Ivy's Twisted Vine Redux (2 page)

Wrapping the scarf around her neck, Ivy waited outside the restaurant for the valet to pull her car around after the meeting. Almost about to explode, she couldn’t wait to get inside her car and call her mother. She was officially the senior project manager of African-American Collegiate Marketing for Yveson and Letehwich, the number one marketing firm in Memphis or should she say “the southeastern region”.

All of her hard work had paid off, literally. After signing the contract, Joseph slipped her an envelope with a hefty incentive package to help her during her final year in school and a briefcase full on information about her new job expectations. It had taken everything in her to keep from bursting into tears of joy and laughter. She was on her way to the top and nothing would stop her.

Book One

“Don’t plant seeds in your life that you don’t want to harvest.”

– Linda Artis

Chapter 1

SOMEONE OLD

“Oh
Grey, I love you so much,” Ivy said, panting heavily as her fiancé lifted her off the ground and carried her to the twin mahogany wood sleigh bed in the corner of the dorm room.

“Yeah. Yeah, me too,” Grey said shortly, placing Ivy carefully on the bed. He really wished they had gone to his place. Ivy’s little room made him feel claustrophobic.

“Oh, don’t forget the condom,” Ivy reminded him hastily as she unbuttoned her soft pink Brooks Brothers Oxford and revealed the black lace bra that invitingly propped up her ample breasts.

“I’ve already got it on,” Grey said, pulling off her wool trousers and relishing in the beauty of her caramel temple.

Looking down in shock, Ivy confirmed his readiness and for a second tried to recall when Grey would have had time to slip on the contraceptive. Reminded of the little time that they had as she saw his tie and shirt hit the ground, she reached out for him and held his beautiful brown, clean-shaven face in her hands.

It had been five days since they were last intimate, which was unusual for the oversexed pair. Nearly at the four-month mark of their engagement, tension had been running high over the last few weeks.

Ivy could only attribute such an untimely funk to Grey’s new promotion at the firm and his heavy load in graduate school. But now they were finally alone, and what had started out as an argument was about to end in the heated pleasure of two young adults releasing all earthly frustration in a thirty-minute session of tantric, erotic and somewhat distasteful sex.

“Wait,” Grey stopped suddenly.

“What?” Ivy’s high was instantly interrupted.

“I think…the condom just broke.” He checked. “Yep, it did.”

Standing up, Grey walked over slowly to the satin lounge chair and retrieved his pants.

“And I don’t have another one with me.”

“But you didn’t even touch me.” Ivy pulled the covers over her exposed body and tried to reclaim her composure.

Disappointed, he slipped on his trousers. “Sorry baby.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said in a pouty voice as she pulling her long locks up into a ponytail.

“You know we could, just this once….” He gave her
the look
and hoped that she could read between the lines.

“Baby, you know that I want to, but we’ve done so well for so long. We can’t just throw it all away now.”

This is a situation that could be easily solved if you only had a few condoms yourself
, Grey thought to himself as he smiled sardonically.
And she was supposed to be such a modern woman.

Now, Grey was even more frustrated and ready to leave unless Ivy was willing to give him a little substitution. Watching her jump up and immediately begin to dress, he knew that whatever he had hoped for was out as well.

“One time won’t kill us.” Grey decided to push the subject a little further.

“How long have we been together?” Ivy asked, as she looked at his reflection in her standing mahogany mirror.

Grey sighed heavily. “That’s beside the point.” Lord in heaven knew that he didn’t care to hear another lecture from her at that moment about safe sex. If she got any safer, she would be celibate.

“Five years.” Ivy answered for him as she turned around to face him. “And in five years, we have never gone without protection of some sort.”

“Okay, bravo.” He clapped his hands emphatically. “It’s not like I want to get you pregnant. In fact, I can almost guarantee you 100 percent that I wouldn’t. But even still in the worst case scenario, you act like pregnancy with me is the end of the world.” He knew that his comments would start an argument, but he couldn’t help himself. He was
Grey Henderson
for God’s Sake. It wasn’t like she was scraping the bottom of the barrel.

