NINE | IVY

SHERI ARRANGED A FRIDAY afternoon interview at her office. They needed someone to help with a data entry backlog and maybe do some scanning and image cleanup in Photoshop. Mom’s eyes popped when I told her about the opportunity. “You know your father and I have had problems with Sheri in the past,” she said. “I’m not sure she’s the most reliable person to be taking job leads from.”

“She wouldn’t be my boss,” I explained. “It’s a big company. I probably wouldn’t even see her much.”

“Well, I know you need a job, but I’m sure your father could find something for you at his office,” Mom went on. “Why don’t you ask him?”

I’d expected a certain amount of resistance to Sheri’s offer, but we weren’t Montagues and Capulets. How many generations was the family feud supposed to continue on for? And why would I want to work with my father? We already saw each other every day.

Mom filled Dad in on the interview herself over Tuesday night’s dinner, and Dad stopped chewing his steak and glanced over at me. “If she wants to work with Sheri Rossi, why not? It has nothing to do with us.”

Mom tilted her head, scrunching her cheek like she must have misheard him.

“So that’s settled then,” I said, excusing myself to go to the bathroom.

My burning urination problem was in full swing, despite the cranberry tablets I’d been swallowing, and the next day an itch took hold too. I booked a Thursday appointment with my doctor, and when I got there the first thing she made me do was take a urine test. Then she put me in the stirrups, swabbed me, and questioned me about my symptoms. Lying there with my legs propped open and Doctor Nayar poking around inside me always made me feel like a Thanksgiving turkey being stuffed. I struggled to answer her questions in my everyday voice.

“Are you uncomfortable?” Doctor Nayar asked, sliding two fingers inside me.

I laughed anxiously. “Is this ever actually comfortable?”

“We’re almost finished,” she assured me. “You’re doing fine, Ivy.”

Afterwards I pulled my shorts and top on as fast as humanly possible and shuffled around the room, staring at wall charts on infant development. “Go to the drugstore and get some of that messy cream,” Betina had advised. She’d had a yeast infection last summer and was certain that was what was responsible for my itch, but when Dr. Nayar stepped back into the examining room she flipped carefully through my file and asked if I used condoms for sexual intercourse.

“My boyfriend and I …” My everyday voice failed me. “We weren’t with anybody else. I’m on the pill.” Dr. Nayar was the one who’d prescribed it, and I hadn’t missed a pill yet. The high level of effectiveness, coupled with the monogamous nature of our relationship, had made condoms seem pointless.

Doctor Nayar clicked her pen and started scribbling in my chart. “The urine sample doesn’t show very much, but we’ll send it and the swab down to the lab to investigate further.”

“How long will that take?”

“The lab will probably have the results by the middle of next week.”

“Next week?” I rasped. This was supposed to be something simple, cured with a handful of pills. I was sick and tired of being afraid to pee. “So you don’t think it’s a bladder infection?”

“The urine sample doesn’t suggest that, but we’ll know more when we hear from the lab.” Dr. Nayar’s pen hovered over her prescription pad. “You could try this external cream for the itching in the meantime. I want you to push the fluids, okay? And just to cover our bases, it’s better if you avoid sexual intercourse until we get the results.”

My anxiety level skyrocketed as I listened to her voice. I backed away from Dr. Nayar’s Sheffield Medical School degree and sat down.

“You think this could be something contagious? Like an STI or something?” Why else would she ask about condoms?

“I wouldn’t want to speculate,” she said evenly. “We’ll be in touch with you as soon as we have the results. We’ll talk more when you come back, okay? The office will set up an appointment for you when they call.” She handed me the prescription.

“Okay.” I swept my hair back behind my ears, a headache forming behind my eyes. “Thanks.”

“No problem, Ivy.” She swung the door open for me, and I jolted up from my chair and headed into the hall and out to my car. My tongue tasted sour, and my legs shook under me. What did those symptoms point towards? I sped off in the general direction of Betina’s house and then abruptly changed course, veering into the left turn lane and nearly colliding with an old woman in a Honda Civic. She honked irately as I pulled in front of her.

Whatever Dr. Nayar was silently speculating about, she must have been wrong. There was no possible way I could have contracted an STI. The only person I’d ever been with was Jeremy, and he’d only ever been with me. He wouldn’t lie about that.

It was probably only a yeast infection, like Betina had said. I was being melodramatic again. I instructed myself to drive home and wait patiently for the test results. Clearly that was the right thing to do, but I turned into Jeremy’s neighborhood and coasted towards his street. I was so used to sharing all my thoughts with him that I didn’t feel like a whole person anymore. I needed him to tell me there was nothing to worry about, even if just as a friend.

Any doubts I had about seeing him faded as I approached his road. I hung a left and glanced at Jer’s Ford Focus in the driveway. The car wasn’t the only thing in view. Two figures engaged in some ardent mouth-to-mouth leaned against the passenger side of the Focus. One of them was Jeremy, in a polo shirt and the ugly plaid shorts I normally talked him out of wearing.

