Wild Swans

by Jessica Spotswood

  Because that’s the only reason a boy like him—brilliant, ambitious, gorgeous—would ever date me.

  Logically I know it’s not true. Connor wouldn’t use me like that. But somehow I don’t trust myself to—what, exactly? Be the kind of girl people won’t leave?

  The fight with Alex sticks in my head. In my throat, an ever-present ache. In a spot below my ribs, caught between fury and tears. He’s my oldest friend. He knows me better than anyone—or used to. How could he cut me out of his life so easily, like chopping off a bad limb?

  Connor takes my hand. “I don’t care what her last name is.”

  “Good. I know his students idolize him, but my father is not perfect. Far from it. The man is so haunted by his own mediocrity that he’s become a vampire feeding off our talents. A… What are they called? A succubus. Are there male succubuses?”

  “Succubi,” I correct automatically. “And that’s not true. He just wants me to be my best.”

  “Really? Is your best ever good enough?” Erica sits on the couch, crossing one slim, tanned leg over the other. “’Cause mine never was.”

  I’m silent, struck by this, and she continues. “I wonder what you’ve been told. Let me guess: how reckless I am, how selfish. Not just for leaving, but for throwing away the talent God gave me. I think maybe it’s time you heard the story from my point of view, Ivy.”

  I still don’t like the way my name sounds in her mouth.

  “Why, so I can hear what a monster Granddad is? No thank you.” I straighten my shoulders. Pretend that part of me isn’t hanging on her every word.

  Erica ignores what I want, like always. “He’s a vain, egotistical old bastard and he’ll destroy you if you let him. He cares more about this family’s precious reputation than your happiness. He’ll take the thing you love most, the thing that makes you yourself, and he’ll push and he’ll push until you can’t remember why you ever loved it in the first place. For me it was singing. One solo in the concert? Why not two? It’s never good enough, and it’s always your fault for not doing more or better. It’s damn near impossible to please him, and you’ll only twist yourself into knots trying.”

  I don’t want to hear this. But as unkind as her words are, they’re also sort of…true.

  I look to Connor, but he’s quiet. He won’t step in and speak for me like Granddad would. He won’t sling an arm around me and make a joke like Alex would. But he’s here. Listening. Letting me figure things out. Trusting that I can—that I am smart enough, capable enough on my own.

  “Is that why you quit singing?” I ask my mother.

  “I didn’t quit singing. I quit the school chorus and the church chorus and the town chorus and the voice lessons.” Erica eyes the open french doors, then pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Granddad would have a fit about her smoking in the house, especially here, with Grandmother’s paintings and Dorothea’s portrait and first editions. You don’t smoke in a museum full of precious artifacts. “Some friends and I had a band, and we were pretty good. We got some gigs playing at parties for beer or weed, that kind of thing. It was fun. But it wasn’t impressive enough.”

  “Or maybe,” I suggest, “it was the beer and weed he had a problem with.”

  Erica narrows her eyes and blows a plume of smoke in my direction. “You are a judgmental little thing, aren’t you? You must get that from him. I’m trying to help you, kid.”

  Jesus, could she be any more patronizing?

  “Since when do you give a damn about me?” I pull away from Connor and stalk closer to her. For once I’m grateful for my height. I like the way I tower over her. It makes me feel powerful. “It’s a little late for motherly advice, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe.” She ashes her cigarette onto a pretty tile coaster that Amelia gave us, a souvenir from a trip to Madrid. “But I don’t want you making yourself sick like I did. You know what I weighed after Mama died? Ninety-four pounds. And what was Dad worried about? What people would think!”

  I remember the picture of her at the English department Christmas party, six months before Grandmother died: already rail thin, her long limbs poking out of the black velvet dress that swallowed her up. There aren’t any photos of her at her high school graduation or the summer afterward or pregnant with me. Nowhere in the house. I’ve looked.

  I remember Granddad praising my healthy appetite. I can’t abide girls who pick at their food.

  But I also remember Isobel slumped at the kitchen table, staring miserably into her bowl of grapefruit. That’s not Granddad. That’s all Erica.

