The Runaways

by Sonya Terjanian

  She went upstairs and paced in front of the windows. She should take a kitchen knife and force Mary Ellen to drive her someplace. Force her to drive to an ATM and empty her bank account. Make her hand over her phone. But first, she’d make her erase that picture of her and the private-school-bubble girls.

  Ivy caught sight of the lady coming through the trees toward the house. Her head was down, her shoulders slumped. The way she picked through the undergrowth was dogged and clumsy, like an older person who’s turned all stiff and afraid. Ivy knew she couldn’t pull a knife on someone like that. Her heart might be black, but not in that way. It was more her style to use her brain…to take a slower, more careful path, a path that could take her farther than the bus station. If she played her cards right, Ivy thought, she might be able to get all the way to Montana, all the way through rookie training, all the way up the Going-to-the-Sun Road and into the sky.

  • • •

  “Cheers,” Mary Ellen said, raising her glass in Ivy’s direction and settling onto the bench across from her at the table. She’d started drinking before making dinner; now that the dishes were washed and put away, she was back at it. She unbuckled her camera bag and arranged some tools in front of her—a little brush, a soft cloth, Q-tips, some kind of air pump. She took out the camera and began carefully cleaning every inch of it.

  Ivy was eating a piece of cinnamon toast she’d made for dessert. “How’s the photography going?” she asked, licking her fingers.

  “All right, I guess.” Mary Ellen set down the camera and sighed. “I’m really trying to push myself. As an artist.”

  “Why?”

  Mary Ellen picked up a Q-tip and dipped it in a little bottle of liquid. “So I can create something worthwhile. Something that will make people think.”

  “Are you getting paid for it?”

  “No. It’s not about that.”

  Ivy pressed her finger onto the plate, coating it with sugar and cinnamon, which she licked off.

  “It’s about doing something with your life that actually matters,” Mary Ellen went on. “Something that might outlive you.”

  “Isn’t that what kids are for?”

  “Mmm…no. I mean, maybe for some people.” Mary Ellen swabbed the Q-tip around the camera buttons, probably trying to work backward through the story she was acting out. “Personally, I’ve never bought into the so-called ‘reproductive imperative.’” She hooked her fingers in the air. “It’s just a way to keep women from gaining financial independence, or to keep them from creating art.”

  “Oh.” Ivy wondered what the blond girls on Mary Ellen’s phone would think of that statement. “I never thought of it that way.”

  “Yeah, well, the system doesn’t want you to think too much.”

  “What system?”

  Mary Ellen waved her hand around. “You know, the patriarchy. Corporations. So do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “No.” Ivy leaned a cheek on her fist. “I’m an only child.”

  “Ah. The center of attention.”

  “Not exactly.”

  Mary Ellen gave her a long look, her face full of sympathy and a kind of hunger. “Is that why you’re running away?”

  “Who says I’m running?”

  “Well, you’re a little young to be taking a vacation by yourself.”

  “It’s kind of a long story.”

  Mary Ellen began putting away her cleaning supplies. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Ivy slowly wiped the rest of the sugar-cinnamon mixture from her plate. She’d spent part of the afternoon imagining different ways to go with this, using all the details she’d gleaned from the lady’s journal, combined with her knowledge of how college-educated know-it-alls like McFadden tended to see the world. “Well,” she began, “things aren’t so great at home. There’s stuff I want to do, but they won’t let me.” She paused. “Like, my parents don’t want me to go to college.”

  “What!”

  “They want me to stay home and work in the family business.” Ivy pulled a name out of a hat. “The Gardner Family Funeral Home.”

  “Oh gosh. And you don’t want to do that, I guess.”

  “No. But if you’re a Gardner, you go to work as soon as you get out of high school. My dad did it, and now he has this permanent smell of embalming fluid. No matter how many showers he takes, it never comes off. I think he might actually be embalmed.”

  “Have you tried talking to them about it?” Mary Ellen got up to make another drink.

