“Exactly,” the lady nodded. “But you can’t hitchhike, for goodness’ sake. Do you realize how dangerous that is? You’re lucky those cult people didn’t chop you up and have you for dinner.” She leaned back, remembering, just in time, that the bench was backless. “But you’re still in high school, right? Are you transferring?”
Ivy fetched the gin bottle from the counter and refilled Mary Ellen’s glass. “Yeah. I’m a junior. You know, if I could borrow a little money, I could take a bus the rest of the way. No more hitchhiking.”
“Mmm.” The lady used her finger to twirl the melting ice in her glass, then licked it. “Playwriting. Where’d you get that idea?”
Ivy shrugged. “I’ve always loved the theater.” She liked the idea of it, anyway. She figured it was like TV, only classier. “It’s always been a passion of mine. And I don’t know, someday I’d like to, you know, be like, like…”
“What?”
Ivy was really laying it on thick, but the lady was giving her such a wide-eyed, encouraging look that she kept going. “Like you. An artist. Doing what I love. Doing something that matters. Not just, like, punching in and punching out every day, you know what I mean?”
Mary Ellen looked surprised, then embarrassed and almost tearful. “I… Well, of course I know what you mean.” She thought for a moment. “But if you do it this way, running away like this, you won’t be able to count on your parents helping you out.”
“I don’t need them.”
“Well, how are you… I guess I don’t… Is your aunt going to support you?”
“No. I don’t know. She’s kind of poor, like me.”
“Rose.” The lady spread out her fingers, hands flat on the table, composing herself for the hard truth she was about to lay down. “College is very, very expensive.”
It was all Ivy could do to keep “No shit, Sherlock” from flying out of her mouth, but she held it together. “I was thinking I could get, like, some help? Financially?”
“Financial aid? Yeah, sure, that’s definitely an option. ’Specially if your grades are good.”
Ivy was about to interject that she was thinking about a different kind of aid, something a little more personal, like one friend helping another, but Mary Ellen launched into a long monologue about different kinds of scholarships and how to apply for them. Ivy did her best to look interested, but impatience was making her jittery. How much more of this playacting would she have to do before the lady finally decided to help her out?
“Now, if you get residency in Pennsylvania, then you can go to a state school,” Mary Ellen went on, “and that’s a lot less expensive than private, but the quality, pff…” She flapped her hand and rolled her eyes. “I mean, it depends. California and North Carolina? Fantastic. But Pennsylvania… I mean, you could do worse, I guess.” Ivy got up to serve the lady more gin, but she pushed her glass away. “Oh gosh, I think I’ve had enough,” Mary Ellen said. She pivoted and swung her legs ungracefully over the bench. “I’ve gotta… I should probably go to bed.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks for all the advice.”
“You’re welcome. I know it’s a lot to think about. But…” Mary Ellen swayed slightly, seeming to lose her train of thought. “Well, anyway. Night.”
Ivy stayed upstairs for a little while longer, trying to think what to do next. The lady seemed less eager to get rid of her, which was good. Ivy would have a little more time to figure things out. And while all of Mary Ellen’s lecturing was kind of annoying, in a weird way it felt nice to have somebody actually interested in what Ivy wanted to do with her life. Even if it was all made up.
It was also pretty damn refreshing to have someone making all her meals and cleaning up the house and doing laundry and stuff. Back home, it was never like that. Back home, it was practically a competition to see who could go the longest without pulling hair out of the tub drain or taking out the trash. Colin always won that contest; he could live with the smell of rotting meat for days without even wrinkling his nose.
Ivy lay her head down on the table for a moment, caught in a swirl of memories. There had been a time when Ma and Gran kept up with things—but mostly Gran. She and Ma raised the kids together but grieved separately for their dead husbands, Ma a furtive weeper, Gran an angry door-slammer, each one hating the other for it. Ma worked long shifts as a picker packer, and Gran stayed home and kept things in order, getting food from St. Gabriel, cleaning up everyone’s mess. When Agnes was old enough to watch Ivy and Colin, Gran did her best to hold down a series of jobs, but she kept getting fired for being mouthy.
And then all of the sudden, after Agnes and Colin started college, Gran’s anger seemed to lose all its life force, leaving her crumpled in a corner without much to say. She stayed that way even after they moved back home. Ivy found herself missing the hurled insults and ashtrays, because at least those were signs Gran’s blood was still circulating. Nowadays it was hard to tell.
Colin thought she’d had a stroke; Agnes said she was just depressed. All Ivy knew was that she hated seeing the living, breathing body of a person who wasn’t there anymore, like a ghost who’d never bothered to actually die. If Gran had died, at least they could’ve paid their respects and given her a proper burial, instead of letting her shrivel up under a shroud of PennySavers. They could’ve raised their glasses, drunk to her memory, sung her a song.
Of course, Gran wasn’t the only one who’d cashed in her chips. Ma couldn’t help it—she was sick and didn’t have
