ELEVEN | IVY

CHANDRA HAD PHONED LATE on Friday afternoon to confirm that Frasier-Hay wanted to offer me a summer job. Sheri met me in the reception area at eight-thirty on Monday morning and personally showed me to my desk in the Accounts Receivable department. I was sandwiched between a robustly healthy potted plant and a young black guy in a slim-fit gray suit that made me feel underdressed. “Ivy, this is our other student, Anwar,” Sheri said, her hand skimming his shoulder. “Anwar started last week, so this is all old hat to him.” Anwar grinned widely on cue. “Vivienne should be in any minute now, so I’ll catch up with you later, Ivy.”

I told Sheri thanks and listened to the faint strains of classic Barenaked Ladies music filter through the PA as Anwar typed with android-like velocity on the computer in front of him. Various members of the department dropped by my desk to introduce themselves, the minutes passing in slow motion. “Is there anything I can do in the meantime before Vivienne gets here?” I asked Anwar.

“Vivienne is never on time,” Anwar explained, rolling his chair back to the nearest filing cabinet and grabbing a stack of yellow sheets of paper. “These are our copies of credit notes that come in from the sales department.” He explained our place in the process and detailed every bit of information on the page before directing me towards my keyboard. “Once you learn the shortcut keys you’ll burn through a stack like this in no time.” Anwar reeled off the major shortcuts before handing over his cheat sheet. Vivienne nowhere in sight, I followed the meticulous instructions and began keying the credit note info into the computer.

At ten to nine a tall woman in her early twenties scurried by us with an oversized coffee and small brown bag in her hands. She sat at the sole remaining empty desk and waved at me. “Just give me five minutes to get myself unpacked and I’ll be over to chat with you. Thanks for getting her started, Anwar.”

“You’re welcome, Vivienne.” His head sloped towards mine as he whispered, “Every day starts with a coffee and a cream cheese bagel. Give her at least twenty minutes.” His fingers kept up their pace on the keyboard. “How’re you doing with that?”

I told him I was catching on okay, and about twenty minutes later, as predicted, Vivienne dragged her chair over to mine and repeated most of the things Anwar had said. My typing was usually quite accurate, though not as fast as Anwar’s, but I hadn’t been able to put my full attention towards anything since that Thursday outside Jeremy’s house. I wouldn’t have believed either of them was capable of betraying me like that. How long had it been going on right under my nose? Betina must’ve already been exchanging bodily fluids with him when he broke it off with me. No wonder she’d tried to stress the upside of splitting up, but how could she have crawled into bed with Jeremy when she knew how I felt about him? We weren’t a high school hookup. What I’d felt, I’d felt down to the roots. Maybe his emotions were a lie, but mine were the God’s honest truth.

I must’ve been deaf and blind. The three of us had spent plenty of time together, and I’d never sensed any undercurrent between them. I’d wanted Jer back up to the very moment I’d spotted their bodies locked together. Since then I wanted to stop feeling altogether. Anger and ache intertwined seamlessly inside me. It didn’t seem as though there was room for anything else — like the person I used to be.

The truth was that I’d spent the entire weekend (except for three hours on Saturday when Mom forced me to go to both the hairdresser and a newly opened organic supermarket with her) drinking bottled water and vacillating between wallowing over my broken heart and plotting revenge. Jeremy wasn’t above playing games, so why couldn’t I play too? I could twist his mind around and turn him against Betina so fast that it’d give him vertigo. I had plenty of ammunition in the form of X-rated Indiana Vaughn details. Jer would want me back with a vengeance, or at the very least he wouldn’t want her.

But the more detailed my plans got the more heartsick I felt. That weekend sickness oozed between my fingers and into the corners of my mind as I typed dreary credit note details into the Frasier-Hay in-house computer system. My typos were countless. Without shift-tab to correct myself, my efforts would have been a disaster. As it was, the yellow stack in front of me shrunk imperceptibly. By lunchtime I was only halfway through, and Sheri edged by my desk and said, “I’m heading over to the Mill Street Café to grab some takeout. I thought I’d treat you on your first day.”

