The Education of Ivy Blake (17 page)

Ivy's alarm clock
beeped at daylight. She groped for the shut-off button and hoisted herself onto an elbow. Prairie was in the next bed, flat on her back and snoring. Tate was in the bed beyond that, on her side, breathing slow and even. Ivy swung her feet to the floor—pine boards, cool and rough—and pulled her sweater and jeans on and tiptoed to the stairs.

Beryl sat in the kitchen, a half-empty cup of coffee on the table in front of her, her leg propped up on the bench. She had a book open, the pages held flat with the tool for lifting the burners off the cookstove. “You want some eggs?” she whispered.

“I don't think I have time.”

“Better make time. I'll fry them, I've got the fire going.”

Ivy could feel it. “Well—”

“You need to eat. Going to be a big day.”

“Okay.”

Beryl slid her leg to the floor. “You want tea?”

“I can make—”

“I'm not
crippled.
”

Ivy rolled her eyes. “Actually, you are. But you're not un
able.
”

Beryl snorted. “C'mon. Help me figure out where Geena keeps the skillet in this place.”

• • •

Ten minutes later, Ivy stepped onto the porch of Ms. Mackenzie's cabin with her hands wrapped around a mug of tea. The tea bags were stored in a Folgers can—so the mice wouldn't get at them, Ms. Mackenzie said when she found Ivy and Beryl searching the cupboards—and the can sat on a plank above the stove along with a kerosene lamp, a box of matches, and two dusty candles. The tea was almost boiling. The water'd been heated in a blue speckled pot, the kind you imagined cowboys using over a campfire. It tasted amazing.

Ivy strode off the porch and across the yard and down four mossy, slippery steps made of logs, to the beach. Her breath puffed out into the cool August morning. Mist rose over the water and a jay called from the tiny island that lay a hundred yards offshore. Chicken Island, Ms. Mackenzie said it was called. Ivy's arms, legs, fingers—everything tingled. She was at a cabin; she was making a movie. They were doing the filming in just three days, one of them here, and they had a script, a shot list, and a schedule. There were only six days left until the deadline.

Ivy wiggled her fingers to warm them up and narrowed her eyes at the light.

“It's good,” a voice said from behind her. Jacob came out from behind a clump of cedars. “I grabbed the camera when I woke up.
Early.
That couch was hard. And Kelly snores.”

Ivy grinned. “Prairie does too.”

“Anyway, I figured it wouldn't hurt to get some backup shots.”

“You should get one of the kayak.” Ms. Mackenzie's kayak lay tipped upside down a few feet away. Something about it was like Aunt Connie's umbrella. “I like the red of it against the sand.”

Jacob went off with the camera; Ivy took a breath of the cold, tree-smelling air. She felt good. Bigger than herself.

Jacob finished shooting the kayak and moved down the beach. Ivy stayed by the boat. She wanted a minute alone before the day started.

• • •

By eleven they were filming scene twelve,
Approach to Kayak.
It wasn't going well. Tate, who was playing Heather, kept looking confident and strong as she limped up to the kayak on her crutch—an old one of Beryl's—when she needed to look scared.

“Cut!” Ivy called, loud for her. “I need uncertainty, Tate. Fear. You're terrified of the water. You don't know if you can get in that boat and paddle across this lake, even if it's to meet your long-lost sister—”

They were going to film the scene where Heather's sister, who was being played by Prairie, scanned the sky for the seaplane that was coming to take her to Greenland to do research on polar bears. “Think about it. You've found out your sister is about to go off to do a big research project in the Arctic. If you don't catch her, you'll have no hope of tracking her down again for years because this project is going to take her so far into the wilderness. You have to do this. But you're scared. You're stuck.
Show
it. Can you?”

“Yes!” Tate snapped. Ivy smiled at her and Tate twisted her hair up around one hand. “I get it,” she said, sighing. “I do.”

