The Love Song of Ivy K. Harlowe

by Hannah Moskowitz

  We’re meeting for an early dinner before we head over to Ivy’s for the party. Elizabeth gets us three courses and keeps the wine flowing and talks to me about this documentary she wants me to watch. At dessert, she pulls out a tiny gift bag and hands it to me. Honestly, I’d thought the dinner itself was my gift, though I guess Elizabeth paying for our dates isn’t out of the ordinary.

  “You didn’t have to,” I say. “Seriously. I know people say that but, like…seriously.”

  She laughs. “It’s your birthday. We should celebrate.”

  I take a small white box out of the bag and lift the lid. It’s a bracelet, silver with blue stones. It winks in the candlelight on our table. It is definitely the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.

  “Those are sapphires,” Elizabeth says.

  “This is really nice, holy shit.”

  “Here,” Elizabeth says, and I hold out my arm and let her put it on me. She kisses my hand after she’s finished with the clasp.

  “It’s really beautiful,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “You should have nice things,” she says, and she smiles at me.

  And a part of me isn’t grateful. A part of me is looking at my life and thinking, I thought I already did.

  But it’s a really nice bracelet.

  …

  Ivy’s apartment is full by the time I get there, crammed with blue lights, alcohol, and people. She clearly had the same realization that I don’t know enough people to crowd her bathroom, let alone the apartment, and she invited her friends from school and casual acquaintances from around the old neighborhood and whatever lesbians she happens to have saved in her phone, so it’s basically Kinetic relocated.

  Dot hands Elizabeth and me drinks the second we walk in and then immediately runs off to refill a chip bowl or something, and I find Alyssa camped out on a couch and give her a hug. “Happy birthday, squirt,” she says. Alyssa’s the oldest of all of us, already almost twenty-one.

  “Teach me how to be an adult, please.”

  She kisses my cheek. “With my eyes closed.”

  Elizabeth sees someone she went to college with and goes to catch up, and the second she walks away, Alyssa tugs me down to the arm of the couch and says, “Did you really deliver a drunken love confession to Ivy?”

  “Please tell me you didn’t hear this straight from Ivy. Or Dot. I have to convince myself that they’ve developed selective amnesia and forgotten all about it. It’s my birthday. Lie if you have to.”

  She laughs. “Melody told me.”

  “It was the most supremely embarrassing moment of my life. I’m serious about the amnesia thing. I wish I had it.”

  “It could have been a lot worse,” she says. “You guys are still friends. You still have Elizabeth.”

  “She does not know, obviously.”

  “I figured.” Alyssa shakes her head a little. “I don’t get it.”

  “Well, I’m an idiot, so that was most of it there.”

  “No. Turning you down. I don’t get it.”

  I shrug and look around the room kind of absently, but of course my eyes land on Ivy; they always do. She’s laughing with a few girls, but she puts her arm out without looking, and a few seconds later, Dot materializes under it. Ivy knocks her head to the side and keeps talking.

  “She’s happy,” I say.

  “Well, how about you?”

  “I’m working on it,” I say, but I don’t look away from Dot and Ivy.

  Pretty soon, Ivy pulls me up to dance with her and Alyssa and the girls, and I tug in Elizabeth to join us. She’s not much of a dancer, but hey, it’s my birthday.

  Ivy lets me go after a few songs and gives my hair a ruffle when we collapse on her floor pillows. “Not too shabby, huh?” she says.

  “I’m amazed this many people came.”

  “Everyone comes when I call.” She picks up her beer and frowns. “Spot?”

  She appears, of course. “Hi. I put out more toilet paper.”

  “How much toilet paper do these people need? Someone here needs to see a doctor.” She holds up the beer. “Can you grab me another?”

  “Say please,” Dot says, and Ivy pulls her down and swallows her whole instead.

  They’re kind of like that the whole evening. They bicker over which dip to put out and Dot gives someone directions to the bus stop while Ivy fixes one of the string light strips when it falls. Dot separates recycling. Ivy pours drinks.

  They are making sense.

  Who the fuck could have seen this one coming?

  And who the fuck could have anticipated that it sort of wouldn’t kill me?

  “You’re staring,” Elizabeth says to me.

  “No, I’m not.”

  I’m drinking for the first time since the night that shall not be named, and everyone’s telling me “happy birthday” and pulling me up to dance and it’s…kind of amazing. I really thought I didn’t want a party, but it’s sort of fun to be the center of attention every once in a while.

  “Not too shabby,” Ivy says again, surveying her land.

  “I still think we should have gotten strippers,” Dot says.

  “I see strippers every day,” I say. “It’d be like going to work.”

  “That’s what I told her,” Ivy says. She flicks Dot’s cheek. “We’ll do strippers for your birthday.”

  Dot considers this. “That’s not for four months. Won’t you be sick of me by then?”

  “God, one can only hope,” Ivy says.

  The crowd starts to clear out around midnight, and once there’s some breathing room, Ivy turns the music down, claps her hands together once, and says, “Presents.”

  “I don’t need presents,” I say. “I’m a grown woman. I’m old.” I’m currently collapsed on the couch with my head on Elizabeth’s leg.

