White Ivy(63)

He scanned her face to gauge her seriousness. “How about I go to this—church thing—with you guys tomorrow. It seems important to you.”

Through the screen door, Ivy saw Sylvia standing beside Gideon in the kitchen. They were deep in conversation. Gideon shook his head. Sylvia placed a hand on his shoulder as if consoling him: I know it’s hard but you have to tell her it’s over.

“Forget it,” said Ivy, her eyes sliding back to Roux. “I could care less.”

Gideon returned, empty-handed.

“Where’s my drink?”

His mouth opened in surprise. “I’m so sorry. I’ll be right back.”

She turned away. “Never mind. Ted’s about to say grace.”

When Ted finished, Poppy picked up her glass. “I am so happy to be here with everyone in this special place. Ivy”—Ivy looked up—“we wish you the best of luck on your upcoming exam. Thank you for making the time to join us. What a special week this has been.”

Everyone clinked glasses.

Poppy had not mentioned Roux at all in her toast. Ivy could see where Sylvia’s spitefulness had originated from. She glanced over to see if Roux had noticed. He looked the same as always: wooden. She felt a new benevolence for Roux, her fellow outsider, whose crassness she could now appreciate as a kind of confidence and maybe even superiority. She felt his reticence as her own revenge.

She poured herself a glass of wine and finished it in one go. Ted offered her another pour. She reached for a slice of focaccia. Roux handed her the basket; their knuckles bumped and a few bread rolls tipped out. He picked up one of the fallen rolls from the table and put it on his own plate. Then he put one of the clean ones on her plate. Over his shoulder, Ivy glimpsed Sylvia’s face, the veneer of indifference gone, replaced by a slab of frigid anger like the time Roux had given Ivy the drawing. A sensation of wondrous astonishment, like oxygen, ballooned in Ivy’s chest. Sylvia Speyer was jealous of her.

“That’s so lovely to hear, darling,” said Poppy after Sylvia finished telling them about her upcoming project with her advisor, restoring a sixteenth-century sculpture. “Teamwork is very important, as I’ve learned throughout my years of charity work. To go fast, they say, you must go alone, but to go far, you must go with others.”

“Did you read that from a Hallmark magnet?” said Sylvia.

“From a bookmark Cynthia gave me. It’s a very truthful saying—one I agree with a hundred percent.”

Sylvia said, “Giddy, remember that one time Mom went to Cynthia’s house and came back with a swallow tattoo and told us it was real?”

“Your mom was a real rebel back in the day,” said Ted. “When I met her, she was an activist protesting the Vietnam War. She was in a rock band for a while. She had the leather jacket and pink hair. I had to talk her out of a tattoo of Led Zeppelin.”

Poppy said, “Oh, hush, Ted.” Huh, huh, huh, went her laugh.

“We’ve heard all this before, Daddy,” said Sylvia. She smiled sweetly. “There aren’t any journalists around.”

Ted’s smile quivered on his pale pink face like a man who’s just been told he’d missed the last call for drinks.

Jealousy didn’t suit Sylvia, thought Ivy. She was loveliest when she was high and mighty.

“Have I mentioned how good you look?” Ivy said to Roux, purposely keeping her voice down. “Like a sleek black panther.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“How do I look?”

He eyed her. “Drunk.”

“I’m not drunk at all. And you shouldn’t call a girl out for being drunk even if I was.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not very gentlemanly.”

“Do you want me to be more gentlemanly?”

“Of course.”

“You sure about that?”

They were flirting. It was a nervy, bewildering sensation, this new way of being with Roux, a previously reprehensible character. Yet the sensation of being struck by those attentive gray eyes felt vaguely familiar, like a song she’d once heard but had forgotten.

“I’ve wanted to ask you something all week,” she said.

“Yes?” He refilled her water glass. They were almost whispering now, their heads bent close.

“Was I better in bed or was Sylvia?”

Roux regarded her coldly. “What’s the matter with you?”

Ivy snapped back. To cover her embarrassment, she reached for her wineglass and gulped it down too quickly, spilling some from the corners of her mouth. Roux handed her a napkin.

“Never mind,” he said gruffly.

After dinner, Ted brought out lawn chairs from the garage and arranged them around the crackling fire on the beach. Gideon collected pieces of driftwood and added them to the pit. Everyone consoled Sylvia about losing her cat—was it Ivy’s imagination or had Gideon flashed a few inquisitive looks her way? She stared at the thin white foam near the shore, all that was visible of the Atlantic. Such an expansive ocean but most of it invisible, swallowed by a fluid and heavy darkness, like a wet towel pressing down from the sky.

Shortly, Roux disappeared into the house to take a phone call. Ivy announced she was getting chilly, she was also heading in for the night. “Want me to come up with you?” Gideon asked. She told him to stay.