I couldn’t believe he could kiss anyone like that but me — especially figure number two, a Chinese girl dressed head to toe in clinging black, a future Surgeon General and my former best friend.

Betina called me later that night to ask how my appointment had gone. My mind was blank with shock, and I answered my cell automatically. She sounded like her usual self on the phone. It made me want to renounce my pacifist ways and push her in front of a speeding bus.

“It was fine,” I said woodenly.

“So was it a yeast thing? What did they give you for it?”

“They didn’t give me anything.”

“That’s weird.” She paused, waiting for me to elaborate. “So are you okay?”

I slammed my eyelashes together and exhaled into the phone. “I can’t talk to you anymore, Betina.”

“Ivy, it’s going to be okay,” she said, starting into a pep talk. “You’ll see. You’re going through a bad time now, but it won’t last. Do you want me to come over — or we can go out. Come pick me up, okay? We’ll go anywhere you want. We can plant flowers in front of vandalized bus shelters or loiter inside Burger King trying to convince customers to go home and cook themselves something nutritionally balanced. Let’s get crazy, girl. Come on.” Yesterday I would’ve laughed and driven straight over to her house. Now I wondered how long the two people I’d trusted most had been lying to me.

“I know!” Betina announced. “We’ll drive over to the Fire Hall and key Jeremy’s car. He deserves it, right? We can carve a big ol’ peace symbol on his hood.”

I cringed as she said his name. If I hadn’t known better I’d have been utterly convinced by her performance. She must’ve been counting on me to act civilized and say no, but why make it easy for her? “How do you know he’s at the Fire Hall?” I asked.

“Ivy, I was kidding. I know you wouldn’t flip out like that.”

“Really?” My voice was colder than Canadian frostbite. “Even if I caught him making out with my best friend?”

She didn’t deny it. She didn’t make a sound.

“I don’t know what he’d say about your plan to key his car, but I guess you can think of a way to make it up to him,” I continued. “Especially with all of that invaluable Indiana Vaughn experience behind you.”

I stopped and gave her another chance to say what could only be the wrong thing. Silence greeted me again. “You both make me sick,” I told her. “I don’t ever want to hear from you again.”

“Ivy, I —”

I don’t know what would’ve come out of her mouth next. I disconnected and curled into the fetal position on top of my bedspread, my eyes bone dry because I was too disgusted to cry. I tossed and turned for most of the night, inconsolable, and when the alarm went off at eight the next morning I felt like hell warmed over.

That prescription needed to get filled. Copious amounts of under-eye concealer were also on the agenda. Never mind that I felt like hell warmed over (with a special bonus edition itch), I absolutely couldn’t show up at Sheri’s office looking like an extra from a disaster movie.

I bumped into Dad on my way to the shower, and he arched his eyebrows and said, “Interview day, is it?”

I cut short my yawn and nodded.

“Be sure to negotiate yourself a decent wage,” he advised. “Never accept the first offer on the table.”

I hopped in and out of the shower, blow-dried my hair, and applied equal amounts of lipstick and concealer. Makeup usually made me feel like an impostor, but I needed something to hide behind. I added a dab of beige eyeshadow before heading off with a crossword magazine under my arm, hoping the props/cosmetic combination would be enough to disguise the fact that I was dying inside.

I tried to finish one of the puzzles in the reception area at Frasier-Hay Merchandising. The words wouldn’t cooperate. Even my hands seemed to be against me. My fingers twitched on the pen, my brain leaping repeatedly back to Jeremy and Betina making out against his car. I could never speak to them again. I had no friends. No life. I needed to vault clean over summer and land in Ottawa in September where I could reinvent myself as an infinitely less naive journalism student.

“Ivy Mercer-Hawkes?” a woman’s voice chimed. “I’m Chandra from HR. Would you like to follow me?”

I shut my magazine and shook her hand. Her nails were as perfectly manicured as my mother’s, which is not something you should hold against anyone, so I tried not to. I was wearing lipstick, after all, and acting steadily more Ophelia-like with each passing day.

“Sheri said she spoke to you briefly about the job,” Chandra continued as we strolled along a corridor, a pasty FedEx guy hurrying by in the opposite direction. “What I’d like to do first is explain a bit more about what we do here. Then you can jump in with any questions.” She motioned to an open door, and I followed her into her office, where she explained about Frasier-Hay being a leading national service merchandiser that distributes housewares, kitchen accessories, cosmetics, etc. to retail outlets.

My job would be to assist their Credit Note Clerk enter data for returning merchandise. Another student was already helping with that, so if I had any extra time I’d be on loan to the Marketing department to “aid with their website incentive program.”

I listened to Chandra’s spiel with an enthusiasm I didn’t feel. Then I managed to pose some technical questions about my potential summer job to demonstrate that I’d been processing the information she’d imparted. All things considered, the job didn’t sound like a terrible way to spend a summer. My fingers would be busy on the keyboard; with any luck I wouldn’t have time to notice them shake.