“Okay. One more time and then we have to get out front. We've only got the bus for half an hour.” Making a movie was more complicated than Ivy would ever have imagined. Ms. Mackenzie knew a man who organized a shuttle for senior citizens; he was bringing it by the cabin between runs, so they only had a few minutes to show the bus driver, being played by Kelly, encouraging Heather to continue her search for her sister.

You'll find her,
Kelly-as-bus-driver had to say.
The address you've got there says Piney Lane—that's right on the lake. I can't get this bus up that road, but it's not far. You're almost there, don't give up.
But Heather's sister wouldn't be at the cabin on Piney Lane when Heather limped up. The script called for her to be out on Chicken Island.

“We'll finish this, we'll do the bus thing, then break for lunch, then do the paddling scene—”

• • •

“But when do I come in?” Mrs. Grizzby asked anxiously, after they'd eaten the lunch that Dad Evers and Grammy had brought. They'd picked up Mrs. Grizzby too. Mom Evers and Daniel were at home because Mom Evers thought he was too young to stay through the whole day of filming.

Ivy hit Pause. She made herself smile calmly at Mrs. Grizzby, who was cast as the woman who'd kidnapped Heather and then followed her to Piney Lane. Only she and Ivy knew what she was going to say when she found Heather. Ivy had decided it was better to keep the cast in suspense about this. It'd make their reactions fresher. “Not yet. It's after Heather's already in the boat, on the water. The next scene. You yell at her to be careful, and then that other thing, remember?”

“But not now?”

“Not yet. I'll tell you when.”

Mrs. Grizzby's smile was shaky. “I'm nervous! Isn't that silly?”

“You'll do great.”

Mrs. Grizzby's real smile, the blinding one, flashed out then. “You think so?”

“I do.” Ivy used her most positive voice, but the truth was, she didn't know. She didn't know about any of this. So far the movie seemed choppy, and the story a little bit silly. How likely was it that Heather would just happen to meet her sister's old professor when he visited her tutor at the estate one day, and that Heather looked so much like her sister the professor would recognize her? Or that the kidnapper would have kept track of what Heather's real family was doing all these years and know where the sister was at the exact time Heather set out to find her? Not very likely at all. Still, the movie was dear to Ivy. And no matter how it turned out, she knew she'd always love it for being her very first one. First but not last, she was determined.

Grammy patted Mrs. Grizzby's arm. She was playing her banjo for the sound track, so she'd be listed as a musician, but she should have another title too. Cast Manager, maybe. Mrs. Grizzby Manager.

Mrs. Grizzby gnawed at her lip and Ivy puffed out her cheeks. The next scene, where Mrs. Grizzby yelled out to Tate to be careful, and—this was the surprise—wished her luck in her quest, and Tate waved her paddle in farewell but kept moving steadily forward, was the last one in the movie. It wasn't the last one they'd shoot—shooting went according to light and locations and the props they could get—but Ivy would feel better when it was done. More certain. Like there was no turning back.

“Okay, everybody. Ready?”

Tate nodded. Prairie and Kelly, who were holding the kayak onshore, nodded. Jacob, who was holding the clapper boards that had the scene number chalked on before every take, on loan from the showcase in his grandparents' theater's lobby, nodded, and so did Beryl and Mrs. Grizzby and Ms. Mackenzie and Grammy and Dad Evers, even though all they were doing was watching. Ivy pointed at Jacob, Jacob snapped the clapper boards, and Ivy pressed Record.

• • •

An hour later, they were still at the beginning of the scene. They'd been at it so long that Beryl and Grammy and Dad Evers had headed off to the tiny general store in town to buy more coffee. Tate had finally managed to look uncertain for her approach to the kayak, but now that she needed to look graceful and sure, she didn't. She kept turning the boat in circles, splashing the water with the paddle.

“Cut!” Ivy called for the fifth time. “Tate—”

“I never drove a kayak before, I'm sorry! It's harder than it looks.”

