Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
It was strange how time moved forward after that.
It was strange how life could look brighter when you decided to live it differently.
Throughout January, Ivy found a beautiful flow as she moved between the flower shop and the Bluebell Cove Eco-Lodge, between seeing Celia and calling Lily to check in and trying and trying to connect with Tyler.
He was still distant. But that could be said of all teenage boys, couldn’t it?
Ivy found herself rationalizing and trying not to worry. There was too much else to think about.
Every morning, Ivy met Elliot at the flower shop to go over his plans for the day, his reconstruction, his design.
Emboldened by his belief in her business, she set to work refurbishing her website and social media, determined to convince the people of Bluebell Cove that buying flowers, even in the midst of a tumultuous era, was still worthwhile.
She experimented with various social media headlines and even gained a couple of hundred new followers.
She and Elliot celebrated each minor win together—opening wine at the end of a long day at the shop and discussing the new flowers she would order when the time came.
She continued to ignore the bills that piled up on the desk because it wasn’t like she had any money coming in to deal with them. But maybe soon, she told herself. Maybe soon this fearsome time would be a thing of the past.
And during the third week of January, as soon as Elliot finished the redesign of the outside, people began to mill into the flower shop again.
It felt incredible, like the sun rising over a town that had endured years of night.
Ivy filled the shop with flowers and freshly made bouquets and watched as clients she hadn’t seen for years bought floral arrangements “just because.” Several people placed Valentine’s Day orders and even paid in advance, perhaps conscious of the still-crumbling interior. They knew she needed the money.
A few mentioned that they’d been worried she was closing up for good.
“Just took a break!” she lied to them.
“You’ve been working yourself to the bones for years,” one older woman said, clutching a bouquet for her sister’s birthday.
“It’s good that you listened to yourself and rested.
And…” Her eyes traced a path to Elliot, who stood on a ladder, preparing to hammer something in.
“It’s good that you have such handsome help around here! Not everyone is so lucky.” She winked.
Ivy bit her tongue to keep from laughing. As soon as the woman left the store, Elliot spun around and cackled. “Did she just say what I think she said?”
“I think you just found your next girlfriend,” Ivy said.
Elliot nearly tumbled from the ladder. “I think we’ll be very happy together.”
Ivy giggled and focused her attention on the money she’d brought in over the previous week.
It was enough, just barely, to pay off one of the older bills—one that had been hanging over her head for the better part of last year.
Grimacing, she got online, paid it off, and then began to open some of the other bills she’d ignored, one after another.
The calculation of everything she owed floored her so much that she shoved the bills back into her desk drawer and smeared her sweaty palms against her apron.
Deep breaths, Ivy, she told herself. She couldn’t break down in front of Elliot.
Elliot appeared in the office doorway, wearing a big, goofy grin. “It looks like you’re out of flowers for the day.”
“It looks like I am,” she said, brightening.
“What do you say we cut out early and get burgers?” he suggested.
“You and your donuts and your burgers.” She shook her head.
“You’re telling me you don’t like those things?” He was playing with her, teasing her. It felt like they were chasing each other.
“I love them!” Ivy said, untying her apron and throwing it over her desk. She’d figure out the other bills later. She’d figure out a way through this.
That evening, it was twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit, and the sky was pink and purple, glowing on the snow.
Ivy and Elliot walked the four blocks to the burger place, chatting about Lily’s recent paper for her biology class, which she’d sent via email to Ivy, thrilled to show off her work.
Elliot and Ivy had both read it, or tried to read it, and made very little sense of the thing.
“The language she uses reminds me of my time at MIT,” Elliot said, then he laughed. “I shouldn’t say it like that. It’s not like I got into MIT!”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Ivy said. She fought her sudden urge to lace her fingers through his.
“Trust me, I know what I’m good at,” he said. “And your Lily’s good at this whole college thing. That’s clear.”
Ivy’s heart swelled. “I couldn’t believe it, but last night via text message, she told me about this guy she likes. He’s in her linguistics class. They’re talking about studying together. I mean, she’s never opened up to me about anyone she has a crush on!”
Elliot cut her a crooked smile. “It sounds like you’re at the beginning of a really beautiful relationship,” he said. “A really different kind than you had before.”
Ivy nodded. “I think so.”
