Chapter Fourteen. Ivy, 1964
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ivy hadn’t ever wanted to move out of California. She loved their sunny little apartment, her neighborhood knitting group, and the briny smell of the ocean that beckoned from just a few blocks away.
But when David was offered the position of assistant coach for the Marquis University football team all the way across the country, she knew she had no choice.
Always the sunny-side-up girl, as her friends called her, she focused on the positives.
When David received the offer letter seemingly out of the blue, he’d come home and picked her up, twirling her around.
He hadn’t been in such a good mood for ages; usually David only wanted the evening paper and a stiff drink and silence after work.
“It’ll be a wonderful adventure,” Ivy told him—and herself. She even wrote those exact words in the diary she faithfully kept.
The job meant a promotion for David. He was currently the assistant defensive coach for a team that never seemed to deliver on its promise, but now he’d be helping oversee an entire team. And Marquis had won a slew of championships.
The move was a good thing, Ivy mentally repeated as she packed up their daisy-patterned wedding china and the big glass bowl she used for sherbet punch.
She pushed away the ominous feeling that threatened to suffocate her, telling herself she was simply experiencing the unease of a big change.
And when the edge of a newspaper sheet sliced through the tender pad of her index finger, drawing a drop of blood, she refused to see it as a sign, wrapping a Band-Aid around the paper cut and continuing to pack.
They arrived at the Marquis campus on a chilly February afternoon and the very next night, a reception was held for them at the college president’s home.
“Appetizers and cocktails,” David told her as he slicked his hair back with Brylcreem, making it smooth and shiny. “All to celebrate me!”
Ivy changed twice before David approved of her outfit, a lavender dress with a matching jacket. She sprayed on her favorite perfume, Shalimar, which smelled like jasmine and citrus. She reached for her only warm coat, made of black wool.
“That doesn’t compliment your dress,” David commented. He was right, of course, so Ivy shivered during the walk from their new faculty housing apartment to the president’s home.
When the door opened, a dark-haired woman in a mint-green suit with a boxy jacket, the kind former first lady Jackie Kennedy favored, smiled at them.
“You must be our guests of honor!” she cried, her southern accent making her words sound even more special.
Ivy squeezed David’s arm. A dozen or so people were gathered in the grand living room around the crackling fire in the stone hearth.
A waiter in a white shirt and black tie passed trays of pigs in blankets, stuffed celery sticks, and deviled eggs while classical music played.
All in honor of her husband! She stood up straighter, proud to be by his side.
“Come in out of the cold! Quickly, darling, get them a drink,” a distinguished-looking man said as he strode toward him. He extended his hand to David. “I’m Rudolph Sherman. Welcome.”
The president of Marquis!
David shook his hand vigorously. “Thank you for having me, sir. This is my wife, Ivy.”
President Sherman nodded at Ivy, and she smiled and thanked him for his hospitality and waited for the men to drift away.
She knew President Sherman’s wife would come collect her and introduce her to the women.
The women would be invaluable to Ivy; they’d tell her where the best department store and cobbler and bakery were located.
But then the strangest thing happened. President Sherman extended his hand to Ivy and looked at her as if she were a guest of honor, too.
“It’s a real pleasure, Ivy,” he said.
She felt her cheeks heat up. Then, remembering her manners, she gushed, “What a lovely home you have, President Sherman!”
Luckily President Sherman’s wife returned with the drinks before Ivy could do anything to embarrass David. She waited, again, for the men to walk away. Again she was surprised.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet, Ivy.”
President Sherman turned and beckoned to a tall, broad-shouldered man.
“Silas?” President Sherman called. “Mr. and Mrs. Lennox have arrived.”
The tall man folded his half-eaten appetizer into a napkin and hurried over. He stared at Ivy for a long minute, not even looking at David. “I’m Dr. Trimble,” he finally said. “I understand you were a volunteer in some of California University’s psychical tests. I’d like to talk to you.”
He took Ivy’s arm and began to lead her away, with President Sherman following them.
Ivy turned to look at David and saw him standing there alone, his eyes narrowing.
They both knew, in that moment, David wasn’t the real reason they’d been enticed to come to Marquis. But of course, Ivy could never speak of it.
All she could do was try to get David to forgive her.
The whole mess began because they needed money.
Ivy couldn’t tell David the $15 a week allowance he gave her didn’t cover the cost of their household supplies; he’d already complained that she was far less diligent about cutting coupons than his mother. “We’re not the Rockefellers,” he was fond of saying.
The sign, taped to a telephone pole on the campus of the California college, beckoned to her: Volunteers needed at The Institute of Psychical Studies, $5 payment.
She tore off a little tag of paper at the bottom containing a phone number and made the call that very afternoon.
And the next morning, in a flowered shift dress with bows on the shoulders she’d sewn from a McCall’s pattern, she appeared at the research center.
She was breaking a decades-old promise to her mother, who forbade her to speak about the strange knowings that gripped her from time to time, but she was a married woman now, which meant her allegiance must be to her husband.
And it was David’s birthday next month. She wanted to surprise him with a special gift, maybe cologne or even cuff links.
This was the only way she could afford it.
Besides, attitudes were different in sophisticated cities than in the town where Ivy had grown up. The university had an entire branch of the psychology department devoted to the study of psychical ability; nobody there would shun her if they knew what she could do.
“We’ll start with a simple test,” the skinny male researcher in thick black glasses told Ivy. “I’ll look at a series of photographs and you’ll sit over there with your eyes closed and tell me if any images come to your mind.”
She nodded and they began.
By the end of the first hour, two other researchers were clustered around Ivy, watching.
They begged her to come back after that first day, so she did.
And when they told her they were writing about her abilities, she wasn’t bothered.
No one who knew her would ever read an obscure academic journal.
The tests grew stranger, but more lucrative.
Once she answered the phone to hear a new researcher inviting her to take place in what he called a double-blind test. Ivy was told to go to a certain coffee shop and sit in the last booth on the left, where she’d find a deck of Zener cards waiting.
She was to administer the card test to herself, touching the top one and speaking aloud the symbol that came to her, then continuing with the next card.
Even though she attracted a few curious stares from other customers, Ivy agreed to do it because she earned $40—the most she’d ever made in a single test. It was a windfall for such a small amount of work.
She bought David a beautiful pair of gold cuff links, which he adored. But how strange that the very thing she’d sought out to sweeten her marriage would become the source of its downfall.