The Love Song of Ivy K. Harlowe

by Hannah Moskowitz

  “I think the pacemaker’s supposed to keep her okay for a while. But yeah, eventually…I think in some number of years, stuff is kind of gonna go downhill.”

  “How’s she doing now?” Diana says, and after I shrug—I’ve only seen her once or twice in the two weeks since she’s been out of the hospital—Alyssa flags down Ivy, who’s over at the bar. She’s talking up some older girl I’ve seen around here a few times. She cut her hair to her shoulders last week and it’s hot as hell. She’s drinking soda tonight.

  She excuses herself from the girl and comes over and slides onto a stool. “What’s up?”

  “How’s Dot doing?” Alyssa says.

  If she’s pissed at being interrupted for this, she doesn’t show it. “Mostly she’s just tired. A little jumpy.” Ivy’s helped Dot sneak out of her house a few times, but I don’t think they’ve seen all that much of each other thanks to the intense surveillance Dot’s under. Then again, when have I ever had an accurate guess of how much time Ivy and Dot spend together? “She doesn’t remember what happened, but she has nightmares.”

  “Is she going to get better?” Melody says. “Like, is she still recovering?”

  “We’re not sure,” Ivy says.

  “Is she still starting at RISD in the fall?” Diana asks.

  “She hasn’t worked that out, either.”

  “So it’s all just wait and see,” I say.

  Ivy shrugs. “I’m just going where she’s going right now.” Her phone buzzes on the table, and she picks it up and reads something. And smiles.

  …

  “How’s our girl doing?” Libby asks me at the club the next day.

  “I haven’t really seen her,” I say. “Ivy says she’s okay.”

  “She better be coming back soon.” Libby examines herself in the mirror. “With these new crowds, I need to be looking my best. God knows I can’t get my wings as sharp as she can. And I miss that laugh of hers.”

  “I miss her videos,” Kayla says.

  “She’s still working on getting her stamina back,” I say. “I’m sure she’ll be back here as soon as she can. She loves this place more than we do.”

  “Tell her that thanks to her, there’s gonna be a place to come home to,” Libby says.

  “Spin around and spit,” I say.

  Once I’m done making the rounds and checking the books—we’re not making money yet, but we almost are, and Libby’s right, talk of closing the place has been a lot quieter lately—I take my spot at the reception desk, since Hailey has once again called out.

  It’s too late for the lunch crowd and too early for the after-work crowd, so it’s pretty quiet, and I read some and look at pictures from Italy for the millionth time and eventually work up the courage to check the OkCupid profile I made last week. Ivy would tease me forever if she saw it—I flat-out say that I’m looking for my big love story—but she’s been a little busy.

  I have three messages. God.

  As always happens when any girl shows any interest in me whatsoever, my first instinct is to delete my entire existence and run screaming into the woods, but I force myself to open them. One looks like spam, one’s just “Hi,” but one’s actually a sweet message from someone asking about my trip to Italy. Her name’s Gretchen. She has a picture of a cat in her photos and brown curly hair. She’s twenty and she goes to Johnson & Wales. She has a beautiful smile.

  I draft a message back, and by the end of my shift, we have a date set for next week.

  …

  “We’re trying again!” I announce to Ivy. “We are reentering society! Lesbian seeks partner!”

  “That’s the gayest sentence I’ve ever heard,” Ivy says. She’s spinning around in her desk chair, her legs slung over the armrest. Dot’s here, was here when I arrived, and now she’s on the couch, drinking tea and curled up small. Both her parents had to work today and her brothers weren’t available to stand guard, so Dot promised she’d stay in the house, so of course she’s here. She hasn’t talked much since I got here, and when I give Ivy a look about it, she just shrugs and mouths, She’s tired.

  I’ve called Dot a lot of things, but quiet has never been one of them.

  “You should be proud of me,” I say. “I’m endeavoring to not waste my entire life hung up on you.”

  Can’t relate, Dot would say here, but she just sips the tea Ivy made for her.

