Family Drama 3-in-1 Box Set: String Bridge, The Book, Bitter Like Orange Peel

by Jessica Bell

  “Would you like to walk me home? I don’t live too far from here,” Brian asks with a smirk.

  “I’d love to,” Ivy says with a short laugh, elevating herself onto her tiptoes and back down again.

  Brian almost puts his arm around Ivy’s shoulder, but hesitates and puts his hand in his pocket instead.

  When Ivy walks through her front door, the first thing she can smell is the fragrance of peach cleaning fluid. As she hangs her coat and bag in the tiny entrance hall, pizza aromas waft by. Gabriel has cleaned her house from top to bottom. The floorboards are glistening. He’s even done her laundry and hung each item on the clothes horse in the lounge—not too close to the fire this time. Ivy stares at the amount of cotton panties compared to lacy thongs.

  I’m getting old.

  “Hey, sweetcakes. Welcome home.” Gabriel appears in the lounge doorway, holding out a piece of pizza on a plate.

  “Are you okay? What’s going on?” Ivy looks around her.

  “Just felt like cheering you up, girl.”

  “But I thought you were the one that needed cheering up. Didn’t you have another fight with your boy?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. Gabe is peachy keen.” Ivy is reminded of Riz from Grease.

  “Why do you think I need cheering up? I’ve been fine. Haven’t I?”

  “You looked at yourself in the mirror lately?” Gabriel waves his hand over his face to indicate what Ivy should be looking at in the mirror. She thinks of the dancers in Madonna’s “Vogue” video clip, and the chopsticks she used to bang to it, all over her bedroom furniture, when she was a kid. Sometimes Eleanor would interrupt and say something like, “I wish you’d practice using one of those chopsticks as a scalpel instead.”

  “What? What’s wrong with my face?”

  “You’re a mess.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Sweetcakes, you’ve had a long face since the day you said you were Amir-free. You looked better when you were heartbroken.”

  “I thought I said I never wanted to hear his name again.”

  “See, sweetcakes, that’s just plain denial, and I’m sorry to say it, but that’s following in your mother’s footsteps whether you like it or not. And I’ve got news for you, honey, it makes no difference anyway. You’ve got Amir—. See, I said his name, and I’ll say it again: Amir. He’s on your mind 24/7. You have to let him go, ’kay?”

  Gabriel pulls Ivy out of the hall and sits her down on the couch in front of the fire, with a full glass of red wine and jumbo pizza. He picks up the glass and places it in her hand. Ivy succumbs to being handled like a puppet, almost expressionless, except for the fear she can feel glaze over her eyes at the thought of becoming like her mother.

  “Well, don’t just stare at me. Drink up. Wash that Amir right out of your hair, darling, once and for all.” Gabriel swings his long bouncy curls around as if auditioning for a shampoo ad. “Enough’s enough. You have to focus on Brian now. Move on. Eat, drink. Think about Brian. He’s a spunk, and he loves your coffee better than Raquel’s. Come on, sweetcakes—a little smile?” Gabriel imitates what he wishes to see on Ivy’s face by moving the sides of his mouth upward with his fingers. Ivy reciprocates, holding the fake smile long enough to resemble a clay figurine.

  “Gabe?” Ivy asks, breaking her statuesque pose.

  “Yes, sweetcakes? I’m all ears.”

  Gabriel sits opposite Ivy in the armchair with his wine. He crosses his legs, lights a cigarette with a match, takes a drag, lights another one with his lit cigarette, hands it to Ivy, and swings his crossed leg backward and forward in nicotine-thrilled pleasure.

  Ivy lifts her legs onto the couch to rest her feet. “Kit called me today and asked if I’d be interested in looking for Roger—can you believe it?”

  Gabriel holds his breath and lets the smoke ooze from his nose. He leans slightly forward, elbow on knee, as if contemplating his response.

  “Well, I think it’d be good for you.” Gabriel’s voice shifts a semitone lower than usual. “It might give you some closure. Some purpose.”

  “I’ve got purpose.” Ivy flicks her head to the side to remove strands of hair stuck to her nose.

  “Like what, exactly? You’re the most-educated person I know, and you’re a stinking waitress. You should be getting calluses on your hands, not the soles of your feet.”

