Ivy Secrets (5 page)

“Let’s hurry,” Jenny said. “I have something to show you.”

    “Does your mother know you brought this?” Tess asked. Jenny had briefly explained about her grandmother’s death, about the will, and about the exquisitely decorated Fabergé egg that Tess now held up to the light.

Jenny sat on the edge of the twin bed, her long legs folded beneath her. Grover curled up beside her, his wet chin resting on the pillow. She leaned over and scratched the dog’s ears. “I told you. The egg is mine. Grandmother Hobart left it to me.”

Tess examined the band of tiny pearls encrusted in spun gold lace around the cotton-candy pink egg. She recorded its intricate detail in her mind, imagining its beauty replicated in glass, and tried not to let herself think that if she—not Charlie—had married Peter, her world would have been surrounded with such delicious treasures.

“Well,” Tess commented, “it certainly is lovely.”

“Open it,” Jenny said. “There’s a surprise inside.”

Tess carefully split the fragile egg. Inside its thin silver form was a red velvet cushion. Atop the cushion stood a minature mare, crafted of gold with a platinum mane. “It’s incredible,” Tess whispered.

“Grandmother had three. Not Imperial eggs—not the ones made for the czars. Those things cost millions.”

“This goes for a pretty penny, though,” Tess said, her eyes fixed on the horse.

“A couple of hundred thousand dollars,” Jenny answered. “Which is why it shouldn’t be stuck in some stupid cabinet where nobody except the maid bothers to look at it.”

Jenny’s voice was thick with distress, even anger. Tess closed the egg and studied it once more, a small annoyance rising within her. She wondered if Jenny thought that being fourteen gave her license to take things for granted, to ignore how lucky she was.

Then again, Tess thought, didn’t every fourteen-year-old take what they had for granted? Hadn’t she?

She set the egg atop its marble stand on the worn maple dresser that was squeezed between the dormers of the small attic room—Jenny’s room. A few years ago Tess had asked if Jenny would be more comfortable downstairs: she’d thought they should transform the unused dining room of the small clapboard house into a bedroom. But Jenny had protested. She said she loved the little attic room; she loved the slanted ceiling and the nooks and corners and the bird’s-eye view it gave her of the Smith College campus.

Tess looked out the window now at the ivy-covered, brick buildings and decided that this year she would use their weeks together to teach Jenny to be glad for all she had.

“I think I’m going to put you to work this summer,” Tess said. “How would you like to learn to blow glass?”

Jenny stared at the tiny flowered wallpaper only a moment before answering. “I’m not very good at some things.”

“That’s baloney,” Tess said. “You’re good at lots of things. And I know you’ll be a fine glassblower. Better than those uptight, stuffy cousins Dorkie Darrin and Fatsy Patsy could be any day.”

Jenny hesitated, then giggled at the sounds of the nicknames she and Tess had coined years ago. It was the first time Tess had heard Jenny laugh since she arrived today. And whether Jenny was angry, somber, or merely suffering from teenage growing pains, Tess was going to make sure that Jenny was going to be Jenny, and that this summer would be their most memorable.

She glanced back at the egg and felt a chill of excitement
rush through her. Yes, she thought, this summer will be their most memorable. She turned to Jenny and smiled. The old surge of motivation rerooted itself in her soul. For Tess, at long last, had come up with a plan—a plan that might assure her financial security and reopen those long-closed doors to her future.

    The summer days passed quickly. Tess and Jenny spent the mornings in the studio; later, they biked to Look Park or visited with Dell. Tess wasn’t concerned about getting behind on her work: She was confident that it was only a matter of time before her plan would yield results. Besides, her time with Jenny was limited, and it was Jenny who had provided her inspiration.

In the evenings they walked along Main Street, listening to the summer street bands from Ecuador and Chile and Back Bay Boston. Tess was often reminded of the many summer nights she and Jenny had strolled, hand in hand, past the people and the shops. It had felt, Tess knew, so right, so good, as though she were the beautiful child’s mother, as though they were a happy, little family. But now when they walked side by side, the warmth was laced with a small sadness that Jenny was too old to hold on to Tess’s hand. Still, Tess felt the pride.

