The Education of Ivy Blake (10 page)

It was
an hour before Dad Evers came back out into the emergency room's waiting area. He squatted in front of them. “They're okay. Mom and the baby both.”

Ivy's shoulders relaxed, finally. She took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. The best part of her day—week, month,
year
—bloomed in her head like it was scrawled in neon:
this moment,
the moment she knew Mom Evers and the baby were okay.

“Ordinary spotting, the doc said. Nothing to worry too much about, though she's supposed to take it easy, the next while, till the baby comes.”

Prairie touched his shoulder; he pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

Ivy wanted to reach out or say something too, but she couldn't. She'd been struck mute ever since Mom Evers told Prairie to get Dad Evers.

“Half hour or so, we can go. I'm going to try and get the bill figured out. Prairie, you'd better call Grammy. She'll be climbing the walls.”

Ivy picked up a
National Geographic.
She opened it and tried to let the trouble in the emergency room swirl around her without noticing it too much. There was a sweating girl who seemed delirious, a woman with what looked like a broken arm, and a man whose skin was as gray as floor paint. It all made Ivy feel nauseous, and that made her mad at herself.

She turned pages slowly. In the magazine, young people stood on a windswept rock in Iceland. A cowboy squatted by a campfire. The photos were interesting, but Ivy couldn't concentrate. She was about to set the magazine down when a voice sliced into her haze.

“But how'm I going to get my house cleaned with my leg in a cast?” a woman cried. She sat in a wheelchair, staring at the receptionist. Her hair was dyed black and her lipstick was a red slash across her mouth. She'd put too light a face powder on, and her eyes were wide and peering. “How am I?”

“I don't know, ma'am.”

The woman leaned forward. “Caroline, my daughter, she's coming to visit in June. I have to have the house cleaned, or she won't like it. She'll think I can't stay on my own any longer.”

Ivy's heart tightened in sympathy.

“Well, you'll have to hire some help, I guess. Do you want me to call you a taxi, or is there someone who'll come pick you up?”

“No, there's no one to pick me up! I
told
them not to bring me to a hospital so far away because there's no one to help. That's what I'm saying, don't you see?”

Ivy could tell that the receptionist did not see. She wasn't really paying attention. Ivy couldn't exactly blame her. The emergency room was crowded; the girl who seemed delirious was now crying. The receptionist sat like her back hurt and had dark circles under her eyes. Maybe she had a new baby at home and the baby kept her up nights, or maybe it was even more interesting than that—

Ivy made herself stop. The point was that this problem had already been solved as far as the receptionist was concerned: one busted femur, set, cast, checked out, and billed,
next.

But for the old lady, the problems were just starting.

Ivy slid off her seat and walked to the woman's wheelchair. “I could help you,” she said. “If you could pay me.”

Ivy and Prairie
swung their legs over the edge of their tree house late that evening. Ivy stared at Fiddle the rooster's red comb and listened to the silence vibrate. She'd barely been able to convince Prairie to come out here. “I have something to tell you,” she finally said.

“Well?” Prairie stared straight ahead; her fingers were tight on the tree house platform.

“I wanted to tell you why I told Mrs. Grizzby I'd help her if she'd pay—”

Prairie's head snapped around; her expression made Ivy's heart hurt. “I can't believe you did that. Is it your mom or something? Did she change her mind about letting you go on our trip and you just didn't know how to tell me?”

“It's not my mom.”

The air in the branches of the maple seemed to hold its breath.

“Not your mom.”

Ivy mashed her thumb against a maple seed. “It is kind of my mom, but not the way you think. It's really me. There's something I have to do. The thing is, I want to make a movie.”

“Make a movie.”

Prairie's voice was flat and the words gave Ivy a mean little shove, just like when her mom said them. Ivy slogged on. “Yes. It's my dream, you know that, and I need a camera—”

“But you don't have to suddenly take some job that starts the minute school gets out, do you? I mean, really? There's no other time?”

“No. It has to be now.”

Prairie narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

Ivy flexed her toes inside her boots. She had been wearing these boots when Ms. Mackenzie told her to never give up. She had been wearing them when the police showed up, and when she walked away from them and her mom. She thought of the policemen's shiny oxfords and the look in their eyes. It was all complicated, but she had to figure out a way to make Prairie see.

She tried to make her mouth form the words to explain, but she wanted to go to North Carolina so badly. She wanted to take the train from Poughkeepsie to Greensboro and then the bus to Asheville, and from there ride in Grammy's friend Dorothy Peacock's lemon-yellow Cadillac Eldorado convertible car all the rest of the way to Vine's Cove, where Grammy'd grown up and where Great-Uncle Tecumseh still lived.