  “I don’t think I’m the kid you need to have the eating disorder talk with.”

  “Iz?” Erica shakes her head. “She’s fine. She could stand to lose a couple pounds and get off her ass instead of being on her phone all the time. She didn’t grow up with all these expectations. You’re the one wound up tighter than a tick. I know a miserable Milbourn girl when I see one, and you’re headed for a meltdown.”

  Ready for a meltdown? Me? I am not the type of girl who melts down.

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m not miserable,” I scoff. “I’m fine.”

  But it doesn’t sound convincing. Not even to me.

  “Are you?” It’s Connor who asks, not Erica.

  I can’t believe he’s siding with her. I whirl on him and he takes a step back.

  “Look, maybe I should go,” he says.

  “No, I’ll go.” Erica rises and saunters toward the door. She pauses. “You need to get the hell out of this town. You’re a smart girl, right? Good at school. I never was. You want to go to college, go somewhere else. No one out in the world cares that you’re a Milbourn. They don’t even know what a Milbourn is.”

  “That’s your advice? To run away?” I snap. “Leave my family like you did?”

  “You’ll come back,” she says. “Holidays. School breaks. Vacations. You don’t owe him any more than that. Dad’s not a saint for you to devote your life to.”

  “I never said he was a saint, but he’s the one who stayed. He raised me. He loved me.”

  There’s a look on her face that I’ve never seen before. Regret? Guilt? Whatever it is, it doesn’t last. She walks away, and a minute later I hear the fridge opening. Probably time for her morning Bloody Mary.

  I go stand in front of the french doors, trying to catch the breeze coming in off the Bay. The air is suffocating. It feels more like August than mid-June. “Don’t you ever take her side again. That was not okay.”

  “I’m on your side. Always,” Connor says. “But I’m not sure Erica’s the enemy here.”

  “Are you kidding me? She straight up said she doesn’t care about me or my feelings. I don’t know where this urge to give motherly advice came from, but it’s not because she wants what’s best for me. She just wants to stick it to Granddad.”

  “What if sticking it to him is what’s best for you?” Connor suggests. I open my mouth to protest and he puts up an ink-stained hand, forestalling my argument. “I don’t believe that the Professor’s half as bad as what she said. But what do you think will happen when you tell him you have to pull the poem? If you tell him that you don’t want to be a poet? What is the worst possible outcome?”

  “He’ll think I’m like her.” I whisper it like the curse it is. “That I’m selfish.”

  “Because you made a mistake? Because you don’t want to live your life to please someone else?” Connor shakes his head. “Ivy, that’s not selfish.”

  My heart is racing like I’ve been swimming long distance. Sweat pools at the small of my back and I sweep my hair into a ponytail. “You don’t know what it’s like to be part of this family, Connor.”

  He sips his iced coffee and watches me. “No, I don’t. But every family comes with its own expectations. I didn’t play sports. Didn’t want to study business or accounting. I was never popular, not the way my sister is. You have to figure out who you are away from your family, and if you can’t do that here in Cecil—”<
br />
  “You don’t understand.”

  He shrugs. “Maybe I don’t. But maybe your mother does. She can be a jerk and still have some insight on this, you know? She grew up here, in the same house, with the same man.”

  “He’s a good man,” I say.

  “I know. He’s given me some incredible opportunities. But if he’s pushing you so hard that you’re about to break—”

  “I’m not!” I prop my hands on my hips. “I’m not the kind of girl who breaks.”

  Connor shrugs again. “Everybody breaks at some point. It’s how you patch yourself up that counts. If he’s trying not to make the same mistakes with you that he made with your mother, maybe he doesn’t realize how hard he’s pushing you. Maybe it’s not about you at all. It sure as hell isn’t because you’re inherently flawed.”

  But I am. I feel like I am.

  Connor moves toward me slowly, like I’m some wounded animal he might scare off. I hate that he sees me being so insecure. I want him to see me as strong and confident and clever. But as he wraps me in his arms and holds me close, I feel like I can be all of those things.

  “Just think about it, okay?” he asks. “Think about what you want. You, not your granddad. What would you do if you weren’t a Milbourn?”

