“You did.”
“I didn’t have what you have. Not even close.”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
“Why would I bullshit you?” Ivy says. “I just know I’ve known you for six months and you’ve definitely never fucking mentioned your deep desire to be a lawyer, and you’re not exactly quiet, so I’m pretty sure I would have heard about it by now, considering how many times you’ve told me that same fucking story about your aunt and the time, I swear to God, you listed off all the contents of your entire goddamn bedroom. Look, do whatever you want, I don’t care, but do it because you want to, not because you think it’ll make someone else happy. Because guess what, if you go and become a lawyer, you’re gonna be a queer fucking lawyer. And your parents still won’t be happy. And there is nothing you can do to change that, so stop trying.”
Dot, for once in her life, doesn’t say anything.
Her mom’s there again when we get to my house, drinking tea and watching a movie on the couch with mine. Dot gives her a hug, then takes the remote and pauses the movie.
“What’s wrong?” my mom says.
But Dot just looks right at hers. “Mom,” she says. “I’m gonna go to RISD.”
…
Ivy doesn’t go to California.
“She just stopped talking about it completely,” I tell Elizabeth while we’re doing the dishes in her apartment after dinner. “And yesterday her mom left and it was, like, very anticlimactic.”
“She probably realized it wasn’t realistic,” Elizabeth says.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Or.” Elizabeth comes over and kisses my forehead. “There was someone here she couldn’t bear to leave.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “Maybe.”
Elizabeth looks down and squeezes my hands.
“Oh,” I say. “Oh. You’re not going to Boston, are you?”
“No,” she says. “I don’t think I am.” She looks up at me, her eyes warm.
She’s staying for me. She’s giving up a job because of me. She’s choosing me over her future.
She’s making me her future.
And she’s amazing, and I think I love her, but I feel my stomach sinking like a stone.
March
Ivy moves out the second week of March. She gets an apartment in Warwick, about ten miles out of Providence and a little closer to school, in this old industrial building that’s been turned residential. It has high ceilings and crossbeams and exposed brick. She’s in love.
She disappears for a few days to get the place ready, then has me over to see it one afternoon. She pours champagne and tucks Dot under her arm, and she looks happier than I’ve seen her in a long time.
She’s fucking radiant.
…
Meanwhile, my time’s being taken up by Elizabeth. She wants to see me all the time. She drops one or two hints about me moving into her apartment. And I’m starting to notice that our dates always look the same. We go where she wants to go. We do it on her schedule. We eat at her favorite restaurants. We hang out with her friends. We go back to her place.
“I think I have made a mistake of gigantic proportions,” I say.
Diana nudges her shot of tequila toward me. “Here. You need this.”
We’re at the bar at Kinetic on a Friday night. Elizabeth had a study group. Ivy ditched us as soon as we got here; Dot’s been sick, so Ivy hasn’t gotten laid in a few days and she’s here on business. We’ve been inside for ten minutes and she’s already wrapped around this blonde girl on the dance floor.
“I should have insisted she go to Boston,” I say. “I ruined her life.”
“She could still change her mind, right?” Diana says. “So it’s not too late.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “She might have already told them no. I don’t want to ask.” I take Diana’s shot. It’s my fourth. “And what if she goes to Boston and it turns out I miss her and that’s the mistake of gigantic proportions?”
Melody orders another round and then turns to us and says, “I don’t think this is really about Elizabeth at all.”
I groan. “I know.”
Diana says, “Andie, you really need to diversify your portfolio or whatever. Every problem cannot be about Ivy.”
“And yet here we are,” I say. “It’s not my fault she’s so…” I gesture to where she’s dancing, her boots stretching up her thighs, the sparkles on her dress catching the light like water.
“Hot?” Melody says.
“I was going to say aggravating.”
“Who’s aggravating?” It’s Dot, appearing as if from nowhere, like she always does. “Besides me, obviously.” She has a lot of makeup on, but she still clearly has a bad cold. Her eyes are red and teary and her sinuses look a little swollen.
“I thought you were home sick,” Melody says.
Dot shrugs. “Feeling better.” She scans the room. “Where’s Ivy?” She really must be sick if her Ivy-radar isn’t functioning properly.
We point her out, and it must catch Ivy’s eye because she notices Dot, says something to the girl she’s dancing with, and comes over to us. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she says to Dot.
“Dancing strengthens the immune system.”
“Go home,” Ivy says. “I’m not here to babysit you.”
“I don’t need to be babysat. I’m good.”
“Your voice is shot, you’re sweating, you look like shit, and I am not peeling you off this dirty-ass floor if you faint. Go. Home.”
“You’re so mean.”
“Old news.”
Dot gives a stuffy sigh and a pout, but Ivy just raises an eyebrow and Dot actually listens—miracles do happen—and leaves. Ivy goes back to the blonde girl and immediately locks her mouth on hers, and Melody hands me another shot.