Prairie had told her approximately one million times in the past year how Great-Uncle Tecumseh lived in a little cabin made of pine logs and plank floors, and how when you woke up in the morning the first thing you heard was the sound of the breeze whispering through the trees and the burble of Vine's Creek tumbling down the mountain, and the song of a cardinal, maybe. She said that at night owls hooted and coyotes howled, and that every day the two of them would tromp all over Vine's Cove, up and down the mountainside, exploring. She was going to take Ivy to the ruins of a settler's cabin and to a place deep in the woods where there were the remains of an old still. For making whiskey! She said they'd fish in the creek and help in the garden and every night they'd sit around the campfire Great-Uncle Tecumseh built, and that for two whole weeks it would be like they had traveled to some far-off country that most people never even dreamed existed.

Ivy wanted to see it all, hear it all, smell it all. She wanted it more than anything. Except this.

She sucked in another breath. “It's kind of a long story.” Her voice wavered. “But the truth is, it hasn't been all that great with my mom. It's been really hard and I need—I don't know. I need to do something for myself, and this job is my chance.”

• • •

Prairie tapped her thumb on her leg while Ivy talked.

When she finished, Prairie studied her with one eye squeezed shut, like Ivy was a fence post that wouldn't stand straight. “I'm really sorry it hasn't been great with your mom. I get that you want to make a movie too, but what's so important about this exact contest and this one job? This is our
trip.
It's our vacation. We've been looking forward to it forever. I thought you really wanted to go.”

“I do.”

Prairie kicked at the air. “It doesn't seem like it. It sure does not.”

“I do want to. But this other thing, the movie—it can't wait.” Ivy couldn't even try to explain how it all hinged together—the police, tearing herself away from her mom's command, walking and walking until she stopped at the pawnshop, seeing the camera, and then meeting Jacob on the campus and realizing that making the movie—and even maybe, hopefully, winning the contest—was the key to everything. It was
symbolic.
She squeezed her hands into fists and poured all her concentration into the hope that Prairie would understand this the way she did so many things. “The job is now, and I need the camera. And if I don't do it, if I don't do
some
thing, I'll be—a nothing. Like my mom.”

“No you won't! That's dumb. That's probably the dumbest thing you ever said.”

Ivy made herself smile because she knew Prairie meant this as a compliment. She wished Prairie would've added another sentence or two, though.
Your mom is not a nothing. In spite of everything, she isn't.
Something like that. Even though Ivy was furious at her mom most of the time these days, she did wish that. She wished other people saw the good side of her mom the way she did. An image from a long time ago of her mom tickling Aunt Connie and both of them giggling flashed in her head. Then one of sitting beside her mom on the couch watching television, their hands bumping inside the popcorn bag.

Prairie hiked her knee up and wiped an invisible smudge off the toe of one boot. She almost always wore her boots, leather Red Wings like Dad Evers's, no matter what the weather was or where she was going or what else she had on, even a dress, until summer came. Then she went barefoot every minute she could and never seemed to mind how dirty her feet got.

Ivy loved that. She loved how Prairie was a whole piece of fabric. Ivy was not. Instead there was a hole in the middle of her, a big, ragged tear she could feel ripping bigger all the time. Doing this movie—it was to mend that hole. It would be a matter of sewing herself together, darning herself up the best she could. She picked at a piece of lichen.

“How come you can't come to North Carolina and make a movie? There's lots of cool stuff to film there. Uncle Tecumseh could tell you stories—”

“I need a camera first.” Ivy put big spaces between the words so that Prairie would get the point. “I have to have three hundred dollars. Three hundred and fifty plus tax, actually. I can earn it working for Mrs. Grizzby.” When the lady with the broken leg introduced herself as Inez Grizzby, Ivy had felt even more sorry for her.

“Maybe Mom and Dad could lend it to you.”

“No.”

“Grammy, then—”

“
No.
That won't work.” None of the Everses could afford to loan her money, and besides, she needed to do this by herself.

Prairie kicked at the air again. “So you're really going to make a movie?”

“Yes.”

“You really think you can?”

“I do think so. I can. I will.”

The chickens ambled below them, pecking at bugs. Fiddle stretched his wings out bossily. He flapped at a hen to make her move—he'd found something he wanted her to eat—and the hen squawked in irritation but then went where Fiddle wanted. Ivy smiled sadly. She loved the chickens. Not as much as Prairie did, but she did love them. And this day, sitting here in the tree house saying a hard, sad thing and staring down at the flock below, was almost exactly like the day she'd told Prairie what had happened between her mom and dad.

She'd been so frightened then. Frightened that Prairie would draw back in horror. That she wouldn't want to be friends any longer.

She was almost as frightened now. But Prairie wouldn't disappoint her. Ivy turned to explain even better—she'd skimmed over the hardest parts pretty fast—but Prairie got up onto her knees and scrambled down the ladder.

Ivy went
to bed early that night. She didn't know what else to do. Prairie was snuggled on one end of the couch with a book when Ivy got inside and wouldn't meet Ivy's eye, and suddenly the farmhouse didn't seem as much like home as usual.

In the morning Ivy pretended not to wake up when Prairie climbed out of the top bunk. When she was sure Prairie wasn't coming back, she crept to the stairs. She sat there alone. Pup hadn't even come with her.

Prairie's voice wafted up from the kitchen along with the smell of pancakes. “It's like she's not even the same person.”

