The Education of Ivy Blake (15 page)

“Muhammad won't
come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Muhammad.”

Grammy stood on Beryl's porch cradling a white bakery box and gripping a photo album against her side with one elbow. A brightly striped gift bag with pink rope handles dangled from three fingers of one hand.

Ivy gaped at her. The doorbell had gonged and she'd raced down from upstairs because she knew Beryl was just getting out of the shower.

“I was thinking you'd invite me in.”

“I—wow.
Grammy.
Yes, come in! I thought you'd be the FedEx guy for Beryl.”

“Nope.”

Ivy took the bakery box from Grammy's arms and led her into the front hall.

“Who is it?” Beryl called from the bathroom.

“It's Grammy!”

“Excellent,” Beryl hollered. “I'll put coffee on in a minute—Patience, you like coffee?”

“Love it,” Grammy hollered back. “I've brought cake.”

“Perfect. Go on into the dining room, you two. Ivy, get the good china out of the credenza, and the silver.”

A minute later Ivy and Grammy were seated across from each other at the dining room table. Ivy watched Perkin pad toward a patch of sunlight. She was glad Grammy had come but she didn't know what to say. Perkin sat down and began cleaning his paw.

“That was a beautiful card you made,” Grammy said.

Ivy rubbed her thumb over a faint scar in the tabletop.

“Loren's got Walton making a frame for it. Looks like you took a long time on it.”

“A few hours,” Ivy said softly.

“It's clear you meant what you said.”

Ivy rubbed harder at the table's shallow scar.

“‘Love, Ivy,'” Grammy quoted. “Clear you meant it. Even though we haven't heard much from your corner lately. Clear to me, anyway. And to Walton and Loren.”

Ivy exhaled a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, but she had, for a long time. For weeks. Months, really. Ever since her mother brought her to Kingston in April. Ever since she chose her mom over her friendship with Prairie and then wasn't sure where to put her foot next.

“I wouldn't be surprised if even Daniel gets it, he's such a wonder. I never saw such a bright boy, not since Walton was born. I've brought pictures—”

Grammy patted the photo album and Ivy nodded.

“Prairie's a different story. She's got a bit of a bee in her bonnet. You've hurt her feelings, kiddo.”

Ivy ducked her head. Prairie had hurt her feelings too, but Ivy knew she might've been the one to start it, and for sure she hadn't been the one to end it.

“As far as I can tell, it's nonsense, on both your parts. Life is short, forgive fast. Mark Twain said something to that effect.”

Ivy studied her feet. They were bare, which seemed wrong, considering the fancy china and silver. She was about to tell Grammy she and Mark Twain were right when Beryl came in.

“Coffee's ready.”

Grammy clapped. “Let's haul out that cake. I bought it from a place in New Paltz. Leola—the woman I was with on the Walkway, Ivy—does all their fancy decorating, has for years. And let's get these presents opened too, Knasgowa.”

Ivy didn't mean to smile—she didn't much these days—but she couldn't help herself, a grin stole out. There were presents; they were for her.

“So—David's a real wonder, huh?” she said as she reached for a package.

• • •

“These are so pretty.” Ivy held a teacup up to the light over the sink. Grammy had gone home hours ago and now dinner was over too. She turned the cup. It was so thin she could see her thumb on the opposite side. “I'm scared I'll break them.”

“You won't break anything. Besides, they're just things.”

“Yeah, but
nice
things. You don't want to go crashing them around.”

Beryl stood with her bad hip leaned against the counter, drying plates. She wiped each one tenderly, like a baby's face. “Belonged to my great-great-aunt. The set's been in the family since Lincoln was president.”

Ivy held up a fork. “These too?”

Beryl examined the handle. “
These
were from my dad's side. Great-Grandma Myrtle's wedding silver. Didn't seem right to send it to Goodwill, even though I had two sets already. These are the nicest, I think. I like that flare in the handle.” Beryl rubbed the fork with her thumb.

“My aunt Connie had silver. Real silver, like this.”

“Nice. Was it hers, or your grandmother's, or somebody else's?”

Beryl looked at Ivy expectantly, but now, even though Ivy had been the one to bring the subject up, she didn't want to talk about it. Thinking about the past was too hard. It was like taking the lid off a basket of snakes. Beautiful snakes, like the copperhead she'd watched on TV, but dangerous. There were good memories mixed up with the bad ones and it all made Ivy's throat go tight. “I don't know. I don't remember,” she said. She picked up the pan Beryl had used to cook chicken for their supper. “Do I put this in the water, or just wipe it off?”

Ivy woke
out of a dream in the middle of the night. She didn't know if it'd been good or bad, only that it left her alert. She looked at her clock. Three a.m.