  “So is she another pretentious paleontologist?” Ivy says.

  “Veterinarian.”

  “Ah, but mine was alliterative.”

  “She’s just a student,” I say. “Seems sweet. She’s never been to Italy.” Her profile has a picture of her with a tray of cookies, so she seems wholesome and nice, and also like she might make me cookies.

  “Oh God, please tell me you’ve found someone who wants to hear about Italy,” Ivy says. “I can’t smile and nod anymore.”

  “Hey! It was a life-changing experience!”

  “Oh my God, I know.”

  Dot says, “Where are you going for the date?”

  I cover my face with my hands. “This café Elizabeth showed me.” The one with the pain au chocolat.

  “I changed my mind,” Ivy says. “That’s the gayest sentence I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s a good café!” I say. “It has nothing to do with Elizabeth. All the cool places I know are from you or her.”

  “So take her to one of mine,” Ivy says. “Make sure this one doesn’t hate Kinetic before you take your pants off.”

  “She already mentioned Kinetic,” I say. “She likes it.”

  “Well, then I’ve probably slept with her,” Ivy says.

  “Probably.”

  “What do you think?” Ivy says to Dot.

  “Yes, you’ve probably slept with her.”

  “Not that, brat.”

  I get what Ivy’s doing, and I get that it’s okay for her to needle Dot and not for me, but I still want to tell Ivy to leave her alone. She’s clearly exhausted just from sitting here and listening to us. God, this sucks.

  “I don’t know.” Dot squirms on the couch. “She sounds nice.” She sets the mug down. Her hand is shaking.

  Ivy notices, too. “You need a beta blocker?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “They make me dizzy.”

  “You’re dizzy anyway.”

  Dot shrugs.

  Ivy spins in the chair. “Then how aboooout you share your opinions with the class?”

  “I don’t have opinions,” Dot says. She settles back on the couch, playing with the scar on her chest.

  “That’s a new one. You want to sleep some?” Ivy says.

  “I’ve been sleeping all day.”

  The dishwasher beeps, and Ivy goes to the kitchen and starts unloading it. She seems kind of stressed, and I know Dot notices, too, because she chews on her thumbnail and turns around on the couch to watch her.

  Dot closes her eyes like she’s steeling herself and then says, “I want to go out.”

  “You just got here,” Ivy says, examining one of her glasses.

  “Not home, out. I haven’t seen everyone since I got out of the hospital.”

  Ivy doesn’t look up from the glass. “Nah.”

  “Please?”

  “There’s a new fashion documentary on Netflix, did you see?”

  “Ivy.”

  Ivy doesn’t say anything, and at first I think she’s giving Dot the classic Ivy Harlowe Silence of Finality, but then she sets down the glass and says, “Mama’s, not Kinetic. For an hour. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Dot says, and after Ivy leaves to get dressed, she slowly stretches and sits up. She starts to braid her hair, but after a few twists says, “Fuck,” softly and shakes out her arms.

  “You sure you’re up to this?” I s
ay.

  “It’s just sitting somewhere else instead of here.”

  “You seem to have forgotten how exhausting our friends are.”

  Dot shrugs, then says after a moment, “I don’t want to overwhelm her,” quietly.

  “I think your stalking days proved that’s not really possible.”

  “That was different,” she says. “I just…I want to be as easy to love as possible.”

  I don’t really know how to respond. I want to say she shouldn’t have to worry about that, but I also know Ivy, and I know how much smaller I’ve made myself to try to be what she wanted.

  It never worked, though. Shrinking into Ivy’s shadow never made her love me more. And Dot, physical size aside, has never been small.

  “You’re still you,” I say eventually.

  She gets up slowly and slings her bag over her shoulder. “I don’t know if I am, really.”

  …

  Diana and Alyssa are available, and they already have a table reserved when we get there. Ivy parks as close as we can get and lets Dot grip her hand on her way in. Dot seems nervous, and Ivy has that fierce focused face she puts on when she’s trying not to seem nervous.

