The Mustang pulled in tight between two trees. Ivy’s mother strode toward them. “Ivy! It took me forever to find you, what do you mean by taking off?”
“Mom.” Pain blossomed in Ivy’s head. “How did you know I was here?”
“Yeah, I’m glad to see you too. I’m doing okay, thanks for asking.”
“Mom—”
“George dropped the charges, if that’s what you’re wondering.” She made a piff sound through her teeth. “He was just inflating things, causing trouble, his eye’s fine.”
It was hard to know how to respond. Ivy settled on the most important part, that George’s eye was okay. “Wow. That’s good, it’s great.”
“I got out last night. Went to Family Services this morning. What a runaround. Can you believe they didn’t want to tell me where you were?”
Yes. Ivy made a pained face.
“Finally they did, but of course you weren’t there, so that was a goose chase.”
“How did you know to come up here?”
Her mom made an unamused heh. “Yeah, fifty miles up.” She pointed her head at Prairie. “I told her mom I had to see you.”
Ivy’s mom had lied to Mom Evers, then. Told her it was an emergency, something to make her sympathetic. Mom Evers probably even thought Ivy might want to see her mom. And maybe she did. “So—now what? You just go home?” asked Ivy.
“Oh, no. No way. I’ve had it with Kingston.”
“You—you’re moving? Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Her mother snapped her fingers. “Nothing to wait for.”
“But—where?”
“Detroit.” Dee-troit, is how she said it.
“Detroit? Mom, that’s in Michigan. You can’t just move to Michigan.”
“Says who?”
“But—why there?”
Ivy’s mom jiggled her keys. The plastic cubes bounced and clacked. “It’s what I decided, that’s all. Come on if you’re coming.”
“What, right now? This minute?”
“Now or never.”
Ivy gestured at the group behind her, as if maybe her mom hadn’t noticed all these people were gathered at a lake fifty miles from home. “Mom, I’m in the middle of filming. Everybody’s here, we only have the weekend—”
“I’m sorry, but this is real life, Ives. I don’t have time to wait.”
“But I have to do this. And we live here, Mom. That’s real life. We have friends—”
Her mom made a hmmph noise. “What friends?”
Ivy held her hand out, palm up, toward everyone.
Her mother crossed her arms. “Okay. I’ll give you the weekend, then we leave.”
“But Jacob and I are starting a film club in the fall, we’re going to meet at the library down the street from Beryl’s, the librarian said we could. Plus Ms. Mackenzie’s teaching my grade next year and she’s my teacher again. She’s the best—”
Her mom shook her head.
“And I want to do a movie about kids with careers. I already started. Prairie and Kelly are getting goats because you can make chee—”
Her mom snorted. “Kids with careers. Come on. Do you really think you’re going to be some big movie director?”
Ivy felt ancient and exhausted. “I don’t know. I have no idea. But I’m going to finish this, and I’m going to try.” Each word weighed a hundred pounds.
“Bah,” Ivy’s mom said in a disgusted way.
Prairie muttered and Jacob took a step forward, but Ivy saw the fear in her mom’s eyes. That undid her just when she felt mad enough to let her mother go back to Kingston and start packing by herself. She took a step forward. “Mom, listen. Why do you want to go all the way to Detroit? We don’t know anybody there.”
Ivy caught a shift in her mom’s eyes.
“Mom. Do we know somebody there?”
“It’s just, Dave said he might know of somebody looking for help—”
“Dave.”
“He said he’s gonna head out there. He has a buddy who might get him work.”
“Dave? Lindsey’s boyfriend, Dave?”
“He came to see me while I was in jail. Apologized for Lindsey’s nonsense and what all. They split up, you know.”
“Mom, no. Not Dave, he’s not—”
“He’s not so bad. You’ll see. He’s looking for a place for us, something to get started—”
Ivy was nailed to the ground; a spike had been driven through her. When she could speak, she said, “I think you should stop running.”
“Running! I’m not—”
“You should stop. It just makes everything worse.”
Her mother’s eyes went bright. “Ives—let’s just go, okay?” Her eyes were pleading. “We’ll talk in the car.” She joggled her keys.
Ivy stared at the key chain. Her mom had made it at a gas station. Doing that, making it, was private and innocent somehow, and—this was the worst part—hopeful. The beads between the cubes were pink and green and yellow and purple and so were the feathers dangling off the end. T-R-A-C-Y.
“Mom, listen—” Ivy said slowly.
Her mom had started talking at the same time. “This is a waste of time anyway. Like you can really make a movie.”
Ivy’s eyes snapped away from the key chain. “We are making one. We’re in the middle of it, everybody’s helping—”
Her mom’s lips went thin. “I already told you, you try too hard. This whole thing—”
“It makes me feel close to my dad a little,” Ivy said softly.
“Your dad. Please.”
“He loved movies—”
“He didn’t give a rat’s—” Ivy’s mother glanced at the group. “He didn’t care about movies. Or you.”
“Yes, he did!” Ivy cried. “He loved movies, and he loved me. He gave me that battleship game that last Christmas, he wrapped it himself—”
“It’s all in the past, Ivy. Gone and over. For God’s sake, grow up.”
Ivy stepped backward as the truth crashed into her. Her mom wasn’t safe. Not for Ivy. She did have a good side. She might even, in a way, love Ivy. But she fought dirty. She was mean when she felt threatened, and almost everything made her feel that way. She would never put Ivy first. She’d hurt her as quick as swatting a fly, if hurting her was convenient. It wasn’t news. It had been right in front of Ivy her whole life. She’d just tried hard not to see it.
After a moment her mother said, “C’mon, Ives. Don’t look like that.”
Ivy shook her head.
“I shouldn’t have said that. Your dad loved you, ’course he did. And I guess he did like movies. It’s just—I get mad.” She tried out a smile, then let it fall away. She waited. Ivy didn’t speak. Finally she said, gently, “Come on, get in the car. We’ll talk on the way. Lots of time, on the road. We’ll see Niagara Falls.”
“No.”
“Come on. Just get in the car.”
“No. I’m staying here. I’m doing this.”
Seconds passed. Ivy’s mother turned and walked to the Mustang.
Ivy listened to the door screech open, watched her mom settle into the seat. Her mom put her hands on the steering wheel and looked over her shoulder, then backed away. The brakes squealed at the mouth of the drive, the engine roared as her mom hit the gas. Ivy listened until she couldn’t hear the car winding down the road anymore.
Ivy shook her head. She turned to face her friends. After a moment, she smiled. It wasn’t a real smile, but they’d understand. She lifted the camera.
“Okay,” she said when she could. “Let’s do this. Scene thirteen, Paddling.”