The Love Song of Ivy K. Harlowe

by Hannah Moskowitz

  Well, what am I supposed to say, no? It is her birthday.

  It’s like Kinetic knows, too. The lights seem brighter, the glitter sparklier, the music faster. Or maybe I just really needed this. God, it’s been a hell of a summer, but it feels like we’re finding our footing again. It feels like we might actually be okay.

  And if not, at least there’s that bass beat. Our big gay collective heart pumping stronger than a person’s ever could.

  Ivy goes straight for that bartender, like a girl on a mission, and I guess that birthday line must work because they’re making out over the bar in about a second, and not long after that, Ivy’s leading her back to the couches by the collar of her uniform. I guess she finally decided Ivy’s worth risking her job for. I can’t say I’m surprised.

  I dance by myself for a while, and then Ivy comes out and joins me, her arms around my neck, smiling up at the lights. “I needed this,” she says, and she lets go of me to twirl around.

  “I know.”

  She tucks her forehead against mine. “I love you.”

  I smile. “I love you, too.” And for just a minute, it’s like the last year never happened. We’re back at Kinetic, the girls are beautiful, and Ivy is mine.

  I know it’s not real. I don’t even really want it to be.

  But it’s a good story.

  …

  Ivy’s sleepy as hell by the time we get home, and she heads straight up to Dot’s room, but I notice the light in the kitchen and go to check out what’s going on. My mom’s standing by the stove. “Everything okay?” she says.

  “Making some chamomile for your dad,” she says.

  “He okay?”

  “Just having some trouble sleeping.” She opens the cabinet where he keeps his meds. “Hmm. Can you go ask him if he took a Xanax already? I don’t want to yell up and wake Dot.”

  “Sure,” I say, but when I get upstairs, the door to Dot’s room is open and the lights are on. Ivy’s sitting on the foot of the bed, yawning and fastening a blood pressure cuff around Dot’s arm.

  “Did you have fun tonight?” Dot is asking her. I can’t see most of her, but she sounds sleepy, happy.

  “Yeah, did you?”

  “Uh-huh. Did you fuck the bartender?”

  “Sure did. Hold still.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “Fuck off.” The machine beeps, and she says, “Hundred and two over seventy. Good. Where the hell’s that log book…”

  “I miss dancing,” Dot says softly.

  “We’ll find a way,” Ivy says. “You can still do everything. Just different now.”

  “I know. I’m okay, Ivy.”

  “I know you are. Ah. There it is.”

  “Quick question,” Dot says.

  “Hmm?”

  “When did we get so fucking boring?” she says, and Ivy laughs, big and real.

  It occurs to me right then, for some reason, that I’d always assumed that there were two Ivys. Fake Ivy, the one who makes girls crawl for her in the club, and Real Ivy, the one who cries in an abandoned street about her dad. But there’s this Ivy, the Ivy who’s carefully fastening a blood pressure cuff like it’s the most precious thing in the world, who’s laughing and tangling her legs up with Dot’s.

  Why did I think the only real Ivy was who she is when she’s miserable?

  I don’t even remember to ask my dad about the meds. I just go back downstairs and sit at the kitchen table, trying to sort through all the crap in my mind. Trying to figure out how the hell we got to here. Everything made so much more sense an hour ago, under the lights.

  “What’s wrong?” my mom says.

  “I don’t think I’m ever going to love anyone as much as Dot and Ivy love each other,” I say.

  I’m sure she’ll instantly reassure me that I will, like Catherine did, but instead, she says, “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t think I’m built to take care of another person like they are. Dot told Ivy to go out because she could tell that she needed it. Ivy’s up there keeping a record of Dot’s blood pressures. You’re keeping track of Dad’s meds.”

  “Well, not very well, clearly.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that,” I say. “And I don’t know if I want to.”

  She turns around from the stove. “So don’t,” she says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

  “Then what am I supposed to do?”

  “There is a lot more out there than falling in love,” she says. “That’s just one option. There are a million other things that you can be and do. And a million more ways to love people that you haven’t even thought of yet.”

  “Aren’t you disappointed in me?” I say. “I mean, I’m sitting here telling you that I’m not a good enough person to take care of someone else.”

  “Knowing your limits does not make you a bad person,” she says firmly. “Not everyone has to be everything. Hell, if the world were only made up of Ivys, nothing would ever get done. No one would get out of bed.” She shrugs. “And who knows. Maybe you’ll never want to be responsible for another person. And that’s okay. Or maybe you’ll meet the right person and it won’t sound like such a hardship anymore. And that’s okay, too. You’ll figure it out, Duck.”

  I cover my eyes and groan. “God. It’s her.”