  The girls exclaim and hug her and Dot flinches a little, but she smiles and takes her seat. Ivy drums her fingers on the table and goes to order drinks while Alyssa and Diana keep fawning over Dot, telling her how good she looks.

  “I look like a corpse,” Dot says. It’s awkward.

  It gets better when Ivy comes back with drinks. Alyssa asks Dot a lot of questions, how she’s feeling, what the hospital stay was like, what happens next, until Ivy gets fed up and says, “What is this, an episode of ER? There must be something else to talk about that’s more exciting than heart failure.”

  There’s a long pause where we try to think of literally anything more exciting than that. “Um,” Alyssa says. “I can talk about my internship?”

  “Yes, good, that,” Ivy says, and Dot squeezes her hand and mouths, Thank you, when she thinks no one is watching.

  So we talk about Alyssa’s internship, and Gretchen from OkCupid, and Diana’s mom’s new job, and Ivy laughs in the right places while Dot looks wistfully at the dance floor.

  It’s all going okay until a guy walks by and runs into Dot’s chair. She jumps, he apologizes, Ivy glares at the guy and says, “It’s okay, shake it off,” to Dot. She’d mentioned to me that Dot startles easily now, and I’ve tried to be careful about loud noises and sudden movements and touching her when she’s not expecting it. All of which this sort of was.

  A minute later, Dot puts her hands on her chest and says, “I can’t breathe,” and I think my own heart just about stops. All of a sudden, I’m right back there, Ivy’s apartment, the looks on their faces, the sirens approaching too slowly.

  So Alyssa and Diana and I are panicking right away, but Ivy says, “Stop,” and scoots in closer to Dot. “Slow it down,” she says. “In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

  “I can’t,” Dot gasps.

  “Yes, you can. Close your eyes, block it out.”

  I say, “Do we need to call someone?” Her mom. A doctor. An ambulance.

  Ivy shakes her head, keeping her eyes on Dot. “She’s okay.”

  Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. “Ivy.”

  “It’s a panic attack,” Ivy snaps. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “What if it’s a heart attack?” Dot says.

  Ivy puts her hand on the back of Dot’s head. “Then you’d feel your pacemaker go off.”

  “What if it’s broken?”

  “It’s not broken. You felt it an hour ago.”

  “I can’t breathe.”

  “I hear you breathing. You’re okay. You’re just scared. It’s okay.”

  Dot bites down on her fist, tears spilling out of her eyes, and Ivy rubs her back.

  I say, “Ivy, maybe just to be safe—”

  “Quiet,” she says.

  Dot shakes. “My chest hurts.”

  Ivy strokes her hair. “Yeah, ’cause you’re freaking out. It’ll stop soon. Remember yesterday? Over before you know it. Breathe along with me.”

  Dot squeezes her eyes shut.

  “Dot,” Ivy says firmly. “I need you to listen to me. Breathe when I am, come on.”

  “Everyone’s staring at me.”

  “No one’s staring at you,” Ivy says with a death glare at us. “No one’s even noticing you with how busy this place is. That’s what’s freaking you out. But you’re safe. If something bad were happening, people would notice. We’d do something.”

  Dot sobs. “What if you missed it?”

  “I won’t miss it.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I know. Everything’s okay.”

  Dot grapples for Ivy’s hand.

  “There you go,” Ivy says. She laces her fingers through Dot’s and puts her other hand on hers. “You’re doing fine. You’re going to be just fine.”

  I don’t know how the fuck Ivy stays so calm when Dot is crying and panting and saying the same things she said the night of, but gradually she calms Dot down. Dot wipes her face and takes a few deep breaths. Alyssa says, “Welcome back,” and Dot gives her a weak smile.

  “Diana’s going to come with you to the bathroom to get you cleaned up, okay?” Ivy says, and Diana nods and stands up.

  “Okay,” Dot says. Ivy kisses her cheek and helps her stand up, and as soon as Dot and Diana are around the corner, she leaves the bar.

  Alyssa and I exchange looks.