  “She wants me to call my mother and ask if she has any leads.”

  “Are you listening to me?” Gabriel asks, exasperated.

  Ivy puts a hand to her forehead. “I dread speaking to her about this. But I really think Kit should find out the truth. At least to finally realize he’s not worth the trouble, you know?”

  Gabriel downs his wine in one go. “Sweetcakes, I said you should do it. Who are you trying to convince here?”

  “Actually, I think I’ll give her a call now and get it over and done with.”

  Ivy picks up the cordless from the coffee table, pokes her tongue out at Gabriel, and goes into her bedroom closing the door behind her. She lies on her bed and counts the crystals hanging from the lace maroon light shade, holding the phone to her chest. Twenty-seven. That’s weird. Maybe one has fallen off. She presses the green phone icon and puts the phone to her ear. You’ve really got to get a new phone. This dial tone sounds like a nauseated robot. She presses the speed dial with her thumb, a button she can now press without thinking about its position on the key pad or all the extra codes.

  “Dr. Eleanor Manning.”

  “Hi. It’s me.”

  “How are you? I tried to call you this afternoon.”

  “Good. You?”

  “As good as can be. Emotionally drained.”

  I know.

  This is more often than not the only insight Ivy gets into what life as a surgeon entails anymore. From the very day Ivy told Eleanor she wanted to be an archaeologist, she stopped telling her hospital stories. When Ivy was about ten, Eleanor took her into the operating room while performing heart surgery on a baby inside a mother’s womb. It was the most horrific sight Ivy had ever seen. That’s the day she also told Ivy she was named after IV, for intravenous. It means in the vein, and Eleanor insisted it represented Ivy flowing through her very blood. But the thought sickened Ivy, and she decided she never wanted to go into the hospital with Eleanor again.

  “Any news?”

  “No. Not really. You?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “You know, Ivy, the point of making a phone call is having something to say.” Eleanor laughs.

  “I do have something to say. Something to ask, actually.”

  “Oh? You’re not one for asking questions. I thought you knew everything already.”

  Silence. That was uncalled for.

  “That was insensitive,” Eleanor mumbles, apologetically. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Right.” Ivy clears her throat. “Well, Kit asked me to ask you … well, no, Kit asked me, and I agreed, thought it would be a good idea and all, you know, that maybe she could look for, well … we could look for … Dad?”

  “Him?”

  “Yes, him. Do I have another dad?”

  “That wasn’t a question, Ivy. That was stuttering rubbish.”

  “The question’s coming.” Ivy’s stomach gurgles; her mouth goes dry.

  “Okay then. Ask it.”

  Ivy counts the crystals on the light shade again. How could there possibly be an odd number of crystals? I must keep missing one.

  “What are you doing? What’s that jingling?”

  “Do you think … you know, only if it’s okay with you … if you feel okay about it, ’cause I really don’t want to force you into giving me information that might make you feel sad, ’cause that’s not my intention, you know ….

  “Spit it out, Ivy. Just ask the question.”

  “Um ….

  “Look. Ivy. I don’t know why you’ve decided this all of a sudden. I persistently gave you the opportunity to see him when you
were a teenager. And you consistently said you weren’t interested. And now that I have no idea of his whereabouts, you want to see him again. Why?”

  “For Kit. Look, I don’t even know if I want to do this, but I think Kit—.

  “Where’d Kit get this idea all of a sudden?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t have the chance to talk properly.”

  “I hope she’s not nagging Ailish about this. That’s the last thing she needs. Spare her the flashbacks. And the guilt. I hope you haven’t told Kit any details about Ailish’s relationship with him.”

  “Jesus. Why would I do that, Mum?”

  “Well, let’s try to keep it that way. It’s too late in our lives to be dragging skeletons out of the closet. It’s in the past. Let it stay that way. Ailish is more fragile than she lets on.”

  “Mum, I’ve never understood why you keep sticking up for Ailish all the time. Maybe you are right that Dad was going to leave you anyway, but maybe he wasn’t—have you ever thought about that? And what about your hurt? Why do you keep talking about Ailish’s pain and never your own? I mean, I love Ailish and Kit—don’t get me wrong. But Christ, Mum, what about yourself? What about how it makes you feel? Why do you keep pretending it never happened?”

