My parents almost definitely can’t hear her over my dad’s CPAP, and I’ve bolted out of bed in surprise before I’m even fully awake anyway. I pad down the hallway to Dot’s room. She’s twisted in her covers, whimpering more than screaming now, but she’s crying and sweating and shaking.
Ivy had promised me nightmares, but this is the first one she’s had since she moved in. Or at least the first one I’ve woken up for.
I perch on the edge of the bed and put my hand on her arm. “Dot. Hey.”
She draws in a sharp breath and shivers.
“Wake up,” I say. “Just a dream, come on.”
Slowly, Dot sits up and scoots herself to the edge of the bed. She wraps her arms around herself like she’s cold, so I pull the sweaty blanket off the bed and wrap it around her shoulders.
She chokes out a sob. “Fuck. God.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shakes her head hard.
“Do you want to call Ivy?”
She hesitates. “What time is it?” Her voice is so small.
I crane to see Max’s old football clock on her bedside table. “A little after two.”
“Okay. No. She needs to sleep.”
“She’ll go right back to sleep. You know her.”
“I… No. She does so much.”
“She doesn’t mind.”
“She doesn’t understand this,” Dot says. “She can’t. I don’t even understand this. Damn it!” She draws in a shaky breath. “Can you just sit with me for a little?”
I’m so, so tired, but…you know. Of course I can. “Yeah. Come here.”
I put my arm around her shoulders and pull her in close, and we stay like that until the tears dry up. Once I feel her relax, I say softly, “Dot?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe that support group wouldn’t be the worst idea.”
There’s a long pause before Dot takes a shaky breath in. “Yeah. Maybe not.”
I feel, for the first time in God knows how long, that I did a good job at something.
…
Ivy catches a cold, which means she has to keep her distance from Dot for a few days, and my parents are both doing stuff, so I end up picking Dot up from her first support group meeting. I park in front of the community center, and she comes out a few minutes later. She gets into the car and buckles her seat belt without saying anything.
“How was it?” I say. Her eyes are pink and a little swollen. Maybe just allergies, but probably not.
She says, “Fine,” and doesn’t talk the rest of the ride home, and I think about when I used to wish that she would shut up. When I was in the passenger seat of Ivy’s car and Dot was in the back babbling about school and her friends and my parents. It’s so hard to believe that’s the same girl next to me.
And that I’m the same girl, too, really.
But maybe she just needed time to process, because when my parents ask her the same question at dinner a few hours later, she pauses and says, “I think it was good. Most of the people there have been sick for a really long time, so I kind of feel like I’m…invading, I guess?”
“I’m sure no one but you is thinking that,” my mother says.
“I know. It’s just…I think it’s really hitting me that this isn’t going to go away.”
“What were the people like?” my dad says gently.
“They were nice. Most of them seem like they’re pretty well-adjusted with all of this. I guess that makes sense, since they’ve been doing it for a while. But then I don’t know why they’re going to a support group for it.”
“Maybe to find people like you,” my dad says.
Dot smiles, just a little, like it sneaked up on her. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Mom, of course, made a big batch of chicken soup for Ivy, so I bring that over afterward. She’s not too sick, but she seems antsy. “How’d she do?” she asks me.
“No panic attacks or anything, I don’t think.”
Ivy nods shortly. “Did she like it?”
“I think maybe, yeah. Sounds like she might make some friends there.”
Ivy doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t really relax.
“What’s up?” I say.
“Nothing. It’s good. It’s good that she’s going.”
“Yeah, it is. Right?”
“I said it was good,” Ivy snaps, and we don’t talk about it anymore.
…
Dot’s eyes are red again when Ivy brings her home after her next support group meeting, but she’s grinning and talking Ivy’s ear off about something funny Damon or Damien or something said at the meeting.
“He showed us this meme making fun of how healthy people talk to sick people and it was just…so funny,” Dot says. “It was so true. Oh, my aunt’s cousin’s cat has that. Have you tried yoga?” Ivy smiles blankly and nods along and otherwise just acts very distant, and as soon as they sit down at the kitchen table and Dot pulls out her phone—“I just want to send Susie this thing I told her about”—Ivy says something about how she needs to take out the trash and steps onto the back porch.
I can see right through that, obviously, so I follow her. “You don’t even live here anymore,” I say. “Also you didn’t bring the trash with you.”
She grips the railing on the porch and looks out onto our tiny backyard. “Shut up.”
I don’t know how I ended up playing marriage counselor for these girls, but I may as well commit to it. “Look, I don’t know what your issue is, but whatever it is, just talk to her.”
“I can’t.”
“Why do you have an issue with this?”
“I don’t. It’s great.”
“Ivy.”
“It is,” she says, but then she thinks for a minute and shakes her head, like she’s disagreeing with some silent conversation.
“Just talk to her,” I say again. “Maybe it’ll help.”
“Maybe she’ll think I’m a controlling jerk.”
“She seems to be into that.”
“God, anything to stop this conversation,” Ivy says and leads the way back into the kitchen. Ha. She leans against the counter and chews on her thumbnail while she watches Dot.