“Such a loving and concerned girlfriend, that Ivy,” Diana says.
“Whatever,” Melody says. “You want to know what I think?”
“I want to know what anyone who’s not me thinks,” I say. “I am so sick of being in my head.”
“I think you’re never going to be able to fully commit to Elizabeth until you get closure from Ivy. You’re always going to be wondering what if. So you need to find out what if. It’s time.”
“I can’t,” I say. “She’s with Dot.”
“She’s not with Dot,” Melody says. “She just sent her home sick by herself, without even offering her a ride to her house, so that she could get back to her conquest of the night. That’s not a relationship.”
But it’s the closest Ivy’s ever come. Maybe that’s enough for it to count. Ivy’s never really been the caretaking type, not even for me, so it’s not like I would expect her to fall all over herself to baby Dot and her cold. “She’s never had a relationship,” I say. “Not really.”
“Right,” Melody says. “And do you think maybe she was waiting for you?”
That’s not what I was going for, but…God.
What kind of question is that? Of course I think maybe she’s been waiting for me. I’ve thought it every single day for as long as I can remember. It’s not that I think it’s likely or anything, but it’s possible. It’s always been possible that Ivy is madly in love with me and too afraid of scaring me, of messing it up, of ruining what we have now to do anything about it.
I’m not saying it’s likely. I’m just saying it’s possible.
And usually that’s felt like a security blanket, but tonight it feels like a ticking clock. I think it’s the alcohol. I order two more shots.
“Lots of people were friends before they got together,” Melody says. “Look at me and Di. We were best friends for years and we decided to give it a shot and…y’know. Fairy-tale shit.”
Holy shit, I am getting much too close to actually considering this.
&nb
sp; “You need an answer,” Diana says.
“I need an answer. I need vodka.”
I don’t know why tonight is different. I guess I haven’t been this drunk in a while. But for some reason, I reach a point where I know that the thing I’ve been desperately hiding is coming out tonight. And once I’ve made the decision, there’s no going back. There’s just drinking, running lines in my head, and getting brave.
It’s happening. It’s happening. Thank God, holy shit, it’s happening.
Except by the time I’m enough drinks deep, Ivy’s gone. I find the girl she was with, who’s still sweaty and flushed from whatever Ivy did to her back on the couches, and she says she went home. Makes sense; she has work early in the morning, and she did say this was a business trip.
So I guess it’s a false alarm, like every other time I thought I’d psyched myself up enough to tell Ivy how I feel. I go home—Diana drives my car for me—but I feel too electric to sleep. I pace my room over and over and look at my hoard of romance novels and then at myself in the mirror. My hair’s a mess and my face seems somehow…unfamiliar. It’s my eyes, I think. They look sure.
They’ve never looked like that before.
I’m not going to sit around and wait for life to happen anymore. I’m not going to be a supporting character in my own story.
“Fuck it,” I say, and I get an Uber to Ivy’s apartment.
…
I hit the buzzer for 3B over and over and over again.
“Ivy,” I say into the box, even though she hasn’t picked up. “Ivy. Ivy. Ivy.”
Finally there’s a crackle and her voice comes through the line. “What the fuck?” she says.
“Ivyyyyyy.”
“Jesus Christ,” she says and buzzes me up.
She’s standing at her open front door by the time I make it up the stairs. She’s wearing sweats and her hair is up in a messy bun on top of her head. She’s beautiful. She has her arms spread wide across the doorway like an action villain, but when she sees me, she softens.
“God, you are wasted,” she says.
“Lemme in.”
She laughs once. “No. I’m getting you an Uber.”
“I just had an Uber.”
“Well, that’s good to hear.”
“Let me in. I need to talk to you.”
“How about tomorrow? You know, when there’s daylight?”
“No. No daylight. This is important.”
She studies me, then sighs. “We can talk outside. Let me get my fucking coat, God.” She steps away from the door and goes inside, and I hold on to the doorframe and wait. Her living room is messy. At first I think it’s my fault, but then I remember I haven’t been inside and I figure I’m just drunk.
Ivy comes back and locks the door and leads me outside, holding on to my arm so I don’t tip over. “You realize it’s a weeknight, right?” she says to me as we step outside the building. The air is cold, but it doesn’t feel cold. It feels alive. Like a wave. Pushing me. “Even I don’t get hammered on weeknights.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened, did what’s her name break up with you or something?”
“No.”
She furrows her brow. “Is everything okay with your parents, I—”
“They’re fine, they’re fine, they’re fine. Everything’s okay. I just needed to be brave.”
She watches me, her arms crossed, her eyes glittering in the moonlight. I wonder if I woke her up. I couldn’t have. Nobody looks that good when they just woke up.
That’s stupid. She does. I know she does. I’ve seen her wake up a thousand times. I know everything about her.
“I’m in love with you,” I say.
Oh.
I actually said it.
