A Broken Kind of Beautiful (17 page)

“Ivy?”

The hairs on her arms prickled at the way he whispered her name—soft and sad with a whole world of tenderness tagged to the end. “What?”

“I’m sorry you’re hurting.”

She bit her lip. The tide crept closer to her feet.
Crash. Whisper. Crash. Whisper
. Was it her heart or the waves?

“If you want, I’ll go to the funeral with you.”

Her spirit lifted, but she squashed the warm relief before it could grow. Despite his last name, she couldn’t afford to let Davis be her knight in shining armor. Knights didn’t exist. Not in her world. “Not necessary, Dave. You’re a sea turtle, remember? Going to New York would turn you in the wrong direction.”

“Okay, but who’s going to help you find the sea?”

The question undid her. She buried her face in her knees and let her tears ooze from closed eyes, thankful the night hid her anguish.

16

“
W
ho’s going to help you find the sea?”

Two days plus eight hundred miles, and those words still stuck inside Ivy’s mind. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t shake Davis’s question. Or the way in which he’d asked it—buttery and light, melting over her, turning her soggy. It haunted her at night. Pestered her during the day. And funneled through her brain as she sat in a stiff chair inside a New York City funeral home, listening to Annalise’s American cousin give the eulogy.

Her second funeral in a month.

Ivy shut her eyes. She wanted to respect her friend’s passing. She wanted to rummage through memories and pluck out Annalise’s smiles or the times they’d worked together, but her father’s face stood guard in front of the memories like an unmoving sentry. As much as she wanted to remember Annalise, all she could picture was the face of a dead man.

James had loved Marilyn once, maybe even again. He’d loved her mother too—madly and passionately. Not long enough for Renee, but for a time. Before Ivy was born and even in her earliest memories, James used to fly all the way to Chicago, even when his business endeavors didn’t call for it, just to be with her mother. Ivy wanted to deny it, but how could she? Her very existence proved their passion. Sure, that love had turned dysfunctional. Sure, the removal of that love had destroyed all the good things about her mother. But at least it had been there. The only one James had never loved was sitting in Ivy’s chair. Wearing Ivy’s skin. Replaying a nighttime beach memory while the heaviness on top of her chest caved against her lungs. He should have loved her most. She was his daughter. His own flesh and blood.

But he hadn’t loved her at all.

She didn’t miss James. She didn’t mourn the loss of their relationship or the hope that one day they might have one. His death didn’t bring the type of loss one might expect—tears and pain and regret. But it did leave an empty space. An unanswered question. One that only he could answer.

What made her so unlovable?

She’d never be able to ask him that.

A wave of laughter rippled through the crowd. Ivy forced herself to focus.

“I’m very sad to say good-bye to my one and only cousin. We can all agree she was beautiful and vivacious. She liked to have a good time. She lived and laughed, and although this world will miss her, although this world is dimmer without her, her spirit lives on. We can take comfort that she is in a better place.”

Everybody clapped.

Ivy wanted to stand up and chuck her shoe at the man’s head. Why did funerals always glorify the dead? patch over the bad?
“She lived and she laughed”
? Never mind how she died, strung out at a club, her veins saturated in cocaine. Never mind any of that. She was in a better place now. Ivy wanted to throw up. She had enough bitterness gurgling like bile in her stomach to make it happen. Under whose authority was she in a better place? Just because some guy said it didn’t make it true.

Nobody knew where Annalise was now.

A cold shiver twisted around Ivy’s spine and clamped on to her jaw.

Davis, at least, didn’t patch over grief with trite condolences. She’d much rather sit by him in the warm sand than in this room of familiar strangers. Anger swelled. No. She didn’t need to sit by Davis; she needed to get away from him. And Greenbrier too. She brought her purse on to her lap and looked around the funeral home.

No Bruce.

He’d gone to his brother’s funeral. He’d dragged her along. Yet he couldn’t spare an hour of his day for his oldest client. Her lips tightened. It was time to pay her dear agent a visit.

“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Greenbrier.”

Ivy threw her purse into the chair in front of Bruce’s desk. “I had a funeral to attend. Or did you forget about Annalise already?”

He sat up straighter. “Of course I didn’t forget.”

“Then why are you here? Why aren’t you at the funeral? She was your client for twelve years, Bruce. Twelve years! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“I went to the visitation. There wasn’t a reason for me to go to the funeral too.”

“You take two days out of your schedule and buy a plane ticket to go bury a brother you barely ever talked to. The least you could do was make an appearance for Annalise.”

“Look, I would have gone. But I have an important meeting”—he yanked up his sleeve and looked at his watch—“in three minutes. One I couldn’t reschedule.”

“Every meeting can be rescheduled.”

“But not every meeting should be.” He settled back into this chair. “I know you and Annalise were close. I’m sorry she died.”

“You’d be a lot sorrier if she’d been younger.”

His eyes flashed. “You think me that callous?”

She pleaded the fifth. If she didn’t have anything nice to say, she might as well not say anything at all. Mom had taught her that once. A long, long time ago.

Bruce tipped back in his seat and twirled a pen around the tip of his thumb. “Since you’re here, how did the shoot go?”

“Fine.”

“I spoke with Marilyn a few days ago. She seemed very happy with your work. Said she wants to do another photo shoot for some advertisements and then something about a fashion show.”

“At least you’re talking to one of us. You don’t answer my phone calls anymore, Bruce.”

“One phone call, Ivy. Let’s not exaggerate. And what did you want to hear? That I can’t find you any jobs?”

“You’re not looking.”

“Of course I am.”

