Ivy closed her eyes, letting her tears pool between her cheek and the couch leather. It was time to get serious. She had to make herself a promise and never, ever break it, no matter what happened. She’d never go back. She wouldn’t even look back. No more calling home. No more wishing and wondering. From this point on, it was just Ivy and her dream. That was all she needed. It was all anybody needed, really, to get by in this world.
6
“Do you have any Numbitol on you?”
“Yes. I already took some.”
“You should drink a lot of water too, before you go to bed.”
“I know. I will.” Mary Ellen cooled her forehead against the car window, trying to calm her dizziness as the lights of Girard Avenue raced by. The backs of her legs hurt. Matt seemed edgy, his jaw tight, his foot heavy on the gas and the brake.
“I still don’t understand why you went to this thing,” he said. “Who were all those people? Did you know any of them?”
“They’re Justine’s friends. She wanted me to meet some new people.”
“Don’t you have enough friends? I mean, we’re already in dinner party debt to, like, thirty people.”
“I know.” Mary Ellen closed her eyes. She longed to go home and go to sleep, but at the same time, she dreaded waking up the next morning for the inevitable headachy reckoning. She was sure she’d embarrassed herself in ways she wasn’t even aware of yet. It would only come to her in the cold light of morning. “I don’t think I’m going to be friends with any of those people.”
“You smell like smoke.” Matt stopped too abruptly at a stop sign, and Mary Ellen winced as her forehead knocked against the window. “And that woman, Justine… I don’t understand what’s so great about her. She seems so full of herself.” Matt had met Justine once—once—after picking Mary Ellen up from class one night.
“She’s smart.”
“And proud of it.”
“Well, anyway, I think she’s interesting, and she knows interesting people. But yeah, I was a little out of my element. And I drank too much. God.” She laughed, fogging the window. “I even told Justine I’d go stay in her mountain house for a little while…for an ‘artist retreat.’” That conversation, barely an hour old, felt as though it had happened years ago, back when she was young and stupid enough to think she could actually leap from one life into another.
“What?”
“I mean, I’m not going to do it.”
“Oh. Good.” He drove silently for a moment. “Considering how busy things are for you at work—”
“Don’t worry.” Mary Ellen knew Matt would be alarmed by the idea of her running off to the woods by herself. He hated any change in behavior or routine; he was at his happiest when everyone was playing their assigned position.
“Go on up to bed,” he said when they got home. “I’ll bring your water upstairs.”
“Okay,” Mary Ellen said, steadying herself on the newel post. “Sorry about all this. Thanks for coming to get me.” Matt slung his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt and gave her a half smile. She took this as a sign that he was no longer annoyed and smiled back, a smile that she hoped held reassurance and gratitude and a measure of her own forgiveness. Then she turned and went up to bed.
The next day, she worked from home. Propped against the end of the den sofa, she arranged her cashmere napping blanket over her legs, balanced her laptop on a cushion, and slipped her phone into the pocket of her terry-cloth robe. She logged into her Gallard account and sighed deeply as a flood of emails washed over her. She started by flagging memos and reports to read later, then went over the Global Influencer deck that had just come in from one of their consultants. She copy-pasted some of the findings into her positioning platform presentation, mapping the share trends by physician specialty and reordering the competitive analysis bullet points.
It was the kind of work that would normally lull her into a comfortable trance, but she was too distracted by her headache to lose herself completely. Her eyes kept wandering to the built-in bookshelves, which, she couldn’t help noticing, were a little too neatly arranged, sections of books alternating with meaningless knickknacks. They were nothing like Peter’s shelves, which had been piled with well-thumbed books that he actually seemed to have read and interesting objects from what appeared to be extensive travels to third-world countries.
In the center of her den shelves hung a family portrait: Mary Ellen, Matt, and the girls on the beach in matching white linen shirts, their faces glowing healthily in the rosy sunset light. It was the same sort of photo all of her friends had in their dens. Until now, she’d never thought twice about it, but today she found it irritating. What family ever walked around in matching outfits, except when taking one of these stupid pictures? Who were they creating this illusion for—their friends, who had all done the same thing? Was it for themselves—a comforting fiction that this perfect moment had actually happened?
Mary Ellen realized that instead of feelings of affection or nostalgia, the picture had only ever inspired a sense of accomplishment: at having booked the best photographer in Avalon; at having found four white linen shirts in the right sizes the day before the shoot; at having sprung for the larger mat and UV glass for the frame. It was a job well done.
She turned back to her laptop and tried to focus on her work, but that was also irritating. The ad agency had sent over images for the upcoming focus groups: a woman putting on a bike helmet. A doctor counseling a smiling patient. The people in the focus groups—people who relished their
