Wild Swans - Jessica Spotswood Page 0,4

in DC now.”

“Oh. I see,” I say again.

And I do. Clear as day. My mother’s been living two hours away, and she still couldn’t be bothered to come visit. To join us for Thanksgiving dinner. To cheer me on at one of my swim meets.

I’m not even worth a tank of gas.

Chapter

Two

Bong. Bong. Bong.

The doorbell gives another stately chime, and I give the table one last glance. I’ve set it with our blue-flowered china and plunked a vase of daisies in the middle. With rain pattering on the windows and a loaf of French bread baking in the oven, the kitchen is downright homey.

I might be a mess, but there’s no reason perfect Connor Clarke needs to know that.

Bong. Bong. Bong.

“Ivy, can you get that?” Granddad hollers from his office.

He’s on the phone with Erica. They’ve been talking for a while now, his voice rising and falling like choppy waves against the dock. They’re already fighting.

Maybe he’ll tell her she can’t come.

“Got it!” I hurry down the hall, past the living room we hardly ever use, pausing to tighten the knot on my halter dress. I put it on this morning because the cherry print is cute and I thought it might cheer me up some, but it’s a little lower cut than I remembered. Last thing I need to do is go flashing Granddad’s pet student.

I hardly slept last night. My mother is going to be here in three days—my mother and the sisters I’ve never met. I’ve been texting Abby and Claire all morning, but I still can’t wrap my mind around it.

I take a deep breath, plaster on a smile, and throw open the front door. A guy is standing on our porch, staring out at the rain. Beyond him, the sky is gray and gloomy. This weather feels portentous—a day for omens, for strange birds and black dogs and bells tolling thirteen times.

Abby would tell me I sound like Catherine Morland, the silly, gothic novel–obsessed heroine of Northanger Abbey. Claire would tell me to stop being so dramatic and check out the guy in front of me, and Claire would be right, because wow.

I was expecting Connor Clarke to be tall and lanky as a green bean, with hipster glasses and floppy hair. He’d wear skinny jeans and Chucks and a Doctor Who T-shirt. That’s the type of boy who usually takes Granddad’s poetry classes.

The boy on the porch is tall—he looms over me—but that’s about all I got right.

I notice his ink first. Tattoos creep like morning glory vines over his arms, then disappear beneath the sleeves of his black T-shirt. He’s not white; that was a stupid assumption. He’s biracial, maybe, or Mexican American like Alex, with smooth, light-brown skin and black hair cropped close to his head.

I catch myself staring. “Um, hey. You must be Connor.”

He turns. “You must be Ivy. Nice to meet you.” He sticks out a hand for me to shake. His fingers are splattered with ink. Not the permanent kind, but as though he’s been writing with a fountain pen. His eyes are a rich golden brown, and they skewer me like a worm on a hook. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“You too.” I duck my chin, suddenly shy. Granddad’s had me shaking hands since I was a toddler, but it’s different when the guy is cute, and Connor Clarke is beyond cute. He isn’t classically handsome; his jaw is too square, his nose broad but crooked, like it was broken once, and his ears stick out a little. But he’s interesting looking, and the tattoos… I never thought I found tattoos hot, but apparently I do. On him I do.

I clear my throat. “Come on in. Granddad’ll be down in a second.”

“Thanks.” He steps inside and lets out a low whistle. “Professor said this place has been in the Milbourn family for generations. All the way back to Dorothea’s mother.”

“Yep.” I watch as Connor examines the framed photos of Dorothea. There she is on her wedding day; there she is accepting her Pulitzer; there she is getting an honorary doctorate from the college. I complained to Granddad once that there aren’t more pictures of him and me around the house, and he said just as soon as I get my PhD or my Pulitzer, he’ll put my photo up right next to hers.

Thanks for setting the bar so low, Dorothea.

“I’m a huge fan of her work. This is so cool,” Connor says, a reverent note in his