Chapter Sixty. Ivy, 1964
CHAPTER SIXTY
This was exactly what Ivy needed. She opened the magazine and read the first rule. Keep dinner hot and your voice soft.
“This isn’t a library, hon,” said the man behind the cash register.
“Forgive me!” She lay the magazine on the counter next to the box of Shake ’n Bake and the russet potatoes she planned to make for dinner.
“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” Ivy commented.
The man in the blue smock stopped ringing up her glass bottles of Coca-Cola and gave her a strange look.
Ivy glanced through the clear panes of the door.
Rain was coming down. Had it been raining all morning?
She didn’t think so; on her way to the grocery, she’d stopped by Betty’s house to drop off the gift she’d secretly worked on, but no one had answered the door, so she’d left it on the stoop. Surely the sky had been clear then!
“I mean, it will be a nice day, once this weather settles.” Ivy tried for a laugh, but the man merely grunted and handed her the paper sack.
She paid with a ten-dollar bill and tried to tuck the change in her coin purse but she couldn’t find it, so she dumped it in her purse and went out to her car.
Groceries in the trunk, the key twisted in the ignition …
what had she forgotten? She turned on the windshield wipers.
There, now she was all set. She pressed the gas pedal and the car bucked forward, smashing into the side of the building.
The impact snapped her head forward into the steering wheel and rattled her teeth.
She sat there, stunned, until a knock on her window roused her.
Ivy stepped out of the car, holding on to the frame. A high, tinny noise filled her head.
“Are you crazy?” It was the checkout man in the blue smock.
“I’m so sorry … there must be something wrong with the car.”
“I’m going to call your husband. You’re not fit to drive!”
“No, it’s just slippery out, you see,” Ivy tried to explain. “The tires skidded.”
Another woman in a blue smock exited the store, stopped short, and stared.
“I’ll pay for repairs and everything will be as good as new, I promise!” Ivy called to her.
“Did you take too many mother’s helpers this morning?” the male clerk asked.
The female employee spun around and hurried back into the store.
“I don’t take pills,” Ivy cried. “I swear it. I’m just feeling a little scattered today.”
She held a hand to her ear, trying to stop the high, whining noise.
“You’re getting soaked! Come here, under the awning. And give me your keys.”
No matter how much she protested, the man wouldn’t let her leave. Then a police car pulled into the lot and the officer stepped out, walking directly toward Ivy. She began to tremble and sank down onto the sidewalk.
The police officer squatted next to her, holding out a paper towel. “You’ve cut yourself.”
Belatedly, she became aware of wetness on her face. She dabbed the white square to her forehead and it came away with a few dots of bright red blood. Nausea filled her gut and her stomach heaved, but nothing came up.
The officer stepped away and then there was blessed silence.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but after a little while, David appeared in his athletic jacket with the Marquis Lions logo, holding a black umbrella.
Someone must have called him, maybe the police officer.
Relief poured through her—David would fix this; he was a man so they’d listen to him!
—until she saw the thunderous look on her husband’s face. He didn’t speak a single word to her.
“I thought she might be filling her purse,” said the man in the blue smock. “She was wandering through the aisles for at least thirty minutes.”
This, Ivy could refute.
She opened her purse and let the contents spill to the ground, coins tumbling across the pavement. “See? There’s nothing here but my belongings.”
David opened the car door and peered inside. “Where’s the baby?”
“The baby?” Ivy wished they’d stop asking her questions so she could think. “She’s sleeping at home. I just ran out for a minute.”
“At least thirty minutes,” the store clerk repeated.
Next an ambulance pulled up in front of the store, its siren wailing. Two men stepped out.
“No, no,” Ivy cried. “Please don’t take me to the hospital. I need to go home!” She remembered the magazine’s rule and softened her voice. “I’ll keep dinner hot for you, David.”
“Look at yourself!” he snapped. She became aware of how she must have appeared—splayed on the wet sidewalk, her hair damp and scraggly, a thin trickle of blood running down her forehead.
The men grasped Ivy’s arms and hoisted her up and led her to the back of the ambulance. By now a small crowd of housewives had gathered, whispering as they watched.
“The coconut cake!” Ivy yelled to David, trying to wrench free of the men’s grasp. “I promised I’d make it for dessert!”
The men pushed her into the ambulance and closed the back doors. Ivy stared out the small back window. David was watching, his arms folded. Their eyes met. Please, she mouthed, putting her palm to the glass.
He turned his back on her.