The Wishing Tree (20 page)

Shea looked at the unfamiliar car and back at Ivy, confused. “What? You were expecting FedEx?” Ivy asked. April parked on the street and jumped out, waving a box at Shea as Ivy ran into the yard to meet her. Owen just looked confused as the women encircled him and Shea tore into the box, Ivy calling out erratic introductions as the tape was
ripped from the box. Before she was even into it, Shea was already calling out, “Is this what I think it is?”

Ivy just smiled back at her and waited for her to see the folds of white silk hidden underneath aged tissue paper. Shea pulled the dress from the box and tossed the cardboard aside as she held her prize aloft, the dress waving in the wind like some oversize silk flag complete with lace and pearls. “Mom’s dress!” Shea kept saying over and over, the smile on her face exactly what Ivy had in mind when she’d first conceived of getting April to bring it.

Shea turned to Owen. “Now I don’t have to wear that ugly one I hate!” She reached out and hugged first Ivy, then April. “Thank you both so much!” She looked at April for a moment. “You must be April!” Tears flowed from all of them even as they laughed.

“I hate to break up this little party, but we better be going if we want to make dance class,” Owen said, clearly looking for an escape from the flowing estrogen. Reluctantly, Shea handed over the dress to Ivy, with the promise that Ivy would take it in and hang it up. Tomorrow would mean a speedy alteration process if the dress would be ready for the nuptials. Ivy had already secured an expert seamstress—one of Leah’s cronies—for the job. She held the dress up and inspected it. It looked like it would fit Shea perfectly. It helped that Margot and Shea were roughly the same size.

As she watched Shea and Owen drive away, she realized she wished her sister nothing but happiness. The thought comforted her. She’d already come a long way. Maybe that meant she’d make it the rest of the way too. She put her arm around April and squeezed. And now her best friend and
trusted confidante would be beside her as she did. Everything felt perfect as they headed up the stairs into the house, the dress dancing on the breeze as they walked, just like it would dance when Shea wore it in two days. And Ivy had made that possible. But her feelings of goodwill lasted as long as it took for April to start talking, to confess that the dress wasn’t the only thing she’d brought to Sunset with her.

The feeling between April and Ivy went from elation to
devastation in the few seconds it took for April to reveal that she had brought Elliott with her. Dread swamped her. “What do you mean, April?” she asked, her voice a warning.

“Elliot’s here,” She repeated, her eyes begging her to understand.

“What?” She should have expected this. She had never told him outright that she did not want him at the wedding, just assumed that her message was loud and clear: no contact. She hadn’t worked out what excuse she’d tell her family yet for Elliott’s no-show, but she’d certainly determined she didn’t want him here.

“Ivy.” April switched tactics from beseeching to exasperation. “From what I can gather, you haven’t even told your family yet what’s going on. What was going to be your
excuse when Elliott didn’t show up? Having him here actually helps you, when you think about it.”

“Thanks a lot. I appreciate your thinking of me.” Ivy couldn’t have been more sarcastic.

“If it helps you to know, it was kind of a last-minute decision,” April admitted. “Elliott thought it was risky, but I talked him into it. At least I had the good sense to leave him at the hotel first,” she said, as if that made a difference.

Ivy looked at her friend—the one person she thought would never betray her. “I just can’t deal with this right now, April,” she said.

“Then when will you, Ivy? How long are you going to keep running away?”

Ivy stood up, signaling the conversation was over. She went to the front door and opened it. “I’ll let you know.”

April left without further argument, but not without a “you’re crazy and you’d better face up to life” look.

Ivy wanted to feel angry at April, but instead she just felt fearful over the thought of talking to Elliott now. Now when that reporter was there sniffing around for a story. Now when she was trying to retake lost ground with Michael. Now when the wedding was getting ready to happen in front of a nation’s worth of viewers.
Now
Elliott was here.

Things couldn’t be worse.

Ivy paced around in the living area, in front of the bank of windows, barely noticing the expanse of marsh in front of her. She stopped pacing when her phone rang and leaned down to pick it up. She looked at the display on her phone, grimacing at the number she saw: April, calling so soon after her hasty exit.

She was tempted to ignore it, giving her the cell phone equivalent of the silent treatment. But that would be childish, and maybe April was calling to say she was sorry and she was taking Elliott back where he came from. She answered with a hopeful note in her voice, drawing from a reservoir she was surprised she still had.

“There was something I didn’t tell you,” April said, going right to her point. “Something I think you should know.”

More unexpected news was not what Ivy was looking for. She sighed into the phone. “What?”

“Your family knows. About Elliott. About the Twitter account.”

