“Rad.”
Rad.
“So, I’ll check you tomorrow, kay?”
I nod, eyes closed and blowing air slowly through my lips. “Yeah, tomorrow.”
“Awwwwesome. Great talk, babe, I knew you’d understand. Later!”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone in my hand another minute, blinking in confusion before I open up my texts and fire one off to Ainsley, letting her know. The phone buzzes instantly with her reply.
“No worries! Major catch-up with my friend. I can crash here. See U tomorrow?”
I shrug as I type a quick “thanks, I’ll let you know” back, before pocketing the phone and heading back to my family.
“I’m so happy you’re home, honey.” My mom squeezes my hand later after dinner, sitting next to me at the big wooden table beneath the Japanese maple tree out in the back yard. Cafe-style string lights illuminate the garden she and my dad have tended for more than thirty years - an oasis I’m definitely not mad at having grown up with.
She lets go of my hand to pass me a plate of pie, cut from the lattice-top dish my dad apparently baked this afternoon.
Yeah, welcome to the Hammond house - we seriously are this much of a Norman Rockwell painting.
If I were back in Manhattan right now I’d be - I glance at the time - I probably wouldn’t have even had dinner yet. Maybe I’d be at Nomad at the Liberty Hotel getting cocktails, or calling a friend of a friend to get reservation hookups at Blue Hill. I’d be drinking an expensive, local craft-distilled all-potato vodka martini or a non-impact environmentally friendly, eco-farmed chardonnay.
Not homemade raspberry pie.
That said, after a day like today, I seriously need a drink, and the good Reverend Hammond isn’t exactly known to keep much in the house. Sure, Mom keeps a bottle of sweet, cheap, sauvignon blanc for occasions, but between her, Sierra, Stella and I, that was about a tenth of what I need right now.
“So tell us about this new line!” Sierra beams at me across the table. “Are they seriously going to carry it at Lululemon?”
Yes, they’re seriously going to carry the new line of sports bras and yoga pants at Lululemon, just like that coffee chain has been sniffing around for distribution rights on the new organically sourced anti-oxidant tea line we’ve been working on.
But I don’t want to talk about that.
I don’t want to talk about brand meetings and making sure the makeup I used on camera is fair trade and doesn’t contain anything terrible so I don’t get raked over the coals in some YouTube comment. I don’t want to talk about the fact that at some point while I’m here, I need to have pictures taken of me doing bikram yoga, or jogging or something here in quaint New England for the website.
I want to talk about the fact that the ghost from my past just welcomed me home for the first time in eight years.
I want to talk about the fact that my heart is still somewhere in my throat, or that I’ve been reliving and rewashing every damn memory I have of him in my head since the second I walked away.
Every memory, from running around as kids, to him showing me how to pick locks with a pin. From first kisses, to, well, first much more than that. My cheeks flush at the thought, and I reach for the glass of wine next to my plate of pie only to remember the one glass I had is long gone.
“Ivy?”
I look up to see Mom, Stella, and Sierra all looking at me intently, waiting on an answer. Dad’s playing with Carter on his lap, not paying attention.
“Oh, yeah,” I say quickly, clearing my throat. “It’s going into distribution.”
“That is so exciting, honey!” Mom gushes.
Five years ago, when the fashion and lifestyle blog I’d started in college started to take off, Mom and Dad thought I was insane to not pursue grad school.
“What are you going to do with an undergraduate in psychology?” Dad had finally pointedly asked over dinner.
Sell the fuck out, that’s what.
Because an Instagram account with 900 thousand follows is a goldmine, for the record. Wear that certain sports bra while I’m doing yoga at an eco-retreat in Mexico for $5,000 from the brand that makes it? No problem. Wear those certain shoes when I go for a run through Central Park? For $8,000, I’ll do it singing Britney fucking Spears at the top of my lungs.
But it’s not the money that Mom and Dad are proud of, they’re just happy that I’m happy, which is so “parent” its nauseating.
I’m doing dishes in the kitchen later, alone with Sierra, when she finally leans in close to me.
“Stella filled me in while you and Dad were getting Carter ready for bed.” She gives me a sour look. “That’s shitty that Rowan didn’t tell you.”