She wondered what her mother was doing. She imagined her in the orange jumpsuit she'd been wearing when Ivy saw her last week. Mrs. Marsden had picked her up and taken her to the jail. They went through security and a guard led them to a visiting room. Mrs. Marsden patted Ivy's shoulder when her mom came out, then went and sat by the door. Ivy and her mom perched across from each other in low padded chairs that were built to look comfortable, but weren't.

I thought you'd go back with the Everses,
her mom had said.

Ivy didn't feel like explaining about that.
They put me with Beryl.

You like her? This Beryl?

Yes.

Heavy doors clanged; the guards stood watchful. There was a chemical smell. Some cleanser, probably. Her mom sat quietly, looking at Ivy.

The food's not too bad,
she said after a while.

That's good.

Finally really quitting the cigarettes. Don't have a choice, you can't have 'em in here.

That's good. That you're quitting, I mean.

It's hard to sleep at night. Noisy. I could do with a shot of something, but of course you can't have that either. Ha.

I'm sorry.

Her mom shook her head.
I don't sleep at night anyway.

She'd smiled sadly, and then it was time to go.

It was strange, how her mom was in jail—for now, anyway—for hitting George, but had ended up coming home not all that long after shooting Ivy's father. The two things were so different. Except that they both happened in the same kind of moment—one of her mom's crazy angry moments.

Ivy imagined her mom sitting on the edge of a bunk, her head hanging down, her hands clasped together. She imagined her jiggling her leg and wishing for a cigarette. She imagined her getting into an argument. That's what she did when she was mad, or scared, or bored, and it'd be boring in there, especially for her mom, who didn't have hobbies like drawing or reading or weight lifting. Only now—how did Ivy know?—maybe she did.

Ivy reached out a finger to touch the clock's greenly glowing face. She breathed in and out slowly. She told herself to think happy thoughts, or better yet, not to think at all.

Her mind refused to obey. It kept generating pictures: her mom picking up the gun; her mom holding baby Ivy nestled close, like Mom Evers held Daniel in the pictures Grammy had brought. Her mom looking at her pleadingly; her mom throwing her notebook across the diner. Her mom reaching into a popcorn bag and her mom plowing down George's garbage cans. Her mom sitting on the edge of a bunk, lonely and frightened . . .

After an hour Ivy threw the sheet off and poked her feet into the slippers Beryl had given her. The mailman had brought them a few days ago. She shuffled across the room and down the stairs to the kitchen. She would fix herself a cup of tea. Beryl always said to make herself at home. For once, Ivy would.

Ivy filled
the kettle and set it on the burner—its flames were like a ring of tiny campfires—and reached for a mug. Her hand brushed against something. She made a little leap and then there was a crash. Perkin yowled and Beryl's light came on in her room down the hall.

“I broke something,” Ivy said as soon as Beryl appeared in the kitchen. “I'm sorry. I'll get it fixed—” She looked at the shattered pieces and realized how dumb that sounded. “I mean, I'll buy you a new one.”

Beryl limped over and poked at the pieces with the tip of her crutch. “Thank God.”

“What?”

“Free at last. Geena gave it to me. Housewarming present. I'm sure it was expensive, it was from that gallery down on the water where they get a king's ransom for everything, but it was hideous. Couldn't say that, of course.”

Ivy stood very still. She didn't know whether to believe Beryl or not.

“The thing was a terror. Not my style at all, or hers either I'd have thought, but everybody makes a bad choice sometimes. Listen, get the kettle. The whistling's making me nervous.”

Ivy switched the burner off.

Beryl poked again at the broken pieces of teapot. “Probably better sweep it up before we step on it.”

Ivy hurried to get the broom and dustpan. When she'd finished, she didn't know what to do next. “I guess I'll go back to bed.”

“Don't you want your tea?”

Ivy glanced at Beryl uncertainly. “Do you want some?”

“No, but I'll sit with you, if you want. Maybe you'll tell me what that word meant.”

“What word?”

“That name Patience called you. Kennis-something.”

“Knasgowa.” Ivy smiled. “It's a nickname.”

“I figured
that.
But what does it mean?”

“Heron,” Ivy said. “It means heron, in Cherokee.”

Beryl waited, but Ivy didn't know what else to say.
Knasgowa
was a compliment. Herons were determined and curious. They were good hunters, good at waiting. They were known for being independent. Loners, really. If they were people, they wouldn't like anyone looking over their shoulder, telling them what to do. Sometimes that got them into trouble. Sometimes their eyes were bigger than their stomachs and they tried to bite off—or snatch up, in the case of a fish—more than they could chew. Still, they usually coped. They were survivors.

Ivy had looked it up on the computer at school when Grammy first said it, but she hadn't had to look it up to know what Grammy meant. Being called Heron was a big deal. Also a private deal.

