After she’d run into the wings, when everyone was still shifting and looking around, the quiet broken here and there by peals of nervous laughter, I glanced over at my mother. I’d felt us united in our hatred of Hattie and thought she might look back and smile, or wink, or whisper Serves her right. But she was facing straight ahead, chin coolly cocked, still looking at the place Hattie had stood. Her mouth was curved into that same dangerous smile she’d worn in the principal’s office.
I thought about all that now, held it up against Nate and our matching split lips. And the itchy sense I’d had for years, that the times my mother most felt like a mom was when she was furious on our behalf. Like a bad boyfriend. Like a little girl who didn’t want anyone else playing with her dolls.
“That thing with Hattie at the talent show. It was right after Mom found out she was messing with me.” I hesitated. “And remember Coach Keene?”
Hank made a disgusted sound. “That bigot. Of course I do.”
“They never diagnosed him, right? And he got sick, what, a few days after what he said to you?” I looked at Hank, his big blue Mom eyes a little startling this close. “Do you think … have you ever thought that Mom…”
“Ivy!” He brought a fist down on his leg, then flattened it. “Stop. You’re thinking too hard.”
“I’m thinking too hard?” I flicked him in the temple. “Are you worried I’ll break my lady brain?”
“I’m just saying, Mom is Mom. We know this. And you have nothing to do right now, so you’re making it into a thing. Be grounded. Get it over with. Then move on. And just … don’t worry, okay? There’s no point.”
Across the street a station wagon was pulling into the Paxtons’ drive. I watched as Billy and three other kids spilled out, two girls and a guy I recognized from school. I wondered if one of them was Billy’s girlfriend.
Hank knocked my shoulder so the elbow I was leaning on fell off my knee. “Having a good stare? Paxton got cute, didn’t he?”
I scowled at him. “I’m staring into space! I’m resting my eyes on his house!”
“I bet you wanna rest your eyes on his house.”
Billy was letting his friends through the front door. He paused before stepping inside, looking back at me. I thought of the drawing I’d found in my cigar box, of his younger, star-flecked face, and dropped my gaze. “Hank. Shut up before he hears you.”
“I didn’t know he had supersonic bat hearing. That’s hot.”
When Billy was gone, Hank looked at me sidewise. “What ever happened with you guys, anyway?”
I let my head fall back and groaned. “I was twelve. Was I supposed to be an expert on letting people down gently at twelve? I was embarrassed!”
Because that was the thing, the seventh-grade incident that still made my body brace with remembered shame. Little Billy Paxton, the random sixth-grader who lived across the street, walked right up to me the second week of school. Ivy, he said, his face as sick and determined as if I were a firing squad. Will you be my girlfriend?
I’d stared at him in disbelief, both of us going redder and redder, other kids gumming up around us to watch the drama unfold. No, thank you, I’d finally said, robotically, before turning heel and fleeing for the bathroom. We hadn’t spoken again until the other night, with Nate. Not one word.
Hank blinked at me. “Man, you are ice cold. Poor Billy.”
I started to sputter, then his phone buzzed for maybe the tenth time since I’d sat down. Sighing gustily, he slid it out of his pocket. Its screen was lined with a one-way conversation, all incoming texts from his college boyfriend. Hank had a bit of a ghosting habit.
He held it up. “Go away now. I have to focus on breaking up with Jared.”
I tilted my head to read the last unanswered text in the thread. Are you being weird or am I being paranoid?
“Oh, totally,” I said. “You’ve got to pay attention when you’re breaking up with someone by text. Otherwise it would be mean.”
“For sure,” he replied, either not getting it or not taking the bait. But as I stood he reached back, wrapping a hand around my ankle.
“Hey. Ivy. I wouldn’t, like, get in Mom’s way. If I were you.”
I touched my arm, where goosebumps were rising. “What do you mean?”
He shifted, not quite looking at me. “Just let her do what she wants to do. We’ll both be out of here soon enough.”
His phone started to ring. “Now he’s calling me?” he said incredulously, waving a hand at me to go.