All these years and I actually just said it.
The clock in my head stops ticking. Time stops moving altogether.
She stares at me and uncrosses her arms. I hear everything, a car alarm a block away, the streetlight buzzing over our heads. Her breathing.
Everything is so, so still.
“I think I always have been,” I say. “I think I was in love with you before I knew what that even meant. And I don’t even know why I’m telling you this, because I’m with Elizabeth and it feels like that’s getting really serious, but I needed you to know before it does. I just wanted you to know that I’ve always been here and I guess I have to know if you even noticed. I need something to happen to me.”
This is coming out all wrong.
And Ivy is just standing there, not running into my arms, not melting. She just looks…scared.
“You’re drunk,” she says eventually.
“That doesn’t matter.”
She presses her hand to her forehead and breathes out.
“I think we could be really good together,” I say. “And I know, because I’ve thought about it a lot. I could be really easy. We could go slow. I can be really, really patient.”
She still hasn’t said anything else and I cannot stop talking.
“I know all about you, so you don’t have to worry about me finding anything out,” I say. “I already know everything. You can’t surprise me. And you can’t scare me off. You don’t have to worry. You’d never have to worry about anything.”
She isn’t looking at me anymore.
“Am I hurting you?” I say. “You look like I’m hurting you.”
She closes her eyes.
“Please say something,” I say. “You have to say something.”
“I…” she starts, and she looks like she’s struggling for a very long time. “I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”
I feel so small. “I just wanted you to know.”
“Jesus Christ, Andie, you think I didn’t know?” she says, and then she winces and pushes her fingers into her eyes and…God.
Small and cold.
The car alarm stops.
“How long have you known?” I say, and she sighs and looks at me. “Oh,” I say.
And I finally get why she looks scared. Because I’m breaking open this fragile thing we’ve both been carrying, this bit of willful ignorance that has let us keep this friendship alive.
There was always a chance she didn’t know.
For both of us, there was always that tiny, tiny chance that she didn’t know how I really felt.
“You don’t love me,” I say.
“Of course I love you.”
“But not like that.”
She pulls her bottom lip in between her teeth.
I would give everything I have ever had in my life for her to argue with me right now. To engage. Something.
To say it isn’t true.
This is happening too fast. “You just…” I say. “You can give me a chance. You’ve never seen me like that, I get it, but you could try it. It happens all the time. It happened with Melody and Diana.”
“Andie.”
“You could try,” I say.
“Do you honestly think I haven’t tried?” she bursts.
I catch my breath. “What?”
She paces. “Do you think I don’t know how much easier everything would be if I could just…just fucking do it, be your little wife like you want? I could get enough sleep and come out to my mom and we could adopt a Hungarian orphan or something and we’d live this pretty little life and—do you know how exhausting it has been being the reason for all the problems in your life? Every single time something is wrong with you, I think, well, you could make her happy if you really wanted to. But I don’t. I don’t want to. Not like that. I have tried to want it, but I don’t, okay?”
Oh God.
Oh God.
But I can save this. I can turn it around. “That’s not about me; that’s about settling down,” I say. �
��I’m not asking for that. That’s not what I’m saying. You’re not understanding me.”
“It’s not,” she says, and she sounds so tired and sorry. “It’s not about settling down.”
“I wouldn’t make you do that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says.
“I told you that I know you,” I say. “Come on. You’re Ivy Harlowe. You’re not anyone’s wife.”
“Well, everyone knows that,” she says, and we laugh just a little, somehow.
We’re quiet for a minute.
“You could still sleep with other people,” I say, and I hate myself.
It’s mutual. I can tell by her face. “Andie. Stop. Please.”
I can count on one hand the number of times Ivy has said “please” to me. This has got to be in the bad love confession hall of fame. Who the fuck begs you to stop?
I pinch the bridge of my nose. For a long time neither one of us says anything. I mean, what is there to say at this point? How are we ever going to talk to each other again?
Maybe she’s thinking the same thing, because eventually she says, “What did you think was going to happen here?”
I clear my throat and shake my head hard enough that everything goes spotty for a minute. “I don’t know. This, probably. But…maybe it wouldn’t. You know?”
“Yeah,” she says.
I want to touch her so badly. “Do you hate me?”
“Of course not.”
“You hate me.”
“God, you are so drunk,” she says. “I do not hate you.”
“You wouldn’t even let me inside.”
She snorts and rolls her eyes. “I just didn’t want you to wake up Dot. She had a fever earlier.”
What? “Dot’s here?”
“Yeah.”
“But…” I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. “You sent her away. You told her to go home.”
Ivy shrugs one shoulder.
And suddenly it comes together. The messy living room with the tissues everywhere and the DVDs pulled out and the blanket crumpled up on the couch. She’s been over there while she’s been sick. When Ivy told her to go home, she didn’t mean Dot’s house.
The Love Song of Ivy K. Harlowe Page 13