Chasing River (Burying Water #3) (27 page)

“Did you believe him?”

“Does it matter? Why kind of apology is that? But no, I didn’t believe him. And I was pissed at myself for waiting so long. Then I found out through a friend that he was at the concert that night, but with some other girl.”

Wow.
“Did you ever talk to him again?”

“Sort of.” She slides another mouthful of noodles into her mouth, so casually. “About three weeks later, he came into the shop with pictures of his shed that had been decorated with the
Pretty Hate Machine
album cover art on the side. He didn’t appreciate it. I guess he wasn’t as big a Nails fan as he claimed to be.”

I burst out laughing.

“But I didn’t tag it.” She pokes the air with her fork. “See? I’m not stupid.”

“Did you get in trouble?”

“He couldn’t prove it. But my boss somehow figured out that I’d taken a photocopy of his driver’s license and he fired me for that. So I moved back home and got a job with Beans at his shop in Bend. You remember him, right?”

I nod. The place where Alex got her work done. “You know a lot of tattoo artists.”

“It’s a close community, and having a female artist of my caliber working for you is always a bonus with the clients.”

“Well . . . I wasn’t stood up. But thanks for that story. For some reason it makes me feel less like an idiot right now.” I toss my barely eaten food onto the side table, stuffing napkins into the container.

There’s another long pause and then Ivy asks, “You know that first night, when you asked me how I remembered so much about you in high school?”

“Did I?”

She hesitates, as if she doesn’t want to admit something. “It’s because, for a long time, I wished I was you. My family and I moved to Sisters because my parents wanted to get far away from San Francisco. They decided a remote mountain town would be good. I didn’t know a soul, and we didn’t have a lot of money. I looked ‘different’ from other kids,” her fingers air-quote that word. “You seemed to have everything going for you.”

I don’t know what to say to that. It’s flattering, but sad, and probably not an easy thing for a girl like Ivy to admit. “Well, thank God you weren’t—otherwise your relationship with my brother would have been
really
inappropriate.”

For the first time, Ivy’s head tips back and laughter bellows out of her, making me giggle. It feels good.

“Does Alex know about you and Jesse?”

“No . . . At least, I didn’t tell her. Figured she wouldn’t want to hear about it. So, let’s keep that between us.”

A secret between Ivy and me.

Climbing out of her chair, she collects my food carton and heads over to dump it into a trash can.

“For what it’s worth . . . I’m sorry I never said hi to you in the hallway,” I offer with complete sincerity.

Her hands slow for just a moment, and then they’re tying a knot into the top of the bag, sealing the odors in. “So, are we going to sit here and be all depressed about whatever this asshole did? Or should we go do something?”

I take in her outfit—head-to-toe skulls and cheetah print. “Do you have something in mind?”

She loops her hands together and stretches her fingers. Loud cracks fill the silence.

She definitely does.

“Do you have something
else
in mind?” I ask, casting a furtive look to the left and the right of the narrow side street. Light streams on either side of the building, but where we stand next to this vast painted brick wall, we lurk in shadows, marginally visible by the lights shining from Ivy’s Civic. Technically, Ian’s. They share an apartment a block away from the shop, and she ran over to grab the keys.

“We’re not doing anything wrong.” She reaches into her trunk and pulls out a plastic bag. I immediately recognize the telltale sounds of spray cans banging against each other.

“Ivy!”

“Relax. It’s just like the bowling alley back home. They allow it as a way to keep the graffiti centralized. And this wall . . .” She takes big steps backward across the quiet road, without looking. “Just look at it! Such a clean, white canvas.”

“It smells freshly painted.”

“Yeah, just this past weekend. They have to redo it every so often, when all that republican stuff takes over.”

Five minutes. I’ve had five minutes to think about something else—namely, what kind of trouble Ivy is getting me into—before my thoughts returned to River.

My stomach tightens.

“What kind of stuff?”

She shrugs, pulling a can from the bag. “Flags . . . Gaelic words that I can’t even read . . . black fists . . . I think a lot of it isn’t even from people who understand the politics or have anything to do with the IRA. They’re just kids trying to be rebellious.” She tosses a can my way.

I fumble to catch it. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

She stares at me for a moment, as if she’s trying to figure out if I’m kidding or not. “Leave your mark on Dublin.”

“My mark?” I frown, staring at the dried pink lines running down the sides of my can. “But . . . look at me!” Diamond earrings, yellow dress, cowboy boots. Not exactly dressed for the occasion.

She rolls her eyes. Reaching into her trunk, she grabs and tosses something at me. “Put that on. It should fit.”

I hold up the paint-spattered black material, identifying it as a smock. Pulling it over my head, it comes to mid-thigh. Ivy appraises me. “That works. And if not, they’re only clothes.”

Darting over to the driver’s side, she leans in to turn the music on the radio up, her other hand shaking her can of black paint. And then she dismisses me, spraying the first curved lines of what no doubt will be a masterpiece, because Ivy is experienced, and an amazing artist.

And I’ve never done this before.

I simply watch her in her zone, an almost indiscernible sway to her hips with the beat of the music, her arms limber and expert with their strokes.

“You going to just stand there all night?” she finally says, never looking over her shoulder once.

I stare at the white wall in front of me, in shadows and yet somehow gleaming. “I don’t know what to do.”

She purses her lips, then steps away from her work to come over. In seconds, she’s outlined a jagged blob. “Beginner lesson. Fill it in.”