“Oh, thank you, but I brought a sandwich.” Classic peanut butter and jelly. Mom had made it for me when she’d noticed I was running late. Besides, I’d promised myself I’d give my second cousin some time to forget Friday’s bizarre behavior. At first I’d thought he was concerned, but by the time I’d fallen asleep and confessed my delicateness I was sure I’d weirded him out and that politeness was the only thing that had kept him sitting across from me.

“Another time, then,” Sheri suggested. “We’re pretty loose with the lunch times for students. You can take your food down to the cafeteria anytime you want, as long as you clear it with Vivienne.”

“I’ll bring you down later and show you around the lunchroom and warehouse,” Vivienne volunteered from behind us.

I had forty-five minutes for lunch. It sounded like plenty of time, but two visits to the bathroom (due to all the water I was drinking) left me with approximately half an hour. The fluids helped with the sting some, but the messy cream wasn’t doing much for the itch. I felt like screaming as I smoothed on another layer in the middle bathroom stall. Why should everything happen to me? The worst part was that I didn’t have anyone left to complain to, except my mother, and so far I hadn’t managed to break the news about Betina and Jeremy. Some things are too painful to admit, and she’d already forced me to get my hair done; I didn’t want to sit through a manicure and pedicure too.

After we’d arrived home from the hairdresser on Saturday Dad had stared at me with an unusual amount of attentiveness and asked, “What did they do? I can’t see any difference.”

“They put in lowlights and trimmed it,” Mom explained, fluffing my hair with her fingers. “I think it looks very healthy.” She’d wanted me to do something more drastic, but I’d won that argument at the salon. It was my hair, after all. I didn’t want it lopped off or dyed blond.

So there I was on my first day at Frasier-Hay with healthy hair, burning urination, and assorted bits of yellow paper with various item numbers scrawled on them. By the end of the afternoon I’d conquered my yellow stack and gone to the bathroom another two times. Accounts Receivable was quiet and mundane, but it’d killed eight hours for me. I was almost proud of myself as I drove home. I had a job. I was productive and un-Ophelia-like. I would stop thinking about Jeremy and Betina and start thinking about myself again. It was only a matter of time. This terrible summer would soon be behind me and I’d be happy again. Happier even. Because I wouldn’t be surrounded by lies.

The problem with flashes of wisdom like that is you can’t hold on to them. They slip through your fingers in a matter of hours or the moment something happens to bring reality tumbling back down on your head. Any number of events would’ve accomplished that eventually, but what actually happened was that an envelope addressed to me in Jer’s handwriting showed up in the mail.

It was lying around with bills and flyers in the middle of the kitchen table, and my throat swelled as I stared at it. I thought about him licking the stamp and then I thought about him licking her. How sick was that? It was probably one of those self-adhesive stamps that you don’t even need to lick, and anyway, I hated him. I hated them both. Why would he bother sending me anything now?

But he hadn’t. He’d sent it before I’d caught them, when he was still wrapped up in trying to pretend to us both that he wasn’t a lowlife cheater. I read it and reread it in the privacy of my room, tears flooding my skin.

Ivy,

I wish I didn’t have to hurt you. I hate to think about how

I’ve made you feel these past few weeks. You don’t deserve

that. You’re an incredible person and I know you’re going to

do so many incredible things. Maybe someday we’ll be able

to talk about them. I’m sorry.

Jeremy

He’d printed the words out on a small piece of lined paper that he’d probably torn out of his most recent AVL notebook. He’d run through two others during the course of the year, filled them with issues for the AVL to tackle and ideas on how to do it. Between us, Mr. Amara, and the other members of the AVL we’d arranged an entire International Women’s Day assembly. We papered the school hallways with posters recounting women’s historical achievements and listing various economic, political, and social statistics. The assembly featured a female member of Parliament, a local comedian, and a bunch of girls from our school doing things like singing, reading poetry, and acting out skits.

The day turned out perfect, beyond our expectations. People seemed genuinely excited about what we were trying to accomplish, and four different people asked me how they could join the AVL. After the assembly I interviewed both the politician and the comedian for the AVL blog. Then Jeremy and I sped off to my house and celebrated privately in my room until it was nearly time for my parents to come home. I watched Jeremy as he slipped into his jeans and said, “Please just lie there for another minute or two, okay? I don’t want to stop looking at you yet.” He grinned and tiptoed back to plant an upside-down kiss on my lips. “So much of what happened today is down to you. You’re incredible. I hope you know that.”

