White Ivy(100)

“My grandmother?”

“You texted me that she’s in the hospital. What happened?”

“Oh!” Choked up with gratitude at his concern, Ivy told him about Meifeng’s surgery.

“I’m glad it wasn’t more serious,” he said.

“Did I tell you about my parents’ new warehouse?” Without waiting for his reply, she began rambling about the Lins’ business in a bright, showy tone, like a person suddenly thrown onstage with the threat of being stoned to death if she didn’t keep the audience’s attention.

“So they’ve pulled themselves into middle-class respectability,” said Roux. “Just like you’ve always wanted.”

“I guess.”

“Good. I’m happy for you.”

“Roux?”

“What?”

The aggression in his “What?” made her withdraw what she’d been going to ask, which was if he’d reconsidered his ridiculous blackmail, and instead the words “We never did take that trip we talked about” slid glibly off her tongue, as if they’d always been there, simply waiting until her denial and futile prayers fell away like the last dead leaves on a brittle tree branch.

There was a long pause. Then—“You mean I wanted to take. You never did anything but make excuses.”

“What about Sunday?” she said. “Are you free on Sunday?” That Sunday was the deadline he’d given her for telling Gideon was not lost on either of them.

“Depends on where we’re going,” he said grimly.

“It’s a surprise. There’s something I want to tell you.”

Even his breathing sounded cantankerous. “If you think—”

“Just come. Please.”

“Don’t expect it to change anything.”

“I know.”

“Fine.”

Ivy’s entire body began to tremble. The momentum of it all left her light-headed; she felt both out of control and certain of absolute power.

“Believe me,” she said, “it’ll change everything. This place is a bit of a drive, but worth it. I promise.”

He asked if she would be driving.

“My car doesn’t have four-wheel drive. Can you pick me up? Dress warmly. And bring a bottle of your best whiskey.”

“What for?”

“We’ll be celebrating.” She squeezed her eyes shut.



* * *




SNOW FELL ON Friday. Softly, blanketing Newbury Street with a newborn fuzz. In the distance were the sounds of sirens, of people dying and others rushing to save them. Ivy walked on, numb with cold, the sky bleak and empty and vast.

At the pharmacy, she purchased her usual Lucky Strikes, cold medicine, a six-pack energy drink, sourdough pretzels that were on sale, and a little bottle of red nail polish called Alight in Flames. Next to the pharmacy was a sleek little hair salon with cushy red velvet chairs and floors polished to a gleaming marble white. Suddenly, nothing seemed as important as getting a haircut. She went inside. Underlying the overly perfumed air was the smell of synthetic chemicals. The stylists, in black leather jeans and black Doc Martens, were more beautiful than the clients sitting in the chairs.

“What are we doing today?” asked the stylist as she ran her fingers through Ivy’s limp black locks, four days unwashed, hanging to her breasts.

They stared at the same reflection, the stylist with professional astuteness, Ivy with bone-deep loathing. She was so sick of the face staring back at her: the hard practicality of the brown-black eyes, the once round cheeks now sunken into two crescents, a puckered bloodless mouth, a smoker’s mouth, aging her a decade.

“I want a change,” she said. She evaluated the stylist’s sleek, platinum-blond hair. The stylist was an Asian woman, yet she had platinum-blond hair because no one had told her she couldn’t, and it was arrogantly resplendent. “I want your color,” said Ivy. “That exact shade.”

The stylist rubbed Ivy’s hair between her thumb and index finger. “Is this virgin hair?”

“Yes.”

“Might be tough.” She walked Ivy through the difficulties of lightening black hair—there would be bleach, many processes of bleach, it would take multiple sessions—

“No, it’s got to be in one go.”

“I wouldn’t suggest it. It’ll fry your hair.”

“Can you do it?”

“It’s possible, but—”

“Do it.”

Nine hours later, Ivy walked out of the salon, unrecognizable to herself. Her hair was the color of wheat, an ashy flax that somehow made her face appear sharper, her skin fine and thin over the small bones, her eyes blank and cavernous. The stylist had even colored the eyebrows a nutty brown. Ivy liked it. She looked like an alien—not quite Asian, not quite white, somewhere in the middle, a girl of mixed blood, or perhaps some true freak of nature. She imagined what Meifeng and Nan might say if they saw her now. Probably that she had made herself ugly, disfigured herself in some irreparable way. Austin was depressed and Ivy was irreparable. It’s not your fault, she’d told Nan in the car. She’d only said it to make her mother feel better. Now Ivy knew it to be true. Hair was reparable, but her need to destroy, escape, remake was a darkness the combined forces of Meifeng and Nan hadn’t been able to fumigate.