Ivy in the Shadows

by Chris Woodworth

  I had heard Mama use that word with Aunt Maureen. It meant just what she was saying—nothing would be the same again.

  “Even when Jack Henry was here, we thought about converting some of the rooms to take in boarders. I’ll admit, I’m not comfortable with that idea now that it’s just … us. With no man in the house.” She cleared her throat and a sad look stole over her face. “But Caleb’s a child. I think it’ll be just fine.”

  JJ strained against the harness of his booster seat to pat her back.

  “I think it’s great!” JJ said. “Caleb’s my friend. Can he sleep in my room?”

  “It is not great, JJ. You’re just a little kid. You don’t understand,” I said.

  “I do, too, Ivy, and you’re just being mean. It’ll be nice having a big brother instead of just a dumb sister!”

  I knew I’d gone too far because JJ never had a bad word to say about anyone, especially me. But I didn’t care. It wasn’t Caleb, exactly. I didn’t even know him. It’s just that our lives felt like a box that had been picked up and turned upside down. You don’t have to be an expert on gravity to know that when things are flipped over, something’s bound to break.

  2

  “Push, kids!” Mama said.

  JJ tried but he wasn’t much help in bringing the old mattress up from the basement. Mama pulled from above, which meant all its weight was on me. We’d made it to the top of the basement steps and now we had to get it upstairs to the spare bedroom that, until now, we hadn’t used. Mama was getting it ready for Caleb.

  “I said push!”

  I turned around so my back was against the mattress and used my body to give it a heave. Finally we were making headway. When we got to the top of the stairs, all three of us fell flat on the mattress, out of breath.

  “Please, Mama. Please move Caleb’s bed into my room,” JJ said for the hundredth time.

  “Honey, there’s no room in there for another bed. Besides, I’m sure Caleb will want some privacy.”

  “Not to mention we barely know him,” I mumbled, but Mama heard.

  “I’m not saying it’s a perfect situation, Ivy,” she said. “And I didn’t know you’d got yourself a job bringing in enough money to keep us. Why, if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have begged for help in front of half the town at church.”

  She was using her most sarcastic tone. That tone gets me sent to my room when I use it.

  “You know I don’t have a job, Mama. That’s not funny.”

  “Neither is starving. Now stop finding fault and help me get this mattress into the spare room.”

  We had always closed off this room. “One less room to heat and clean,” Mama would say.

  We’d dragged the bed frame from the basement earlier. It was Jack Henry’s before he married Mama. Now we fit the heavy mattress and box springs onto it. Mama pulled out a sheet from the hall closet. She snapped it into the air before settling it onto the bed. I helped tuck the corners in nicely like she’d taught me.

  School had gotten out at noon today for teacher prep. Ellen had invited me over to her house and then shopping, but Mama put me right to work as soon as I got home. I knew I had some making up to do before she’d let me go anywhere.

  When we got the bed made and the room dusted, I said, “It looks right nice.”

  Mama smiled. It was the sign I’d been waiting for.

  “May I run over to Ellen’s house? I’ll be back by supper.”

  “Sure,” she said, one finger to her chin as she surveyed the room. “Just don’t be late for supper. The Bennetts are coming.”

  I wanted to yell, “If you’d just listen to me, you’d know I said I’d be back by then!” but I bit my lip. All Mama and I did lately was bicker and I didn’t want her to keep me from Ellen’s.

  I hurried out the door, then headed to our car. Last week I’d checked the crack between the seats for money and had found eighty-seven cents, so I tried again today, reaching as far as my hand could go. I felt metal and some grit but didn’t come up with any more cash.

  Ellen always wanted to walk downtown and shop at the convenience store or CVS. I’d never been one to care about shopping, and Ellen knew I didn’t have money these days. Still, I got tired of looking but not spending.

  I cut through the backyard and down the alley and went two blocks south to her sunny yellow house. Her mama worked, but there were pretty flowers in the yard, and inside, why the smell of Pine-Sol nearly knocked a person down! My mama didn’t have a job but somehow things never looked quite as spick-and-span as they did here. Not even when Jack Henry was around and Mama thought she was happy.