So things could be worse. Her heart quickened and she sank into the nearest chair, gripping the phone tighter as she tried to process what April was saying. “What do you mean, they know? They haven’t said anything. They’ve acted completely oblivious.”

“Well, they know somehow. They’ve all been following him at least a week. Elliott said your mom apparently created an account just to follow him. Did you even know your sister was on Twitter? He told me as we were driving down here. He thought you knew—that they were following him for you, giving you reports or whatever.” April paused. “He was hoping that you were reading what he’d been writing to you, or at least hearing about it from them.”

Hanging on to the last shred of her pride, Ivy didn’t confess that she’d read every tweet he’d written. “No” was all she said. “They weren’t telling me about it.”

Her mind raced through the possibilities of how they could know. Michael. She’d told him about the Twitter
account on the night they went out to dinner. So why had her family said nothing in spite of the chances they’d had, all doing a good job of acting oblivious?

She realized that wasn’t quite true. Just yesterday both her mom and her sister had danced around the subject, cracking the door open for her to walk through. But she wasn’t ready yet. Not with the wedding coming up. Not when she was so mixed up about Michael.

Anger rose within her, running through her veins and warming her skin. Betrayal was everywhere she looked. First Elliott, then Michael, then April, now the rest of her family—people who were supposed to care, to want the best for her. She leaned against the back of the chair and closed her eyes, Michael’s face coming to her mind as she did. Why did he do this to her?

“I gotta go, April,” she said, already rising from her seat and looking for her car keys. She had to find Michael and ask him why he’d betrayed her.

“We’ll just wait here,” April said. “I mean, Elliott wants to see you before we go back.”

“What if I don’t want to see him?” Ivy retorted.

“You’ve been following his Twitter account. You know every word he’s written even though you deny it. Ask yourself why that is and don’t lie to yourself that it’s just because you want to monitor what he’s saying about you. You’re checking it because you want to hear his apology, you want to accept it. Because you still have feelings for him and deep, deep down you hope that your marriage can somehow be saved.” April sounded smug and very, very right. “And you’ll never convince me otherwise.” She paused for dramatic effect. “So
be mad at me if you must, but you will eventually get over it. I did the right thing bringing him here and I stand by my decision.”

“Must be nice to be you. So sure of yourself,” Ivy spat, sounding snippy and childish. Maybe someday she would understand April’s bold move. Maybe someday they would laugh about all this. But first she had to confront Michael and find out why he of all people had betrayed her too.

As she drove around trying to spot the yellow Jeep in Michael’s usual haunts, she thought about all that had happened between them in the last several weeks—how his hesitation with her had been palpable at first but had progressed to a tolerance that was a relief. From there they’d made slow progress to an understanding of what had doomed their relationship in the past. So what if he had turned away from her overtures last time they talked. With a few more weeks, they might’ve made it back to good friends. And from there, who knew?

She longed to turn back the clock, to go back to the night the photo was taken that she still had up in her room, the one of her and Michael, Shea and Owen. Michael had asked her to marry him at the gazebo near the pier that very night, kneeling down as children rode by on bicycles and elderly couples shuffled past. Some people stopped when they realized what was going on. She’d tried to listen to the words he said, but they were words she already knew—things they’d said to each other for as long as they
could remember. The moment other girls dreamed of was, for her, one that had happened already, the details a mere formality. And even as she said yes and he kissed her and the people clapped and wandered back to their own lives, she’d felt a little pang for what she didn’t have—and for how unfair it was to Michael that she couldn’t muster up the same excitement he had.

After his proposal they’d met Shea and Owen for dinner on the water in nearby Southport, the mood festive as they all talked about the wedding. A nearby diner had snapped that photo, the sun setting in the background as the camera captured their radiant faces. But the ring Michael had put on her finger hadn’t fit and she’d spent most of the evening feeling it slip, worried that it would fall off.

She thought about all that Michael had to be angry with her for. She hadn’t just broken their engagement. She’d taken the coward’s way out, shipping his ring back in a box with a note, staying in Asheville with Elliott instead of returning to Sunset Beach. Everyone had been so angry with her, she’d been afraid to come back and face them all. So she’d started a new life, dodging them for years because she was embarrassed, ashamed of her behavior. And she’d blamed them for it because they didn’t show up on her doorstep and beg.

She pulled into the pier parking lot and walked over to the gazebo where Michael had proposed, taking a seat in the same spot she’d been sitting in then, wishing she could change what had happened after that moment in time. But as she closed her eyes and tried to picture Michael’s face, it was Elliott’s she saw. Elliott proposing to her not long after
they met, holding his grandmother’s ring as they sat beside the stream beside one of April’s cabins, the earnest look in his eyes as he begged her not to marry Michael.