At the end of the interview Chandra punched in Sheri’s extension. “I’m sorry,” she told me. “I’m sure she’d like to say hello to you, but she seems to be on another call. I can take you back down to reception if you’d like to wait for her.”

“No thanks,” I said. “I don’t want to bother her if she’s busy.” And I had errands of my own, anti-itch cream to purchase. I held out my hand for a closing shake and weaved my way through the parking lot. My stomach grumbled angrily as I got into my car. It wasn’t so much mine as it was Mom’s old Volkswagen that she’d never gotten rid of, but I was grateful for it. Betina’s family only had one car between the three of them; I used to drive her everywhere.

My stomach gurgled louder as I snapped on my seat belt. For the first time since seeing them yesterday I was actually hungry. How come I’d never thought to carry around emergency snacks for myself when I’d always had them on hand for Jer?

Frasier-Hay Merchandising squatted in the midst of a collection of interchangeable warehouses and office buildings, but I’d caught sight of a strip mall at the closest intersection on my way over. I drove towards it, yearning for Golden Arches (a sure sign of my despair), and was greeted by a convenience store, a Thai takeout place that didn’t open until noon, a dentist’s office, and other unlikely suspects. My best bet was the Mill Street Café, sandwiched between a picture framing store and a mom-and-pop computer store advertising a sale on digital cameras. I ambled into the café, my hands folded in front of me to keep them still, and stared up at the menu behind the serving counter. It was still breakfast time, but my stomach was growling for skinny fries and a Big Mac.

“Ivy?”

My gaze rushed in the direction of the male voice that’d just pronounced my name. He was standing behind the counter in a green apron, Michael Rossi with the peanut allergy. No, Lucan Rossi with the peanut allergy. He smiled at me over the countertop, a selection of meats, cheeses, and assorted spreads laid out in front of him.

“Did you just come from your interview?” he asked. “How’d it go?”

“Good, I think. I didn’t know you worked here.” Pretty much the only thing I knew about Lucan was his own personal brand of kryptonite. I hadn’t even known the Mill Street Café existed until thirty seconds ago.

“This is week two.” He turned in the direction of a white-haired man stacking dishes at the other end of the counter and yelled, “Christie, do you think I can come back next week?” Christie, who strongly resembled an aging leprechaun, cupped his ear with his hand. “Forget it,” Lucan said, almost apologetically. “I’m good here.”

I scanned the menu behind him, wishing that I could postpone all of life’s small talk moments until September. Pretending to be cheerful was an energy drain in itself.

“Listen, I feel like I should thank you again for the other day,” Lucan continued. “I know I was a suck about the whole thing. I was pissed off with myself for being so stupid. I should know the drill by now. I can never let myself slip.”

Everybody slips, but if I said that he’d only think I was humoring him. “Don’t worry about it,” I told him.

“So what’s it gonna be?” he asked. “Personally, the Reuben’s my favorite.”

“Are you going to make it?”

He dipped his head. “I will. But I guarantee that won’t affect the quality.” His smile contracted a little.

“I’m sure you make amazing sandwiches.” I had to pee again. It seemed like lately all I did was pee. If there’s one thing you should be able to count on doing with ease it’s that, at least until you’re seventy-eight. The entire universe was conspiring against me. “What I was really craving when I came in here was a Big Mac.”

Lucan’s grin returned to full strength. “See, the problem with that is that this isn’t a McDonald’s.”

“I know.” I stood there feeling defeated in my lipstick and concealer. I was in imminent danger of having a meltdown in front of a second cousin whose name I could hardly remember, in an anonymous café where he wanted to make me a sandwich that should’ve been a Big Mac.

“Well.” He furrowed his eyebrows like he was dedicated to solving my problem. “What about soup? We have creamy asparagus or chicken and vegetable. It comes with a piece of freshly baked bread.”

“Okay.” I didn’t want the soup, either, but he was beginning to look at me the way Betina had the night of the crying jag. His eyelashes were almost gold. They glittered in the sun.

“Which one?” he asked.

“Either. No, just make me the Reuben, okay?”

“Okay. You can sit down. I’ll bring it over to you.” I spun to search for a secluded seat. “Ivy?”

“What?” I avoided looking him in the eye; I didn’t want him getting sensitive on me. That would really be the last straw.

“You can grab a drink from the cooler, unless you want coffee.”

“No, I’ll grab something. Thanks.” I plucked an iced tea from the cooler, paid for my order, and headed for the most remote corner in the place. I set my unopened drink down as a placeholder and slunk into the bathroom for another painful pee.

The good news is that Lucan was right about the Reuben. The toasted marble rye was mouth-wateringly delicious, and he’d piled the corned beef superbly high for me. The tang of the sauerkraut made me squint in appreciation. I finished every last bite, Golden Arches cravings banished from my mind, as I studied my half-finished crossword puzzle. My fingers were steady as I uncapped my pen and printed out the word: L-Y-C-E-E. It was a French word for school, apparently. If only the rest of my problems were so easily solved.