White Ivy(58)

Twenty minutes into the ride, Roux clambered to the back of the boat, clutching the handrail. He took a seat on the bench across from Ivy and lay down on his back. Sylvia arrived shortly afterward. She murmured something in his ear, he shook his head, she smoothed out his hair. After a while, she crossed over to Ivy’s side of the boat. Ivy asked if everything was all right. “He’s just feeling a bit nauseous,” said Sylvia. “He took some motion sickness medicine this morning but it’s not working.”

They looked over. Two buttons of Roux’s shirt had come undone, revealing a tuft of black chest hair, stark against his pale skin. His one leg was bent upright on the bench and his right arm was thrown over his eyes. “I hope he’ll be okay until we get to the island,” said Ivy. She felt little sympathy for Roux; her only concern was that he shouldn’t ruin their day. His sour moods could be toxic, even more than Sylvia’s, whose sulkiness could usually be ignored, while no one could ignore Roux when he made up his mind to be unpleasant.

“It’s probably all the sugar he eats every morning,” said Sylvia with an arrogant toss of her hair. “Sometimes I envy how easy things are between you and Gideon. You guys are basically the same person. You like the same food, read the same books, you even talk in the same bookish vocabulary. Pretty soon, you’ll be going around in matching outfits.”

But you two already do that, thought Ivy, thinking of the monogrammed pajamas.

“You and Roux seem close, though,” she said, sensing danger. “Sometimes it’s better to be complementary than similar.”

“I guess that’s true,” said Sylvia, mollified. “I tried to figure out our anniversary the other day. It’s confusing because we’ve taken so many breaks. I think it’s around eight months next week… Christ, only eight months! With all the fights we’ve had, I feel like I’ve married and divorced him twice over.”

Ivy asked what they fought about.

“I never remember afterward. He’s got a temper. But I hate fighting so I walk away until he cools down. He calls me the ice princess. I suppose both of us are stubborn. Our fights can go on for days.”

“That seems normal.”

“Actually, it’s not,” Sylvia said with a tolerant smile, as if Ivy had been trying to be unnecessarily uplifting. “My parents never fought. And there were some serious issues, believe me. Dad was gone most of our lives, commuting back and forth from Boston. He rented this house over in Back Bay. White walls, everything straight-edged, like a ruler, and boxed in. Every time Mom would bring us, we’d go to our bedrooms and everything—the bed, the desk, the windowsill—would be covered with fruit flies and gnats. And still Dad refused to get a housekeeper. He said it made him look elitist.” She paused to let the word, elitist, settle in the air. It was a common habit of the rich to talk about elitism and privilege, as if by pointing out the fact, they were disarming future accusations of being so.

“Mom didn’t like that,” Sylvia continued. “When they got married, she gave him all her inheritance so he could get into office, but he was always ashamed of her family background… there were some scandals, sure—our great-grandfather was rumored to have eaten human meat on his tour around Kenya… but in the end, Ted’s the real hypocrite.… our mom’s his second wife, did Gideon tell you about that?” Ivy shook her head. Sylvia said, “Yeah. Well. He was married once, for two years, after the navy. But we don’t talk about that… Anyway…” She laughed, a little pained ironic laugh. “I suppose you agree with Roux. I’m just a spoiled girl complaining about her frivolous problems.” Ivy was a beat late in her protests and Sylvia said disappointedly, “It doesn’t matter. I’ve long stopped giving a shit what people think about me.”

“No family’s perfect,” said Ivy, unsure what tone to adopt to contain the damage and settling for briskness. “Plus, you and Gideon turned out so well.”

“You’ve no idea how narrow-minded Ted and Poppy can get. She’s been a monster toward Roux all week. Yes, she has,” Sylvia insisted, seeing Ivy’s incredulity. “They hate that no one they know has ever heard of Roux. Did you know they tried to get my cousin Francis to look him up? Francis works for Governor Patrick. And she won’t shut up about how he never went to college. All week, it’s been ‘but he doesn’t value education’ and ‘he doesn’t treat you right because he has no role models.’ What does she expect him to do—walk around holding his Boy Scouts badge?”

Ivy had no idea all this had been going on while she’d been engulfed in her own stupor of allergy meds and insecurity.

“Were you there for that?” Sylvia asked.

“For what?”

“Roux said he dropped out of high school his senior year to support his mother. She’d gotten cancer.”

Ivy said she’d moved to New Jersey way before that. But Sylvia already knew this so why was she pretending otherwise?

Sylvia nodded.

“But he’s so successful now,” said Ivy. “Surely Poppy must see how far he’s come?”

“You think Roux’s successful?”

“Isn’t he?”

The two women looked at each other in surprise. When Sylvia didn’t say more, Ivy returned to the subject of family.