LiveJournal for Ivy.
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| Monday, February 11th, 2002 |
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There was something about her. Each time he saw her around campus she was a little thinner and a little paler and a little stranger. Perhaps Harvard didn't agree with her, or perhaps it agreed with her a little too much. When he was up at four in the morning getting cereal in the dining hall after pulling an all-nighter, he'd spot her heading out the front door as she pulled on her black coat, or coming in quietly with a wicked half-grin on her face. When he was up on her hall-- just coming to ask someone from his Italian class about homework-- he could hear an impossibly strange assortment of music coming from her room: weird Indian or Brazilian wailing, hard rock or metal, eerie gothic waltzes. Glam rock and punk and folk and classical. Her door was usually closed, but sometimes it was open just a crack, and he could smell the spice of her cigarettes, and sweet incense. That was how she smelled, too-- like fire. He only saw her in the dining hall occasionally, but he could never figure out if she didn't usually eat there or if their schedules were just different. When he did see her, she was often alone, absently picking at the food on her tray while reading a book. In other people, being alone seemed pathetic. Girls who ate dinner by themselves often smacked of desperation as they glanced around, hoping for a familiar face and terrified of what people were thinking.Ivy didn't seem any different than usual. She would tip back in her chair, put her boots up on the table, and read, as if she were at home in her own kitchen. |
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| Saturday, February 9th, 2002 |
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They walked back to the dorm in near-silence broken by occasional spurts of conversation: "How long have you been here?" "A few weeks." "Why'd you leave Middlebury?" "Too many cows. Highly unsanitary." "So how do you like it so far?" "It's pretty good. I'm having a good time." Finally, Luke gave up and just watched the clouds of his exhaled breath. Ivy started humming softly under her breath and he inched closer to her, trying to make out the tune. A Queen song, he decided. The one he always thought of as "that pussycat song" for lack of the actual title. His arm brushed her sleeve and she stepped imperceptably away, never changing the rhythm of her stride. He kept glancing at her as they walked, convinced that one of these times he would look her way and she would be gone. It was all so improbable: a girl from his high school appearing in a graveyard. A girl who now went to his school, lived in his dorm. He tried to imagine her at Middlebury, thinking of the lightbulb joke: How many Middlebury students does it take to change a lightbulb? Five. One to change the bulb and four to pick out the perfect J. Crew outfits to wear for the occasion. She must have hated it, and most likely it hated her-- her clothes, her hair, her quietly sarcarcastic manner. Here at Harvard she would be accepted, but she would still not be normal. Ivy glanced over at Luke, catching him staring at her. He quickly looked away, feeling his face get hot. Tense, waiting for her to tease him about it. Instead, when he risked a glance in her direction, she was still watching him steadily, a small half-smile on her face. "I stole a picture of you once." He turned and stared. "What?" "They put up a bulletin board of pictures from the Spanish exchange. There was this black and white picture of you, and I took it." "What?" Unable to even reconcile this Ivy with the girl he remembered from high school, the whole story made no sense." "I thought you were cute. It was a good picture. I'm not proud." Now he was fighting back a smile. "You...stolea picture of me?" She laughed and shook her head. "I shouldn't have told you. Now I'm completely embarrassed." "No, no, I'm...confused." "Well, that makes me feel better." "No, I...you thought I was cute?" Ivy shrugged. "I know. Crazy, hunh?" Looking up, Luke realized they were already at Currier. And looking back at Ivy, he realized that he liked this girl. It was completely improbable; she could not be less his type, and yet he had that feeling in his stomach... But look at her, he commanded himself. He liked girls who were petite and curvy, with long dark hair and big brown eyes. Girls who always wore high heels and pearls, who were sweet and friendly and nice. Ivy was none of these things. He'd been around her for twenty minutes, but already he knew without question that she was not a nice girl. She was ironic and strange and cold, with icy blue eyes and too much black eyeliner. No more 5'6", but she carried herself in a way that made her seem tall. And now, as they stepped into the front hall of their dorm, she shrugged off her long coat and he actually stopped and stared. She was wearing baggy black pants and slim black sweater, and now he realized how thin she was. The sweater slid up her belly as she pulled her hair into a messy bun and he caught a glimpse of perfectly flat, white stomach. She had full breasts, a narrow waist, curvy hips. Something in his stomach twisted, looking at her. He was in trouble. |