  I knocked on the door and caught my reflection in the window. My hair was a mess, so I bent over at the waist causing it all to fall forward, then threw my head back. It was a trick Ellen taught me in the school bathroom because I never carried a comb.

  “It’s still messy but in a more styled way” was how she put it. Me, I don’t care so much. Hair is hair. It gets messed up. But looking good was important to Ellen lately so I made an effort when she was around.

  She yanked the door open, put one finger to her lips in the shushing position, then pointed to the cell phone at her ear. I sat at the stool near the kitchen counter and nibbled on the fresh grapes her mama kept in a wooden bowl there. I listened to her “Uh-huhs” and “No ways!” until she finally finished. She clicked off her phone and dropped it into her purse.

  “That was Alexa Ray. I couldn’t just hang up on her. She’s grounded, so I have to take her calls when she can sneak them in.”

  “What’s she grounded for?”

  “I can’t tell you.” Alexa was in our class but neither Ellen nor I were especially close to her.

  “Why can’t you?”

  “I’d be breaking confidentiality,” Ellen said.

  I tried to make her laugh. “Better than breaking your arm.”

  Ellen rolled her eyes and pulled her purse strap onto her shoulder. “Ready?”

  And this was the one thing that was starting to bother me a lot where Ellen was concerned. Until lately, Ellen and I would have cracked up over someone else saying “I’d be breaking confidentiality.” She’d have made a joke of it. Better than the one I’d tried to make about breaking an arm. But even a lame attempt like mine would have made her laugh. Now she seemed above all that. I knew it wouldn’t last but it got to me how she acted like she was a teenager instead of the girl who’d swallowed her sister’s goldfish on a dare just three short months ago.

  “Yeah, I’m ready.” I popped one last grape into my mouth and scooted off the stool.

  When we got to the door, Ellen dug her lip gloss out of her purse and ran one shiny finger over her lips. She handed the tube to me. I hate the feel of anything on my lips. I won’t even use ChapStick in the winter. But I put a tiny bit on my finger and kind of dabbed it on my bottom lip, then wiped the slick stuff onto my jeans. I wished things like glossy lips weren’t important to Ellen and she’d turn back into the old Ellen, my best friend since first grade.

  She smiled, swung her purse back onto her shoulder, and out the door we went. She talked about school, about how much fun this year was going to be. She said that, even though we’d only been in school three weeks, we were already off to a great start.

  “How do you figure that?” I asked. “Last year we were the oldest kids in school. This year we’re at the bottom.” We were seventh graders in an Indiana town too small to have a middle school. “We’re not even that. Freshmen are at the bottom. We’re sub-students. For the next two years we’ll be targets for every bully in the building.”

  Ellen laughed. “You’re not looking at this from the right point of view.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I thought I just said our view was from belowground. Not much to see from there.”

  “Last year there were no cute boys at all. Just the same ones we’ve known since preschool. This year we have a whole building full of cute, older boys!”

  I looked at
her real close and wondered why, all of a sudden, boys mattered to her.

  “Ellen, we’re twelve. I mean, let’s just say for one minute that cute boys were something we were interested in. We’re not even teenagers.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  I raised my hands to explain. “Who cares about this stuff? I’ve got lots more important things to think about. And even if I did care, the point I’m trying to make is that no cute high school boy wants to date a twelve-year-old girl!”

  She shrugged one shoulder. Then she nudged me and said, “Look! She’s here. I didn’t think she’d make it.”

  Alexa Ray was leaning against the front of the ice cream stand, one foot on a nearby bench. I had to do a double take.

  “When did she start wearing makeup?” I asked.

  Ellen shrugged again. “She looks great.” And I could actually hear Ellen breathing hard, like she was so excited to see Alexa she couldn’t control herself. But when we got up to her, Ellen looked just as bored as Alexa.

  “Heya,” she said.

  “Hi,” Alexa answered, looking just past us.

  “I thought you were grounded,” I said.

