The Runaways

by Sonya Terjanian

  Mary Ellen tipped the meat into the pan. “I’m not blaming you.” She shook her head. “They probably don’t even want to hear from me. They’re so much closer to their father. If I yell at them, I’m just going to push them even farther away.”

  “You should definitely yell at them.”

  Mary Ellen looked at Rose’s face, but she didn’t seem to be joking.

  “I mean, how else will they know you care?”

  Mary Ellen mashed the beef with a spoon, coaxing it into smaller pieces. She’d never really let loose on the girls—it wasn’t her style. When they misbehaved, she worked hard to remain calm, explaining their transgression in a levelheaded way, encouraging them to use better judgment next time. And when they spoke to her disrespectfully, she simply rose above the situation, refusing to engage.

  “My gran used to yell at me all the time,” Rose went on.

  “And that was a good thing?”

  “Well, I didn’t realize it was good until she changed. When she got all withdrawn and stopped giving a…a darn. That felt worse than getting yelled at.”

  Mary Ellen wondered if her way of dealing with the girls—which she’d always assumed was the enlightened, civilized parenting style of successful people—might have been too soft. Maybe they would’ve benefitted from the occasional flash of anger. She poured in the canned tomatoes and beans and set the pot to simmer. “We’ll let that cook for a little while. Doesn’t that smell good? All that shoveling made me hungry.” She made herself a drink and sat at the table, staring out at the storm.

  Rose sat across from her. “Do you even know whose house this is?”

  Mary Ellen kept staring at the gusting, blowing snow. “Yes,” she finally said. “My friend Justine. She invited me to come here and work on my photography.”

  “So you’re really a photographer?”

  “No.” Mary Ellen took a drink. “I’m vice president of marketing at Gallard Pharmaceuticals.” She watched Rose’s face for signs of disappointment, but the girl remained impassive. “Justine’s been helping me get back in touch with my artistic side. I took a class she was teaching, and then this gallery owner… Oh, whatever. The whole thing is stupid.”

  “So you were pretending to be her? Justine?”

  Mary Ellen frowned into her glass.

  “Why, exactly?”

  “I don’t know. It was just easier that way.”

  “Easier to make stuff up twenty-four hours a day?”

  “Okay,” Mary Ellen said. “So you know how they say ‘Dress for the job you want?’”

  “They do?”

  “‘Fake it till you make it,’ ‘act as if.’ It’s all about making people think about you a certain way. Until it comes true.”

  “You believe in that?”

  “Well…” Mary Ellen had no idea what she believed anymore. “I guess it helps you visualize success.”

  Rose squinted at her. “So let’s say I want to become a fireman,” she said. “Fireperson. All I have to do is get a Dalmatian and a pair of suspenders and walk around telling everybody I’m awesome at fighting fires, and—bam!—I’ll turn into a real one?”

  “No, obviously—”

  “You want to know what I think?” Rose waggled her eyebrows at her. “I think you’ve just been showing off. This was all some kind of ego trip.”

  “Oh, please,” Mary Ellen scoffed. “Like I need to impress you? Some random girl hiding out in my friend’s house?” She swung her legs over the bench. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter why I did it.” She went into the kitchen and stabbed at the chili a few times with a spoon. It looked done enough. She started pulling out bowls and silverware and napkins.

  “So how come you didn’t turn me in?” Rose called from the dining room. “Go into town, call the cops?”

  Mary Ellen brought the bowls of chili to the table and set them down. “Can we just eat? I’m starving.” She tasted the chili. It was missing something—probably the beer. She shook some salt over it.

  Rose kept staring at her. “I think it’s because you wanted an audience. You kept me around so you’d have someone to show off to. Someone to lecture and preach at.”

  “Rose.” Mary Ellen dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “I wanted to help you. I didn’t think turning you over to the authorities was the best way to do that. I thought it would be better to give you some guidance, some encouragement, and yes, okay, maybe I thought I could be kind of a role model. Something I could’ve used when I was your age.”

