“Sounds pretty cool,” I say.
“The guy in charge of the garden and all the grounds was this guy named Boots who was like this ex-junkie from Oakland who became a monk in Burma for a while before he came to work there. Rumor was he was dating this counselor named Bob, but they’d never deny or confirm because of professional boundaries or whatever, but we all knew.” She laughs. “Sorry, I talk a lot. I don’t have a lot of people to talk to, except my therapist.”
“It’s okay.”
“Boots would like this garden.”
I wonder if Ivy had to water their garden, if she had to distribute compost, if she had to weed and thin and tidy and pollinate by hand and worry over every little thing the way Daddy does. Sometimes I wonder if all his effort is really necessary, if it would grow just fine without anyone tending to it.
“Tell me about yourself,” Ivy says.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I say.
“So make something up.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Anything. My therapist says the way we lie says a lot about us.”
“How do you lie?”
But she just smiles. “I have to go back,” she says. “I’m supposed to have a call.”
“What kind of call?”
“With my therapist.” She looks up from the garden into the wall of forest behind it. “I’d like to go hiking with you sometime.”
“Okay.”
“I’m supposed to be taking a break. From work. I’m supposed to be doing healthy things.”
“We could go hiking now.”
Am I a healthy thing?
“I should get back for my call.”
“Okay.”
“Will I see you this weekend?”
“Yes.”
“Bring your friends.”
Okay, okay, yes. I’ll do anything you ask.
And then she walks down the road, and I am left, once again, in this space between the garden and the forest.
Papa and Daddy are in the kitchen getting dinner ready, listening to the soothing voices of public radio talking about horrible things:
Members of a religious compound in North Dakota committed mass suicide, with fifty-seven deaths reported. This is the eighth major mass suicide of the year in a legally exempt independent community in one of the libertarian states.
The National Guard has been called in to the North Carolina city of Asheville to enforce a quarantine in the midst of an outbreak of a super-strain of measles that has so far claimed the lives of thirty-two children and three adults. Asheville has one of the highest unvaccinated populations in the country.
North African refugees are dying of heat stroke in immigrant detainment centers in Spain.
The separatist siege of Portland, Oregon, is entering its eighty-seventh day. Seattle officials are concerned about the possibility of similar violent uprisings in the city as protests continue to increase in number and intensity, though they are still mostly peaceful at this point.
Algae blooms in the Gulf of Mexico, the water a toxic sludge as thick as stew.
The usual hurricanes in Florida, Texas, Louisiana. The usual poor left behind to weather the storms while everyone who could already moved north and west.
Daddy chops carrots. Papa does a crossword puzzle. The bad news is so relentless they can’t even hear it anymore.
Stocks reached record highs today.
“I’m going to a party tomorrow night,” I say. “At Ivy Avila’s house.”
In tandem, they look up from what they’re doing and stare at me like I’m speaking a language they don’t understand.
“First of all,” Papa says. “You don’t tell us you’re going to a party. You ask us.”
“Can I go to a party tomorrow night?”
“I’m not sure after what happened last weekend,” Daddy says.
“But I’m not grounded, am I? I’ll be just down the road.”
“But those Hollywood types and their lifestyles,” Papa says.
“Their lifestyles? Do you have any idea how you sound?”
“Will there be drinking there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will there be drugs?”
“She’s sober, remember? She’s really nice. You’d like her.”
“We should meet her if you’re going to be spending time together. Maybe I should talk to her mother.”
“No one else’s parents worry this much.”
Papa and Daddy share a look that means “Well, maybe they should.” They’re not exactly quiet when it comes to their thoughts about the parenting styles of the families on the island.
“So what do we think is an appropriate curfew?” Daddy says. Papa likes to worry. Daddy likes to find solutions.
“How about one?” I say.
“Not going to happen,” Papa says.
Daddy and I both give him the “You’re being way too serious” look.
Daddy puts his hand on Papa’s shoulder. “She’s eighteen, love. She’s not in high school anymore.”
“But nothing good happens after midnight,” Papa says, his voice tight. “Nothing.”
“How about let’s work with twelve thirty?” Daddy says. Always the peacemaker.
Papa clenches his jaw and nods.
12
Ever since I was little, as soon as it’d get warm in the spring, I’d start walking everywhere barefoot outside, even on the gravel of the driveway. I took special pride in how the bottoms of my feet would harden so much that by the end of the summer, I’d have a layer of thick leather skin impermeable to sharp rocks and even the barnacles of the beach. It’s the only way I have ever been tough.
I walk down the road barefoot now, the only pair of low heels I own sticking out of my purse. Each step makes me cringe. My feet aren’t nearly as tough as they used to be.
I’m wearing a vintage dress Daddy found at a thrift store and altered to fit me perfectly. It’s been hanging in my closet for months because I’ve never had any occasion to wear it. Papa’s supposed to be the fashion designer in the family, but I don’t think he’s touched a sewing machine in years. “Doesn’t it show a little too much leg?” he quietly complained when I modeled it for them tonight, along with the makeup that I had to watch online videos to learn how to put on.