  But I can’t even imagine that.

  • • •

  That evening, after supper, Granddad and I walk into town for an open mic night at Java Jim’s. Connor helped organize it and he’s going to read two new poems. When Granddad heard that, he decided to come support his star student. Which puts me in the awkward position of pretending that Connor and I are just friends.

  I guess, technically, I put myself in that position.

  It’s nice to be out of the house though. When we left, Erica and Gracie were watching a movie in the living room and Iz was sulking upstairs. She was not a fan of the first day of theater camp. She called Miss Saundra a pretentious asshole and Granddad threatened to extend her grounding. It made me laugh though. I tried theater camp the summer I was ten, at Granddad’s insistence. I had major stage fright, and Miss Saundra’s constant barking to “e-nun-ci-ate” did not help matters. I spent most of my time painting sets.

  Granddad pushes open the door to Java Jim’s and we’re greeted by a blast of air-conditioning, followed by the scents of espresso beans and chocolate. The couches and chairs at the front have been shifted to create a small performance space. Connor’s coworker Katrina is perched on a stool, a mic in front of her, her guitar across her lap. With her short, ivory lace dress and bright-pink hair and nose ring, she totally rocks the quirky singer-songwriter look. Peyton Cavanaugh, a girl from my class, is sitting on one couch with two of her friends, nervously clutching a black-and-white composition notebook. I don’t recognize the girls on the other couch. Maybe they go to the college?

  Connor’s going to be thrilled with the turnout. The tables against the brick wall are filled with people chatting over iced lattes. I spot him at the end of the line, talking with Jay and Josh as they wait to order drinks. Connor’s talking with his hands, shifting from foot to foot. I wonder if he’s nervous.

  Granddad hesitates as we pass the clipboard with the sign-up sheet. “Are you sure you don’t want to read your poem?”

  “Very.” My voice is curt.

  “It would be good practice,” he wheedles, and ghosts of departmental Christmas parties past come parading through my memory. I was too young then for Granddad to take my reluctance seriously. He always chalked it up to stage fright.

  “I would really prefer not to,” I say.

  “Maybe next week? You could practice reading it out loud to me first.”

  His voice is so hopeful. Jesus, I hate disappointing him. “Maybe,” I agree, though I know I am just prolonging the inevitable. I have to tell him about the poem.

  Two women leave, grumbling about the noise, and Granddad snags the now-open table along the wall. “Decaf?” I ask, and he nods, handing me a rumpled ten-dollar bill.

  Connor grins when he sees me. I’m wearing red shorts and a black tank top printed with ladybugs, with my hair in two braids courtesy of Gracie. I worried it looked too childish but didn’t have the heart to take the braids out. Considering the way Connor’s eyes trail over me, I guess I look okay. I squeeze his forearm in greeting, but it’s hard not to kiss him. His mouth is just so kissable.

  The rest of him looks pretty kissable too. He’s wearing jeans and a black T-shirt that hugs his broad shoulders and skims the muscles of his chest. His ink trails out from beneath the sleeve of his shirt and curves over the smooth, brown skin of his forearm. I let my hand linger there, my thumb tracing the Langston Hughes quote. He seems to relax a little beneath my touch.

  “I’m really glad you’re here,” he confesses, and I melt. “I’m nervous.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it. You’re going to be amazing,” I say.

  Katrina welcomes everyone, thanks Java Jim’s for hosting us, urges us to tip the baristas generously, and begins to sing. Connor offers to save me a place on the window seat with him and Josh and Jay, but I decline. Better to sit with Granddad. Easier to keep my hands to myself.

  I brush a kiss over Connor’s cheek. “Break a leg.”

  “What about me?” Jay pouts.

  “I didn’t know you were performing!” I kiss him on the cheek too. “What about you, Josh?”

  “Uh, no.” Josh looks horror-struck. “I’m just here for moral support.”

  “Me too,” I say, and we chat about our weekends while we get our drinks. When I get back to my seat, Granddad’s doing the crossword puzzle in the newspaper while he listens to Katrina. Jay’s up next, and as he performs a spoken-word piece about growing up in Baltimore in a rough neighborhood, Granddad puts down his pen.