“Okay, I know. But we have a lot to get done. You have to talk to the bus driver, you have to deal with your supposed mother—”

“Now?” Mrs. Grizzby stepped forward. “Do I do my lines now?”

“Pretty soon.” Ivy made herself smile calmly, though she didn't feel calm. The light was changing. “So, Tate, just do what Ms. Mackenzie said—”

“Dip smooth with the paddle.” Ms. Mackenzie demonstrated with an invisible paddle. “Work with the water, not against it—”

“Right. Do that and kind of—
gaze
—forward. Think nervous but determined. Think, I can do this, even though everything I've ever been told tells me I can't. Think, I have a sister, she's just across that water—right? Got it?”

Tate nodded.

“Okay, kiddos,” Ms. Mackenzie said. “You've got this. I just realized I should've gone with the others to town—I need to get the propane bottles refilled. C'mon, Inez, you come with me and let's leave them to it.”

Ivy waited until they were climbing the steps off the beach. Then she said, “Okay. Scene thirteen,
Paddling.
”

Tate sat up straight. She gave a solemn nod and Ivy hit Record again.

Just as she did, there was a screech of brakes. Ivy lowered the camera.

The Mustang
pulled in tight between two trees. Ivy's mother strode toward them. “Ivy! It took me forever to find you, what do you mean by taking off?”

“Mom.” Pain blossomed in Ivy's head. “How did you know I was here?”

“Yeah, I'm glad to see you too. I'm doing okay, thanks for asking.”

“Mom—”

“George dropped the charges, if that's what you're wondering.” She made a
piff
sound through her teeth. “He was just inflating things, causing trouble, his eye's fine.”

It was hard to know how to respond. Ivy settled on the most important part, that George's eye was okay. “Wow. That's good, it's great.”

“I got out last night. Went to Family Services this morning. What a runaround. Can you believe they didn't want to tell me where you were?”

Yes.
Ivy made a pained face.

“Finally they did, but of course you weren't there, so
that
was a goose chase.”

“How did you know to come up here?”

Her mom made an unamused
heh.
“Yeah, fifty
miles
up.” She pointed her head at Prairie. “I told her mom I had to see you.”

Ivy's mom had lied to Mom Evers, then. Told her it was an emergency, something to make her sympathetic. Mom Evers probably even thought Ivy might want to see her mom. And maybe she did. “So—now what? You just go home?” asked Ivy.

“Oh, no. No way. I've had it with Kingston.”

“You—you're moving? Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Her mother snapped her fingers. “Nothing to wait for.”

“But—where?”

“Detroit.”
Dee
-troit, is how she said it.

“De
troit
? Mom, that's in Michigan. You can't just move to Michigan.”

“Says who?”

“But—why there?”

Ivy's mom jiggled her keys. The plastic cubes bounced and clacked. “It's what I decided, that's all. Come on if you're coming.”

“What, right now? This minute?”

“Now or never.”

Ivy gestured at the group behind her, as if maybe her mom hadn't noticed all these people were gathered at a lake fifty miles from home. “Mom, I'm in the middle of filming. Everybody's here, we only have the weekend—”

“I'm sorry, but this is real life, Ives. I don't have time to wait.”

“But I have to do this. And we
live
here, Mom.
That's
real life. We have friends—”

Her mom made a
hmmph
noise. “What friends?”

Ivy held her hand out, palm up, toward everyone.

Her mother crossed her arms. “Okay. I'll give you the weekend, then we leave.”

“But Jacob and I are starting a film club in the fall, we're going to meet at the library down the street from Beryl's, the librarian said we could. Plus Ms. Mackenzie's teaching my grade next year and she's my teacher again. She's the best—”

Her mom shook her head.

“And I want to do a movie about kids with careers. I already started. Prairie and Kelly are getting goats because you can make chee—”

Her mom snorted. “Kids with careers. Come on. Do you really think you're going to be some big movie director?”