  “What’s her?”

  “For years, I thought Ivy and I couldn’t be together because there was something fundamentally broken about Ivy and she couldn’t be in a relationship,” I explain. “And then she gets with Dot, and I think, okay, the problem is me; she just couldn’t be in a relationship with me. But it’s not about me, and it’s not about Ivy. We’re not the factor. It’s Dot. It’s her.”

  “Yes,” my mom says. “It’s her.”

  “God. I still don’t get why. I don’t think I ever really will.”

  Mom shrugs. “They see through each other’s bullshit. And they think each other’s bullshit is funny. I don’t know, darling. She’s just the lid to Ivy’s pot. You can’t fully explain these things. Sometimes two people just…”

  “Orbit each other,” I say.

  “Yes. And by the way, honey?”

  “Oh God, what did I do?”

  She laughs a little. “I just thought you should know. You don’t love someone who you think is fundamentally broken. That’s not love.”

  I kind of just…sit with that.

  “Imagine how Ivy would react if someone said Dot was broken now,” she says.

  “Yeah. I don’t have to.” I rub my hand over my mouth. “God, she really loves her.”

  My mom smiles at me. “This is her story. This big, once-in-a-lifetime love, it’s Ivy’s story this time. You’ll get your own.”

  My own.

  It’s not that I’m the secondary character in my own story.

  It’s just that this one was never my story.

  …

  On the last day of August, Dot comes down the stairs in brand-new clothes, her backpack on and stuffed with textbooks.

  I jingle the keys. “You ready?”

  She takes a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

  September

  (Again)

  “Do you have any other questions?” the admissions counselor asks me.

  About a million, but I’ve already asked her a previous million and I have about ten brochures in my hands. Imagine Yourself at Community College of Rhode Island. Student Life at CCRI. CCRI: English Department. So I say, “I don’t think so, not right now.”

  “Okay, well, you have our email address if you think of anything. Thank you for stopping by. Hope to see your application soon!”

  I walk out of the administration building and into the midmorning sun. A couple of students brush past me on their way in, and a few more are on the sidewalk, chatting a
nimatedly. It’s not Brown’s campus, isn’t the manicured lawns and stone buildings I grew up picturing as the college experience, but look at Dot and Ivy. College isn’t always what you expected it would be.

  Dot and Ivy themselves are here, lying on their backs under a tree by the entrance, their heads against each other, laughing so hard I can see their stomachs moving. I make my way over and kick Ivy’s shoe.

  She sits up. “Got what you needed?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” I pull Dot off the ground.

  “I still think you should apply to a four-year school,” Dot says as we walk back to the car. “Dream big and all that.”

  “You are such a snob,” Ivy says.

  “You should talk.”

  “I can always transfer,” I say. “But this is an easy drive. And it’s something. I’m sick of being a tourist in my own life.”

  “And it’s very close to my apartment,” Ivy says.

  “Yeah, Dot can do my makeup every day before class,” I say. She’s back to spending more time at Ivy’s apartment than at my house.

  Dot laughs. “Glitter eye shadow for first period.”

  “Cut creases.”

  “Blinding highlight.”

  “I’m sorry, what is this about every morning?” Ivy says. “Someone’s got her own fucking classes to attend.” She nudges Dot. “In Providence.”

  “Shut up,” I say to Ivy. “I’m trying to have a conversation with your girlfriend.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Dot says. “I’m an excellent multitasker.” She tips down and does a cartwheel on the sidewalk.

  …

  For the first time in a year, the strip club makes money. So we celebrate in the natural way: a topless dance party. The dancers invite their friends, Catherine and I invite our friends, and we all crowd into Dav’s after closing to blast music and drink our way back into the red.

  I’m getting ready for it in the club dressing room after the last customer leaves when my phone dings with an alert that a new video is up from someone I’ve subscribed to. And since I’m not a big YouTuber, that means one person.

  I have to take a moment after I read the title.

  Makeup When You’re Sick.

  Dot’s in front of the white wall in Ivy’s apartment, barefaced, her hair braided. She smiles at the camera—not her usual cheesy grin, just a little thing. Real.

  “Hi, hi, what’s up, it’s your girl Dot. So I know I’ve been gone for a while, and I have a whole explanation video coming, but right now I just want to sit down with you guys and put a face on. So this is a tutorial on adaptive makeup, which means makeup for people with disabilities or chronic illnesses, but you can use it if you’re just feeling sick or tired and you want to look good but you have trouble with the strength or dexterity you might need to follow a regular tutorial. Obviously the techniques I show here aren’t going to be good for people with all illnesses or disabilities, so feel free to substitute or ignore anything that doesn’t work for you, and I’m still learning all of this myself, so I’m definitely not an expert, but…let’s dive in.”

