Girls were everywhere. All kinds of girls, each one better looking than the last. Or they seemed that way. Might’ve been the beer. He maneuvered around them, smiling at one, then another, and then a third. Their eyes scanned him up and down, the same way his did to them. Everybody was looking for something, and on that hot spring night, it felt like they would all find what they wanted. Including Wes.
He was a junior, so he was used to these parties. At first, not so much. Going from tiny Holman, Michigan, to Davis, California, went beyond culture shock. Wes felt like he had stepped out of a barren, snowy field right into an MTV show.
It took a minute.
Over the course of two years, he morphed from a skinny, pale Midwestern boy to a Californian with a bit of muscle and a tan. His new normal. By his junior year, he had fully immersed himself in this big, wild world, where the rules changed stunningly fast.
Wes made his way outside, behind the big house, to get some air. The yard was almost as packed as the house, and that’s where he found his roommate. They stood around talking, mostly about the girls, when someone stepped on Wes’s foot.
Ivy had been walking by, and she stopped, turning back and throwing out a quick “Sorry.”
She wasn’t bad, but kind of plain. All covered up in a UCD sweatshirt and khaki shorts, hair in a ponytail, and no makeup. Not what he was looking for that night.
She kept walking, and he continued with his conversation. That was the end of it until he ran into her again inside the house, when he passed by her in a hallway. She was in line for the bathroom.
Now that he was closer to her, he noticed that she wasn’t so plain after all. It was her lips: They were pink and full with a hint of shine. Like she had just licked them.
He stepped on her foot.
“I owe you that,” he said.
She looked at him, a little shocked. A little angry.
“Because you stepped on my foot,” he said. “Outside, in the back—”
“Oh, right. Okay, fair.”
“I’m Wes,” he said.
“Ivy.”
He forced himself to look away from her, glancing down the hall at the line to the bathroom. “You’re going to be waiting awhile.”
“Looks that way.”
“You want another option?”
She gave him a half smile, like she was skeptical. He was back to looking at her lips. “What is it?” she said.
Wes nodded toward the stairs. “There’s a bathroom in the basement. Maybe the line is shorter.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
She walked away from him like they were done. They were not.
* * *
—
Eight o’clock at night, Wes is at home by himself. The date with Annabeth had been canceled hours ago, easily broken with a call about work he couldn’t get away from. She’s a memory now. Vague, too, like she was someone he’d known years ago.
Wes replays the conversation with the detective a few times. A few hundred times.
“When was the last time you saw Ivy Banks?” Karen had asked.
He pretended like he had to think about this for a minute. “Probably four months ago.”
“Where was that?”
“An engagement party for one of our college friends.”
“Did you talk to her?” Karen asked.
“Briefly. Hello, how are you . . . that kind of thing.” Maybe a little more than that, but he was not about to repeat every single word. Also no reason to mention how Ivy had looked.
That dress.
“So, no problems?” Karen said. “No animosity, no anger?”
“Absolutely not.”
The detective didn’t react at all to what he was saying, so it was hard to know how much she believed. But it was the truth: That engagement party was the last time he had seen Ivy.
“As I said, I’m here more as a courtesy than anything else,” Karen said. “Someone has been bothering Ivy, leaving her notes and presents, along with pictures of her. They’re letting her know someone is watching.”
“That’s so disturbing,” he said.
“When I asked her who she thought was doing it, she gave me your name.”
“Ivy and I haven’t been involved in a long time,” Wes said.
“Then why would she think it was you?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “I can only think it’s because we had a relationship that was . . . intense.”
“Intense?”
He sighed. On purpose, like this was a tiresome subject. “We met in college. It was a first love kind of thing.”
“What does that mean?”
“Like I said, it was intense.”
“She said you dated for years.”
“On and off, yes.” Wes had never figured out if it was more on than off or the other way around, and he had spent a lot of time thinking about it.
“As I said, I’m here as a courtesy.” Karen didn’t move when she spoke, didn’t use her hands at all. As someone who used his all the time, Wes found this fascinating.
“If you’re the one doing this to her, you need to stop,” Karen said. “Get over it, move on, find someone else, do whatever you have to do. But leave Ivy alone.”
Not so courteous. More like a threat. “I’m not the one doing this,” he said. “I haven’t gone near Ivy, and I certainly haven’t left her any presents or notes.” Another sigh, followed by a glance at his computer screen. “If I’m your suspect, you’re wasting your time.”
Karen stared at him like she was waiting for him to say more.
Not a chance.
She stood up, the movement so sharp and quick it surprised him. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Harmon.”
“Of course.”
He also stood up, as he always did when a meeting ended. Wes waited until she was gone and the door was closed to sit back down. He swiveled his chair around, toward the window, though it wasn’t to look at the view.
All he could see was Ivy. And he smiled.
3
Ivy clicks the ballpoint pen over and over, until it becomes a rhythm instead of noise. The repetitive sound keeps her focused.
She sits at her desk, where one computer screen displays her emails, the other a spreadsheet. Earbuds firmly stuck in place. To anyone walking by, it appears as if she’s listening to music while working. She would be—if there was any to do.
That’s the thing about working for a bloated corporation with bad management: No one realizes there isn’t enough work to go around. Or they don’t care.
She was done with her required tasks by lunch, and since then she’s been listening to Mandarin Chinese for Beginners. This is her new thing, learning languages. Spending all day on social media got old forever ago.
The pen jams, breaking her concentration. She hurls it into the trash can and picks up another. Someone interrupts her before the first click.
“How’re you doing?”
Lucia stands in the doorway to Ivy’s tiny office. It’s barely big enough for two people, nothing more than a cubicle with walls. Or a cage, because that’s how it feels. Lucia fits because she is small; her near-Lilliputian frame squeezes right into the space.
“Oh, you know,” Ivy says, pausing the language lesson. “Hanging in there.”