White Ivy(77)

Austin mumbled something about not being qualified. Poppy said, “Oh, I’m sure you can learn on the job. They don’t expect you to come in with prior experience… I think you’d be fantastic at it…” When Austin didn’t respond, she said, “That’s settled then. I’ll get your email from Ivy and have Spencer send some information over to you.” She picked his phone up off the floor and handed it back to him. Austin stared at the cracked screen without moving. Poppy slid one arm around his hulking shoulders, tentative at first, then more firmly when he didn’t stiffen but instead lowered his head. “There, there,” Poppy soothed. Ivy was confused by this remark until she saw the steady drops of tears sliding off the end of Austin’s nose into his lap.

“Get some tissues for us, will you, Ivy?” Poppy whispered.

By the time Ivy returned, Austin was wiping his face on his sweater, his blazer draped over his legs. Poppy was speaking to him in quiet tones; he nodded, twisted his hands in his lap. Ivy only heard the last few sentences: “… between us… nothing to worry about. Why don’t you get freshened up in the bathroom and we’ll go have some dessert. Do you like apple pie?” Austin mumbled that he did. When Ivy caught her brother’s face on his way to the bathroom, she saw that he looked as if some knot had finally unwound inside him. He even managed a small grimace that was supposed to be an apologetic smile.

Ivy’s astonishment was so great it erased all other emotions. All those flunked classes, meticulous plans, doctor visits, vitamin injections, and all Austin needed was a motherly shoulder to cry on? Poppy’s butter-soft hands to pat his back and say, There, there? She couldn’t believe that the respect and understanding her brother had sought all his life had come from, of all people, Poppy Speyer, the woman who worried about things like where to find a rare 1830s Georgian sterling silver spoon to complete her collection.

For the first time in her life, Ivy saw how her marriage to Gideon, which she’d guarded from the Lins like a dragon over its most precious treasure, could lead to a new identity not just for herself but for her family. It was something that Meifeng used to tell her: one successful marriage feeds three generations. Only now did she believe this.





17


AUSTIN STARTED HIS NEW INTERNSHIP immediately after the New Year. Every morning, he caught the seven forty train into Manhattan, and he returned in the evening with the commuter crowd. Shen took him to the outlet malls to buy four suits in muted shades of blue and gray, striped silk ties, thin cotton socks that Austin color-coordinated with his ties. He needed a new cell phone, because of the cracked screen, as well as a new laptop because the fan had stopped working on his old one. The internship was unpaid, so Nan gave him a credit card for his daily expenses. He liked to pick up a bagel and a yogurt smoothie at Penn Station for breakfast, then lunch at a popular sushi place in midtown. And because he felt guilty about living at home while his new friends at the company had to pay their own rent, he would often treat them to sashimi platters as well.

“You should see your brother now,” Nan bragged to Ivy on the phone. “He was born to work. He goes to bed right after he gets home and sets his own alarm. He bought an ironing board to iron his suits every night. And he’s finally making friends. They want to take a trip together to Mexico. He’s never been invited on a trip before. Baba’s worried that Mexico’s too dangerous. What do you think?”

Ivy wondered how her parents could afford all these additional expenses. Over Christmas, Nan had mailed her the money for the wedding, made out in four separate checks, with specific instructions for Ivy to cash them a month apart so “the banks won’t be suspicious.” Suspicious of what, Ivy did not care to ask. Long gone were the days when she had access to her mother’s checkbook—the Lins were probably cutting back in other ways—and so she repressed her conscience and said, “Austin will be fine in Mexico… I’m glad he’s adjusting.” Indeed, her brother returned her calls now and seemed to be in a state of giddiness every time they talked about his new job. He said he fetched coffee, conducted market research, wrote up long, twenty-page reports; everyone praised him for his great attitude. “My manager, Allen, says if I keep doing well, maybe after I graduate, they’ll offer me a full-time position.” Ivy told him not to expect anything. She was afraid for him, afraid of his fragile hope.

Perhaps she was unfit in giving this advice as she’d just taken the LSAT and bombed it so badly she’d deleted the email announcing her score from her inbox, then deleted it again from her trash folder. When Gideon asked about her results, she told him she wasn’t happy with her score—he had the delicacy not to ask the precise number—and that she was going to retake it in September. He pulled her into his arms. “I’m proud of you for not giving up,” he said.

That evening, they went for drinks at Dresdan’s. Ivy didn’t want the evening to become a pity party, so she wore her favorite dark brown taffeta dress with ball-gown sleeves and a black velvet choker that had a little bell attached to it, like a cat’s collar, and whenever she turned her head, the bell went da-ding da-ding and it was the sound of merry church bells. Ivy downed one cocktail after another while Gideon nursed a beer, laughing, telling her to slow down. His voice seemed deeper than usual, this abstract beautiful man in a white button-down, rolled up at the cuffs, the gleaming face of his watch emitting a rainbow onto the wall of liquor bottles behind the bar. All evening, he kept saying, “Are you happy? Are you happy?” and she’d say, “Of course. I have you.”