  “All the more reason,” Ivy says. “Retirement gifts.”

  I get a cute dress from Sloan’s from Diana and Melody, an eye shadow palette from Dot, and this leather-bound journal from Alyssa that I’ll probably never use because it’s too pretty. Ivy hands me a small, wrapped present, and I break through the tape and pull out Ella Gennesy’s Electric Touch, the very first novel from one of my favorite romance writers. I have a copy at home, but mine’s totally falling apart from how many times I’ve read it, and I’m scared to even open it nowadays in case it completely goes to pieces.

  “Open it,” Ivy says. “Open it, open it.”

  It’s signed. To Andie. Your love story is coming. —EG

  Holy shit.

  I look up at Ivy, who’s smiling, looking a little nervous, running her hand absentmindedly up and down Dot’s back.

  Why is she nervous? Was there any chance this wouldn’t be the best thing I’ve ever owned?

  I spring up and throw myself around her neck. It’s our first hug since The Incident, but she hugs back right away, and it feels easy, feels right.

  “You are so fucking amazing,” I whisper to her.

  “I know,” she whispers back with a squeeze.

  “This is… Holy shit.” I let go of Ivy and grab the book off the couch. “She actually touched this exact book. Like, with her fingers. How the fuck did you get her to do this? She never signs stuff.”

  “I wrote her a billion emails about my poor best friend who’s obsessed with her books until she finally couldn’t ignore me anymore.”

  “The Dot method,” Alyssa says, and Ivy kicks her, but Dot laughs.

  And just for a minute, everything feels so right. All the strangers have cleared out, and it’s just me and my people, in my best friend’s apartment, with the best present I’ve ever gotten.

  I’m leafing through the book, thinking about how the hands that typed this actual story are the same ones that wrote my name, when I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s Elizabeth. />
  “Hey,” I say. “Sorry, I’m kind of in a trance.”

  She smiles a little. “I’m going to head out,” she says. “Can you get a ride home?”

  “What? I mean, yeah, but…what?”

  “We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?” she says. “Happy birthday.” She starts toward the door, and I feel panic rise up in my throat.

  “Wait, hang on.” I get up and stop her, my hand on her arm. “Don’t go,” I say. “Come on, let’s dance or something.”

  “Really, it’s okay.”

  “Elizabeth,” I say. “What’s going on?”

  She sighs and glances around the room. “Let’s talk outside, okay?”

  That didn’t really work out well for me last time with Ivy, but at least this time we stop in the hallway by the stairs instead of going all the way outside.

  Elizabeth sighs and scuffs her feet on the floor and doesn’t look like herself, and it’s not that I don’t know what is probably happening here, it’s just that…she just got me this bracelet. It doesn’t feel real. I feel detached, like somehow I’ve already lived this and now I’m watching a recording of it.

  She says, “I think I’m going to take that job in Boston.”

  I’m not surprised, but I feel cold, colder than I would have expected. “Oh.”

  She shrugs and looks away.

  “Um…why?” I say.

  It’s just a train ride, I tell myself. You went over how it was just a train ride.

  Maybe this isn’t over.

  She says, “I am never going to make you light up like she does.”

  Oh.

  She just got me this bracelet, which I didn’t love nearly as much as a five-dollar paperback.

  God, I deserve this, but that doesn’t mean I want it. Suddenly it’s so, so important that I not get rejected for the second time in two months. Something needs to hold together.

  Damage control. “Okay,” I say. “I know I was a bad girlfriend tonight.”

  She looks at me.

  “And a lot of other nights, too,” I say.

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay. I’ll do better. I’m working on it. I really am.”

  “You’re in love with Ivy,” she says. It hits like a hammer, and I hear the tears in the back of her throat.

  “I’m working on that,” I say quietly.

  Her eyes are shining. “And you’re not in love with me.”

  “I…”

  But it doesn’t matter what I say now. As soon as I paused, I lost her.

  I’m working on that, too?

  I’m trying so hard to turn into you?

  I wish I were a bratty seventeen-year-old who gets everything she wants, but I’m a fuck-up of a twenty-year-old who doesn’t know if she wants you to stay or go?

  But it doesn’t matter what I want anymore. I know that.

  “I wish you hadn’t led me on,” she says. “But it’s not like I didn’t let you. I guess I can’t be too angry about it.”

  “You can be,” I say quietly.

  She shrugs. She’s angry about it, biting down on her bottom lip, averting her eyes from me, but she wants to be the kind of person who isn’t. Her whole persona is about being the kind of person who would be graceful in situations like this.

  For the first time in our entire relationship, I’m being the honest one.

  “I don’t want to be in love with her,” I say.

  “I know,” she says. “Why would you?”

  “Yeah.” I breathe out. “Yeah, exactly.” I shake my head a little. “You should take the bracelet back.”

  “No, no. It’s yours. Listen, I’m going to go, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll see you around. Happy birthday.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  She turns and goes down the stairs. Her shoulders are beautiful under her tank top straps. Her hair’s freshly shaved in the back. She tried to look good for my party. It worked, and I can still feel her skin underneath mine.