Ivy heard the scrape of a spatula, then a soft
flop.
Mom Evers, flipping the cakes up in the air the way she did, then catching them and easing them back onto the griddle.

“Everything changes, sweetie. And everyone's entitled to change.”

“Well, I don't like it.”

Mom Evers made a sound that was half a laugh. Someone scraped a chair back and the kitchen door opened and shut. Dad Evers. He wouldn't want to listen to this. He'd go outside and sand chairs instead. Ivy wished she could go with him. She wouldn't want to talk, either. She'd just sit and watch him work. She hugged her knees.

“I can't believe she asked that old lady for a job that's right during our trip. And when you were in the hospital, too. Something might've happened to you! Something might've happened to the baby.”

“Well, but I was okay, sweetie. The baby and I are fine. We're okay, and Ivy knew that when she asked, you told me already. Don't be mad at her for that.”

“I am, though. I
am
mad at her, I can't help it.”

Mom Evers made the sound again.

“Aren't you?”

“Aren't I what? Mad at Ivy?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Not mad. Sad for her, is more it.”

Ivy balled her fists up.

“But she's so different. I never thought she could be like this. She's almost—cold. Like her mom, sort of.”

“Oh, I don't think that. I think she has a lot going on and a lot to figure out and she's trying to sort through it all.”

“But without us!”

“Well, maybe. Maybe she has to pull away to see things clearly. Maybe we have to let her.”

“I
hate
it,” Prairie cried.

Ivy wanted to go smashing down the stairs and tell Prairie she hated it too. Hated being talked about and misunderstood, hated having to lie sometimes, hated having a mission that she had to undertake instead of going to North Carolina and having a good time, and, maybe most of all, hated being pitied.

• • •

She clasped her arms around her knees and leaned forward, straining to hear what Grammy would say.

The teakettle whistled, a cupboard door opened, a spoon clunked inside a cup. Grammy, stirring sugar into her tea. Ivy knew the sound as well as she knew which mug Grammy would've taken, the pale blue one with dimpled squares all around its outside and a milky-white interior. A minute later a chair scraped again: Grammy sitting back down.

Ivy waited, hardly breathing. There was quiet until Prairie said, “She doesn't even get why I don't want just the chickens anymore. But you can't make a living on just chickens, and besides that, they don't lay forever. You have to slaughter them or else wait for them to die, and I hate that.”

“There's a lot of hate spouting out of you for so early in the morning.” Grammy sounded tired. “You might want to taste your words before you get in such a yank to spit them out.”

“Grammy!”

“Just saying.”

There was a space of quiet before Prairie spoke again.

“Goats live longer. And dairy goats you don't have to really think about as meat at all, you know? Kelly thinks LaManchas are the best for cheese, but I think Saanen. LaManchas don't give enough every day, you'd never make anything. We keep arguing about it. Kelly says it doesn't matter, it's only on paper, but it
does
matter. It matters to me.”

“Kelly's pretty opinionated, isn't he?” Mom asked in a smiling voice, and Ivy sat poleaxed. This Kelly person was a
boy.

“Saanens
are
better. It's just obvious. They're so big and sweet
and
they produce the most milk. Anybody with half a brain could see it.”

Mom Evers laughed. Then she said, “I think you need to take it easy on Ivy. Moving is hard. Getting used to a new school, living with her mom again—cut her some slack.”

Prairie sighed. “It's just—I miss her. And it feels like she doesn't miss us.”

“She misses us.”

Ivy shivered with how much she did miss the Everses and with how essential it was that she never let them know how much. If they knew that, they'd also know how bad things were with her mom.

“Walk a mile in her moccasins,” Grammy said. “Put yourself in her boots, see what the view's like. As advice goes, it's an oldie but a goodie.”

Prairie made a noise, an
augh
of frustration that was so familiar Ivy almost wanted to smile.

Then Prairie said, “Fine! I'll try!” in a pretend-mad voice and Grammy chuckled and Dad Evers came in saying, “What's all this hilarity?”

Ivy shoved her fists under her armpits. She felt like a lizard was turning around and around in her stomach, scraping up different feelings with every turn: anger, sadness, shame, and then anger again. That part surprised her, but she hated hearing herself discussed like this.

“I-vee! Breakfast!” Grammy called up the stairs. Ivy stood just as Grammy poked her head around the corner. “Oh, there you are. It's time to eat, Knasgowa. It's pancakes, your favorite.”

Ivy smiled at her grimly. “Thanks, Grammy, but I'm not hungry. I think maybe I'll go home early, if somebody can take me.”

Grammy frowned. “That doesn't sound like you—”

“I'm not feeling very good. My stomach hurts.”

Grammy climbed the steps and put the back of her hand against Ivy's forehead. Ivy closed her eyes and let herself pretend for one more moment that she really could belong here, inside this family instead of always just at the edge of it. “You do feel a little warm.”

“My throat hurts too.” It was true. Ivy felt strangled by a rope of anger braided with grief.