White Ivy(67)

After Poppy turned away, Ivy found herself standing on the outskirts of the circle. The Speyers congregated around Gideon, laughing and crying and finishing each other’s sentences. Through the commotion, Ivy became aware of Roux, standing a few paces apart from the others, taking in the sight with the air of one observing a great farce. She walked over decisively.

“I’m guessing you won’t be going to New York with me,” he said.

“Listen,” she said softly, glancing around to make sure no one was listening. “We did something stupid last night. We were both wasted. Can we just agree that it never happened and never mention it again?… It’s not worth hurting others and ruining this moment.” Like all people blinded by their own happiness, she looked at him with the frank certainty of impending forgiveness and goodwill, for how could anyone object to anything during the sacred matrimonial celebrations?

Roux leaned down. Ivy thought he was going to kiss her. She took a step back. His smile was drawn and white around the edges of the lips; somehow, this was more shocking to witness than his anger would have been. “You haven’t changed at all,” he said in a loud, clear voice.

“Think about Sylvia,” she hissed.

“What about me?” Sylvia called out.

Roux glanced at his girlfriend. “Let’s break up.” Sylvia’s expression faltered, then straightened into a kind of mechanical sneer. It was the most human face Ivy had ever seen.

“It was never going to work,” said Roux. “Come get your things from my place when you get back.” His scornful gaze swept over all of them before lingering on Gideon, who had taken a step forward in front of his sister.

“Is this really the time and place, Roux?” said Gideon.

Roux shook his head. “You poor sucker.” Then he swung his duffel bag over one shoulder and left, the front door slamming shut behind him.

None of them moved. Then: “Good riddance.” It was Poppy, brushing invisible lint off her skirt. “I told you this would happen, Sylvia,” she said crisply. “Why do you never listen to me? Why does no one listen?”





PART FOUR





15


ASTOR TOWERS CONDOMINIUMS WAS ONE of those new high-rise developments along the river, towering and vaguely threatening, with the amenities of a five-star hotel—Jacuzzi, conference rooms, dry cleaning, heated floors—all advertised on their enormous billboards Ivy passed every day on her way to her prep course. And yet whenever she came, the elevator was always empty, the carpet on the twenty-eighth floor hallways vacuumed to a stiff bristle with no footprints besides her own. It was Thanksgiving afternoon, already a quarter past three, and she still hadn’t eaten anything all day. Afternoon light streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, hitting the wooden bowl of fruit—peaches, apples, pears, on the slate countertop—about as appealing as wax fruits from a still-life painting. She was thirsty. The touch-responsive refrigerator came with three settings for water: boiling, room temperature, ice. She spooned three tablespoons of matcha powder into a large mug and pushed the button for boiling water. There was milk in the fridge but she couldn’t find sugar in any of the cabinets. She brought her tea over to the breakfast table and watched the pedestrians below, bundled in their dark winter coats, looking like bloated ants, scurrying, hurrying, eternally busy. Autumn had come and gone like a vivid wet dream, three short glorious weeks of orange and red foliage giving way to November’s dreary cold rains, the sharp pinpoint sky so magnified it felt you were viewing it through the lens of a telescope.

As she sipped her tea and smoked a cigarette, she ran through her mental list of never-ending wedding to-dos for the next week. Decor. Cake. Flowers. Music. All this should have made her happy, but it didn’t. She was tired. Trying to study for law school while planning a wedding for two hundred guests made her feel as if she were supporting a bag of bricks while balancing on a tightrope. It’d been three months since her engagement and with each day that passed, her fear grew that something would snatch away her happiness. Gideon would change his mind about marrying her. Sylvia would convince Gideon that she was unacceptable. Her family would humiliate themselves in front of the Speyers. She would get into a car accident and become a cripple. Gideon would die. Every night before bed, hives spread from her back and belly all the way to her eyelids; she developed heartburn and the doctor told her to refrain from lying down after eating. But because she was so tired all the time, she chose to refrain from eating in order to lie down.

The impending wedding seemed to affect Gideon not at all. In the weeks following their Cattahasset trip, she’d scrutinized him for any signs of change, thinking that now he could finally relax around her. She didn’t know when it was that she started to think of Gideon as tense or anxious or whatever was the opposite of relaxed. When she’d first seen him at Sylvia’s party, she’d thought of him as soft. Easygoing. And yet this soft easygoing conduct, meant to convey an uncomplicated interiority, felt to Ivy like prison bars that guarded Gideon against her, against everyone, in a way that was hard and impenetrable. Since the engagement, he’d become even more gentle and considerate toward her. He never so much as snapped at her. “What don’t you like about me?” she’d asked him once. “I like everything about you,” he’d said.

This gentleness had lured Ivy into a false sense of security. On their last date at a popular burger chain, she had asked the cashier for a cup to fill with water at the vending machines. But when she got to the vending machine, she’d changed her mind and filled her white plastic cup with raspberry club soda. Back at the table, Gideon had taken a sip and said, “Isn’t this cup for water only?” At first, she hadn’t known what he was talking about. Then she realized she hadn’t paid for the soda. The white cup for the water was free. The blue cup for the soda was two dollars. Gideon reassured her that it was an honest mistake, no harm done. He got out of the booth and went to go pay the two dollars. That incident had deeply shaken her. It’d been an impulsive act born of opportunity, like keeping your neighbor’s misdelivered packages or not telling the cashier that they undercharged you—no one would see you do it let alone point out it was wrong; people like Meifeng would even applaud you for your quick thinking. How many of these corner-cutting things had she always done that she would now have to eradicate? Gideon had assumed this time was an honest mistake, but what about next time? How many times would it take before he started to realize that his fiancée did not have the sort of upstanding moral characteristics he so esteemed?