Read Online The Education of Ivy Blake by Ellen Airgood - Free Book Online

you.” The window rolled up again.
    Ivy stood with her shoulders slumped. This was her own house. A rental, maybe, and nothing special, but her own. The place she came back to with her pencils and sketchbook, the place she slept and dressed and ate in, the place where she kept the stones she picked up on Skytop, the overlook on the mountain near the Everses’ farmhouse, whenever she and Prairie hiked there. She didn’t want to wait for someone else to tell her she could walk up to it. She did wait, however. It seemed like she had to.
    Both men climbed out of the car and shifted their feet to straighten the creases of their pants legs. The three of them walked toward the door and Ivy’s mom’s eyes locked onto Ivy.
    â€œMy daughter’s home, you have to go,” she told the officers. “I don’t want her getting upset.” She reached an arm out.
    Ivy went to her and her mom pulled her close. Ivy let herself sink back and remembered being curled into her mother’s chest when she was small. Her mom’s chest was bony now; it was like leaning onto rocky ground. Familiar ground, though.
    â€œThis is just a matter of following up on a complaint,” the nearest man said. “Mr. Gillman says that last week his garbage cans were spread all over the street. Then somebody ran his mailbox over. And now his car’s got a brand-new dent in the fender. He’s thinking it’s you. And he says you’ve been calling late at night and hanging up when he answers.”
    Her mom’s grip tightened. “Well, boo hoo for him, and tell him to prove it. There’s a lot of people got a lot worse problems than a broken mailbox and a ringing telephone.”
    â€œSo you did run his mailbox down, is that what you’re saying? You have been calling?”
    â€œI’m not saying anything. I had my fill of George Gillman a while ago. I left in April and I haven’t seen him since.”
    â€œBut you have seen his mailbox? And his car?”
    Her mom’s arms went tighter around Ivy than ever. Her breath was a desert wind in Ivy’s ear.
    The nearest policeman smiled sympathetically, though maybe that was an act. “Listen, I know how it is. A relationship goes south, things are said, your feelings get worked up, maybe you want to leave him a message, something to remember you by. But it’s not worth it. Especially not to a woman like you. You’ve got a history—”
    â€œHey, that was ruled justifiable, you can’t go bringing it up. I’ll get a lawyer and sue for harassment if you—”
    â€œYou need to leave your ex alone,” the man broke in. “Don’t make us come out here again. Like you said, you have your daughter to think of.”
    All the officers’ gazes shifted to Ivy. Their eyes were all different: brown, blue, wide-set, narrow, but Ivy saw that to each of them, she was a zero. At worst, she was just like her mom. At best, she was innocent but doomed.
    â€œI didn’t make you come out here. George Gillman did that, and he better knock it off. I’m living in a whole different town, minding my own business, and he sets the cops on me. I won’t stand for it—”
    Her mom said more, but Ivy tuned it out. She turned herself into a block of wood that hadn’t been carved yet. She hadn’t been carved, there was still time, she could become something beautiful and good.

Ivy hauled four outfits out of her closet in the morning and spread them across her bed. She considered each in turn: a denim jumper, a plaid skirt with pleats, a polka-dotted dirndl, and the elegant dress of fluttery dark blue material that she’d fallen in love with at the thrift shop last fall.
    Finally she pulled that one over her head. She was going to follow Ms. Mackenzie’s advice. She was going to amaze herself. She was not going to be beaten and she was not going to
look
beaten. She was going to look as