“Look, you know I possibly would if I was still on birth control, but until the doctor puts me back on them, we have to be careful. I mean, I’m just now getting into my field. I don’t want to throw it away.” Ivy could feel a headache coming, and she could see that Grey was trying to pick at her again.

“Why do you always take things to the next level? We’re talking about not using a condom once. I would pull out. God, it’s not the end of the world,” Grey snapped, as he slipped on his Louis Vuitton loafers and stood up. It wasn’t worth it to sit and fight with her about something that he could get elsewhere.

“I’m not taking things to the next level, Grey. I just…”
Ivy sighed feeling defeated.

“Please, I don’t want the drama this early in the day,” Grey said, clasping his hands together as a gesture of peace. “I’ve got to go anyway.” He hurriedly put on his shirt and tie and grabbed his suit jacket.

“Why do we always have to ruin things?” Ivy crossed her arms and stood bewildered. How had the situation escaladed so quickly?

“
We
ruin things? Since when have
we
been the problem?” Grey sighed. He didn’t mean to let his frustration slip out. He was sure that there would be other times, but he was extremely agitated just the same.

“Look, I’m gonna go on and head out of here. Okay. You’ve got class in less than an hour, and I’ve got a hundred things to do before I get back to the office. Let’s not do this before the start of a perfectly long day.” He looked down at his watch. “I’ll call you tonight.” Kissing Ivy on her forehead, he turned on his heels and headed out of the door, leaving her speechless.

*

Dr. Peterson was a stickler for tardiness even in the unheard of September snow that was falling heavily under the dismal silver skies. Less than one hour after Grey left, barely missing the classroom door close and saving herself the embarrassment of interrupting Dr. Peterson’s lecture, Ivy sat down beside her best friend, Trina, to begin yet another boring lecture about business ethics.

“Did you type up your essay last night?” Trina whispered to Ivy as Dr. Peterson closed the door.

“Yeah, did you?” Ivy asked, pulling her work from her brown leather satchel and placing it confidently on her desk.

“I forgot.” Trina said, taking Ivy’s essay and sliding it under her desk. “Don’t remind him. He may have forgotten, too.”

“Good morning, class. Please take out your essays,” Dr. Peterson said, smiling at Trina. “I hope that you all remembered that this counts as twenty percent of your final semester grade.”

“I hate him,” Trina said under her breath as she smiled back at Dr. Peterson.

*

Class passed quickly and within an hour Ivy and Trina found themselves at their favorite eatery Abundant Creations Bistro in the Cooper-Young district having a light lunch and warm lemon tea cozy corner restaurant watching the busy mid-town traffic pass by in the window. It was a once a week trip they made to relax at and enjoy the afternoon away from the campus.

“You’re gonna fail,” Ivy said disapprovingly to Trina, who only lifted her eyebrow in response.

“Quit being so damned dramatic. I ain’t gonna fail; I just won’t graduate with a thousand honors. Everyone can’t be a 4.0 student, you know.” Trina teased.

“I just know that you’re better than average,” Ivy said, ignoring Trina and the second accusation of the day that she was a drama queen.

“Yes, mother. What’s bothering you today?”

“Grey,” Ivy said, looking down at the green-checkered tablecloth. “Sometimes, he seems so freaking unreasonable. And I just don’t understand why.” She tried to smile. “And sometimes, I feel like maybe it’s all me being way too uptight.”

“Probably a little bit of both.” Trina touched her hand. “Planning a wedding during your senior year of college is a lot of responsibility.”

“I know. We’re both stressed out. Maybe I should just take it easy for a little while, you know, not bother him so much and be a little more relaxed about certain
issues
.”

“Issues like what?” Trina pried. Grey was known for asking far too much of Ivy for his own selfish aspirations.

“Sex without a condom while I’m off birth control.”

“Oh,” Trina smirked, wiping her mouth with the napkin. “I thought he asked for anal or something.”