  I might never see her again, and that feels like regret, but it also feels like relief, and that makes me just furious at myself.

  At Ivy, and that suddenly rushes through me like a train.

  I stay there frozen for half a minute, waiting for it to dissipate like it always does when I’m angry at Ivy—push it down, push it down—but it just stays, gathering speed inside me, and before I can think, I turn and go back into the party. Ivy’s leaning against her kitchen island, watching with an eyebrow raised while Melody tries to balance bottles on top of Dot’s head, but I take her by the wrist and pull her into the bathroom.

  “Uh, ow,” she says. “What’s with you?”

  “Elizabeth just broke up with me,” I say.

  Ivy blinks. “All right. Are you okay?”

  “Why the fuck did you give me that book?” I say. “Why did you have to do it in front of her? Your love story is coming? When she’s sitting right there? What the fuck is she supposed to think about that?”

  “I didn’t care what she thought about it,” Ivy says. “I cared what you thought about it.”

  “Stop it,” I say. I point at her. “You don’t get to do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Come in here and be all fucking dreamy and thoughtful like you’re my fucking girlfriend. You’re not my girlfriend.”

  “If I recall, I was pulled in here—”

  “Why do you do this?” I say. “You spent the entire time I was with her sneering and making snarky remarks about how much she sucked. Why the fuck do you do that if you don’t even want to be with me?”

  “Because she—wait for it—sucks. She’s pretentious and she steamrolls you and she was trying to turn you into some mini version of her and she made you feel like all the stuff about you that wasn’t about her didn’t matter.”

  I know that that’s true. But I also know that it’s not the whole truth.

  “You liked having me in love with you,” I say. “Maybe liked having me there on the back burner in case you ever decided you wanted me, or maybe you just liked the goddamn attention, but don’t give me any more shit about what a curse it’s been to have me wanting you when your whole fucking life is so carefully constructed to have everyone fall in love with you, without you having to ever find out what loving someone might feel like.”

  Her eyes narrow, and she takes a step toward me.

  “This blaming me for all the shit in your life is really fun and everything,” Ivy says. “But maybe it’s about time you take some responsibility for your goddamn self. You knew I didn’t want you and you lusted over me for how long, exactly?”

  I can’t breathe.

  “How long did you hold on to this thing you knew would never happen just because you like being victimized?” Ivy says. She takes another step toward me. “And guess what? I didn’t make you fuck up your relationship with Elizabeth. You were a phenomenally shitty girlfriend all on your own.” She shakes her head. “Now let me out of my fucking bathroom.”

  I do. The music swells and then quiets as she shuts the door behind her.

  I hear the party inside. I hear my heart beating.

  I don’t have Elizabeth.

  I’m not going to have Ivy.

  My breath catches in my throat.

  I’m free.

  …

  My parents are at the kitchen table with my brother when I get home, a half-eaten coffee cake between them, my brother’s tie loose around his neck.

  “Hey!” my mother says. “Did you have fun?” The windows are open and everything smells like violets from my dad’s garden outside.

  “Um…I think so.” Honestly, I think I’m going to be processing all of that for the next year of my life, but around all the embarrassment and shame, there’s this floaty
feeling in my stomach that I can’t shake. I hang up my jacket and say, “Max, what are you doing here?”

  “Good to see you, too. Happy birthday.”

  “Thanks.” They all seem serious, and I know I walked into something. I just don’t know what I could walk into that they wouldn’t tell me. Maybe Catherine kicked him out?

  My mom gives me kind of a long look and then says, “Come here,” and leads me up to her bedroom.

  “What’s going on?” I say.

  She roots around her dresser drawer. “Now where the fuck… I swear I just…”

  “Mom.”

  “What?”

  “What are Dad and Max talking about?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” she says firmly.

  “Is Catherine okay?”

  “Catherine’s fine.” She takes an envelope out of the drawer and hands it to me.

  “Mom,” I say.

  “Oh, will you just open it? It’s your damn birthday.”

  I sigh and open the envelope while my mom mumbles about me being an ungrateful brat. Inside is a brochure. And a flight confirmation for the end of May.

  I’ve never been on a plane before.

  “What is this?” I say.

  “Look at the brochure,” she says.

  So I do. It’s this program for people my age, two-week trips to different parts of the world to learn about various things at each one: architecture in Hong Kong, theater in London, food in Spain. There’s a page dog-eared. Italian literature.

  “Italy?” I say.

  “You know I always meant to take you there. And they’ll take you to Lucca, see, that’s where your great-grandmother was from.”

  “But I don’t…I can’t read Italian.”

  “Oh, it’s in English. Trust me, I made sure!”

  “Mom.” I close the brochure. “This is too expensive.”

  “It’s done,” she says firmly. “The reservation is booked, your name is on a list, you’re going.” She puts her hands on my shoulders. “You need to get out of this town for a little bit, huh?”

  And just like that, I’m crying, and I nod really hard, and my mom hugs me. And she doesn’t know what’s been going on with me—God, she probably does; she figures out everything—but it’s enough. Just feeling her around me and holding the promise of something bigger than this, even if it’s a month away, even if it’s just for two weeks—I’m going to see the goddamn world.