Ivy withdrew her hand and looked down. A tear plopped on the surface of the table, and she quickly wiped it away, rubbing her hand on her jeans. The sadness-anger-guilt tornado was ramping up inside her, and she needed to shut it down before she lost her shit and blew it all.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” Mary Ellen said again. “Do you miss her?”
Ivy shook her head.
“It’s normal to feel a little homesick—”
“I’m not a baby,” Ivy said sharply.
Mary Ellen was silent.
“I’m not the kind of person who looks back and, like, feels bad about everything, okay? If I did that, I’d never get anywhere. I’d just sit around crying all the time.”
“But, Rose, it’s okay—”
“No, it’s not.” Ivy squeezed her eyes shut, sending the tears back to where they came from. You’re Rose now, she reminded herself. A good girl running from an abusive father, a girl with a soft, pink heart who just needs a little cash to get where she’s going. She took a deep breath and looked Mary Ellen in the face. “Are you homesick?” she asked.
The lady looked surprised. “Me? No. Why?”
“I don’t know.” Ivy picked at the skin around her thumbnail. “You were really upset about that deer. I was just wondering if there was something…else.”
“Oh, that!” Mary Ellen waved her hand. “I guess I was thinking about my father. I don’t know why. I mean, I guess because he passed away last year. And that deer, when she died, it kind of took me by surprise.”
“How did your dad die?”
She waved her hand again. “In his sleep.”
“That’s a good way to go,” Ivy said. “All peaceful. You don’t know it’s coming. You just go to sleep, and…that’s it.”
Mary Ellen nodded slowly, misery working its way across her face. She took a long drink and said, “Nobody should have to die the way that deer did. Hurting and scared. Wanting help.” Her eyes started turning pink and watery, but she shook it off. “Anyway. I’m sorry about your mom.” She gave Ivy a half smile. “I’m sure her doctor is taking good care of her.”
“Yeah.” Ivy sucked on the side of her thumb, which had started bleeding. It tasted salty and metallic. “After I get my degree and a job, I’ll probably go back and help out.” Rose wasn’t salty on the inside; she was soft and sweet, like a cream donut.
“Are you thinking you’ll work for a theater company? Or do you want to teach?”
“I don’t know. I guess. All I really care about is the writing, you know? So I can put myself out there.” Ivy sat up straighter. “Isn’t that what it’s all about when you’re an artist? You say, this is who I am, this is what I’m all about, and if you don’t like it, tough sh—too bad. Right?”
“Well, kind of, but it should really be about more than that. It should be about ideas. The concept of art as a means of self-expression is kind of…” Mary Ellen made a face and shook her head.
“Oh.”
“Like, for example, I’ve been reading a lot about what Michael Fried called ‘good objecthood’ and trying to find ways to bring that into my work.”
“Objecthood?” Ivy asked, leaning her chin on her hand and widening her eyes.
“It’s a kind of specificity, what Fried called ‘thingness,’” Mary Ellen said.
“Thingness?”
“I know it sounds strange. But it’s about the ontological status of the object being portrayed. See, it all started with the minimalists.” Mary Ellen brightened. She started going into a whole explanation about objects and things, and things other people thought about things, and how still other people disagreed with those people about things. It was crazy and stupid-sounding, but as Mary Ellen talked, Ivy let herself be lulled into a trance by the circular swirl of words, until she felt her sadness dip underwater once, then twice, until it finally dropped out of sight.
14
“I must be boring you. I’m sorry.”
“No! I’m just sleepy.” Rose’s face had gone slack. Mary Ellen knew she was throwing too much at her at once; the girl hardly had the background to absorb so much art theory in one evening. It just felt good to talk about it. Putting the unwieldy ideas into words helped Mary Ellen feel more in control of the information.
“Do you want to go to bed?”
“Maybe.” Rose yawned. “Thanks for teaching me all that stuff. And how to make chicken too.”
“Sleep well, okay?”
“Okay.”
Mary Ellen poured herself another drink and took out her camera-cleaning supplies. Her adventures in the woods had probably caused all kinds of dirt and snow to work their way into the camera’s delicate mechanisms. She powered it on and checked the display. She was surprised to find fifty-four shots on the memory card; she couldn’t remember having taken a single one. She scrolled through them and couldn’t make out what they were. She went downstairs to get her laptop from the bedroom, then hooked up her camera to it and uploaded the pictures.
A smear of gray sky interrupted in one corner by a bent, scrawny branch; a brown blur against white snow; a froth of pine needles filling the frame. Apparently, she’d mashed the shutter button while running away from the deer, and her camera had been in continuous shooting mode. Mary Ellen scrolled quickly through the shots and could see her frame-by-frame progress through the undergrowth.
She enlarged one of the pictures. There was something energetic about the way a branch slashed through the frame, a black streak against a mottled gray background. The composition, if you could call it that, was unbalanced and haphazard, making the photo feel artistic but not contrived. Actually, it was the opposite of contrived, Mary Ellen realized, the blood quickening in her chest and her head. There was no Mary Ellen–ness imposed on the picture whatsoever, no evidence of struggle, no pitiful attempt to be liked. She’d finally managed, as Justine had predicted, to “strip away all