Thankfully, they had not seen Willie Benson. Yet Tess had been careful not to let Jenny go anywhere alone, and Jenny didn’t seem to mind. Her early tentativeness had waned, and Jenny had once again become animated, trusting, and eager to learn. They talked about horses (Jenny had won second place in the all-around at her school’s equestrian competition), books (Jenny didn’t play video games—the noise had disturbed Grandmother Hobart), and boys (Jenny still didn’t have a boyfriend, though there had been Luke Sanders, the nineteen-year-old groom her father had caught kissing Jenny in the stables last year and had promptly fired). They looked through Tess’s old scrapbooks—Jenny was especially captivated by the photos and ticket stubs and receipts for pizza that Tess had accumulated at Smith. Jenny especially loved hearing Tess’s stories of her college years. Jenny, however, didn’t talk much about her parents, and Tess decided that perhaps it was better that way. Hearing about
Charlie and Peter and the wonderful life they had only reopened old wounds.

One day, in mid-July, they sat in the studio working on a series of ornaments Tess was creating for a local Christmas shop. She had not told Jenny about the new design she’d submitted to the Blackburn Gallery, one of the most prestigious glass galleries in the world. She had not told Jenny that being surrounded by her youth, her potential, and her beauty had inspired Tess to again try for the success that had eluded her.

Night after night, Tess had crept out to the studio and worked on her sketches—painstakingly detailed sketches of the most elaborate, exquisite vase she had ever created. She had based the design on Jenny’s Fabergé egg, and if Blackburn commissioned Tess to craft it, it would be the break she had wanted all her life, the break she’d relinquished all hope for years ago. Alone in her studio, hunched over the cluttered desk with only a small lamp for light, Tess refused to consider that it might not happen. Still, she had not told Jenny. She wanted to save it as a wonderful surprise.

Jenny was unusually quiet on this hot summer day as she sat, rolling amber glass, ignoring the thin layer of perspiration that coated her delicate skin. She had taken quite naturally to the craft; her upper body strength was developing, and Tess was giving her more and more responsibilities each day. But this morning, Jenny was working slowly. Finally, she spoke.

“Aunt Tess?” she asked. “Do you think I could go to school here?”

Tess positioned a blowpipe in the annealing oven. “I’m sure getting into Smith won’t be a problem for you,” she answered.

She handed Jenny the warmed blowpipe. Jenny took it and dipped it into the mold, adding a top to the ornament. “I wasn’t talking about college,” she said. “I was talking about now. I want to finish high school here.”

Tess removed another small medallion of colored glass from the kiln beside the furnace, and affixed it onto another blowpipe.
So this is it
, Tess thought.
I’m going to have to hear about Charlie and Peter and all those things I’d rather not know.
It was the one inevitable part of Jenny’s visits that Tess always detested. She took a deep breath and pretended
to study the position of the glass. “I’m sure your parents would like to see you finish at Windsor-Larkin.”

Jenny folded her arms and leaned against the counter that ran the length of one wall. “I want to go to a real high school.”

“Windsor-Larkin is an excellent school.”

Jenny wrinkled her nose. “It’s filled with kids like Darrin and Patsy, not real kids.”

Tess smiled but kept her head bent so Jenny could not see. “Rich kids, you mean.”

“Snotty kids.”

“I see,” Tess said, as she sat down and hoisted the pipe to her mouth. She pressed her lips against it and began to tap small breaths into the opening. At the tip, the honeylike amber began to swell.

“It’s not like my parents would care.” Jenny turned and straightened the blowpipes on the counter. With her back to Tess, she added, “My father might, but he’d get over it. My mother wouldn’t care where I was as long as I wasn’t home.”

Tess stopped. She took the pipe from her lips. The piece wasn’t ready, but it didn’t matter. A bit of scrap wasn’t as important as what Jenny was trying to tell her. She swallowed her need not to know and asked, “What’s wrong, Jenny? Aren’t you getting along with your mother?”

Jenny didn’t answer.

“Most fourteen-year-old girls don’t like their mothers much,” Tess continued. “When I was fourteen my mother was the queerest mother in the world. She didn’t know anything. She was so old-fashioned—”

“It’s not like that,” Jenny interrupted. “This started a long time ago. She’s … she’s always too busy for me. She’s either volunteering at the public TV station or at a hospital auxiliary meeting. I’d rather be here,” she said in a small voice. “With you. And Grover.”

