Chapter One - Ivy

Ivy

August 14, 1963

 

“My life is over, goddammit!”

There was power in saying that forbidden swear word. A way to poke at her mother, even if it was only in her head. You don’t have all the power over me. But the truth of the situation was, at that moment, her mother did.

Ivy leaned back and let the hot wind whip and tangle her hair, not caring if she ever got a comb through it again. Out the open window, the landscape blurred — row after row of corn in long rectangular fields, edged by sagging telephone wires. Ahead, the endless black ribbon of the highway melted into a watery blue. It was isolated here. Quiet. For a minute she closed her eyes and pretended she was hearing the dull roar of the city bus as it took her across town. But when she opened her eyes, there were none of her neighborhood's crowded streets and brick buildings. Just the dull roar of her mother’s worn Chevy convertible. And more corn.

Ivy tested the word under her breath. “Goddammit.” Then, a little louder. “Goddammit.” She turned her head out the window and said the words in a normal voice. “Goddamn it, my life is over.” Her mother, Vonda Marie, didn’t respond; she just stared at the blacktop ahead and pressed the accelerator hard. Caught up in her own world, as usual. After a minute, she checked her reflection and smiled into the rearview mirror. The mirror reflected the things people always mentioned to Ivy when they described how beautiful her mother was: her freshly-Clairoled platinum curls held back by a red triangle scarf, those startlingly deep blue eyes, and perfectly straight teeth. Ivy looked at herself in the side mirror and stretched her lips to force a smile, exposing her slightly overlapping eye tooth. Crooked. No one ever told Ivy she looked like her mother.

She pulled a small blue notebook and pencil from the canvas book bag at her feet, making sure the envelope was still securely taped to the back cover. She began to write, crooking her left arm across the book to hide her words and keep the pages from flying.

At least in her diary she could write everything she couldn’t say out loud. Like what a stupid idea this was. How she couldn’t wait to have a good laugh with Val when they came back to Omaha, her mother’s tail between her legs. What terrible timing to be leaving Brad just when things…

Ivy’s mother snapped her fingers in front of Ivy’s face.

“Ivy! Did you hear me, sweetie? Can you find my cigarettes? They must have slipped off the seat.”

Her mother pushed in the dashboard lighter. Bad enough the way the smoke blew straight back into Ivy’s face, but how she hated being at her mother’s beck and call. Ivy retrieved the pack of Pall Malls from the floorboard and slapped it into her mother’s open hand. Her mother took her foot off the gas and leaned forward out of the convertible’s wind, veering into the oncoming lane. Ivy grabbed the wheel and steered while her mother lit the cigarette. After three-and-a-half long hours in the car, Ivy knew the routine.

Her mother glanced at her and said, “I don’t know why you’re pouting so much. I’ve told you that as soon I get settled with a studio contract, I’ll bring you right down to California. You’re gonna love it there. Sandy beaches, big pink grapefruit that grow right in your front yard. Parties with all sorts of movie stars.” She winked at Ivy. “Of course, you’ll have to pretend to be my sister.”

“Right, Mother.” Ivy stared off into the distance. More rows of green, sometimes dotted with a red barn, white two-story house, and a tall metal-topped bin her mother had said were silos for holding corn and grains. She considered opening the car door and jumping out at the next stop sign, but how long would she have to walk before another car came along?

“Besides, it’ll be good for you to be around your grandparents for a while. They haven’t seen you since you were just a little girl. Your grandma is so excited.”

“Well, that makes one of us.” That should get her mother’s attention.

Her mother squinted at Ivy through her heavily mascaraed and eye-shadowed eyes. “That’s no way to talk.”

“I wouldn’t mind so much if they lived somewhere fun. But a farm — in the middle of Nowheresville, South Dakota!”

“It’s not that bad.” Vonda Marie forcefully exhaled a stream of smoke.

“Well, you never wanted to go back there. I’ve heard you say it a million times.”

“That was different. I grew up there. Besides, you won’t be there that long. Just until I get settled, see where this Pearl Soap contest takes me. Maybe a month or two at the most.”

“That’s forever in a place like this.” Ivy stared out at the endless fields on either side of the blacktop road. The air smelled like dirt. “I don’t see why you didn’t let me stay with Val’s family.”

“We’ve been over this, Ivy. Val’s father might be perfectly nice, but I don’t trust that mother of hers. I can tell she doesn’t like me at all.” She glanced at herself in the mirror. “Besides, I’m never going back to Omaha. Too many bad memories of bad jobs and bad men.”

Yeah, lots of both, Ivy thought.

“Now be a good sport and let me have my big break. You’ll see. It’ll be good for both of us.” She turned on the radio and tuned the dial until she found a station with less static, then turned it up extra loud to hear Lesley Gore’s It’s My Party.

Ivy slunk down and leaned back against the hot vinyl seat, tipping her head to watch a lone hawk soar across the immense blue sky. She was right, her life was over. Goddammit.

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