Wild Swans - Jessica Spotswood Page 0,75

“It’s eight o’clock. I’m perfectly capable of walking myself home. I don’t want to ruin your big night. Go back to your fan club.”

“Ivy. Hey. Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?”

“No. I just need to be by myself right now.”

And Connor—the one person I don’t want to listen to me—does. He lets me go.

Chapter

Nineteen

I walk back through town as the shadows are lengthening into dusk. Fireflies wink in and out of view around me, and the air carries the scent of grilled steaks and burgers. Neighbors wave from their front porches as they sip wine or pull their dogs aside to let me pass on the narrow brick sidewalk.

I love Cecil. It’s all I’ve ever known. I’m intimately acquainted with all its corners and quirks, with the unspoken rules of how things are done.

Over on Water Street, Susan from the Book Addict is in her front yard, spraying the pink roses that push right up against her wrought-iron fence. “Hi, Ivy!”

“Hi, Susan. Those roses are real pretty,” I say.

She tucks a strand of white hair behind her ear. “Thank you, honey. You out for a walk? Nice night now that it’s cooled down some.”

“Just heading home. I was at the open mic night down at Java Jim’s,” I explain.

“Oh, that’s right. I saw the flyer.” She smiles at me conspiratorially. “That boyfriend of yours works there, doesn’t he?”

I shake my head, both impressed and exasperated. Connor and I have been on one date. To a party filled with people a third her age. “He does, yes.”

Susan moves on to the next rosebush. “You have a good night, Ivy.”

“You too.” I’m thankful she has the tact not to mention the scene in the store the other day.

What would it be like to live in a place where everyone doesn’t know my business, doesn’t feel perfectly at home prying into my family troubles or my love life? What would it be like to walk down a busy city street and have to consult a map for directions? To pass perfect strangers who don’t know my name and entire family tree?

It seems like it could get real lonely…but it could also be pretty freeing.

I could do whatever I wanted. Dye my hair pink like Katrina and buy those over-the-knee black leather boots Claire has that Eli—Ella—calls her “superhero shoes” and Granddad says look like something a streetwalker would wear. I could read all the romance novels I want right out in public. (I currently hide them on my Kindle so Granddad won’t see and judge.) I’d flat-out refuse to eat celery because I think it’s a ridiculous vegetable. Watch nothing but old black-and-white movies and BBC period dramas without Alex complaining that there aren’t enough explosions. I’d take classes in psychology and film and history because the world is big and interesting—and why the hell not.

I’d still swim. I know that bone deep. I might compete for Granddad, but I swim for me. I’d still wear sundresses and quirky T-shirts with robots or ladybugs on them. I’d bake pies using Luisa’s tips for the perfect crust, but I wouldn’t worry if the lattice top wasn’t perfectly symmetrical. And the only art classes I’d take would be those “paint and sip” nights where everybody drinks cheap wine and tries to paint trees.

Letting myself daydream like this is kind of terrifying because it means I have choices.

I do. I might not always feel like it, but I do.

The house is quiet when I let myself in through the front door. Erica’s car is still in the driveway, but the living room is empty. She and Gracie have turned off their movie. Bottles of nail polish and Q-tips sit abandoned on the coffee table.

I wander through the hallway. Pause and look at Dorothea’s pictures. When she won the Pulitzer, she was happy. But I know from reading her journal that she also fretted whether that collection of poems would be the pinnacle of her career, whether she’d ever write anything else half as good or popular as “Second Kiss.” And her fears came true, because the next year Robert Moudowney’s wife shot her. Dorothea made the newspapers one more time, but it was for all the wrong reasons.

In the study, Grandmother’s dark landscapes seem to suck all the light out of the room. I wonder for about the billionth time why she was so fascinated with storms. Was it her depression? People say she never got over her mother’s murder; she was