  Ivy bites her bottom lip at the realization that she just blurted out years of confrontational thoughts to a woman she’s spent her life being afraid of. Why the sudden confidence? She pinches the bridge of her nose and tightly closes her eyes, wondering whether the silence on the other end of the phone means Eleanor is concocting an intelligent, hurtful response.

  Eleanor clears her throat. “And what do you call running away to the other side of the world and living a hopeless, financially unstable life after divorcing Amir, hmm?”

  Ivy’s limbs stiffen; the crystals stop jingling. She hangs up and cups a hand over her mouth to stunt a frustrated scream. She counts the crystals on the lamp shade again, holding the handset above her shoulder. I was right the first time. There are twenty-seven. Oh my God, I just hung up on my mother.

  Gabriel calls out from the lounge. “Sweetcakes? You better come and eat before I eat everything myself.”

  Ivy walks back in. There is only a quarter of the pizza left and half a bottle of wine. “Oh, and you just got a text.”

  Ivy runs into the lounge and flips open her cell.

  I’m sorry. Tell Kit 2 go 2 the university Ailish works @, & speak 2 the dean. He used 2 b his best mate in those days. They were in the Army together. Maybe he knows something. Just please, do me a favour, and don’t involve me in this any further. Eleanor.

  The Army? Maybe Kit’s idea that … Ugh. No, Ivy. Don’t be so ridiculous.

  Kit

  On a whim to get her hair trimmed and straightened, Kit is at the hairdresser’s, when she gets a text message from Ivy.

  Go 2 C the dean @ A’s Uni. Was Dad’s pal.

  “Not hurtin’ ya, am I, Kit?” Eydie says, sliding a hot comb through Kit’s hair. Eydie is not only her regular hair rescuer but an accustomed victim of Kit’s eruptive rants. Of course, Kit doesn’t really care what her hair looks like, but she likes the attention—to feel pampered sometimes. And for some reason, getting her hair done by Eydie helps her to relax, to feel like she’s a girly girl, even though she doesn’t want to be perceived as one.

  “Nope,” Kit says, smiling at Eydie in the mirror. Pathetic excuse of a smile, that is, she thinks, catching a glimpse of herself. It looks as if she’s cut it out of a magazine and pasted it onto her own face. Bleak, washed out.

  Eydie nods, smiling in return, her short emo red hair falling over her eyes. She flicks her head to move it off her face and winks at Kit through the mirror. She seems happy working on Kit’s hair. Kit notices fogginess in her eyes. Her smile doesn’t show anywhere on her angled face but her mouth.

  “Who’s the message from? You’ve gone all sulky.” Eydie frowns and tilts her head to the side.

  Kit laughs. Limp. “I decided I wanted to find my father and, well, to cut a long story short, had no idea where to start looking until just this minute.”

  “Oh, cool. What’s with the long face then? Shouldn’tcha be happy?” Eydie asks, bunching a mass of hair to the top of Kit’s head and clipping it down.

  “I suppose. But it kind of just dawned on me what I’m doing. I mean, what if I’m not cut out for what I might find?”

  “Yeah. I know whatcha mean. Me dad dis’ppeared when I was a kid too. He’s been sending me letters ’n’ puttin’ cash into some kinda fund for me, all me life, but I just found out ’bout it not long ago. Me mum’s been using the bloody dough to pay for grog, I’m sure of it, and hidin’ the letters in her dresser. I found ’em when I was scrounging for a ciggy.”

  “What? You’re kidding?” Kit turns around in her seat to face Eydie, her eyes ablaze.

  “Nup.” Eydie nudges Kit’s shoulder to turn around and face the mirror. Kit obliges.

  “My God. And I thought I was hard done by.”

  “Yeah, nah. But what really pisses me off is that me mum spends so much bloody money on grog that she can’t pay the rent no more. I had no freakin’ idea she was wasting more money than what she got from the dole. And I quit bloody school ’n came to work at this joint, so that we could pay the bleedin’ rent.”

  “Oh my God, Eydie. How have you never told me this before?” Kit moves a little closer to the mirror as though Eydie’s reflection were real.