He tasted like cranberry and apples from the cereal bar I’d fed him on the way in. “Yeah, of course I know that,” I joked, crossing one leg over the other and wiggling my ankle in the air.

But I didn’t feel so incredible now, gripping a shitty four-line note from the person who was supposed to be in love with me. I tore it into a million heartbreaking pieces and stared blearily at the shredded remains lying snow-like at the foot of my dresser.

My mother grilled salmon for dinner, but I couldn’t eat more than a couple of bites. I climbed into bed, cried myself to sleep, and when I woke up the next morning I had a ferocious dehydration headache. Anwar had left a new yellow stack on my desk. Vivienne arrived at quarter to nine with a brown paper bag and a coffee. Old top forty pop hits wafted out of the PA.

My entire summer flashed before my eyes, and every day looked identical to this. “Do you have any Aspirin?” I asked Anwar. I’d taken two with breakfast, but my head was beginning to pulsate with pain again.

“Ask Vivienne,” Anwar advised, his fingers never leaving the keyboard. “She runs on acetaminophen and caffeine.”

Sure enough Vivienne sprinkled gelcaps into my hand. “I hope you’re not going to turn out like me,” she said. “All this ogling the computer gives me terrible headaches.” She went on to confide that her stint as Credit Note Clerk was strictly temporary. “Five months of filing and typing entirely useless information has convinced me to go back to grad school. Oh!” She sucked in her lips, the rest of her features suddenly stricken. “Don’t mention that to Sheri. Please. I need this job in the meantime.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t rat you out.” I only cared about swallowing those pills — that and my ever-present thoughts about the two people I’d trusted most in this life. I could’ve drowned in bitterness, if only I weren’t so dehydrated.

At that moment Vivienne’s phone rang and I slunk off towards the water cooler — or attempted to. Vivienne called for me from across the room: “Ivy, your mom’s on line two.” She pointed to the phone directly in front of her. As temps, neither Anwar nor I had our own phones, and I trudged back to Vivienne’s desk and punched line two.

“How’re you feeling, sweetie?” Mom asked. “Is your head any better?”

“Not really. How come you didn’t call my cell? You know I don’t have a phone here.”

“Have you checked your cell lately?” Mom asked, raising her voice. “I’ve left two messages.” That was highly possible. Between the headache and everything else I’d probably forgotten to switch it on this morning. “I just wanted to let you know there’s a message at home from Dr. Nayar’s office. They want you to phone them about some test results.”

“Right, thanks,” I chirped and promptly hung up.

Add that to the list of things I hadn’t confided to my mother. I’d led her to believe that I’d already recovered from a textbook case of cystitis, a lie that made it easier to distract my own mind from the possibilities. You don’t confess things to others when you haven’t admitted them to yourself; I could only worry about so many things at once before spontaneously combusting.

Panic seized my stomach at the mention of test results. Fork-lightning pain gripped my forehead. I gulped down the gelcaps and dashed into the bathroom, my cell in my pocket.

The receptionist wouldn’t reveal anything over the phone. “Dr. Nayar will discuss the results with you when have your appointment,” she intoned. “When would you like to come in?”

“Today,” I squeaked. “Is that possible?”

An hour and a half later I was sitting in Dr. Nayar’s waiting room after having played the sick card on my second day at work. The smell from my sanitized hands made me queasy. My headache, dulled by Vivienne’s painkillers, squatted persistently over my right eye. I flipped manically through last year’s fashion magazines as I waited for the receptionist to call my name, and when she did I flinched in my seat.

A minute later Dr. Nayar walked into the examining room and stood in front of me with a neutral gaze. “Okay, Ivy,” she pronounced. It didn’t sound like a good okay, but it didn’t sound like she was about to give me twenty-four hours to live, either. I blinked in double time as I listened to her say, “I just want to have a little chat with you about your results today, all right?”

I nodded obediently. “What are they? What does the test say?”