  Rose finally picked up her fork and started to eat. “You keep saying that,” she muttered around a mouthful of chili.

  “What?”

  “That you could’ve used a mentor or whatever. Like your life is a big failure because the right person didn’t come along and tell you what to do. Seems to me you did all right, Miss Vice President of Blah-Di-Blah.”

  “It’s a pointless job.” Mary Ellen rested her cheek in her hand. “It just pays well is all.”

  “Oh man. I’m so sorry.” Rose lowered her head and shoveled chili into her mouth, scraping the bottom of her bowl.

  “You’ll understand some day—”

  “No I won’t.” Rose threw down her spoon. “Excuse me, but fuck that noise.”

  “Rose! Please.”

  “You had someone to pay for college, okay? You could do whatever you wanted after that. Be a photographer, be a painter, whatever. You didn’t have to pay back eighty grand. You could do anything. Jesus.”

  Mary Ellen felt her nostrils flare. She took a deep breath, willing herself to stay calm. “I’m sorry, but you’re wrong, Rose. My father made me change direction. I was majoring in studio art, and I loved it, but it wasn’t good enough. He made me go into marketing.”

  “So he threatened to cut you off? Or he said he’d beat the shit out of you?”

  “Of course not.” How could she make this girl understand? It was real, the pressure her parents put on her. The pressure to make them happy and proud. The pressure to eat what they ate, to wear what they wore, to fund her 401(k) and buy a house in the right neighborhood and get her children the best education money could buy.

  “Then why didn’t you just tell him no?”

  “I couldn’t. I didn’t have a choice.”

  Rose barked out a laugh. “You had nothing but choices. Please.”

  Mary Ellen shook her head violently, the way her daughters used to do at the sight of mashed peas.

  “Your kids are going too, right? Harvard, Yale. All expenses paid.”

  “Good lord no. They could never get into those schools.”

  “Okay, but they’re going somewhere, right?”

  Mary Ellen blinked at the girl, not fully understanding. “For college? Of course. I mean, how else would they get anywhere in the world?”

  “You can get somewhere in the world without college.”

  Mary Ellen snorted. “Well, sure, it’s possible, but come on. You know what a dead-end life that usually means. You’ll never get very far. I mean, look at your whole situation, the life you’re running from—”

  “Jesus fucking Christ.” Rose stood up, swiping her bowl off the table.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s a trap, okay?” She went to the kitchen and threw her bowl into the sink with a clatter. “For people like me anyway. They say ‘Oh, college is your ticket out of here; it’s your big chance.’ They get the guidance counselors working for them. My counselor? McFadden? She goes on these boondoggle trips every year, on the school’s dime. It’s fucking ridiculous. Then all the kids get in, of course, and everyone throws a party, and then—then—they decide to mention you need eighty, ninety, a hundred grand. Us! People like us!”

  “Okay, but—”

  “‘But you can get financial aid! You can get a scholarship!’” Rose waggled her hands in the a
ir. “Yeah…for two thousand dollars. And by that time, you’ve had the party and you’ve bought your extra-long twin sheets and you’ve seen your ma cry tears of motherfucking joy. So you borrow the rest, and bam, game over. You lose.” Rose shook her head.

  “No, but I guess I’m confused?” Mary Ellen pushed her hair away from her face. “I thought your family didn’t want you to go to college.”

  “That’s Rose’s family.” Rose sat back down at the table and gave Mary Ellen a hard look.

  “What?” Mary Ellen shook her head. She was having a lot of trouble following this conversation, and she hadn’t even had that much to drink.

  “I’m not Rose,” Rose said, balling her hands into fists and lowering them gently to the table, unfurling her fingers into two open fans.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m not Rose. I’m Ivy.”

  17

  If she’d known how good that was going to feel, she’d have done it days ago.

  The lady was opening and closing her mouth like a confused fish. “You mean, Rose isn’t your name?”

  “I mean, Rose isn’t who I am.”

  Mary Ellen jerked her head back, squinting. “Then who are you?”

  “I’m Ivy.”