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| Thursday, February 7th, 2002 |
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She smiled a slow, lazy smile. "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, eh?" "Shouldn't you be in Vermont?" "Didn't anyone ever teach you it's rude to answer a question with a question?" she smirked. There was a long silence as she took a long drag on her cigarette and ignored him pointedly. He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry..." She winked and hopped down from the headstone, flicking the cigarette into the icy grass. "Walk me back to Currier." It wasn't a question, and he wouldn't have turned her down even if she had asked. But suddenly he found himself stammering, "Let me photograph you first." She turned back, startled, and smiled long and slow. "I always did like you, Luke." And then, with a wicked grin, "So what do you want me to do?" Nearby, a tall stone angel stood on a pedastal, wings outstretched. "Stand under there." As he lined up the shot, she lit another cigarette, and suddenly it was perfect. Bright sky, cold stone, a pale girl with black fingernails smoking a black cigarette and looking as if she might take flight at any moment. |
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| Wednesday, February 6th, 2002 |
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He first saw her in the graveyard. No, not quite true. He first saw her in seventh grade when she started at his middle school. But she was nothing. Or less than nothing. For six years they existed in opposite circles: ships passing in the night, planets orbiting the same sun in the darkness. There were possibilities, connections they had, classes they shared, conversations that almost happened. But not quite. And then they graduated. He was the class president and she was one of the five seniors who never made herself a page in the yearbook. He did not think of her, because she was nothing. Or less than nothing. A year and a half later he was in Mount Auburn Cemetery with a 35 mm camera slung over his shoulder, and for the first time, he saw her. It was a bitterly cold day in February, all icy wind and wispy clouds sliding across the blue dome of sky. For the hundredth time, Luke was regretting his decision to take Introductory Photography to fulfill his Arts requirement. He was not an artist and was resigned to the fact that he never would be. Words came to him as naturally as laughter but photography eluded him. "You must learn to use your eyes as the camera, to see the light, the contrast, the frame, before you even touch the strap around your neck," his professor had said. It sounded good, sure, but in practice... He scowled, lifting the camera to his eye, and was scanning the graveyard when he saw her, framed in the cross-hairs of the lens. A girl, a ghost, a hallucination, so startling that he jerked the camera away, not trusting what he saw through its glass. She was still there, sitting cross-legged on a gravestone and smoking a cigarette rolled with black paper, clad all in black and wrapped in a long, black coat. Her hair was long and blonde, streaked a dark, bloody crimson, and her face was very white. Some people say it is bad luck to sleep in a cemetery or fall in love with a girl you've only just seen, and Luke would agree with these people. But as he moved closer to her, he realized that he already knew her, in a manner of speaking. He knew her name, true, and if asked he could have told you things about her. Ivy was shy and smart, a good girl in high school with a serious boyfriend and a few close friends who could easily be classified as nerds. She had been on the Debate Team. A good girl, definitely. No drinking, no drugs, no parties. Accepted early to Middlebury (as class president, he had a knack for matriculation data), she was pretty in a soft, round, pink, quiet kind of way that struck him as perfect for living in Vermont farming country. Now as he watched her, he entertained the possibility that he was completely wrong. It was unquestionably her, and yet she was...different. As he watched, she leaned back and took a long drag on the black cigarette, closing her eyes dreamily. Her eyelids were black. So were her fingernails. Now he was close enough to smell the smoke of her cigarette, and it was like nothing he'd ever smelled. Not tobacco, not weed. Something strange and spicy and foreign. She opened her eyes and saw him and frowned. And then recognized him. "Luke?" |
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LiveJournal for Ivy.
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