  Ellen shot a look meant to kill me.

  “Mom can’t stay home all the time,” Alexa said. She looked at Ellen. “Did you bring it?”

  “Yeah.” And despite Ellen acting like it was nothing, I could see her hand tremble as she reached into her purse. She palmed something too flat for me to make out to Alexa, who looked at it, smiled, and handed it back to Ellen.

  “Let’s go.” She started walking away, expecting Ellen to follow her like a puppy. And this is the part that really stung. That’s exactly what Ellen did. She just scampered after Alexa, leaving me alone at the ice cream stand. Like we hadn’t already made plans.

  Ellen was my best friend. She knew more about me than anyone, including my own mother. And she just blew me off like I wasn’t even a person she knew. It hurt. I wondered what she’d shown Alexa. She’d never kept secrets from me before.

  And you know what made it stink all the more? Remember how I said we’d been standing in front of the ice cream stand? The girl at the counter said, “You know what you want yet?”

  “Uh, me? No,” I said, because how could I say that I’d just been dumped by my best friend and I didn’t even have enough money for a ten-cent cup of ice.

  “Then move. You’re blocking the customers.”

  * * *

  I ran in the back door at exactly the wrong time. If you’re me, that is. It was exactly the right time for Mama to go screaming toward the kitchen sink with a smoking pan. She turned the water on, and there was so much steam and noise rising from the pot you’d almost expect a mad genie to come out of it. Instead, Mama was the one who was mad—meaning angry or crazy. You pick.

  “Just look at this mess!” she wailed. “I turn my back on it for five minutes and the meat is ruined!”

  JJ came in with a fork and poked at the brick-hard black chunk that used to be some kind of beef.

  “Can I have it?” he asked.

  “No!” Then Mama started bawling her eyes out. “What am I gonna do? I don’t have time to get anything new. I was trying to make a good impression on the Bennetts.”

  But Mama didn’t really want an answer from us. She punched in Aunt Maureen’s phone number and didn’t even say hello, just “What am I gonna do?” and you know the rest.

  I reached under the sink for the Palmolive and went about cleaning the pan. This wasn’t the first time she’d flubbed up in the kitchen since her divorce.

  Pretty soon Mama’s wails to Aunt Maureen became sniffles and then she was laughing as she looked through the cupboards, saying what was on each shelf. I wished I could bottle up Aunt Maureen and give Mama a dose of her every day.

  She got off the phone and said, “Okay, this is doable.” She cranked open a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup and poured it in a pan.

  “That’s what you’re gonna serve company?”

  Mama tasted it and made a face. “No. Not like it is. But we’ll fix that.”

  She pulled a chunk of hamburger out of the freezer and threw it into the microwave. She spun her spice rack around on its pedestal and pulled out bottles, sprinkling dried flakes onto the soup and stirring them in. It reminded me of when she and Jack Henry were first married and how happy she’d been trying new recipes for him. I didn’t miss him, but I missed the way Mama used to be. For a minute the disappointment of how things were made me hurt so much I had to look away.

  Mama pulled me back to the present, though. “Tear that lettuce. Make sure the pieces are nice and small. No one wants to put a lettuce leaf as big as a fist into their mouth.”

  So we worked like that, side by side, until close to six o’clock. Mama dragged JJ into the bathroom. She made him wash his hands and face as well as comb his hair. Then she ran up to change clothes. I must have been presentable because she looked at me from feet to head but all she said was, “You got that table set yet?”

  Then we sat in the living room. JJ and I were afraid to move because Mama had that “You muss up your hair and I’ll cut off your head” look on her face. It was the first time I’d had a chance to think since this afternoon. I thought about how it felt when Ellen had walked away from me with Alexa and it made my eyes burn. I would not cry, I told myself. I mean, come on! Maybe Ellen had said she had to meet Alexa and my mind had been somewhere else and I didn’t hear her.