I smile. “I can do that.” I test the nozzle, pushing it. A splash of pink hits the wall and I jump.

“Hold it like this,” Ivy says with a laugh, adjusting the can to a vertical position. “And no closer than this.” She demonstrates, her color smooth and controlled, perfectly within the line.

I try again, creating another blob. “I’m terrible at this.”

“So what? Everyone’s terrible at something. Even Amber Welles.” She moves back to her artwork, leaving me to mine, and my thoughts. Her words remind me of something Mary Coyne said to me. It was at Poppa’s Diner, weeks before finishing my last semester of college classes, when I told Mary I was taking the nursing job that was waiting for me at my mother’s hospital. She quietly nodded and smiled, but there was a look in her eyes that I couldn’t read, that bothered me for days. Finally I asked her to meet with me again, and I asked her about it.

She hesitated, but finally admitted that she was hoping I’d take time off and travel, open my eyes to more than the small-town bubble that I seemed so intent on coming back to so quickly. She said that she sees a lot of her younger self in me. The daughter of a teacher and a father who held rank in Ireland’s police force, a girl firmly embracing the set of beliefs she was raised on and her comfort zone. A planner, a risk-avoider, someone who didn’t understand much about people outside what she thought they should be doing. She even used Jesse as an example. I’d made enough comments about him over the years for her to see that I didn’t approve of any of his life choices.

Mary said her years traveling changed her as a person. Made her wiser, more appreciative, more open-minded. She felt like she had “found” herself. She wouldn’t be the person that she was today had she remained in her small town outside Dublin.

I adore Mary as a person—she’s got a breezy, youthful personality, but she’s also smart and intuitive. Her words resonated with me, slowly at first. I began wondering how much of the Amber I know would change outside of the world that I know. I began dreaming of different places around the world, researching them. Imagining myself on some adventure where no one knows me and I know no one.

I can certainly blame my travel bug on Mary. I can’t wait to tell her about this. I wonder if she’ll consider spray-painting the side of a Dublin building a valuable experience.

And what would she say about River? Will I ever tell her?

Will I tell anyone?

Maybe I should talk to Alex. She’s the only person I know who might have something besides judgment to pass on. She knows firsthand what it’s like to be involved with a guy whose past is shady, whose associations may be questionable. She’s a good person, with strong morals and values. She’s also a forgiving person. Has Jesse ever done anything outright illegal since he met her? Did he lie to her about it? I can’t decide what I’m angrier about—that my heart-stopping foreign fling is a convicted felon or that he didn’t warn me about that detail before he slept with me.

He obviously figured that a night like last night would never have happened had I known.

A heavy weight has settled on my chest. I struggle to remove it, and I fail, my thoughts constantly drifting to River while I leave my mark on Dublin. I’m sure it will be nothing like the mark Dublin has already left on me.

For the most part, we’re left alone. One car turns down the street, slows on its way past, and my heart rate spikes as I glance over my shoulder, afraid that the people will think we’re doing something illegal. But they keep going. Voices carry in the quiet night, late-night revelers leaving bars in the area. It doesn’t matter what time of day or day of the week it is here—if the doors are open, the places are busy.

Soon enough, I’ve gotten the hang of this, though my fingers are a used paint palette of colors, my manicure ruined. I start envisioning what I can add to the Technicolor blob when I hear footfalls coming down the sidewalk. A lone figure approaches, his face hidden within the deep cowl of his sweatshirt. My panic automatically sets in.

“Ivy,” I hiss, nodding behind her. She glances over but doesn’t stop bobbing to the music, doesn’t seem at all concerned as he heads directly for us.

I gasp as he leans into the open window of Ivy’s car. I’m about to yell at him, yell at her, before this guy robs us.

The volume of the music spikes.

He was only turning up the radio.

Slapping hands with Ivy, he nods once to me as he passes, finding a spot farther down. He pulls a can out of his pocket and begins spraying the wall.

I smile at myself, at my own reaction. Legitimate, I tell myself, but also unnecessary in this odd community that Ivy belongs to. The three of us work away in the middle of the night, in a dark alleyway, respectful of each other. It’s a world I don’t understand, would never see myself venturing into. It’s a world outside my comfort zone.

But so is Ivy.

It’s almost two when I call it quits, stepping back to admire my own work. An obvious beginner’s effort—the lines sporadic and splotchy—but still . . . it’s my mark on Dublin for as long as it’s here. “I think I’m ready for sleep, Ivy,” I announce, peeling off the smock. My mind has worked itself in so many circles where River is concerned, it needs unconscious peace.

Our silent partner in crime left already, leaving a blue clown-like mask and his tag on the bottom right corner.

“I’m done, anyway.” With one last stroke, she caps her can and tosses it into a plastic bag.

I was so busy with my own thing that I wasn’t paying much attention to what she was doing. But now I see it in full. “Wow,” I murmur, taking in the woman’s face. Ivy’s used colors to shadow the contours of her features and strands of hair in a way that I didn’t know would be possible through a simple can of spray paint. “That’s amazing.” I commend her.

She looks over. “And that . . .”

I study my work next to hers, a mess of colors and indiscernible shapes, and I burst out laughing. “Looks like I’m taking my aggression out on the wall.”

She snorts. “Well, I
definitely
know you didn’t spray-paint Poppa’s Diner now. Even that was better than this.”