Ivy laughed.
Leave it to Trina to think of the most out of control scenario
. “No,” Ivy said, shaking her head. Suddenly, his request didn’t seem so bad compared to Trina’s guess.

“But at least you can’t get pregnant through the backdoor.”

“But I still wouldn’t,” Ivy interjected. “I would never. That is so…disgusting, dehumanizing…,” she said as a horrible afterthought shaking her head violently.

“I know
you
wouldn’t,” Trina chuckled..

“What is that suppose to mean?” Ivy put her sandwich down again.

“Girl, please. You’ve got on a button down Oxford, sweater vest, slacks and loafers. You’ve got a Blackberry with a list of things to accomplish everyday. You’ve got a five-year plan, a ten-year plan and a back up plan for your entire professional career. Ever since Grey got hold of you, you’ve changed. You’ve become…
him in a skirt
.” Trina laughed.

“I can be wild,” Ivy said, outraged in a high-pitched voice, as if to convince Trina. “It’s just that Grey always has somewhere he wants me to go with him and his family, and they are so politically correct. I just stay prepared. But I have jeans and t-shirts. And I don’t always carry my Blackberry.” She looked down into her Coach bag to see it at the top of the contents of her purse.

“Well, I think that you’re perfect just the way you are,
if this is who you really are
,” Trina said, looking at Ivy’s sweater. “Because that outfit is still banging and probably more expensive than the equivalent of everything in my closet.” She smiled. “It’s just so…uptight.”

“Well, I’m not uptight,” Ivy said reassuringly. “I pull this look off.”

“Uh huh, I know.” Trina smiled. “In all the years that I’ve known you, you’ve always been true to yourself…even if it took you a while to figure out who you were.”

“Well, I know who I am. I’m a woman in charge of her destiny. I’ve focused in on what I want, and I plan to go for it,” she said squinting her eyes. “And Grey is only a small part of that, just like this outfit is only a small part of me. If he left me today, I would still be the same person.”

“I doubt that,” Trina said, bucking her eyes. “I mean, you’ve been sculpted into what he and your family wants for so long, that if that were to change, you would change dramatically.”

“
This
is who I am, Trina.”

“And I love you for it,” Trina said, realizing that she would never prove her point.

For a minute, Ivy went into a reactive daze. In her mind, she was as happy as any young woman her age could be within reason. She had been dating Grey for five beautiful years and this last summer, he proposed over a candlelit dinner
after three bottles of champagne.
Everyone in both families knew that the proposal was coming soon. It was the next thing to do when a couple reached that level. Plus, she had a little more than one semester of college left and a job lined up and waiting for her. Her life was near perfection.

*

“Life couldn’t be worse,” Grey confessed, exhaling deeply as he sat back on his friend’s black leather couch and closed his eyes.

“You know, I charge for these sessions,” Mattock said, sitting behind his desk. “Free consultations aren’t my
forte
.”

“To hell with your
forte
. Besides, I don’t need a shrink. I need a pall bearer.” Grey shifted around and looked up at the ceiling.

“Why? Are you about to die?” Mattock asked, biting down into a juicy green apple as he looked over the downtown Memphis skyline through his corner-office window.

“Yeah, you didn’t know. My fiancée is planning my funeral now.” Grey sat up. “But she likes to call it a wedding,” he said in a mockingly feminine voice.

“I don’t understand. If you didn’t want to get married, then why did you propose to her? It wasn’t like she was twisting your arm for it.” After being friends with Grey many years, Mattock still did not understand Grey’s need to lead such a promiscuous lifestyle.

Grey pondered the thought. “It was time, according to my father’s standards and Ivy’s. My father thinks that we can’t win this election if I don’t have a more concrete image in the community. Plus, Ivy has always hinted at marriage after college. It was a perfect match. This election means an opportunity to go for it. All the local blogs, polls and political leaders say that Memphis needs a family man in my uncle’s position. Plus at first glance, I did want to get married. Our relationship was going great, both of us had promising futures, both of us had the same ambitions and to top it all off, she was all mine.”