As your mentor and de facto big brother, I feel obligated to tell you that your girlfriend is insane.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Wes says now. He hopes this is true. He intends for it to be, he wants it to be, but how can anyone predict what someone will do. Sometimes he doesn’t know what he’ll do the minute before he does it. It’s called being human.
Tanner isn’t having it.
“Keep your relationship under control,” he says, “or I’ll ban her from the building.”
“You have my word.”
“How comforting. And in case I forget to say this, you’re an idiot,” Tanner adds. “You can quote me on that.”
What Tanner doesn’t know is why Ivy had come to Siphon and damn near destroyed Wes’s office.
No reason to tell him.
13
Ivy drives back to her office, thinking about this morning. Wes had spent the night, and when he left, he forgot his phone but not his electric razor. Ever since she mentioned the beard thing, he has shaved every single day.
Good.
She would never tell him, but it would’ve been so disappointing if he had started growing a beard. Someone who does everything you say is too boring. Tedious. No backbone, no opinion—just following orders like a robot programmed to obey.
Not Wes. He never budged. Not once, not even when he was trying to make up for something else he had done.
She liked that. Until it annoyed her.
Like when they first moved in together after college and the bathroom became a problem. She needed more room, because she had more stuff. After all, he didn’t wear makeup and she did; therefore, she needed the space. A common argument, according to what Ivy had heard from her friends, but in her relationship, this was a battle. Wes even started referring to it as the Bathroom Wars.
When her products spread out too far, he swept them into a drawer to clear the counter. The second time, he hid the makeup all over the apartment, stuck in every nook and cranny he could find. She collected them and put every single thing back on top of the counter.
“I need this stuff,” she told him. “Just be happy you don’t.”
Wes was not happy. In fact, he was so unhappy that he swept the makeup onto the floor, breaking all of it. Well, not all, but a lot. Enough to make her freak out, because in an entry-level job that paid close to nothing, she didn’t have the money to replace what had been broken.
Guilt kicked in, and he bought her a gift certificate and a stacked organizer that fit on the corner of the counter.
Too late.
She was broke all the time, and buying new makeup was the last straw. Ivy had already gone out and secured a second job. Two nights a week, she would work at a strip club.
That started a whole new problem.
* * *
—
Amalgamated Services, Inc., is more than a building, it’s a campus. Ivy has to be checked in at the gate just to park her car at work. Despite the bad management, her job isn’t terrible. Good salary, decent benefits, and she has plenty of time to learn languages or, if she wanted, to work another job online. Hard to complain about that.
But the corporate life took some adjustment. All of life did, in a way, or at least any part of it with a rigid structure. College wasn’t as bad; at least she could skip a class without being kicked out. At work, that would get her fired.
Growing up, she was used to having a lot more freedom to be impulsive. Spontaneous. Her parents even encouraged it, celebrating her wild ideas. No one does now. Not at Amalgamated Services. The corporate world is like another planet.
When she was a kid, marijuana was illegal to grow and sell, but her parents did it anyway. Raids weren’t uncommon, nor were the planes flying overhead, seeking out the farms. Local police mostly looked the other way at the farmers, but the DEA did not.
When one of her parents’ friends was arrested, everybody chipped in to help. Sometimes by taking care of their kids or pets, other times by donating for bail money. Small farmers weren’t rich—not even close. Her parents certainly weren’t.
And they weren’t always there when she got home from school.
Her mom and dad were arrested twice when she was a kid: the first time, when she was eight, then again when she was fourteen. Both times they were out on bail in less than a week. A long legal battle followed, and as Ivy figured out later, it included a bribe or two. The marijuana business was an open secret, and a lot of people ignored it.
The latest arrest, the one that has put them in prison for years, came long after Ivy had moved away from home. She wasn’t even there when it happened.
But when she was young, sometimes her parents were gone for other reasons. A delivery hadn’t been made, and the driver had gotten into trouble. Maybe arrested. Her parents would have to make it right. Or it was to help one of the other farmers, someone in a similar situation who needed help. There was always a neighbor around to take care of Ivy when her parents were gone. They never watched her as closely as her mom and dad did.
The first time it happened, when she was only six, she cried every day until they were back. By the time she was twelve, she didn’t cry at all. Her parents usually returned within days; the longest was a week. The idea of them disappearing was no longer scary. In fact, she started to look forward to going home just to find out what had happened while she was at school. It made the days a little more exciting.
And she knew they would always come back. Just like Wes does.
* * *
—
Ivy enters Amalgamated Services through the front, walking into an absurdly large atrium with a glass ceiling. The front desk has not one but two receptionists, both poised to greet whomever walks in the door. They wave at Ivy in unison.
She takes the elevator to the fifth floor, and as soon as the door opens, Ivy finds her manager standing in front of her. Helena is a typical fortysomething woman in California. In shape, in style, Botox and hair in place.
“Ivy,” she says. Her voice is almost a whisper. “Please come with me.”
Ivy follows her down the hall, past the cubicles, to a conference room in the far corner. She keeps her eyes on Helena’s slate grey shoes. Helena stops in front of the closed door.
“Someone is here to see you,” Helena says. “I thought you might need some privacy.”
Ivy nods, still not asking any questions. Whatever is happening, it’s best not to act confused.
It’s a little surprising to walk in the room and see Detective Karen Colglazier. She is sitting with her back to the large windows, a notepad and pen on the table. Next to Helena, Karen looks her age. The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes are deeper, her skin doesn’t have the same glow, and those tiny lines around her lips aren’t going to get better. Also, Karen needs to stop furrowing her brow. That crease.
She is in shape, though. Maybe better shape than Helena, because it’s natural instead of surgically enhanced.
Helena nods to both of them and closes the door, leaving Ivy and Karen alone.
“I apologize for showing up at your work,” Karen says. “I just have a few more questions.” She is smiling, but not really. It’s the same smile Ivy uses when talking to someone she hates.
“Of course,” Ivy says. She takes a seat across from Karen, folding her hands together on top of the table. “I appreciate you taking this so seriously.”