White Ivy(113)

“I’m going inside,” Ivy heard herself say. She repeated Tom’s good-bye: “See you on the other side.” Gideon’s lips were hot and dry on her cheek. She floated back to the church. She was still holding her cigarette. The remaining clump of ash fell on her arm. She didn’t feel a thing.



* * *




IVY LAY ON the love seat watching the minute hand tick by. Why had Gideon asked her to marry him? What did he want from her? She could call off the wedding, she thought listlessly. She could take a taxi home. But she didn’t move.

Andrea arrived at two o’clock in a torrent of shopping bags and overwhelming perfume. “Ivy, you’re flattening your extensions!” she squealed, dropping her bags in front of the mirror. Ivy opened her eyes. She wondered if she’d fallen asleep.

“Have you eaten?” Andrea asked. She pulled a large platter of assorted sashimi and two bottles of green tea from a takeout bag. Since returning from Machu Picchu with an eight-carat diamond ring, Andrea had lost no time in starting her wedding diet. Only fish and seaweed. She ran five miles a day around the Common, fractured her tibia, and continued running.

Ivy obediently picked up her chopsticks. Her stomach turned at the taste of raw, oily flesh in her mouth. She spit the salmon in a napkin and turned to Andrea abruptly. “Do you think a gay man can love women?”

“Norman’s not gay,” said Andrea, her eyes watering from a large mound of wasabi. “I know everyone thinks he is because of the way he looks—he gets hit on all the time at gay bars—but trust me, he’s practically homophobic.” Andrea paused. “He’s not homophobic—oh, you know what I mean.”

Ivy went back to staring at the minute hand ticking by.

When Sylvia drifted through the door in cutoff shorts and studded ankle boots, she greeted Ivy with an air of bemused friendliness, as if she’d ended up here by accident. She flung herself down on an armchair.

“Mom wanted me to give you this.” She took out a little silver tiara from her tote bag. “It’s one of her last-minute whims. She cried for an entire hour by herself this morning looking at Gideon’s baby photos.”

Andrea made a gasp of pleasure and asked if the photos would be displayed at the entrance table.

“No, I don’t think so,” said Sylvia, smiling quizzically.

“We met at the Swingbox party,” Andrea prompted. “You were there with Jeremy?”

“Remind me your name again?” said Sylvia.

Andrea told her.

“You’re engaged to Norman Moorefield.”

Andrea looked as if she might die of happiness.

Ivy said, “Andrea, can you see if you can find a cooler and some ice? There’s a kitchen somewhere in this church.”

“For what?”

“For the bucket of champagne over there.”

After Andrea left, Ivy gestured toward the sushi.

“Thank you,” said Sylvia. “I love this place.”

“Did you know this entire time?” Ivy asked, deliberately waiting until Sylvia was fully immersed in her food.

“Know what?”

“About Gideon and Tom.”

“What about them?”

Ivy was impressed. Sylvia hadn’t even stopped chewing, so seamless was her transition from friendliness to battle. Or maybe battle was her normal mode of existence. Her impassive face revealed nothing but the cold-blooded hardness of someone used to calling other people’s bluffs and winning.

“You did know,” Ivy said with a soft sigh. She lay back down on the love seat and let her arm flop over her forehead. She saw herself from the bird’s-eye view: Fainting Woman on Chaise. She told herself to focus. She’d come so far.

The room was silent except for the sound of her own shallow breathing. She could practically hear Sylvia’s mind churning.

“Is that why you threw me at him?” Ivy asked, talking more to herself. “You sold your family to me so aggressively. You knew what I wanted to hear. I always wondered why you set me up with Gideon even though you hated me. All those talks about how perfect I am for him…” She drifted off, shocked by the pain in her chest. The blue-blooded visions of love and family she so admired were, for Tom and Gideon, also shackles that kept them marching in lockstep to the beat of a patriarchal master. For a brief moment she even felt a flash of pity. That Gideon loved Tom hurt less than the fact that Sylvia had made a fool of her. She wondered why that was.

“I don’t know what you think you know,” Sylvia said finally, putting down her chopsticks. “I don’t hate you. I quite admire you, actually. The way you’re able to draw Gideon out without smothering him—a fine line many others have failed to walk.”

“Draw him out,” Ivy repeated. “Why? Because he’s keeping me at a distance out of love? It’s a fear mechanism?” She hadn’t realized until that moment how much she’d relied on Sylvia’s explanations, provided so aptly at the beginning of her courtship with Gideon, to reassure herself that the lurking hesitations she’d sensed in him weren’t real issues, because his sister said they were normal, and in fact, Gideon only behaved thus because Ivy was special to him.

“I need a drink,” she said in panic.

Sylvia went to the corner, uncorked one of the bottles of champagne, and poured out a tall glass.