica?” Mom will dig the back story.
“No, no, no,” she says. “These were made by a friend of mine. She’s got this whole venture making them out in California.”
“Here we go,” Ivy says under her breath.
Bette gives her another look, a little longer this time. “It’s a genius idea, really. They look just like normal jewelry, right? But there’s CBD oil in the beads—don’t ask me how; I’m no scientist—and the warmth of your skin melts it into you and you get all those good CBD effects just from wearing a bracelet! People are going to go wild for these.”
“For a tiny bit of CBD oil in a bracelet,” Ivy says. “You know you can just buy the stuff.”
“Oh, you know how people are,” she says. “It’s about the lifestyle. Or maybe this will ease people in who are worried about it! Possibilities are endless.”
“Endless,” Ivy says. “Okay. So let me guess. You’re about to leave for California to help her with this.”
“This is a great business,” she says. “This isn’t some scam like Costa Rica turned out to be.”
“I thought Costa Rica was transcendent.”
“And,” Bette says, “you could come with me.”
Ivy laughs. “Come with you. Move to California?”
“Aren’t you sick of the weather here?” she says. “God knows I am, and I just got back. And you’d get on this business right at the start with me. We could do something together. Like we used to when you were little.”
Ivy starts to speak, and I can tell whatever she’s going to say isn’t really diner-appropriate, and to be honest, there’s just no point. There is no point in getting into it with Bette. She never learns. She’s never going to.
So I just grab Ivy’s hand and squeeze her fingers hard enough to hurt. “She’ll think about it,” I say to Bette, with my best customer-service smile.
On our way out of the diner, Ivy throws the bracelet away and slams the car door without a word.
…
I have to get to work, and Ivy comes in with me instead of dropping me off, like she does sometimes when she doesn’t have class or her internship. She hangs out in the dressing room with the dancers while I go do inventory in the kitchen, and when I come back, she’s sprawled in a chair, talking to Libby, one of my favorite girls who’s been here forever. She’s doing a bachelor party tonight, and I settle in with the books in a free chair and start going through this month’s numbers.
Libby says, “Andie, how’s your dad?”
“He’s doing a lot better, thanks,” I say. “They’re messing with his meds some and he says he can already feel a difference.” We don’t have secrets here.
“You’re sending him our love?”
“Of course.”
“Shit,” Libby says. “Are either of you any good at contouring? My face just looks dirty. I need these tips tonight and this is not working.” Libby’s blonde and blue-eyed, like someone who could play Cinderella at Disney World.
“I barely know what contouring is,” I say.
Ivy says, “My cheekbones are real, thank you.” And incredible.
“God, shut up,” Libby says.
“Be nice to me,” Ivy says, pulling out her phone. “I’m calling in reinforcements.” Any idiot can see where this is going, even me, and yeah, Dot’s skipping through the dressing room doors in ten minutes.
“Hi hi hi!” she says. “I hear there’s an emergen
cy.”
Libby laughs. “And who is this?”
“Ivy’s foundling,” I say, and Ivy kicks her shoe at me.
Dot sits on the counter and gets to work on Libby. She has this huge makeup bag with her and a mirror, like our walls aren’t already covered in them. “Andie, this place is so cool,” she says.
I look around at the peeling palm tree wallpaper and dented picture frames holding snapshots of the girls clowning around and the building, back in the day. There’s not much to show off here, but hell, it makes me happy, too. “You haven’t been here before?” I say.
She shakes her head. “I dropped Ivy off once, but I’ve never been inside. Close your eyes, tilt your head a little—good.” She runs a brush under Libby’s eye.
“I just need the contouring fixed,” Libby says.
“Oh, honey, no you do not,” Dot says, and Ivy laughs.
“I’m glad someone thinks this place is cool,” I say. “Maybe we should change our target demographic to seventeen-year-old queers. Might help save this place.”
“You need saving?” Dot says.
“Yeah.” I wave my hand and turn a page. “Don’t get any ideas, Joan of Arc. No nets to clip here.”
“Hmm,” is all she says. She puts on Libby’s lipstick and walks around to her other side to do something to her eyebrow. She nudges Ivy. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
It’s been a big week for Dot. College acceptances are coming in, and she’s gotten into all her safeties and yesterday got her RISD acceptance. She was surprised; Ivy was not, and once Ivy showed me pictures of the portfolio she’d submitted, I could see why. The girl can do a lot more than put on blush or make get well cards. I’d told Ivy that, meaning it as a compliment, and Ivy got all offended, though. “She likes makeup.” That’s what you get for trying to make nice with your best friend’s…whatever she is.
It’s kind of a big week for everyone, actually, with my dad recovering in the hospital and Ivy’s mom and also her apartment-hunting. Melody and Diana just got back from vacation. Alyssa aced her physics exam up in Boston. And then there’s, you know, me. Doing the books.
The Love Song of Ivy K. Harlowe Page 11