  “Yeah, sure, of course. But they’re like ‘Nope, sorry, you’re gonna spend the rest of your life like the rest of us, making dead people look less dead.’ So here I am. On the road. Taking charge of my destiny.” She said this in an ironic announcer-y voice.

  “Wow. Brave.” Mary Ellen dropped the cap of the gin bottle, and when she bent to pick it up, it skittered out of her fingers and rolled under the table. She sighed loudly and lowered herself to her knees, groping through the forest of bench and table legs.

  “Yeah, well, I could never work for my family. Buncha crooks.”

  Mary Ellen resurfaced. “Funeral home crooks? Oh boy.”

  “Yeah. The worst kind. If you’re crazed with grief, they’ll talk you into the stupidest overpriced casket, plus the Eternal Life protective lining and Gold Standard Embalming.” Ivy’s friend Eleanna’s family ran the Good Hope Funeral Home, and Eleanna had told her everything. She’d even sneaked Ivy and Asa into the mortuary one night. No sooner had she pulled open the door of the refrigeration unit than Asa had screamed like a raccoon and dragged Ivy out of the basement with more urgency and sense of direction than she’d ever thought him capable of.

  “So you want to go to college?”

  “Yes! College unlocks a lot of doors.” This, Ivy was pretty sure, was a trademarked McFadden saying. “I’m going to live with my aunt in Pittsburgh. She promised to help me with the SATs and everything.”

  “But how on earth did you end up here?”

  “Well.” Ivy pressed her sticky finger to the table and gently pulled it away, feeling the skin stretch as it clung briefly to the wood. “I was hitchhiking, and this young couple picked me up. They seemed super friendly and nice, you know, smiley but not in a creepy way, just a couple of happy people out for a drive. They shared their snacks with me, gave me some soda.

  “Then, about an hour into the ride, they started asking me if I had accepted Jesus into my life and stuff. The girl said she had these, like, sister wives that she thought I would really like, and she wanted me to meet them. I got kind of scared, so I asked them to stop so I could pee in the woods, and then I just ran away. They chased after me, and the guy actually grabbed my arm, but I kicked him where it counts and he let go.” Ivy chuckled a little at this detail. “I kept running until I found this house, and the key, and I decided to take a few days off before hitching another ride. I was feeling a little freaked out, to tell you the truth.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “But then I got sick. I guess one of the Jesus people had the flu or something. So I got stuck here for a little while, and then you came along. Thank goodness. You really…you really saved my life.”

  “Yes, thank goodness,” Mary Ellen said with a little laugh. Then she got serious. “But, Rose, your parents must be so worried.”

  Shit, Ivy thought. She wasn’t letting it go. “Well, see, my dad…” she said, then fell silent.

  “Yes?”

  Ivy shook her head, looking down at the table. She was happy she’d never even met her father; that, at least, made it easier to wade into this deeper, muddier swamp of lies. “I had to get away from him. I can’t let him find me.”

  “You mean…”

  Ivy turned her face away.

  “Does he…”

  Ivy nodded, then wiped a hand across her eyes and pret
ended to compose herself.

  “Oh. No.” Mary Ellen looked troubled. “How awful. I-I don’t know what to say.” She spent a moment straightening out her face, then asked, “Does your aunt know you’re coming?”

  “Yeah, yeah, she offered. She wants to help. But if you take me to the cops, they’ll just send me home.” Ivy took a deep, determined-sounding breath. “I can’t go back there.”

  “Well.” Mary Ellen moved her head around, looking from the table to the windows to the sofas and back again. She took a brighter tone. “I think it’s great you want to go to college. College gives you so many options. How did you put it? It opens doors. I mean, it did for me anyway. I may not have walked through them all, necessarily, but at least I was exposed to things I could come back around to—” She stopped herself. “What do you want to major in?”

  “Writing. I want to be a writer. Of, like, plays and stuff.”

  Mary Ellen sat up straight. “Really!”

  Ivy shrugged. “I like to make up stories.” Which was basically true.