“Like pulling teeth,” Beryl said equably when Ivy stayed quiet. “Come on, let's sit in the dining room, my leg's killing me.”

• • •

The clock on the credenza chimed once: three thirty. Ivy fiddled with the cake server, which Beryl had told her to leave out so she could polish it later. Ivy used to help Aunt Connie polish the silver after holiday dinners. Those were times—getting the silver out, setting the table, smelling the big chicken cooking—when Ivy had felt like a normal kid.

She smiled sadly. Aunt Connie. She told Ivy every drawing she did was
won
derful, her best yet. She clapped loudly at Ivy's school programs and always did a wolf whistle that was embarrassing. Once Ivy was a tree in a forest of trees in a play, and Aunt Connie insisted she was the best of the bunch, even though she didn't have a single line to speak.
Trees are good,
she'd told Ivy.
They don't have to talk. They just stand tall and strong.

No matter how bad things were, she had always stayed cheerful, or at least cheerful-ish.
Oh well,
she'd say, looking over whatever the problem was.
Shee-ite happens.
She actually did say that,
shee-ite,
instead of the real word.

It was strange, how two sisters could be so different.

She and Ivy's mom hadn't had a spectacular childhood. She'd told Ivy that, right at the end.
Not to excuse anything,
she said.
Just to, kind of, explain your mama to you. I'll tell you more about it one day.
She'd run out of time, though. It was a talk Ivy guessed neither one of them had much wanted to have.

The clock ticked and Perkin batted at a tinfoil ball. Otherwise the house was silent. Beryl sat with her leg up, her head tipped back, and her eyes shut. Ivy drew a fork toward her, then a spoon, and then the cake knife. “I could polish these,” she said. “If you wanted. I used to like polishing my aunt Connie's silver.”

• • •

She ended up talking more than she meant to. Maybe because it was the middle of the night. Everything was strange; the rules were broken.

“I think about my aunt Connie's stuff a lot.” Ivy had never said this to anyone before. She'd never even told Prairie how much time she spent walking through Aunt Connie's house in her head on nights she couldn't sleep. “I miss the weirdest things. Like her blender. Who misses a blender? But she used to make me milk shakes in it. Strawberry banana, chocolate chip coconut, whatever I wanted. And the silver—we used it for every single holiday. Mardi Gras, Earth Day, Halloween,
everything.
She said life was hard enough already without missing the chance to make a party of things—”

Beryl pumped her fist in the air without lifting her head from the back of her chair or opening her eyes. “Agreed. Bravo, Aunt Connie.”

Ivy glanced at her; the surface of her skin tingled with a feeling she couldn't pin down. Hope? Love? Or maybe it was trust. “And the Christmas decorations—I really miss those. She had this inflatable Santa sleigh and reindeer she put out on the lawn every winter. It was kind of dumb, but—you know. It was
ours,
it was us.”

“Of course it was.”

“I miss her collections. She collected
every
thing. Umbrellas, coffee mugs, old postcards, anything to do with a dragonfly—”

Beryl's eyes were still closed but her voice sounded interested. “What happened to all of it?”

“Mom put it in storage.” Everything Ivy hadn't grabbed and hidden in her closet.

“Storage. As in—a storage facility?”

“Yes. We jammed everything in. Boxes and boxes. It took forever.” Ivy remembered the sound of her mom slamming the storage room door shut. It was like she was shutting the door on that whole part of their life. Ivy hadn't cried at the funeral but she did cry then. Cried and cried, and her mom snapped at her to stop it.

Beryl sat up. “Where is this storage facility?”

Ivy picked up a knife. “In New Paltz.”

“You never went back to get the stuff?”

“The house Mom rented was small. Too small to hold it all, I guess.” Or maybe it was that her mom had not liked to be reminded of Aunt Connie after she was gone. She never talked about her; she'd get mad if Ivy tried. “Anyway, no, we didn't go back, and then I moved in with the Everses. Mom came to get me in April, and we just never—it's still there, I guess.”

“Do you know where the key is?”

Ivy nodded. Her mom had kept the key in her underwear drawer. Ivy had gone into her mom's room to get it while Mrs. Marsden was waiting for her to pack her things. No way was she leaving it in a house she didn't know if she'd ever see again.

“Let's go check it out.” Beryl reached for her crutch.

“Now?”

“No time like the present.” Beryl thumped her leg to the floor.

“But how would we get there?” Beryl could drive, but she didn't like to, especially not at night.

“I'll call Geena. She's got that big old truck, might as well put it to use.”

“But—Beryl—” Ivy looked at the clock on the credenza. She couldn't believe how long they'd sat talking. “It's almost five
a.m.
”

“I know, but trust me, she'll love it. It's exactly the kind of stunt we used to get up to in high school. Plus—well—it's time you caught a break, I think.” Beryl clomped to the den and picked up the phone.