  To keep myself from thinking about it, I tried to envision eating with the Bennetts tonight. What would they think of Mama’s soup concoction? Maybe it would be bad enough that Caleb wouldn’t want to stay here. Would they bring Caleb with them or were they coming to work out the details with Mama? I wondered when he’d be moving in. Maybe it wouldn’t be for a few weeks. Mama had been applying for jobs. Maybe she’d get one somewhere first. Then she’d have money and wouldn’t need to take him in. I started to relax a little because that would solve a lot of problems.

  The doorbell rang. Mama stood and nervously smoothed her skirt. Then she pulled open the door with a mile-wide smile on her lips. “Good evening!” she said. I swear, I’d never heard my mother say “good evening” in my life. “Won’t you come in?”

  She stepped back to let the Bennetts through. Mr. Bennett came in first with a suitcase. Mrs. Bennett followed with two shopping bags and Caleb brought up the rear holding a big box.

  Mr. Bennett had kind of a sheepish smile, like he knew Mama wasn’t expecting Caleb to stay, yet here he was all the same.

  “It was so good of you to have us over,” he said. “But we’ve had an unfortunate change of plans.”

  “Our daughter was in a car accident today!” Mrs. Bennett said. “We just found out.”

  “Goodness!” Mama seemed to be at a loss for words. She put her hand on her throat and turned to us.

  “It sounds like she’s more bruised than anything but she did break her arm. They’re keeping her at the hospital overnight,” he said.

  “She has a baby and a four-year-old,” Mrs. Bennett said. “I just have to be there. Not only to make sure that she’s all right but to help with the grandchildren. I hope it won’t inconvenience you that we brought Caleb earlier than planned.”

  “Well, what kind of person would I be if I couldn’t understand that? Of course you need to be with your daughter! And, as luck would have it, I have Caleb’s room all ready for him,” Mama said. “I’ve already made dinner. Can’t you stay for just a bite before your journey?”

  “Thanks all the same but we need to be going.”

  “Oh! Well.” I felt sorry for Mama when I thought about how hard she had worked on the dinner that Mr. and Mrs. Bennett weren’t even going to eat. I’d hate them just a little, if it weren’t for their daughter and all. But Mama recovered enough to say, “Ivy, JJ, please show Caleb to his room.”

  Mr. Bennett handed a shopping bag to JJ and the suitcase to me, which, in my opinion,
was a little heavy, but I was bound and determined not to stagger. If Mama wasn’t going to act blown away by their behavior, then I wasn’t, either.

  “Come on, Caleb!” JJ said. “I’ll show you your room!” He ran like a rag doll, the shopping bag slapping against his body as he beat it up the stairs. Caleb followed, carrying the box. Me, I stood there because, as you already know, I wanted to hear what was going on.

  “I’m sure it’s lovely,” Mrs. Bennett said. “But I’d like to see it, too, if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, by all means!” Mama said.

  Mrs. Bennett went upstairs while her husband reached into his pocket and withdrew an envelope. In it he showed Mama a signed paper giving her permission for medical treatment if Caleb got sick. There was also a list of phone numbers to reach him and “the missus.” Then he handed Mama an envelope of money with “a little extra for this sudden inconvenience,” was how he put it. When he handed her the money, Mama’s shoulders went from being all stiff and high around her neck to settling where they belonged.

  When Mrs. Bennett and Caleb came back into the room, Mama said, “We’ll let you say goodbye to Caleb alone.”

  She put one arm on my shoulder and one on JJ’s to lead us out of the room. But when I looked back, Mrs. Bennett was patting Caleb on the head and Mr. Bennett didn’t even touch him.

  I understood the whole thing about their daughter needing them now, but I couldn’t help wondering how they could just leave their own son. I mean, sure, Caleb was no prize, but I can tell you this, if anyone ever tried to pry me or JJ away from Cass Henry, well, I can only say God help that person.

  3

  Caleb kept his head bent over the soup. Rising steam made his glasses slide so much he pushed them up on his nose about every third sip. JJ was beside himself with joy to have another guy in the house.

  “And when we get done eating, we’ll go into my room and I’ll show you my LEGOs. I made a dog and a cat and a fish out of LEGOs on account of we don’t have real pets.”