What would happen if he couldn’t get her any work? “Maybe once the editorial comes out, you can show it to some wedding designers.”

He stopped his pen spinning and laughed. “You specifically told me you didn’t want to do any more of that kind of work.”

“I do now.” Anything to keep her away from Greenbrier. She couldn’t go back to that suffocating heat and Marilyn’s unnerving kindness and Davis’s confusing scrutiny. Her mouth dried up. How could she go back? Davis was there. Davis was everywhere. Prodding. Poking. Digging. She had to get away, not return. Or else she wouldn’t survive. “Some go-sees, Bruce. That’s all I’m asking. Catalog. Commercial. It doesn’t have to be Ralph Lauren or Calvin Klein. It can be anything. I don’t care. Just get me some work.”

“How long are you in town?”

“I don’t know. I bought a one-way ticket.”

“But you’re going back.”

She pressed her lips together and looked at the wall to her left, covered in pictures. Framed tear sheets from every designer and fashion magazine known to man.
Vogue. Harper’s Bazaar. Elle
. Calvin Klein. Dolce and Gabbana. Armani. Christian Dior. Gucci. Valentino. Chanel.

The faces of Bruce’s models stared back. Annalise’s. Her own. They all looked the same. Every last one of them played a different rendition of sexy. The sudden urge to fly at the wall, to tear each frame from its nail and
smash it against the ground overwhelmed her. She felt like a feral cat—wild and dangerous.

Bruce plopped his elbows on his desk and let out a much-too-long, much-too-loud sigh. “You can’t promise a client your time then back out because you’re bored.”

“I’m not bored.”

He clicked the tip of the pen with his thumb. It clacked like an old-fashioned typewriter. She wanted to yank it out of his grip and stab it into the photo right over his head, the one of her posing for Calvin Klein jeans. She was sixteen. Thin as a rail. Ravishingly beautiful. Bruce had been so proud of that shot. And yet Ivy remembered feeling hollow. Like her outsides were growing sharper and more defined while her insides faded completely away. And nobody cared. Nobody even noticed.

“Here’s what we’re going to do.” He removed his elbows from the desk. “I’ll get you some go-sees. I have some of my models going to a few over the next couple of weeks. You’ll go to those, and then I’ll get you a ticket and you’ll fly back to Greenbrier and follow through with your commitment. When you’re all finished there, we can talk about your next career move.”

He stood from his chair. “I’ll follow you out. You can speak with Maya about the go-sees.” He went to the door and opened it wide. “She’ll give you the addresses and the details.”

Ivy blinked. “You’re kicking me out?”

“I have a meeting scheduled with a new model.” He tapped his wrist-watch. “Remember? I’m already two minutes late, and you know I hate to keep my clients waiting.” He took her arm and steered her toward the hallway. She had no choice but to walk. So she did, Bruce trailing her heels. She marched down the hall and stepped into the brightly lit lobby.

A lanky man was there, with graying hair and a pointed Adam’s apple, sitting in one of the seats with his ankle crossed over his knee. And next to him, a girl. Long. Gangly. Platinum-blond hair hanging halfway down her back. Exotic green eyes. She didn’t look a day older than twelve.

Bruce clapped his large hands. “Luke, Tatiana, so sorry to keep you waiting. Why don’t you come on back to my office?”

Ivy whipped around and faced her uncle. “She’s your new model?”

“She’s stunning, isn’t she? Get a look at those eyes.” Bruce didn’t lower his voice. He spoke loud enough for the girl to hear. Tatiana’s smooth cheeks blossomed with color. Shy but pleased. “I found her at a modeling convention—in Boston, of all places.”

He found her? This girl wasn’t a penny or a stray puppy. “She’s a kid.”

“She’s thirteen. Not much younger than you when you started.”

Ivy’s insides exploded, a violent eruption of emotion. Snippets of memory flashed through her mind like a strobe light in a nightclub. They danced in broken fragments, then gathered into one vivid memory—stronger than all the rest.

A year after a social worker had showed up on her doorstep and took her away from her mother. Her sixth day in New York City. Uncle Bruce introduced her to a photographer—a chain-smoking stranger who spoke in sharp monosyllables, ordering her into poses while heat from the bright lights assaulted her eyes. The dam of tears that had built over the eleven months she lived in James’s house, the unwanted daughter waiting for her mother to get clean and come to her rescue, bowed, then snapped. She spilled into a puddle of sobs on the floor. The photographer cursed. Bruce picked her up and took hold of her scrawny arms. She’d wanted to collapse against his chest. She’d wanted him to hug her, smooth her hair, tell her everything would be okay. Instead, he cuffed her under the chin and smiled. So handsome it took her breath away. He looked exactly like her father. “You were born with beauty, kid. Something most girls would kill for. I’ve seen your potential since you were eight years old. You want to be a model, don’t you? You want to stay here with me, right?”

What was her other option? Go live with her dad and Marilyn—a man who didn’t want her and a woman who wasn’t her mom? No. Never. She wiped her eyes and gave him an earnest nod.

“Well, then. All the stuff going on in here?” He patted his chest. “It doesn’t matter. Nobody cares as long as you look beautiful for the camera. You do that, and everybody will fall in love with you. You do that, and you’ll be staying in New York City for a long time. You’ll have it made, kid.”

Yeah. Ten more years of Bruce’s pep talks and she sure had it made.

Luke stood. Tatiana did too, looking excited and nervous and shy, her eyes filled with wonder as she took in the elaborate surroundings. Ivy could see all the emotions playing across her face, every last one, and pretty soon, Bruce would tell her to shut them away. To bury them, because nobody cared. Nobody ever cared. But maybe Luke did.