White Ivy(110)

“Do you believe it?”

She whispered, “Do you?”

Ernesto sighed, a deep rattling sound from the depths of his protruding stomach. “This shit’s fucked up. Poor fucker.” He stood up, then scanned the Starbucks with the aggression of checking for bombs.

It dawned on Ivy he was leaving. Astonishment made her feet tap violently against the floor, the rubber heels of her sneakers squeaking against the linoleum tiles.

“Wait,” she said.

Ernesto turned.

She had the wild idea of blurting out the truth—that it was her, it was her.

“Roux spoke of you, too,” she said instead. “He said your family helped him out all those years ago. He talked about his mom and your dad…”

Ernesto’s shoulders rose up. “The old man’s dead,” he said curtly. Then the door opened and the sound of rain drowned out his next words. She could see his mouth moving—the wide lips, the nicotine-stained teeth—but she couldn’t make out his voice over the rush of tires, the howling of the wind. The door closed with a sharp bang.



* * *




IVY WENT HOME and opened the package. It was a book. The glossy front cover was a photograph of some business tycoon smiling with all his teeth showing. She opened it and made a noise of surprise. The center of the pages had been cut out. There was a pristine stack of hundred-dollar bills, almost two inches thick, and a note scribbled in a childish handwriting in permanent marker: Call me when you run out. It was the same handwriting as the person who’d left her the keys to the Audi in her mailbox. She hurried to the window and drew the blinds closed.

She lay facedown on her pillow. She didn’t bother counting the money. Was he watching her, even now? No. I’m alone. The anguish came all at once, hot and suffocating. She hit the side of her head, once, twice. I’m alone, Roux.



* * *




WHENEVER SHE CAUGHT Gideon’s eyes without meaning to—looking up from cutting her steak, coming out of the bathroom, when he glanced up from his laptop without warning—Ivy would feel a jerking sensation, like when your chair leans too far back. Fear would prick her temples, her heart would wrench as if trying to leap out of her rib cage. She could see the flicker of doubt and uncertainty as he sensed in her the presence of some furtive secret.

Then she woke one morning and discovered it was May. The sun was out and the dripping of snow melting outside her windowsill sounded like hope. Gideon came over with a sesame chicken salad and a huge carton of strawberries. “First of the season,” he said. Ivy noticed that he’d cut off the stems of the strawberries, including the little brown knobs that she’d once told him she didn’t like.

“I d-don’t know why I’m crying,” she said as Gideon held her. “Look, I’ve ruined your nice s-s-sweater… I’m so s-sorry—”

“We don’t have to rush things, you know,” he said, smoothing her hair. “If you feel any doubts whatsoever…”

She practically had to beg him to marry her all over again, blubbering that it wasn’t the wedding, she loved him and she wanted to marry him, she was just being sentimental, her grandmother was getting old, there was so much pressure—

“But that’s what I’m saying,” Gideon said, gripping her tightly by the shoulders, his own lips pale, his eyes insistent with some unutterable message he wished her to understand. “There shouldn’t be any pressure. We can push things back, take our time to make sure this is what we really want, what you really want. I don’t want you to regret anything—”

“You don’t love me anymore?” she whispered. He knew. He knew.

I love you, he said, of course I love you. But he wanted her to be sure, he felt guilty sometimes because—

She kissed him to stop him from talking about guilt and other laughable things he couldn’t possibly understand.

After that, no more was said about delaying the wedding.

From time to time, when Gideon didn’t know she was watching him, she would see on his face the same conflicted, unhappy expression that told her she wasn’t doing a good enough job of hiding her restless paranoia. She was on constant vigil against herself, observing her face each morning with the suspicion one feels for an enemy spy masquerading as a friend. She felt she was capable of anything—her arms might jerk the steering wheel and send her body careening into the Charles, her hands might choke her to death in her sleep. If only she could make it to the wedding, she would be able to breathe again. All her old hopeful vibrancy would be restored to those early days of her and Gideon’s courtship, when the city air seemed perfumed with wine and sweet blossoms, and the indestructible certainty of her life was as present as her own heartbeat.





22


THE WOMEN’S DRESSING ROOM AT St. Stephen’s was a converted music room. The instruments had been taken away and replaced with a love seat and armchairs; an enormous antique mirror was propped up next to an open window, displaying on a beveled edge Ivy’s wedding gown in all its iridescent, billowing glory. At half past eleven, the Lins crowded inside. The mirror gave the impression there were a dozen Chinese people in the room, all clamoring for the bride’s attention.

Nan insisted Ivy try on the dress one more time. “Your tailor’s no good,” she said about the expert seamstress from New York who’d done the alterations. “In the picture you sent me, the dress looked like it was falling off your chest.” She scrutinized Ivy’s breasts, then shook her head. “You’ll have a hard time breastfeeding, like me.”