  “But the whole college thing—”

  “Was bullshit. I’m not running away to go to college; there’s no aunt in Pittsburgh; my dad’s been dead since before I was born. I’ve never written a play. I’ve never even seen a goddamned play. Unless you count school plays, which are fucking stupid.” Ivy paused, enjoying the gush of truth, hoping she wasn’t going too far. “I’m headed out west. I have other plans.”

  The lady had turned kind of white, and it occurred to Ivy that she didn’t know CPR. They’d taught it in health class, but she’d cut school that day. “Don’t worry,” she added. “I’m not, like, a psycho or anything.”

  “Well, I should hope…” Mary Ellen shook her head and got up to refill her drink. When she came back, she edged warily around Ivy’s side of the table, keeping an eye on her like she was a hairy spider or something. She set her drink down, then casually reached for her camera bag, which was at the end of the table. She shouldered it and picked up her laptop.

  “And I’m not gonna steal your stuff,” Ivy said.

  “I’m just making sure I don’t forget anything. I want to get packed tonight so we can leave first thing in the morning.” Mary Ellen went to the door and picked up her purse, rooting through it to make sure everything was there. She took everything over to the living room, where the journal and pen were still sitting on the coffee table. She put down her belongings, picked up the journal, and stood for a moment, reading what she’d written inside. She shook her head sadly. “I just—” She closed the book.

  “What?”

  Mary Ellen came back to the dining room table. “Are you sure you don’t want to be a writer? I mean, I could just see it. You seem so creative.” She gave a half-hearted little laugh.

  Ivy rolled her eyes. “No, I’m telling you, I’m not that person.” She went to the hooks by the door and took her wallet out of her jacket pocket. She pulled out the Montana newspaper clipping and looked at it. The picture had always explained everything—to her, anyway. Now she realized the lady wasn’t going to understand a damn thing about it.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Ivy huffed impatiently and slapped the clipping onto the table. “It’s a baby deer hanging from a telephone wire. It’s in Montana. Okay?”

  Mary Ellen sat down and studied the clipping, reading the brief story under the picture. “How sad. Why do you have this?”

  “That’s where I’m going.”

  “Missoula, Montana?”

  “Yeah.”

  “To see the baby deer? I think it’s probably gone by now. Look, the guy in the picture is—”

  “I know it’s gone. Jesus, no. I just want to see stuff like that. Eagles. Mountains. Real mountains, not like this bullshit. The Going-to-the-Sun Road.”

  Mary Ellen looked really confused now. “But how are you… I mean, what’s your plan? You’re just going to travel around sightseeing?”

  “I have a plan, don’t worry. I’m gonna be a smoke jumper.” As soon as Ivy said this, she knew it was a mistake. The lady’s face screwed up like a stiff old sponge.

  “You mean one of those skydiving firefighters?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re going to… Oh wow.” Mary Ellen laughed a little, rubbing her eyes like she had a headache. “You’re going to, I don’t know, walk to Montana, in the middle of the winter, and magically get hired to do one of the most physically demanding jobs on the planet. That’s great. That’s perfect.”

  “What?”

  “Everything. This trip, my photography, Justine, you. I don’t know.” She plunked her chin into her hands and said softly, as if to herself, “It’s all just turned to shit.”

  “Excuse me?” Ivy crossed her arms and grabbed handfuls of her shirt.

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “You think my plan is shit? Well, screw you. I don’t care what you think.”

  Mary Ellen shook her head slowly. Suddenly, her face began to swell with tears. “It’s just… I liked Rose,” she said, stretching her hand out. “Okay? I really, really… She was like a—”

  “Oh, fuck off!” Ivy yelled. “This is me, okay? This is what you get. Accept me as I am, or leave me the hell alone.”

  “No!” Mary Ellen sluiced a tear from her cheek with the flat of her hand, like a little kid. “I don’t have to accept it! You don’t either… You can do something with your life! Get educated, expand your horizons!”