Tess tried not to show the secret pleasure she found in Jenny’s words. Charlie, it seemed, hadn’t turned out to be the perfect mother. Charlie, it seemed, didn’t have everything after all. She walked to the oven and put her arm around Jenny. She noticed the girl’s eyes were veiled with tears. She wanted to tell Jenny that of course she could come live with her. She wanted to tell Jenny how happy she was that Charlie wasn’t a good mother. But the pain in Jenny’s eyes stopped
her. She couldn’t hurt Jenny more than she already was. “I’m sure your mother’s work is important,” Tess said, as she hugged her. “But so are you.”

Jenny bit her lip, trembled, then began to cry. “Not to her.”

Tess didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t seen Charlie in a half-dozen years. And she’d only seen Jenny with Charlie three or four times. She had no idea what their relationship was like. Still, she knew that just because Charlie was raised in a loving home with loving parents didn’t ensure competent motherhood. But Charlie had been the one who had been willing to make whatever sacrifices were needed for her to become a mother. Charlie had been the one who’d wanted children so badly, that she’d been willing to risk everything. Tess hadn’t been that strong. Neither had Marina. “I’m sure your mother tries her best,” Tess said.

Jenny shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

Tess rubbed Jenny’s arm. “Jenny, she loves you.”

Jenny slipped from Tess’s grasp and walked to the other side of the dim studio. She studied the metal shelves lined with yesterday’s ornaments, picked up a tapered globe, and ran a finger across it. “She couldn’t care less about me.”

Tess stepped toward her. “You’re wrong, Jenny.”

Jenny stared at the ornament in her hand. Then she pulled back her arm, let go, and hurled the globe across the studio. Tess watched the glass hit the wall and shatter into painful bits.

Jenny burst into tears and ran from the studio.

Tess started to go after her but stopped in the doorway. She watched as Jenny fled up the brick path toward the house, and realized that this was most likely only part of being a teenager. There was no way Jenny could be unhappy in that luxurious home with all that money, with Peter for a father and Charlie for a mother. There was simply nothing Tess could do, because Tess, after all, was not Jenny’s mother. Never had been, never could be. She could only be her friend: The line had been drawn long ago.

She turned back into the studio and plucked the mail from her box by the door. Maybe there was a letter from Blackburn. Maybe some good news would cheer them both up. She sat on the small stool and thumbed through the stack
of envelopes. A late notice on her mortgage payment. A second notice on her gas bill. No letter from Blackburn.

Tess rested her head on the finishing bench, and slowly began to cry.

    At six o’clock, there was a knock on the studio door. The door swung open and Dell sauntered in, carrying a covered casserole dish. Tess watched from her refuge atop the old daybed in the back room. She pulled herself up and went into the studio. “What are you doing here?”

“Thought I’d drop off some dinner for you and Jenny.”

Tess nodded and folded her arms across her stomach. “Thanks,” she said.

Dell set the dish on the bench. “I stopped at the house first. I didn’t think you’d be working so late.”

“I’m a little behind.”

Dell nodded. “Where’s Jenny?”

Tess shrugged. “Up at the house.”

“I went there first. No one came to the door.”

Tess walked to the bench, picked up her bills, and tucked them in the pocket of her skirt. “We had an argument this morning. I’m sure she’s around somewhere. Teenagers are a pain in the ass.”

“Maybe you’ve been spending too much time together.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dell sighed. “I don’t want to upset you, Tess, but the truth is, Jenny’s been attached to your hip this summer. It’s not healthy for either one of you. It’s time she made friends her own age.”

Tess frowned. “You heard what Joe said about Willie Benson. I can’t let Jenny go off on her own.”

“But you’re smothering her.”

“I’m protecting her.”

“
Over
protecting her. There’s a difference. You need to find a balance.”

Tess raised the lid off the casserole dish and looked inside. Whatever it was, it was indiscernible, yet it smelled delicious, comforting, motherly. Like Dell’s kitchen. Like Dell. “How the hell am I supposed to know how to be a mother?” she asked. “I’ve never had the chance.”

“Your choice.”

Tess blanched at yet another reminder of the danger of confiding in someone. She slammed down the lid of the dish.

“Tess,” Dell said, “I’m not trying to criticize you. I’m trying to help.”