Dot, who is also not oblivious, says, “So you gonna tell me, or…?”
Ivy groans. “I’m going to say this once and that’s it, so you better fucking pay attention.”
“Okay.”
“You’re going on about your new friends and how much they understand you and how it’s not like having to deal with healthy people and that’s great and all except…” She shrugs. “We’re healthy people.”
She means I, not we, but I figure she can have this one. Besides, Dot knows. Of course she knows.
“I don’t hate healthy people,” Dot says. “It’s just different. In group we talk about what it’s like to be sick, but they don’t want to talk about, like, the details of my heart failure. They think it’s boring. Do you know what a relief it is to be boring when you’re used to being treated like a science experiment?”
“I don’t treat you like a science experiment,” Ivy says firmly, and Dot tilts her head to the side.
“Of course you don’t,” she says. “You treat me like I’m amazing. I need that, too.”
Ivy looks away, and Dot gets up and stands next to her at the counter.
Eventually Ivy says, “We’ve been so worried that you won’t be able to keep up,” in her smallest voice. “That you wouldn’t fit back into your old life. But now it turns out you’ve got this new life and it can be all big and incredible and sick and…what if it’s me; what if I can’t keep up with this?”
I would have no idea how to respond to that, but Dot doesn’t even hesitate. “You are more than what you do for me,” she says. “That is not why I want you around.”
Ivy watches her.
“It’s not big and incredible if it doesn’t have you,” Dot says.
It’s too much. It’s the kind of thing I’ve never said to Ivy because I’ve been so afraid of scaring her away. It’s the kind of thing I’ve wanted to say a million times, and I’d always blamed my hesitation on her.
But Ivy pulls Dot in and under her arm without looking at her, and they stay like that for a little while. I know I should leave, but I can’t.
“Who says I think you’re amazing, anyway?” Ivy says with a growl, and Dot shoves her.
…
We have this big dinner the next night. Me and my parents, obviously, and Max and Catherine, and Dot and her mom, and Ivy. I thought going to Kinetic alone with Dot would be a sitcom episode, but this could be a whole movie. Ivy buzzes around while we’re cooking and criticizes everything and otherwise radiates nervousness about sitting down with Dot’s mother, and Dot’s not feeling well, so she just curls up in the armchair and looks very, very amused.
We make shrimp scampi, obviously at Dot’s request, with garlic bread and sautéed spinach and my mom’s signature lemon Bundt for dessert. Dot gives her mom a big hug when she arrives and lets her triage her, smiling patiently. Ivy half ducks behind me like a fucking coward, but when Hai gives her a hesitant wave, Ivy speaks a little bit of Vietnamese and Hai nods.
So we dig in, the weirdest little family ever, and it’s surprisingly nice. Hai gets lost during the conversation a lot, but Dot’s always there to step in to translate, and honestly I think she follows more than she’s letting on. She laughs when Dot spills sauce on Ivy and Ivy grouches about the amount of money Dot costs her, and Dot glares at both of them.
There’s a lot to talk about. Catherine and Max are thinking about having a baby, so everyone’s excited about that, and I mention casually how I’m thinking of going back to school in the spring, which makes everyone all amped, and then that flows into a conversation about RISD.
“You’re going to have to decide soon,” Ivy says to Dot. They’ve given her some kind of special accommodation given the circumstances, where she can decide at the last minute if she’s going or if she’ll take a year off. But the last minute is rapidly approaching. School starts at the end of August.
“I know, I know,” Dot says, grabbing a bite off her mom’s plate.
“You’re still recovering,” my mom says. “What’s the harm in waiting a year?”
“I don’t know if it’s going to get any better than this,” Dot says. “So I might just be wasting a year for nothing.”
“So go,” Ivy says.
“But I don’t know if I can do it. I’d need to take all these breaks and ask for accommodations and—”
“So?” Ivy says.
“So I don’t know how to do that stuff.”
“You’re going to have to learn sooner or later,” Ivy says. Gently.
Dot changes the subject and we let her, but later, when she and Ivy and I are at the sink, scraping plates, she says, “I just don’t want to go and do a bad job. I don’t want to do some half-assed version of what I was planning because I’m too tired or the meds are making me sick.”
“It’s not half assed,” Ivy says. “Half assed implies you’re not trying. This is just your reality now.”
Dot doesn’t say anything.
“You’re still you,” Ivy says.
“I know that. I don’t… I’m getting used to it. It’s just hard, okay?”
“Yeah, well, keep going, Spot.” Ivy lowers her voice, but she sounds firm. “You need more than you used to. You have to forgive yourself for that.”
“Okay,” Dot says. “Well, you have to, too.” And they just look at each other over the plates.
I don’t really know what Dot means until late that night, when I’m woken up by another nightmare. I don’t rush into Dot’s room this time—Ivy is sleeping over in there, so I figure she has this under control—but once I’m awake, I have to pee, which takes me past their room.
And I stop, because it’s not Ivy’s voice I hear through the walls, comforting, soothing. It’s Dot’s.
“Shhh, it’s okay. Everything’s okay. I love you.”