  “Well, you should just go for it. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Mary Ellen drank deeply. “College is all about finding yourself.”

  This, Ivy decided, was exactly what she would expect to hear from some rich lady who had completely lost touch with reality. “That’s what I always tell my parents,” Ivy said. “I have to be free to pursue my dreams. That’s what college is, like, for.”

  “Exactly,” the lady nodded. “But you can’t hitchhike, for goodness’ sake. Do you realize how dangerous that is? You’re lucky those cult people didn’t chop you up and have you for dinner.” She leaned back, remembering, just in time, that the bench was backless. “But you’re still in high school, right? Are you transferring?”

  Ivy fetched the gin bottle from the counter and refilled Mary Ellen’s glass. “Yeah. I’m a junior. You know, if I could borrow a little money, I could take a bus the rest of the way. No more hitchhiking.”

  “Mmm.” The lady used her finger to twirl the melting ice in her glass, then licked it. “Playwriting. Where’d you get that idea?”

  Ivy shrugged. “I’ve always loved the theater.” She liked the idea of it, anyway. She figured it was like TV, only classier. “It’s always been a passion of mine. And I don’t know, someday I’d like to, you know, be like, like…”

  “What?”

  Ivy was really laying it on thick, but the lady was giving her such a wide-eyed, encouraging look that she kept going. “Like you. An artist. Doing what I love. Doing something that matters. Not just, like, punching in and punching out every day, you know what I mean?”

  Mary Ellen looked surprised, then embarrassed and almost tearful. “I… Well, of course I know what you mean.” She thought for a moment. “But if you do it this way, running away like this, you won’t be able to count on your parents helping you out.”

  “I don’t need them.”

  “Well, how are you… I guess I don’t… Is your aunt going to support you?”

  “No. I don’t know. She’s kind of poor, like me.”

  “Rose.” The lady spread out her fingers, hands flat on the table, composing herself for the hard truth she was about to lay down. “College is very, very expensive.”

  It was all Ivy could do to keep “No shit, Sherlock” from flying out of her mouth, but she held it together. “I was thinking I could get, like, some help? Financially?”

  “Financial aid? Yeah, sure, that’s definitely an option. ’Specially if your grades are good.”

  Ivy was about to interject that she was thinking about a different kind of aid, something a little more personal, like one friend helping another, but Mary Ellen launched into a long monologue about different kinds of scholarships and how to apply for them. Ivy did her best to look interested, but impatience was making her jittery. How much more of this playacting would she have to do before the lady finally decided to help her out?

  “Now, if you get residency in Pennsylvania, then you can go to a state school,” Mary Ellen went on, “and that’s a lot less expensive than private, but the quality, pff…” She flapped her hand and rolled her eyes. “I mean, it depends. California and North Carolina? Fantastic. But Pennsylvania… I mean, you could do worse, I guess.” Ivy got up to serve the lady more gin, but she pushed her glass away. “Oh gosh, I think I’ve had enough,” Mary Ellen said. She pivoted and swung her legs ungracefully over the bench. “I’ve gotta… I should probably go to bed.”

  “Oh, okay. Thanks for all the advice.”

  “You’re welcome. I know it’s a lot to think about. But…” Mary Ellen swayed slightly, seeming to lose her train of thought. “Well, anyway. Night.”

  Ivy stayed upstairs for a little while longer, trying to think what to do next. The lady seemed less eager to get rid of her, which was good. Ivy would have a little more time to figure things out. And while all of Mary Ellen’s lecturing was kind of annoying, in a weird way it felt nice to have somebody actually interested in what Ivy wanted to do with her life. Even if it was all made up.

  It was also pretty damn refreshing to have someone making all her meals and cleaning up the house and doing laundry and stuff. Back home, it was never like that. Back home, it was practically a competition to see who could go the longest without pulling hair out of the tub drain or taking out the trash. Colin always won that contest; he could live with the smell of rotting meat for days without even wrinkling his nose.