He’d slipped Michael’s ring from her finger, replacing it with the one he held. Michael’s had been bigger, prettier, shinier. But Elliott’s had fit perfectly without having to be resized. Elliott’s ring had meaning attached to it, a heritage that didn’t involve her scheming, dreaming family, a chance to make her own way. She’d said yes to Elliott, feeling giddy and hopeful and … happy. So happy.

She looked down at her hand, at the ring she’d chosen to wear. She hadn’t taken it off at Sunset because she wanted to fool her family. But also because somehow it hadn’t felt right to take off her wedding ring. Not yet. She spun it around on her finger, noting that it needed cleaning. She’d neglected it like she’d neglected so many things.

She stood up and, for lack of anywhere else to go, headed for home. She aimed her car down the now-familiar street. As she passed the McCoy house, she gave it a cursory glance, not expecting to see the yellow Jeep in the drive. But it was. She turned abruptly into the drive and parked.

Not rehearsing what she would say to him, she knocked on the door, a staccato succession of sharp sounds.

He opened the door and blinked at her before moving out of the way and gesturing for her to enter. “Not sure I’m in the mood for whatever this is about,” he mumbled as he shut the door.

Ignoring his comment, she looked around. “Is she here?”

He wrinkled his brow. “By
she
I would guess you mean Vivienne?”

Ivy gave him her best “duh” look from their teen years. “Is she?”

He crossed his arms in front of him, looking amused. “No. She had some work to do. Some story she’s covering. She had to do an interview with some guy who’s in town.”

Ivy felt her blood pressure spike as she put two and two together. No doubt who Vivienne was interviewing. Her hands clenched by her sides, but she chose to ignore them. There was nothing to protect anymore. Everyone knew about Elliott’s Twitter account and their separation. In a way, she realized as she stood facing off against Michael, knowing that her secret was out freed her. She didn’t have to hide anymore. “Will you go for a walk with me?” she asked.

He shrugged, looking like he couldn’t care less, which she tried to ignore. He followed her out of the house, sliding on his flip-flops in the doorway before they headed down the stairs. They walked stiffly along 40th Street, away from the house, him keeping a careful distance.

After a stint of silence, she finally spoke up. “I guess I should thank you.”

“Thank me? For what?” he answered.

“For telling my family about me and Elliott. About his Twitter account.”

He stopped walking and turned to look at her. “I didn’t tell your family anything.”

She responded quickly. “Well, did you tell Owen? That’s the same as telling my family, you know.”

“No, I didn’t tell anyone. It wasn’t anyone else’s business. And it was your decision when you wanted people to know.” He cocked his head at her for a moment before he continued
walking. “I kept my promise to you.” The last comment was quieter, so faint she wasn’t sure she heard him right.

She knew he wasn’t just talking about this time, this promise. He was talking about all of them. The ones he’d kept versus the ones she hadn’t. Without thinking about it, she reached out, took his hand, and squeezed it. She was surprised when he squeezed back, and didn’t feel bad when he let go. They continued on in silence, making their way to the center of the island, back to the gazebo she had just visited. Though they never discussed it, it seemed they knew where to go without speaking. It was as if her wish to start over was being granted. She snuck a look at Michael, thinking of how she’d felt when he drove away with Vivienne.

They took a seat on one of the benches in the gazebo. She was careful to avoid the one she sat on when they got engaged. “Feels weird being back here,” he said. He wiped his palms on his shorts and looked away.

“Yeah,” she said. “It sure does.” She looked out at the ocean, noticing that the traffic had sure picked up since she arrived. People wandered around, some carrying fishing poles, some carrying cameras, some carrying beach chairs. She took a deep breath of the briny air. “But it feels good too.”

“Maybe for you.”

She looked over at him, the pain on his face unmistakable. She thought of what Owen had said when he was angry the other night, about Michael’s conflicting emotions over her return.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I—”

“You know what you told me, that one time I got you to talk about it?”

She remembered he’d called from the beach house and she’d answered thinking—hoping—it was her mother calling to tell her she was coming to her and Elliott’s wedding after all. It had been a sneaky thing to do on his part, and she’d been angry. More because it hadn’t been her mom on the other end of the phone than because of what he’d done. She was always taking things out on him. She’d felt comfortable doing that, entitled even. “I hardly remember anything from that time in my life. It was a … confusing time.”

“You said that he was the one person you were meant to be with. That you never knew love could feel like it did with him.” He pressed his mouth into a thin line. “And I knew right then I had to let you go.”

“But I think I was wrong.”

He shook his head. “You weren’t. When you said it, I felt it go through me, the truth of it. I knew I’d lost you and I knew that, as hard as it was going to be, I had to let you go.”