Ivy didn’t tell him that Lily had asked three times about Ivy’s relationship with Elliot, if there was anything to report. Ivy played coy about it. There really wasn’t anything to tell. They spent all day, every day together. They joked together and told each other everything.
But Ivy still wasn’t sure what it meant.
At the burger place, Ivy ordered a vegetarian burger with goat cheese, remembering Flora and how important it was for her for the world to cut down on meat.
She’d already surprised herself with how delicious she found vegetarian burgers.
Elliot opted for a regular burger with extra cheddar and extra onions.
“I’m going to smell amazing after this,” he joked.
They grabbed a booth in the corner and sipped beers, waiting for their order.
“By the way,” Elliot said, “my sister was thinking of coming by tomorrow to chat about her wedding. Would you be open to that?”
“Of course!” Ivy said. “When’s the date again?”
“Not till May,” Elliot said.
“What’s the guy like?” Ivy asked.
Their order was called, and Elliot got up to grab their burgers and fries and set them between them. He fetched them enough napkins to handle the grease, then sat and considered her question.
“He’s a whole lot better than a lot of her other boyfriends,” he said at last.
Ivy burst out laughing. “That bad?”
Elliot sighed. “She’s never had the best taste in guys.
I didn’t get along with most of them. Her first husband was really manipulative and demanded that she move across the country for a while.
She called me crying and asked me to come pick her up, so I drove all the way to Washington State to help her pack up and bring her home.
It was an awful trip. Lots of crying, lots of silence.
I couldn’t get her out of her dark mood for anything.
By then, I’d of course already gone through my divorce, but she didn’t want any advice. Not from me or anyone.”
Ivy watched Elliot’s face transform from sorrow to rage and back again as he spoke about his sister and his worries for her.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met your sister,” Ivy realized.
“She was a few years younger than us at school,” he said. “She was in eighth grade when we were seniors, so you wouldn’t have seen her at the high school.”
Ivy considered this. “Remember how young people just one year younger than us seemed back then?”
“It’s wild. I thought I had a ton of authority as a senior,” Elliot agreed, grabbing a fry and crunching the end. “What did you think of me back then?”
Ivy remembered handsome, broad-shouldered Elliot with his letterman jacket and his gorgeous girlfriend on his arm. “It looked like you had everything figured out.”
Elliot burst out laughing. “I guess you don’t remember the thousands of zits I had on my face. Or how nervous I was to talk in class.”
“You seemed too cool to talk in class,” Ivy told him. “Like you couldn’t be bothered.”
“Interesting.”
Ivy took a breath. “What about me? What did you think?”
Elliot spread his hands across the table and scrutinized her face, as though projecting them both back to their senior year of high school. She guessed he’d say something like he barely remembered her, to be honest.
But instead, he said, “You and Daniel seemed really in love. It seemed like you didn’t need anyone else.
I remember wondering if your relationship was how all relationships were supposed to go.
Shelly and I used to fight a lot. She’d cry, and I’d punch the steering wheel of my car, and then we’d make out and do it all over again.
It was tumultuous. In retrospect, I can’t believe I followed her to MIT and married her. ”
“Wow.” Ivy was stunned. After everything she and Daniel had been through, she couldn’t believe that anyone had ever thought them to be a loving couple.
“I thought you were cute, too,” Elliot said, smiling again. “But I guessed you didn’t want me to talk to you.”
“What would you have said?” she asked, marveling at this other reality wherein Elliot was too frightened to talk to her. She’d been nothing back then, meek and silly.
“I was never creative enough to come up with anything to say,” he said.
Ivy hesitated. “You’re creative enough now, I guess.”
“I like to think I do okay.” Elliot shrugged.
That night, Ivy floated back home, feeling within herself a sense of joy that she’d never experienced.
When she entered the house, she called out for Tyler but soon realized he wasn’t there, just as he hadn’t been when she’d returned home all week.
Fear shot through her stomach and entered her heart.
But she called him on the phone and got him on the third ring.
“Hey.” His voice was breathy and low. “I’m on my way back.”
It was then that Ivy felt that something was really wrong with her son, that he was hiding something.
But when she asked where he was, he told her to stop worrying and that he’d be home soon.
He hung up and left her in the living room's darkness, her ears perked for the first signs that he was coming home.