  Ivy lay her head down on the table for a moment, caught in a swirl of memories. There had been a time when Ma and Gran kept up with things—but mostly Gran. She and Ma raised the kids together but grieved separately for their dead husbands, Ma a furtive weeper, Gran an angry door-slammer, each one hating the other for it. Ma worked long shifts as a picker packer, and Gran stayed home and kept things in order, getting food from St. Gabriel, cleaning up everyone’s mess. When Agnes was old enough to watch Ivy and Colin, Gran did her best to hold down a series of jobs, but she kept getting fired for being mouthy.

  And then all of the sudden, after Agnes and Colin started college, Gran’s anger seemed to lose all its life force, leaving her crumpled in a corner without much to say. She stayed that way even after they moved back home. Ivy found herself missing the hurled insults and ashtrays, because at least those were signs Gran’s blood was still circulating. Nowadays it was hard to tell.

  Colin thought she’d had a stroke; Agnes said she was just depressed. All Ivy knew was that she hated seeing the living, breathing body of a person who wasn’t there anymore, like a ghost who’d never bothered to actually die. If Gran had died, at least they could’ve paid their respects and given her a proper burial, instead of letting her shrivel up under a shroud of PennySavers. They could’ve raised their glasses, drunk to her memory, sung her a song.

  Of course, Gran wasn’t the only one who’d cashed in her chips. Ma couldn’t help it—she was sick and didn’t have energy for much more than staying alive. But Colin, who’d gone to college all fired up to become the breadwinner who would save the family—to become the man they’d all apparently been waiting for—came home crushed by debt and a worthless résumé. No amount of basement weight lifting could help him get out from under that load.

  And as for Agnes, she just made herself scarce, staying out most nights with her friends, sleeping at her boyfriend’s house. Ivy begged her to be careful, but she knew Agnes would end up pregnant any day now. She’d just let it happen, whoops, and that would be that—the next eighteen years of her life scripted out with the kind of certainty nobody wanted but everybody was always happy to accept.

  They were stuck—all of them—and it was the kind of thing that just fed on itself. Ivy could see that plain as day, but she couldn’t make them see it, as hard as she tried, as loud as she yelled and pleaded and slammed around the house trying to wake everyone up. In the end, all she could do was swear she would nev
er let it happen to her. Not then, not now. If she couldn’t get away in a car, she’d damn well grow wings.

  Ivy lifted her head and stared at her pale reflection in the glass. She imagined herself geared up like the smoke jumpers she’d seen online, some of them women: helmet, pack, harness. The jumpsuits were thickly padded, with high, stand-up collars, making jumpers look bigger than they were. Ivy lifted her arms, making a strongman pose, baring her teeth. She knew how tough the training was supposed to be; she’d read about how few rookies made it through. But that was okay—she was ready to push herself to the limit and show everybody what she was made of. No one had ever asked that of her before. It was about time somebody did.

  12

  The 3:00 a.m. headache was distinctive. It was always accompanied by a dry mouth, a rumble of nausea, and wave after wave of self-castigation: This has to stop. You’re destroying your body. It’s not even fun anymore. You’re acting like an alcoholic.

  Mary Ellen groaned and pulled a pillow into the crook of her body. The thoughts were coming faster now, pummeling her from the inside. You’re weak… You’re self-indulgent… You can’t have one glass of wine like a normal person. You really want to be more like Justine? Try a little self-control.

  She tried to remember the details of her conversation with Rose, hoping she hadn’t said anything stupid. She remembered giving her a lot of advice about college. The girl probably didn’t have anyone to help her navigate that world; all the same, the information wasn’t much good if it came from someone slurring her words and reeking of gin.

  Four counts in through the nose, four counts out through the mouth. Tomorrow she would make a fresh start. She needed to start taking pictures, any pictures. There was no point in pretending to be a serious artist if she wasn’t going to try producing some actual work. It was hard, yes, but she had to stop making excuses and just create something, anything. Tomorrow was a new day—a day when she would stop feeling sorry for herself and start acting like the person she wanted to be.