  “That’s what I’m doing! God damn.” Ivy snatched up the newspaper clipping and shoved it back into her wallet. She sat heavily on the bench opposite Mary Ellen, her back to the table. She could hear the lady slurping from her glass, and the sound plucked violently at her nerves. If they couldn’t get the car out in the morning, she was walking up to the road and hitchhiking. End of story.

  “Do you even know anybody out there? In Montana?” Mary Ellen’s voice sounded all quavery.

  “No.”

  “Where were you planning to stay?”

  “I’ll figure it out. I’ll get a place.”

  “Do you have any money?”

  “I’ll get a job, okay? Just…” Ivy flapped her hand. The last thing she felt like doing right now was finessing her Montana plan with some clueless rich lady.

  “It’s hard to get a job when you’re homeless. I’m just saying. And the economy out west, well, it’s tough these days.” Slurp. “Have you thought about transportation? You’ll need a car. Missoula’s very spread out. Of course, you’ll need a credit history. Hard to get credit without a credit history. That’s another—”

  “Would you please shut up?” Ivy jumped up and pushed the bench backward with one foot. It fell over with a loud bang. “I said I’d figure it out! Why can’t you stop lecturing for one second? It’s like a sickness with you. It’s like you think you don’t exist if you’re not telling someone else what to do. Jesus.”

  “I saved your life!” Mary Ellen was raising her voice, but it sounded like she was out of practice. It came out all squeezed. “I took care of you. I fed you! You have no right to roll your eyes and ignore me and act like I’m just some kind of annoying gnat—”

  “Stop yelling at me!”

  “Well then, how else will you know I care?” Mary Ellen spit this out with so much sourness and sarcasm that Ivy did a double take.

  “Jesus,” Ivy said, moving over to the living room window that overlooked the ravine, putting some distance between them. The wind was squealing around the corners of the house, scraping across her nerves like a cheese grater. Her heart was beating f
ast, and there was an old, familiar darkness creeping around the edges of her eyesight. Keep it cool, she told herself. Don’t lose hold—

  “I should’ve known as soon as you started angling for money.” Mary Ellen went for the gin bottle. “You were conning me. ‘We artists have to stick together.’ Yeah, right. This whole time, you were just some homeless dropout. I can’t believe you would make all that stuff up about your father, and about your mom being sick. Lung disease! Oh my gosh. You got me with that one; I’ll admit it. But you’ve never had to deal with anything like that in real life, have you? You’re too young. You don’t know anything about real problems.”

  Ivy screamed, attacking the nearest thing to her, which was the window. She pounded it with her fists and her forearms, but it was solid as a wall. It didn’t even shake. She whirled around, looking for something to crush, shatter, obliterate. Mary Ellen had stopped, midpour, and was staring at her wide-eyed, the green bottle sagging in her hand. Between them stood the coffee table, piled with Mary Ellen’s belongings.

  Ivy lifted the thick canvas camera bag, which was surprisingly heavy, letting it swing from her hand as she glared at Mary Ellen. She could feel her heart folding in on itself over and over, growing blacker with every beat. She strode back to the window, flipped the latch, and heaved the plate glass down its track.

  “Rose! Wait!” Mary Ellen shrieked. Ivy swung back her arm, then arced the camera bag up, over her head, and out into the night, feeling an intense rush of joy, like it was her inside the bag, flying through the air into the swirling darkness. She turned and grinned at Mary Ellen, snow dancing around her head and shoulders, the cold air like a first kiss.

  “I’m not Rose,” she reminded the lady, a lilt of triumph in her voice. “I’m Ivy.”

  18

  Mary Ellen put a hand over her mouth. She set down the gin bottle, walked to the window, pulled it closed.

  Her hands were shaking; she locked them together, willing herself to total stillness. Ivy was hopping from one foot to the other like a boxer, but Mary Ellen refused to look at her. She walled her off, set her aside, put her on her list of things to do. She took her coat from the hook on the wall and tried tugging on one of her boots, but standing on one foot was problematic. She brought the boots over to the bench and got them on, then went downstairs and turned on the deck lights.