Ivy felt ancient and exhausted. “I don't know. I have no idea. But I'm going to finish this, and I'm going to try.” Each word weighed a hundred pounds.

“Bah,” Ivy's mom said in a disgusted way.

Prairie muttered and Jacob took a step forward, but Ivy saw the fear in her mom's eyes. That undid her just when she felt mad enough to let her mother go back to Kingston and start packing by herself. She took a step forward. “Mom, listen. Why do you want to go all the way to Detroit? We don't know anybody there.”

Ivy caught a shift in her mom's eyes.

“Mom. Do we know somebody there?”

“It's just, Dave said he might know of somebody looking for help—”

“Dave.”

“He said he's gonna head out there. He has a buddy who might get him work.”

“
Dave
? Lindsey's boyfriend, Dave?”

“He came to see me while I was in jail. Apologized for Lindsey's nonsense and what all. They split up, you know.”

“Mom, no. Not Dave, he's not—”

“He's not so bad. You'll see. He's looking for a place for us, something to get started—”

Ivy was nailed to the ground; a spike had been driven through her. When she could speak, she said, “I think you should stop running.”

“Running! I'm not—”

“You should stop. It just makes everything worse.”

Her mother's eyes went bright. “Ives—let's just go, okay?” Her eyes were pleading. “We'll talk in the car.” She joggled her keys.

Ivy stared at the key chain. Her mom had made it at a gas station. Doing that, making it, was private and innocent somehow, and—this was the worst part—hopeful. The beads between the cubes were pink and green and yellow and purple and so were the feathers dangling off the end. T-R-A-C-Y.

“Mom, listen—” Ivy said slowly.

Her mom had started talking at the same time. “This is a waste of time anyway. Like you can really make a movie.”

Ivy's eyes snapped away from the key chain. “We
are
making one. We're in the middle of it, everybody's helping—”

Her mom's lips went thin. “I already told you, you try too hard. This whole thing—”

“It makes me feel close to my dad a little,” Ivy said softly.

“Your
dad.
Please.”

“He loved movies—”

“He didn't give a rat's—” Ivy's mother glanced at the group. “He didn't care about movies. Or you.”

“Yes, he did!” Ivy cried. “He loved movies, and he loved me. He gave me that battleship game that last Christmas, he wrapped it himself—”

“It's all in the
past,
Ivy. Gone and over. For God's sake, grow
up.
”

Ivy stepped backward as the truth crashed into her. Her mom wasn't safe. Not for Ivy. She did have a good side. She might even, in a way, love Ivy. But she fought dirty. She was mean when she felt threatened, and almost everything made her feel that way. She would never put Ivy first. She'd hurt her as quick as swatting a fly, if hurting her was convenient. It wasn't news. It had been right in front of Ivy her whole life. She'd just tried hard not to see it.

After a moment her mother said, “C'mon, Ives. Don't look like that.”

Ivy shook her head.

“I shouldn't have said that. Your dad loved you, 'course he did. And I guess he did like movies. It's just—I get mad.” She tried out a smile, then let it fall away. She waited. Ivy didn't speak. Finally she said, gently, “Come on, get in the car. We'll talk on the way. Lots of time, on the road. We'll see Niagara Falls.”

“No.”

“Come
on.
Just get in the car.”

“No. I'm staying here. I'm doing this.”

Seconds passed. Ivy's mother turned and walked to the Mustang.

Ivy listened to the door screech open, watched her mom settle into the seat. Her mom put her hands on the steering wheel and looked over her shoulder, then backed away. The brakes squealed at the mouth of the drive, the engine roared as her mom hit the gas. Ivy listened until she couldn't hear the car winding down the road anymore.

Ivy shook her head. She turned to face her friends. After a moment, she smiled. It wasn't a real smile, but they'd understand. She lifted the camera.

“Okay,” she said when she could. “Let's do this. Scene thirteen,
Paddling.
”