  I get ready with her and watch the views roll in.

  …

  “Your makeup looks good,” Alyssa says once the party’s started and we’re hanging by the bar. Hers does, too. I need to ask her how she always picks the perfect lipstick shade, because it makes her whole face glow.

  “Thanks. Dot hauled me over and fixed my eyeliner as soon as she got here.”

  The whole room is some kind of lesbian fantasy. Topless girl after topless girl, dancers, friends, strangers, gay girls, straight girls, cis girls, trans girls, mothers, daughters. Melody’s hanging upside down on the pole. Dot’s hanging out in one of the go-go cages, swinging her legs, playing with her scar with one hand. Ivy’s…God knows where. Probably in the bathroom with her head between someone’s thighs.

  “I’m kind of drunk,” Alyssa says.

  I turn my face up to the disco ball. “Me too.”

  “Do you ever think about you and me getting together?”

  I choke on my drink. “What?”

  She shrugs. “I’ve had a crush on you for ages. I’m just wondering if you’d ever considered it.”

  I think my brain is broken.

  “Um…no,” I say truthfully. “I never really thought about it.” Though it isn’t escaping my notice that she has great tits. “Really? You like me?”

  “No pressure or anything. But we’re both single and I’m drunk enough to tell you, so I figured what the hell.”

  “This is much better than my drunken love confession,” I say. “Can I go get something to write with? I want to take notes on this.”

  She laughs. “Just think it over, okay?”

  “Yeah, I will,” I say, and she kisses my cheek and climbs up on the stage to grind against Diana, and I pour myself another drink, because what a ridiculously strange year this has been.

  Ivy sidles up to me at the bar a few moments later. “Yo.”

  “How was…whoever you were with?”

  “Lovely.” She scans the room until her eyes land on Dot, then abruptly pretends she wasn’t.

  “You’re funny,” I say.

  “Shut up.” She sighs. “God. She loved dancing.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s hard,” Ivy says. “It’s just hard sometimes.”

  But they smile at each other across the room.

  I think about what my mom said, that Ivy and Dot are some once-in-their-lifetime thing, and I’m not sure if that’s exactly right. I think it’s once in all our lifetimes. This is some once-in-a-generation shit. This is the kind of love they write poems about. They put up statues. They name holidays. Fifty years from now, schools will put on Ivy and Dot: The Musical.

  “I’m so obsessed with you two,” I say.

  “Well, don’t jump off a bridge if we break up.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you break up,” I say. “It matters that it happened.” I hit my shoulder against hers. “Ivy Harlowe fell in love.”

  “You realize you’re totally weird, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  A slow song starts up, and Ivy says, “Gotta go.” She cuts across the room and climbs into the cage with Dot, and Dot stands on her tiptoes and puts her arms around Ivy’s neck. Ivy lays her fingers across her scars as they dance.

  And I…. Fuck it. I go up to the stage and tap Alyssa on the shoulder.

  She raises an eyebrow at me.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready,” I say. “I don’t know if I feel the same way you do.”

  “Okay,” she says.

  “And I’m still getting over Ivy and I don’t know if I ever fully will.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I don’t want to ruin our friendship and I’m scared of everything all the time.”

  “Okay,” she says. She puts her arms around my waist. “Now shut up. Keep dancing.”

  So I do.

  And I don’t think this is going to last forever. I don’t think this is my great love story. Maybe that’s still to come.

  Or maybe I won’t have one. Maybe my story is about being a good friend or a good daughter. Saving a shitty strip club.

  Saving a girl’s life.

  Or maybe I’m supposed to be a witness. To document. Maybe I’ll write a book about two girls who meet, maybe in Italy. Maybe one of them needs a new heart. Maybe they fall desperately in love.

  Maybe they’ll live happily ever after.

  Anything’s possible.

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  Acknowledgments

  Thank you so much to my
incredibly supportive parents, my beautiful sister and brother-in-law and little nephew, to Benni, to Jessi, to Seth, to Parker, to Amanda, to Becca and Jen and Lydia and the whole Entangled team, to everyone who told me I was allowed to write this, to everyone who loves me at my most indulgent, to every girl who dreams of bigger things. You never know.

  About the Author

  Hannah Moskowitz is the author of more than a dozen works for children and young adults, including Break; A History of Glitter and Blood; the 2013 Stonewall Honor Book Gone, Gone, Gone; and the 2019 Sydney Taylor Honor Book Sick Kids in Love. She lives in Maryland with her partner, her dog, and half a dozen cats.

  twitter.com/hannahmosk

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