Ivy says something too quiet for me to hear.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Dot says. “I’m okay now. I’m here. You and Andie saved my life.”
…
Ivy’s been busy, obviously, and when she gets busy, she tends to suck at taking care of her space, so I go over on Sunday to help her clean. I don’t know why she doesn’t just throw things away. The trash can is right there.
“Do you need this electric bill?” I say.
“Isn’t that all, like, autopay nowadays?”
“Uh, have you signed up for that?”
“Let’s assume I have. Live on the edge.”
It’s easy hanging out one-on-one with her, which is funny when a few months ago I thought it never would be again. Who knew it only took a little heart failure to bring people together. Dot’s macabre sense of humor about the whole thing is rubbing off on me. Yesterday I asked her to unload the dishwasher and she pretended to die on the kitchen floor.
“You’ve got like four unopened packages here,” I say to Ivy.
“Uh, don’t open those.”
“What are they, sex toys?”
She gives me a look like duh.
“Wait, really? You can get sex toys on Amazon?”
“Oh, my sweet summer child.”
“You’re really shy about me seeing your vibrators? I’m relieved you seem to have developed some shame.”
She rolls her eyes. “They’re Dot’s. She has them sent here.”
“So you’re saying Dot has shame? That sounds even less likely.”
“I don’t know. She’s pretty shy about people seeing that scar.”
One of the packages has the tape open and just a bunch of textbooks inside, so I unload those and stack them up on her coffee table. Understanding Art. History of Art. Contemporary Issues in Art Education.
“These Dot’s, too?” I ask.
She glances over from the TV stand, where she’s gathering up empty soda cans. “Uh, no, those are mine.”
“Art textbooks?”
She shrugs and gives me this sheepish smile. “I’m picking up an art minor this semester.”
“Oh yeah?”
She sighs heavily. “What can I say? The kid’s persuasive.”
I’m organizing a stack of papers later and I come across a few loose drawings sticking out of a sketch pad. Even if I didn’t know Ivy’s style, I’d recognize her fashion drawings anywhere. Dresses with crisscrossed straps on the back and flouncy skirts. Androgynous, perfectly tailored suits. Graphic tees tucked into tight, drop-crotch pants.
All drawn on a short Asian model. What a coincidence.
I smile to myself and close the book before Ivy sees me.
…
Dot’s birthday is that Thursday, and then Ivy’s the day after, so we all get together a few days before to figure out a joint birthday party. It’s Dot’s eighteenth, so it’s a pretty big deal, but considering how her graduation party went, everyone’s sort of tiptoeing around it.
“We can just go out,” Dot says. “Do the Mama’s and Kinetic circuit.”
“That’s not your scene anymore and you know it,” Ivy says. We’re all slouched around the living room, and Ivy’s on the couch, braiding Dot’s hair, since it’s hard for her to do herself nowadays.
“My scene is sleeping,” Dot says. “That’s not a birthday party.”
“We can just do something low-key,” Alyssa says. “Hang out here. Cake. Presents.”
“I like presents,” Dot says, sounding remarkably like her old self, and Ivy smirks.
Melody gasps and claps her hands together,
then whispers something in Diana’s ear.
“Oh, hell yes,” Diana says.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing, just my wife has the best ideas for low-key birthday parties ever,” Diana says.
“Tell us!” Dot says.
“Nope. It’s done. It’s planned. See you then.”
…
We have cake and sing “Happy Birthday” to Dot and she has lunch with her mom on Thursday, but the party is on Friday. Diana and Melody are already there when I get home from work. Melody’s dressed like a fifties movie starlet, fake pearls and homemade cigarette holder and all, and Diana looks like…a cowboy.
“What,” I say.
Diana solemnly hands me a booklet. “You are a California surfer,” she says.
Melody shakes her thumb and pinkie at me. “Hang ten, bro.”
It’s a murder mystery party. Dot’s an heiress (aren’t we supposed to be acting? Ivy says), Alyssa’s a chambermaid, and Ivy’s an international spy. Our books have secrets about who we really are and where we were at the time of the murder, and even though Ivy is totally cynical and sarcastic at first, by the time we’re done with the first half hour, we’re all very, very invested, examining clues and making wild accusations and doing everything we can to prove that we’re innocent. We eat our way through two pizzas and all the rest of the birthday cake, and at the end of it all, Diana totally gets away with murder.
“That was awesome,” Dot says, giving Melody a squeeze.
“You were a natural,” she says, and Dot beams.
We just lie around after that, watching stoner comedies on Netflix, and at around ten Dot gives Ivy a nudge. “You should go out,” she says quietly. I only hear because I’m on Ivy’s other side.
Ivy gives Dot a sideways look. “I’m fine here.”
Dot snorts. “You are coming out of your skin. Go dance. Tell that bartender it’s your birthday. I’m gonna go to bed soon anyway.”
Ivy looks around the room, then at her phone to check the time. “You sure?”
“Are you actually asking me for permission right now?”
“Yikes. No.” She kisses her. “Later.”
“Later.”
Ivy turns to me. “You coming?”
The Love Song of Ivy K. Harlowe Page 21