Wild Swans - Jessica Spotswood Page 0,30
instead of worrying about your ex finding out about me, you should worry that he’ll find out you’re drinking at nine a.m.”
“Shut up.” Her eyes narrow as she steps forward, her sharp chin jutting out. For a minute I think she might hit me and I shrink back against the counter.
“Stay out of this, Ivy,” she says, seething. “I’m not playing around. I don’t care what you’ve heard. I’m a good mother to Grace.”
“Yeah, well.” I pick up my orange juice and walk past her. “I wouldn’t know anything about that, would I?”
• • •
In the bathroom, I turn up the music on my phone, blasting it, not caring if I wake up Isobel. This is my house. She can go complain to her mother.
There are unfamiliar products in my shower right next to my Hello Hydration shampoo and Yes to Coconut body scrub: brightly colored kids’ shampoo, color-protection conditioner, and a body wash for oily skin. When I get out of the shower, both of my fluffy cornflower-blue towels are already damp. I frown, dripping water across the tiled floor as I rummage in the linen closet. Abby would laugh at me for being a spoiled only child, getting mad over a towel, but this is all I’ve ever known and those towels are mine. I wrap myself in an old, faded pink one and march upstairs to my room.
After I get dressed and braid my hair, there’s still half an hour before Connor’s due. I settle in with my laptop and pull up the college’s website, specifically the summer course listings in the foreign language department. Summer classes started two weeks ago, but I bet Granddad could still get me in to audit. I’m already fluent in Spanish; Luisa’s parents emigrated from Mexico and she helped me with my accent. Adding another language will look good on my transcripts though, and my middle-school summer-camp French is getting rusty.
There’s an intermediate French class that’s only one night a week. I can make time for that. I write the course number down on a sticky note to ask Granddad about later. Maybe he doesn’t push me as hard as he did Erica because he’s afraid I’ll break, the way she did. But I won’t. I’m stronger than that. I’ll show them both that no matter what this summer throws at me, I can take it.
I take a deep breath and head downstairs, feeling somehow fortified.
Isobel has joined Erica in the kitchen. She’s wearing black yoga pants and a baggy T-shirt and staring into a bowl that contains half a grapefruit. They stop talking when I walk in, and I’m left feeling like the one who doesn’t belong here.
“Morning, Isobel.” I grab a jar of peanut butter and a spoon and then lean against the counter, peeling a banana.
“Peanut butter is really fattening,” Isobel informs me, tightening her messy ponytail. “And there are twice as many calories in a banana as in a grapefruit.”
“Peanut butter also has a lot of protein,” I say, since apparently we are exchanging nutritional data. “Which is great, because I just swam for an hour.”
“Does swimming burn a lot of calories?” she asks.
“Yeah. But that’s not why I do it.” When I’m in the water, I’m all motion—breath and stroke and kick and turn. I’m pushing my body; I’m concentrating on what I can make it do, not how it looks. “I swim laps up at the college most mornings. We have a membership to the pool and the gym, if you ever want to join me.” I glance nervously at Erica, hoping this won’t set her off like Granddad’s offer to teach Gracie how to swim.
Isobel fiddles with her spoon. “No way. I am not exercising in front of people. Or wearing a bathing suit. Mama and I are going to go for a run. Right, Mama?”
Erica gives her an absentminded smile before turning back to her phone. “Right.”
“Ivy!” Granddad hollers from the hallway. “Connor’s here!”
My stomach twists. Granddad must have seen him from the living room window. Connor didn’t even have a chance to ring the doorbell. I was kind of hoping we might have a minute alone first.
“Who’s Connor?” Isobel asks. Erica listens, head cocked like Abby’s sisters’ parakeet.
“One of Granddad’s students. He and I are going to be working together on a project this summer.” I am immediately conscious that I’ve called Granddad “Granddad” and not “Dad”—but maybe that’s not weird, since he is Isobel’s granddad? Gah, this is so unnecessarily complicated.
Erica