  “She’s not…leaving her here, right?” Alyssa says.

  “No, she wouldn’t do that.” I mean, she would, but not to Dot. I hope. “I’m gonna follow her.”

  “Yeah, do that.”

  I don’t have to go far. Ivy’s outside, under the awning, her arms around her waist, her body folded in half. She’s crying so hard, I don’t know how she’s staying on her feet. And I think I feel my heart break.

  I’ve only ever seen her cry this hard once.

  “Baby,” I say.

  She shakes her head fast, and I put my hand on her arm. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. I can’t breathe.”

  I try to channel how she was a minute ago, how smoothly she talked Dot down. “She’s okay. You were right, it was just a panic attack. You did great. I couldn’t even tell you were scared.”

  She shakes. “I don’t want her to worry. God fucking shit, they look just like heart attacks.”

  “Come inside and you can see her.”

  “No. No. I don’t want to be trouble for her.”

  “Ivy, you’re not.”

  “My chest hurts,” Ivy says, and she cries and cries.

  …

  Somehow I end up relaying this whole story to Gretchen on our first date. She asks me about my friends, and all of it just kind of…comes out.

  “And then Ivy pulled herself together and went back into the bar and got Dot home,” I finish. “Like everything was totally fine. They’re both so scared that the other one can’t handle what they’re going through. I’d say they need to have a conversation, but I’m still not sure they’ve ever had an actual conversation with each other in their entire relationship. Well, one. I overheard one once. I guess statistically it’s not likely that the one conversation they’ve ever had is the one I happened to overhear, huh?”

  “Probably not,” Gretchen says, cutting into her chicken. She has curly dirty-blonde hair and she isn’t wearing much makeup, but her cheeks are pink and friendly.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I know I’m talking too much.”

  “You’ve got a lot going on right now.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s just, um…it’s weird. I didn’t really internalize how much Dot’s squirmed her way into our lives, and now she’s sick a
nd everything just feels like it’s on pause, waiting for her.”

  “Except she’s not going to get better,” Gretchen says.

  “Yeah. I don’t know what to do with that.”

  “It can be a lot to deal with,” she says. “My sister has lupus, and it’s hard to let go of the hope that someday she’s going to magically wake up and be okay. But I try not to let her know that. She doesn’t need to carry my stupid hope around.”

  “What’s weird is I don’t even like Dot that much,” I say.

  Gretchen laughs.

  “I’m serious. She’s my best friend’s girlfriend, but she’s always kind of driven me crazy.”

  “Well, don’t start liking her just because she’s sick,” Gretchen says. “That’s not fair to anyone.”

  I think about Dot on that dock that night in January, ready to dive into freezing-cold water to save some fishermen’s jobs.

  “I think I started liking her a while ago,” I say. “I just didn’t want to believe I did.”

  “A big part of adjusting to my sister’s new life was getting used to the idea that the, like, ultimate goal in life doesn’t have to be as capable as possible. Maybe the goal is to see the goodness in other people. You know? You can get angsty about needing help, or you can look at the fact that people are helping you and think, God, humans are so good. People’s capacity to care for one another is, like…completely amazing, and Lucy sees that every day. Like we’re both so in awe of my mom and how well she handles it.”

  “Ivy’s never really been the caretaking type,” I say. “I don’t think she’s ever helped anyone realize the goodness of humanity.” Except maybe mid-climax.

  “Do you think she can do it?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so.” And then I think about how fucking weird it is that I hope so. There’s really not a part of me that wants them to break up? All it takes is a medical emergency for me to get over all my shit? I’m all well-adjusted now?

  “Well, I hope if she can’t, she figures it out sooner rather than later, for both their sakes,” Gretchen says, and then she pivots to talking about some friends of hers who broke up recently and I find out exactly how not well-adjusted I am, because I nod and try to listen, but I just want to talk about Dot and Ivy some more. I’m either interjecting with “oh, that reminds me” or desperately trying to make myself shut up and stop interjecting with “oh, that reminds me.”