3
Everyone on the island is talking about Ivy Avila, and I am good at listening.
I put on my sunglasses and turn invisible. I become silent and still and the light passes right through me.
* * *
• • •
Coffee shop. Monday. 10:47 a.m.:
“Isn’t her mom like some kind of crazy stage mom?” Woman 1 says. “Like she totally lives off her daughter?”
“Getting rich off your own kid is as bad as getting rich off of welfare,” says Woman 2.
“I’m pretty sure no one ever got rich off of welfare,” says Woman 3. “And when’s the last time you had a job?”
“I hate you after Pilates,” says Woman 2. “You turn into a liberal snowflake.”
“If I’m a liberal snowflake, then you’re new-money trash,” says Woman 3.
“We’re all new-money trash,” says Woman 1. “How long have either of your families had money? Three generations? Old money is not tech money. It’s from way before that.”
Woman 2 and Woman 3 both roll their eyes.
“And what about the American dream and all that?” says Woman 1.
And then they all laugh.
* * *
• • •
Island Home & Garden. Tuesday. 2:11 p.m.:
“Here, I have it,” says a boarding school girl I vaguely recognize as she reads from her phone. “This is such bullshit. Her mom totally wrote this. It’s all about her. She was a poor single mom, boo-hoo-hoo, cleaning Seattle high-rises for a living. Then she saw a spark in her daughter and sacrificed everything to bring her to Hollywood at age nine and devote herself to supporting her daughter’s dream.”
“Sacrifice what?” says her friend as she inspects a fake antique watering can. “That woman didn’t have anything to sacrifice. She’s just mooching off her kid.”
“‘After several commercials and small parts,’” the other girl continues, “‘Ivy landed her first big role at age eleven as a recurring character on The Fabulous Fandangos. Then her big break came at age thirteen when she got a starring role in The Cousins, a popular teen drama on A-Corp’s video streaming service. Ivy then launched her music career at age sixteen with her debut album, This Is Me, which went platinum.’ Boring. Where’s the juicy stuff?” The girl types and swipes and reads some more.
“Ooh,” she says. “Apparently there are rumors that she’s had affairs with all these old, like much older, people in Hollywood, men and women. Some problems with drugs and eating disorders, the usual. God, what is it with these Hollywood losers that they can’t handle their drugs?”
* * *
• • •
Grocery store checkout line. Wednesday. 5:23 p.m.:
“I’d do her,” says a middle-aged guy to another middle-aged guy. “Hell yeah, I’d do her in a second.”
* * *
• • •
Home. Thursday. 7:09 p.m.:
“Celebrity culture certainly is fascinating,” says Papa, swiping through a feature about Ivy on his phone. “It’s like they live on a different planet. But now she’s trying to live on ours.”
“That poor girl,” says Daddy.
“Meow,” says Gotami.
* * *
• • •
She is a girl made of rumors and gossip and other people’s desires. They swirl around her until they lose all meaning, until there is just an outline left.
But she is more than that. Ivy Avila is more than just her outline.
Somehow I know this.
4
“I see you,” a voice says, and suddenly I’m falling, like I’m in some kind of funnel and life is swirling dark around me, attaching its shadows to my transparent skin. I’m being conjured into being at the same time I’m being destroyed, going down, down, down while I’m being formed, and it’s infinite how far I can fall. I will be falling forever. I will never hit the ground.
“Hello?” the voice says, and at first I think it’s Lily. I open my eyes and all I see is the shadow of a face with a burst of sunlight behind it, and I remember I am in a hammock under Daddy’s fruit trees, it is my day off work, I was reading, and then my eyes closed, and then I was flying somewhere not here, and now there’s gravity again and my eyes are open and I’m squinting, trying to find detail in this new, unfamiliar light.
“Sorry,” the voice says. “Did I scare you?”
The light changes as the figure moves and I can see her face now: Ivy.
Finally.
I suddenly feel my body.
“No, hi,” I mumble, trying to sit up, but the hammock won’t let me, binding me in an awkward position where I can’t use my arms. “I guess I was napping. Sorry.”
“Please don’t apologize for napping. No one should ever apologize for napping.” Her dark eyes sear into mine. I wonder if she can see herself reflected.
I manage to set myself somewhat upright. “Did you walk here?” I say. She is wearing cutoff jean shorts and a wide-shouldered, thin white shirt that shows the outline of her black bra, and the kind of expensive athletic shoes that aren’t meant for actually exercising.
“Yeah, it’s a nice walk. I like walking. I think. I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out what I like. It’s an assignment I have. Isn’t that weird? To not even know what I like? I mean, besides the obvious things that I’m not supposed to do anymore. That I don’t want to do anymore.” She pauses, looks at me, tilts her head. “Sorry, am I oversharing? I just don’t get a lot of opportunities to talk about anything real, so I’m like starving for it. And you seem like someone who does.”
“Does what?”
“Talks about things that are real.”
“Yes. I mean, I do. You can say whatever you want.”
She smiles and I feel my skin tighten, like I have been zipped up and put back together. Those eyes again, unblinking, staring into me. I want to look away but I can’t.
“Walking is good exercise and it helps clear your mind,” she says. “Like you can meditate while you do it. I’m supposed to meditate.”
“My dad meditates,” I say.
“Really?” She seems excited. “Do you?”
“No. He tried to teach me one time, but all that breathing just made me anxious.”