  Jay’s words have a quick, beautiful cadence to them, and the way he performs from memory—the rhythm and flow of it, the change from soft and thoughtful to driving and passionate—is powerful. When he’s finished, everyone applauds like mad and Jay gives a big theatrical bow. Then he returns to his seat next to Connor, who claps him on the back and grins. I love that there doesn’t seem to be any competition between them.

  Peyton Cavanaugh goes next. She reads a poem that seems like it might be about being a lesbian. There are definitely she-her pronouns involved. Her voice wavers at first and she holds her notebook with shaking hands, but as she reads, she finds her rhythm and relaxes into it. The poem itself is not very good, but presumably it’s hers and not her dead great-grandmother’s, so yay for her being brave enough to get up and read it. Her friends clap and whistle when she’s finished, and Peyton looks proud of herself.

  Then it’s Connor’s turn. He adjusts the mic and props his Moleskine on the music stand. I know he’s nervous, but it doesn’t show. He has a natural stage presence; his low voice commands attention. The whole coffee shop hushes—the clink of glasses, the hiss of the steamer, the chatter at the back of the store—as everyone listens.

  He reads about the power of naming things, about being afraid to lose his memories. The images that he paints are beautiful. One is of a girl on a bench in a yellow dress, and oh my God, that’s me. My pulse dances as he meets my eyes. It feels like everyone else in the room disappears for a minute, and I know we’re both remembering our first kiss down by the water.

  I dart a quick look at Granddad, wondering if he’s noticed.

  But Granddad is watching Connor, his face full of pride.

  Has he ever looked at me like that? Pure proud, without wanting more and better and next?

  As Connor begins his second poem, Professor Paquin comes in. My heart sinks. If she sees us—and how could she not? Java Jim’s is not that big—and she and Granddad get to talking, there is no way on earth my poem won’t come up.

  I wish I’d been brave enough to talk to Granddad before we came here. To tell him about the poem. To tell him about Connor and me.

  Connor recites the second poem like he was born to do this. H
e’s perfectly at ease behind the mic and in his own skin. I know he’s struggled to get there, but you could never tell from watching him. He varies his volume and speed, and he has the audience utterly enthralled. The college girls on the couch are practically swooning, and I can’t blame them. Watching someone do the thing they love most is attractive. Really attractive.

  When Connor finishes, Granddad claps longest and loudest. “Such mature themes for his age,” he says to me. “I told you, didn’t I, Ivy? He’s very promising.”

  I nod, jealousy a thorn in my throat. Connor’s my boyfriend. I should feel proud. But I would give anything to have that kind of talent.

  There’s a break while Katrina encourages people to sign up for the next set. Music plays over the speakers. Connor starts toward us, but he and Jay are mobbed by the college girls. All three of the girls are pretty hipsters. The petite brunette with blue streaks in her hair puts a hand on Connor’s forearm, smiling up at him, and I sort of want to break her arm off.

  If I’d told Granddad that Connor and I were dating, Connor would be holding my hand right now and these girls would not be flirting with him. This is my own stupid fault. I wait for Connor to excuse himself and make his way across the room to us, but he’s talking, his hands waving animatedly, that big, goofy grin on his face, while the girls ply him and Jay with compliments.

  Well-deserved compliments.

  A wave of self-loathing breaks over me. I will never be the one up there with people clapping and whispering about how good I am because I’m a liar and a cheat and a nobody. Connor wrote me into a poem. Any other girl would be dazed with happiness. What is wrong with me?

  Professor Paquin makes her way to our table. She’s tall with brown skin and curly hair and a ton of energy despite having a toddler at home. “George!” she says. “Ivy! How are you? I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner. Maya refused to go to sleep.”

  “We’re doing very well. Ivy, tell Eleanor your news!” Granddad doesn’t waste any time.

  “Oh, it’s really not a big deal.” I shift awkwardly in my chair.

  “She’s being modest. She had a poem accepted for publication in an online magazine!” Granddad brags. “The first of many, I’m sure.”