  “Well, who am I to ruin your girly hairdressin’ experience? Anyway, I can’t afford to lose control. I gotta eat. What’s that saying thingy you once said to me? If ya c’n walk on water, or something, ya no better off than a … somethingerather in a puddle?”

  “A twig floating on a puddle. Arabian proverb.” Kit wonders what the relevance is, but thinks better of asking.

  “Yeah. That. Man, I wish I was smart like you.”

  “You are smart. Just in a different way,” Kit replies. But Eydie hardly acknowledges it. “Not many people would remember stuff like that, you know.”

  Eydie nods. Squints. Drags the hot comb carefully through another mass of waves.

  “I hope you had a good go at your mother about it,” Kit says.

  “Nup. Can’t be stuffed.” Eydie screws up her nose.

  “Why?”

  “She’s always so bloody off her face she wouldn’t half understand what I was talkin’ ’bout anyway.”

  “Eydie, you have to do something. You could use that money for something worthwhile. Can’t you just send a letter back to your dad and tell him what’s going on?”

  “Nup.”

  “Why?”

  “He stopped sendin’ the letters. And the phone number for the address I found don’t exist no more.”

  “Well, just … just physically go to the address.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Kit can see Eydie’s eyes go wet in the mirror.

  “Just like ya said—what if I’m not cut out for it?” Eydie wipes a knuckle under her right eye. “Anyway, hair’s done; you can geddup.”

  Kit stands, unties her smock, and brushes runaway hairs off her top. She hugs Eydie, making comforting noises while rubbing her on her upper back.

  Eydie pulls away prematurely and says, “Aw, don’t worry ’bout me. I’m used to this shit.” She winks, sniffs back some tears, and blows on Kit’s neck and around her ears to loosen the odd fleck stuck to her skin.

  “Well, you’ve got my number if you need anything, right?” Kit asks. I might have more in common with you than I thought.

  “Yep. Ta.”

  Eydie goes to the cash register, prints off a receipt, and holds out her hand for Kit to pay up.

  “That’ll be twenny bucks.”

  Kit pulls a twenty out of her olive-green corduroy bag and hands it to Eydie. The photograph of her father has replaced the beat of her postgraduate application form. Doof, doof. Doof, doof.

  Dad, I’m coming.

  “Ta
,” Eydie says as Kit puts the twenty-dollar note into her hand. “So, what’s the lead?”

  “Hmm?” Kit asks, wondering how to pull her knickers out of her bum without anyone seeing her do it through the shop window.

  “To findjya dad?”

  “Oh. Right. The dean of the uni where my mum works was apparently a friend of his. Got no idea how I’m gonna go about speaking to him, though, without pestering my mum.” But I have the right to pester her about this. Don’t I? She’s the one who’s kept all this info a secret. What am I so afraid of? What’s the worst she can do?

  “Why dontcha do that intern tutor thingy you were talkin’ ’bout before? Then you’ll be there all the time and you can speak to ’im yourself.”

  “Hey. That’s not a bad idea, actually.” Why didn’t I think of that?

  “Just make sure you fill me in on the goss.” Eydie winks.

  On Kit’s way out, she makes the shape of a phone with her hand and holds it to her ear. She knows Eydie won’t call. She never does. But this time things seem different.

  Eydie

  Eydie nods and dismisses Kit with a flick of her hand. Her hot-pink acrylic nails collide and click. She goes out back for a cigarette.

  What fuckin’ life is this? Tears stream down her cheeks.

  She gazes at the rows and rows of hair dye. The layer upon layer of shelves containing a chemical substance that, according to statistics, sends many hairdressers into the loony bin. So she’s heard, anyway. Eydie wonders if there’s any way she could use them to end her life. Like gassing myself in a car? Is it possible to poison myself in a salon? On my lunch break, maybe.

  The counter bell chimes. Someone’s feet shuffle, stumble. She can hear the visitor fall onto the orange vinyl couch. A magazine crinkles. The customer sat on it. Eydie left it there by accident earlier. Damn. She quickly dries her eyes with the tea towel lying by the kettle and walks back out.

  Her next client is flicking through the crinkled Elle magazine. The client looks up. Her eyes are bloodshot. More burst capillaries seem to have appeared around her nose.