“This is a very common problem,” she continued. “It’s great that you came in so quickly and we were able to catch this early, because if untreated chlamydia can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease. As it is, all we need to do is put you on a course of antibiotics, okay?”

“Okay.” I couldn’t control my eyelashes, but Dr. Nayar acted as if she didn’t notice.

“Do you know much about the infection?” she asked. I don’t know what I mumbled in response, but she continued on with an explanation. “As I said, it’s a very common sexually transmitted infection, particularly among young people. It’s caused by the bacteria Chlamydia trachomatis. Often there are no symptoms, and it can go undiagnosed and cause a variety of problems, so in this case you were quite fortunate.”

Absolutely, I felt like the luckiest girl alive. Any residual lovesick feelings I’d still had for Jeremy Waite were smothered by rage as Dr. Nayar said, “I know you mentioned that you and your boyfriend were depending upon the pill for birth control, but in the future it would be wise to consider using condoms also. They reduce the likelihood of transmission for so many infections. Your boyfriend will need to be treated and tested too. That’s very important. Otherwise you could be reinfected.”

I nodded again, my mind racing. Not only had that king of all assholes Jeremy cheated on me, he hadn’t shown enough sense to use a condom. For all intents and purposes, I’d likely caught chlamydia from a supremely skeevy guy in the state of Indiana, a place I’d never even been.

“Don’t worry,” Dr. Nayar told me. “I’m going to prescribe a seven-day course of antibiotics, and you and your boyfriend shouldn’t have sex again, even with a condom, until seven days after you’ve both finished treatment.”

“So … I’ll be okay?” We’d studied STIs in health class, but the only thing I remembered about chlamydia was that it could affect your reproductive system. “It won’t stop me from having kids or anything?” I didn’t even know whether I wanted kids, but I wanted the possibility of them.

“You’ll be absolutely fine,” Dr. Nayar said kindly. “Caught early it’s very easy to treat.” She clicked her pen and began jotting out my prescription. “Is everything else all right, Ivy? You look a little tired.”

Did I? I didn’t feel tired in the least. My pulse was racing and I was burning up with the strength of a thousand wishes, all of them variations on a scenario where Jer and Betina broke out in lifelong festering sores or were infested with mutant-sized pubic lice.

“I started a new job this week,” I choked out. “I’m not used to sitting in front of the computer all day.”

Dr. Nayar handed me the prescription. “Don’t forget to take stretch breaks, at least once an hour. We’re not designed to stay in one position for so long.”

Who gave a shit about stretch breaks? I was on the verge of breaking into a stream of hardcore Tourette’s in Dr. Nayar’s examining room. What in fuck’s name was I going to tell my mother? That my lovable social activist ex had infected me? Here’s a thought, I’d speed directly over to Jeremy’s on my way home and tell him what a scumbag bacteria-ridden loser he was first.

And then what?

Maybe I could look forward to another charming letter in the mail.

Ivy,

I wish I hadn’t exposed you to Chlamydia trachomatis.

I hate to think about how I could have made you sterile.

You don’t deserve that. Betina is just so incredible in

bed that I wasn’t thinking clearly and she’s going to do

so many incredible things for me later tonight that once

again all thoughts of you will be wiped from my mind.

Maybe someday, once we’ve all been cured, we’ll be able

to laugh about this.

Jeremy

I lurched out to the parking lot with my antibiotic prescription, exponentially more disgusted with everyone involved — Jeremy, Betina, Indiana Vaughn and his ex-girlfriend, even myself. I shouldn’t have trusted Jer after he’d dumped me two seconds before my last high school final. I should’ve hung up on him when he’d called to confess his confusion. Why would anyone rely on the pill alone when it was suddenly crystal clear to me that there wasn’t a guy on earth you could trust with your uninfected body?

Why hadn’t I stuck with condoms? How did the exchange of bodily fluids ever seem like a romantic idea when it was obviously just another way for people to screw you over?

Fuck him. Fuck her too. Why should I, the innocent party in all this, have to tell them a goddamn thing?

I hit the ignition, shifted into drive, and cruised towards the drugstore nearest my house with a beautiful new plan formulated in my head: tell no one.