Fourteen—Ivy
T
he first thing I noticed was that the little girls were adorable. Tiny, both with dark curly hair, one short, the other long, and they didn’t seem to know where to run. The second thing I noticed was how everyone seemed to freeze from shock. Mia even dropped her roll. But she was sitting closest to the patio door and seemed to recover the quickest, so she grabbed the little girls, singing, “It’s my movie stars! My sparkly diamonds. My partners in crime!” She kissed their laughing faces until they each broke away and bee-lined for a grandparent. Those grandparents then pulled them hungrily into their respective laps and continued the snuggling. Of course, Mia pulled out her camera—that girl always had her camera. Bo looked shell-shocked.
While Mia snapped pictures of the littles, she kind of laughed nervously and said to her sister, “Has hell frozen over?”
I thought Camille’s giggle was forced and had an artificial quality to it, and I wasn’t the only one. When Mia took a good look at her sister, she set down her camera and narrowed her eyes with suspicion. Camille was wearing these enormous dark glasses that did not hide the fact that she’d been crying.
“Oh, Lord,” said Mia, suddenly very serious. “What’s happened?”
“Honey?” Mia’s mom said, noticing as well.
Camille sighed shakily. “Nothing! It’s nothing,” she insisted. “Can’t I just come to Sunday dinner? Did I need to call first?” she asked, clearly peeved. “Can I have some salad, please? ”
“Of course you can, sweetheart,” Eileen Sutton said. “Sit down. I’ll get you a plate.”
It looked to me like Camille’s glance traveled around the table but never landed on anyone, almost like she was challenging anyone to dare say something. I might be wrong about that—you couldn’t really tell what was going on behind those goggles.
Eileen stood up, still clutching the littlest of the two girls who said to her, “Daddy hitted Mommy.” But besides Mia’s mother, who gasped, I think I was the only one who heard it. The others were listening to Camille fib badly about being ‘just fine’.
“Who’s dat?” the older child asked her grandfather. She was pointing at me.
“Scout, this is our friend, Ivy. Can you say ‘hi’?”
“Hi. Ivy is a funny name.”
I smiled. “I think so, too. How old are you, Miss Scout?”
She held up four fingers.
A second later, Olivia came running out of the kitchen in front of Mia’s mom, who carried out extra plates, cups, and utensils. Eileen set them down, then reached across the table and took her oldest daughter’s hand. “What did he do?”
Camille pulled her hand away. “Nothing, Mom. We just argued a little. People argue.”
“Did he hurt you?” Mia’s dad said.
“Has he been hitting you?” Bo finally joined in.
“No! Stop it! All of you!” She glanced my way. “You’re embarrassing Ivy. Hi, Ivy.”
“Hi. I like your glasses,” I said, lamely.
“Thanks.” Then she shouted at Olivia, who’d run into the yard. “C’mon, Liv. You need to come eat something.” She scooped some risotto onto a plate. “You, too, Scouters.”
“I’m not hungry,” Scout said, nuzzling closer to her grandfather.
“I know, sweetie. But you still need to eat.”
“Camille? Sweetheart ?” said a man suddenly standing in the patio doorway holding a biker’s helmet. And with the seemingly innocent arrival of who had to be Camille’s husband, the already tense mood froze as decisively as if a gun had been fired. “Get the girls, honey . It’s time to go.” The hard set of his jaw made the gentle tone of his words ring hollow. Camille did not look up, but the plate she was scooping risotto onto started to tremble. I reached out and took it from her.
No one said a word. It was like Lucifer himself had shown up.
The man was darkly complected with deep-set eyes. His black hair was short, straight, and combed off his brick of a forehead. He took in the faces of those gathered, stopping briefly at mine before moving on to Eileen, who was sitting next to me. “Camille, get the girls. We’re leaving,” he said calmly, but with an edge.
“No,” she said, but it was drowned out by his shout for his younger daughter, who did not know he was there. When Olivia saw her father, she started to cry.
Mia scooted closer to Bo. “Pete, they just got here. We’re eating. Sit down, and I’ll share my salmon with you. You can eat salmon, it’s heart-healthy.” Mia looked over at me. “Pete here is very protective of his vital organs and is rather picky about what he eats.”
He glared at her, but Mia was unaffected. I, myself, did not dare react.
“Camille… Now!” he seethed, not taking his eyes off Mia.
Camille looked up at her husband. “I’ll be home later,” she said shakily.
“I don’t think so, sweetheart ,” Peter said.
“Let’s just calm down,” Jack Sutton said.
I was suddenly tense and looked at Bo because I didn’t want to look at what was unraveling here. We stared at each other for a few seconds, then Bo stood up and walked over to his brother-in-law. “You heard her,” Bo said. “She’ll be there later. Why don’t you go home and cool off?”
“Why don’t you shut up, Bo? This has nothing to do with you. And for your information, I don’t need to cool off. I’ve just come for my wife, who’s not feeling very well. ”
Bo didn’t back down. “Is that what we’re calling it now?” he said with heat. “ Not feeling well? If my sister took off those ridiculous sunglasses, would we see your handiwork? And what about the other night when she was buried under an inch of make-up? What about then?”
“Bo! Pleeease stop talking!” Camille whined.
“What other night?” Peter said to his wife. “What’s he talking about?”
“Bo, sit down,” his mother said shakily.
“Are you hitting my sister now?” Bo demanded.
Camille’s husband pressed his face close to Bo’s, and though Bo flinched, he did not back away. “Your sister is a class-A clutz,” said Peter. “If she’s bruised, it’s her own doing. I’d never hit my wife. Now step away, Benji, you’re starting to irritate me.” With that, the man shoved Bo away with a single pointed finger.
“That’s enough!” said Jack Sutton as he slowly stood.
“Peter, stop it!” Camille said from behind clenched teeth.
“Camille, get the damn kids in the car! Now!”
“I will not!”
“I’d like you to leave my property, Peter,” Jack said. “Right now. Go on.”
“I’m not going anywhere without my family, old man!” Peter said icily.
That’s when chaos ensued. Mia started shouting at Peter, and Camille started crying. And when behind me Olivia’s crying got louder and Scout, who’d been roughly set aside by her grandfather, who was now insisting he would call the police, covered her ears, it broke my heart. I didn’t know what to do, but I had to do something. So, I stood up and beckoned the little one with my finger, and amazingly, she scrambled to my side. I scooped her up, and she clung to me like she was drowning. Olivia, too, was suddenly next to me, and I took her hand as well. “I hate yellin’, don’t you?” I said gently, turning them away from the dramatics.
“Me too,” Scout said into my neck .
We made our way across the backyard and around the corner to where there was a giant volleyball pit. “Wow,” I enthused. “That’s the biggest sand pile I have ever seen.”
“It’s for bollyball,” the little one informed me. “We can dig?”
“I think we should. I love me a good dig.”
Scout looked up at me and smiled shyly. “You talk funny.”
“I do? I thought it was y’all who was talkin’ funny,” I said, drawlin’ thick and purposeful.
Both girls giggled, momentarily distracted from the ugliness going on several yards away. Naturally, I seized upon this, and for the next few minutes, as the yelling got more intense and the expletives got more graphic, we dug great big holes and sang silly songs. And they were none the wiser when the police arrived. In fact, I made sure that Scout and Olivia had their backs turned to the patio and were belly laughing over my amazed discovery of their buried toes in the sand when Peter Diamond was escorted out of the backyard between two of Monterey’s finest.